Cixous72

Journal

Rebecca Warzer: Geometry of Feeling
October 23, 2016

Geometry of Feeling

by Rebecca Warzer

Christine played by Lauren Glading
Brad played by Madison Velding-VanDam

Originally performed as part of Chez Bushwick’s 2Night Show “She Reconfigured”
curated by Meredith Glisson at the Center for Performance Research, October 13 & 14, 2016; Brooklyn, NY.

Scene 1: Lecture

Christine gives a talk on Julia Kristeva and the structure of abjection as an object.

She introduces herself to the audience, thanks them for having her; this is

believable and the audience should feel that she as a person / “academic” is really

addressing them, as her, not her undisclosed ‘character’. She reads from a clear

lacquer podium. About halfway through her 5 min piece she starts peeing her pants.

If she acknowledges this, it is very subtle. There is no overt breakdown—there is

only the rapid betrayal of trust that the audience had placed in her on the grounds

of her very acceptable appearance, likable personality, presumed intellect. When

she pees, all of this is shattered and the ground is wet. Christine’s lecture ends by

her quickly thanking the audience—maybe it does seem like she is ending it early—

and exiting.

Hello! Thank you so much for having me—I’m so happy to get to be here,

and talk to all of you for a minute. I was going to read from one of my essays but I

think instead, if you don’t mind, I’ll just read a bit of this very rough sketch of an

essay I’m working on—pardon the fact that it’s very unfinished—but I thought it

might be more exciting than something that you can read of mine elsewhere.

If the abject were an object, it would be a braid. Specifically, it would be

the “rope” braid, which is composed of just two strands held together by twisting

them in opposite directions. We know from Kristeva that abjection is not an object

at all—it cannot be contained—but if it were, it would be the rope of schoolgirls’

braids and the rope of ships at sea. Rope is primarily used to hold things together

and to hold things apart.

Abjection is necessarily two: it is not whole. If anything, it is an absence, a

space in between that defines a polar relationship. Whatever the “abject” is, it is

held apart from itself, it is two, and yet it is necessarily held together by its

definition in opposition to each other. Already we have the problem of referring to

abjection in the singular. Is abjection an “it” or “they”? Appropriately elusive or

ungraspable by the English language, Kristeva’s abjection is the place where

meaning collapses.

A trauma is an abject state: its site is split and irreconcilable. Kristeva

describes abjection as “a vortex of summons and repulsion which places the one

haunted by it literally beside herself” (Kristeva 1982). The simultaneous existence

of irreconcilable states, especially when they both exist within one body and

psyche, creates complexity. The complexity of this plural trauma in a singular

body, which ceaselessly seeks homeostasis or center, is a complexity not supported

in modern society. (“This complexity is not supported on your current operating

system of late capitalism”). A family member dies, and maybe a week later, you go

back to work. Trauma is not just pain, or something bad, but any kind of souldeath;

any unthinkable veering from homeostasis or center. Surely, a trauma is a

wound, and a wound hurts, but wounds are also doors and sites of entry, and they

are fertile. What could trauma be without an assumed negative value judgment?

Can trauma be anything other than bad? What is a Traumatic Joy? I think an

example of a Traumatic Joy could be falling in love, whether with a person, or

with a thing you do, like paint, or with a really amazing book—anything that gives

you an experience of ecstasy and gratitude from which you never fully recover. I

will try and make a case for Traumatic Joy as a specifically feminine or feminist

situation.

The artist Cristine Brache has stated in interview with Zoe Koke: “I can

only offer what is inside me and how I feel, which often times can be very

contradictory”. In response, Koke stated: “I think a lot of the work we must do, as

feminists, is in embracing contradiction and complexity within how we have been

conditioned, which can feel like hypocrisy. I personally [Koke still speaking] find

myself existing awkwardly between ‘extremes’ not feeling comfortable at times with

complexity”… “[one] is shamed when [one] decides to be complicated” (Koke 2016).

End quote. A feminine state is one of complexity; complexity that arises from

trauma and dissociation. Its genesis is in this split, and this split is a sufficient

condition for the occurrence of a feminine state. One feminist “position” is in

perpetuating this split, and existing within irreconcilable complexity.

This state we’re calling complexity is actually a paleologic in which “A” and

“Not A” exist simultaneously, and multiple realities are true. In psychology,

paleological thinking is preconscious, prelogical, paradoxical thought; dream-like

and highly associative in its stream of consciousness. Chris Kraus says on

paleological thinking and schizophrenia: “Both are complex systems based on

paradox in which disconnected parts operate according to hidden laws” (Kraus

1997). Paleological thinking is a kind of schizophrenia—psychological

superposition—I am me and not me, both myself and other, and this, of course, is

pathological! But there is a way in which condemning this paleologic of the psyche,

the simultaneous “A” and “Not A”, is a pathologizing of a feminine subjectivity.

Thank you so much—I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest of the work here

tonight.

Christine exits the direction she entered from.

Scene 2: Christine’s Diary

Lights up, Christine has changed, she is sitting in the pool of light / spotlight that

all of the play action takes place in, slightly SL, writing in her journal. The pool of

light is oval, and has a sharp border. Brad enters SR, shoulders off his jacket.

B: Hey love.

C: Hi!

Brad kisses Christine on the cheek?

B: How did it go today?

C: I think it went pretty well actually.

Brad sits on the ground way too far away from Christine; the following exchange

should feel pleasant but a little empty, almost with an affect of ‘actors reading lines

on stage’!! Maybe they are sitting similarly, facing each other, maintaining steady

eye contact, but obviously far from each other in multiple ways.

I was kind of nervous. If there is a laugh here, say:

Unfortunately, I don’t think any of it was funny.

B: How did you feel, did the dizziness go away after this morning?

C: I felt pretty nauseous before I went up, which I’m sure was just from nerves.

When I first opened my mouth to speak all I could imagine was myself vomiting all

over the podium or something.

B: There’s that part in “Powers of Horror” about vomiting and expelling yourself

to define some border between yourself and other.

C: Right. That’s how I could’ve explained it. No but I really do think it went

well—one of my better performances of the text at least. How was your class?

B: Kind of tedious today. They all handed in their midterm essays so I’ve got my

work cut out for me.

C: Oh right. I forgot it’s almost Halloween.

B: Why don’t you read to me from your journal today.

C: Alright. It’s kind of relevant actually. I was reminded earlier of this small

episode I had when I was fourteen on vacation with my parents in Montreal, but

it’s kind of a dramatization of that.

Here, Christine gets up and starts “acting out” her diary entry, performing her

text, as if she is reading from a script. For instance: “dizzy, lightheaded”, she

stumbles slightly and catches herself on Brad’s arm; “floating above despair”, she

goes on relevé and raises her arms, creating a space beneath her, still reading from

her journal—

“We were finishing dinner at a restaurant, sitting outside, when suddenly I became

so dizzy, lightheaded, faint, experienced vertigo, felt as if I could pass out right

there. And then a slow wave of nausea… it passed, and minutes later came back,

this time so much worse, was I going to throw up right here right now?? I excused

myself and went to the bathroom where the nausea had already passed but my

heart was racing, I had cold sweats, and this new sensation of doom. Suddenly I

had a despair attribute, it ebbed and flowed, the meter spiking and dipping too

rapidly and inconsistently for me to be able to anticipate: one moment I am

floating above despair, I am spared, I can look down upon it from above, I am

outside of it and I can sigh deeply in relief. But then, like a fake out in a horror

movie, the next moment I am plunged under water, ring the alarms, everything is

spinning and the scariest part is how helpless I feel in helping myself, I can always

help myself, care for myself and give myself what I need but what the fuck is even

happening to me right now?? Am I having a stroke?? A bit after this, the lowgrade

headache began, the sensitivity to light, suddenly I was a newborn baby,

squinting pink at the world. We left the restaurant in a car and I lay in the hotel

bed until dark, where even then, safe under covers, my doom-meter fluctuated still,

head still bobbing above and sinking below the surface. This, more than anything

that had happened in the restaurant, was the cruelty to me: that I should feel this

way, laying in bed with the lights dim and a cool washcloth on my neck, my

mother stroking my back”.

At this point Christine is lying on the ground, miming her migraine. Brad comes

over and strokes her back.

C: Sorry if that was a bit dark.

B: No—

Brad looks like he is going to say something more, but instead this is just a

*moment*, they look at each other; lights out.

Scene 3: Christine’s Diary Again

Lights up and only Christine’s legs are visible, her body lying half in/half out of the

pool of light. The dialogue from the previous scene plays over speakers—none of

this dialogue is spoken by Brad or Christine live.

B: Hey love.

C: Hi! Christine sits up, her whole body in the light now

Brad enters, leans down and kisses Christine on the cheek, puts his hand behind

her neck and pulls her up gracefully; they cross to SR this way, Brad walking

backwards holding her head close to his.

B: How did it go today?

Brad picks up Chris sack-of-potato style, she delivers “kind of nervous” to audience

by pushing herself up on his lower back and looking out

C: I think it went pretty well actually. I was kind of nervous. Unfortunately, I

don’t think any of it was funny.

B: How did you feel, did the dizziness go away after this morning?

Brad puts her down kind of rough and they immediately resume sitting positions

from the previous scene

C: I felt pretty nauseous before I went up, which I’m sure was just from nerves.

When I first opened my mouth to speak all I could imagine was myself vomiting all

over the podium or something.

On “vomiting”, Chris throws herself at Brad

B: There’s that part in “Powers of Horror” about vomiting and expelling yourself

to define some border between yourself and other.

Brad catches Chris; this is repeated a few times, getting a bit more violent each

time, until Brad catches her, holds her, and lets her down gently, on “Would you

read to me from your journal today?”

C: Right. That’s how I could’ve explained it. No but I really do think it went

well—one of my better performances of the text at least. How was your class?

B: Kind of tedious today. They all handed in their midterm essays so I’ve got my

work cut out for me.

C: Oh right. I forgot it’s almost Halloween.

B: Would you read to me from your journal today?

Brad and Christine look at each other, doing the “talking-not-talking” we developed

in rehearsal together—basically they are making very subtle facial expressions

consistent with their dialogue, talking to each other, but not moving their mouths.

C: Alright. It’s kind of relevant actually. I was reminded earlier of this small

episode I had when I was fourteen on vacation with my parents in Montreal, but

it’s kind of a dramatization of that.

Brad acts out Christine’s dramatization, very tentatively at first, as if saying the

whole time, “Am I doing this right…?”

“We were finishing dinner at a restaurant, sitting outside, when suddenly I became

so dizzy, lightheaded, faint, experienced vertigo, felt as if I could pass out right

there. And then a slow wave of nausea… it passed, and minutes later came back,

this time so much worse; was I going to throw up right here right now?? I excused