“Spit is my challenge.” “Spit for the Taste of Society” ACTION
Henry Elibekyan
The result of the epitaph as a sign of the torments and sufferings that are imprinted on the artist’s face during the process of creation.
Signs of epitaph as a consequence of the collision of various hidden, esoteric impulses
The clown’s mask is a field of torment, repentance before God, people, and conscience. The action implied the meaning and justification of one’s own premises, and was assigned the role of a psychoanalytic experiment. However, since it was the first such experiment, it was not published.
The results of the action, documented with videotape and photographs, fully confirmed my assumptions.
You are given the opportunity to get acquainted with my modest experience in psychoanalysis, to delve into the secrets and complex labyrinth of creativity.
Although the performance itself, according to eyewitnesses, was impressive and epitaphic, its significance is not limited to that. In my opinion, the most valuable thing about the performance were its psychoanalytic results.
Usually, artists rely on familiar tools in their work. The tools I invented – the beard, the hair, the oral zone – were precisely suited to the implementation of the task at hand.
“First and foremost, the “I” is bodily, it is not only a superficial creature, but even a reflection of certain surfaces. If we look for anatomical connections, they can first of all be likened to the “brain man” of anatomists, which is located in the cerebral cortex as if upside down, with its heels up, looking back and, as is known, controls the speech zone from the left side” (Z. Freud, “I and It”)
From what has been quoted, it becomes clear that the “I” is one of the components of the complete psychological structure. I often use the word “I”, applying it to myself, as a word that implies action, that is, as work on the image and “Freudian term”.
I was constantly outside myself, projecting myself and disappearing into the transcendent realm.
“Here and now” I encounter archetypal patterns due to the autonomy, universality, and unconsciousness of the process, the roots of which go back to time immemorial.
It reflects the soul’s aspiration to harmonize consciousness with the unconscious, and it contains the spontaneous longing for self-affirmation. Here, a dialogue takes place between conscious intelligence and its unconscious opponent, which sharply reacts to the signals of the unconscious, resulting in the emergence of symbols, that is, archetypes.
There is a struggle between desire, consciousness, and the chaos of the unconscious, which is the essence of the creative act. The unconscious, the soul of the artist, wins.
During creation, it is planned by God, who can also be called “cosmic forces”, “cosmic spirit”. Here lies the whole secret of the phenomenon of creation, since intelligence and body are two manifestations of one undiscovered infinite substance.
During the action, outpourings of true metaphysical sincerity took place. With the traces left by the beard, head, and hair, recognizable signs appeared on the canvases – “gestalts” that reflected the depths of the human psyche.
Once again, I would like to draw your attention to the phenomenon of “intuition”, thanks to which the theoretical provisions of the action were already briefly outlined before that experiment.
Intuition, which is the basis of the visual series, serves as an independent means of world perception, as it reflects the true characteristics of the human spirit. If we look deep into history, we will see that ancient gnosis was generally based not so much on the experimental practice of analytical thinking as on achieving an intuitive, comprehensive and contemplative perception of reality.
For me, it is important not only to have a first-hand experience, but also to have a possible experience, which showed that through intuition one can enter reality, because the mechanism of entry is an inaccessible force. It is possible to search for that reality, that truth, which is beyond the intellectual spheres, and these planes are inaccessible to cognition. As long as man exists, he pursues only transcendent goals as an attempt at self-knowledge.
From 18 photographs that “stem” from each other, I have separated 3 symbols that have differences and similarities: “Scream of the Soul”, “Escape from Freedom”, “Search for God”
The first symbol is the “Scream of the Soul.” It is with this first cry that a person comes into the world. It reflects the future existence of a person.
The unconscious, prenatal cry is transformed into either a search for “fate” or a way out of it. The prenatal unconscious resembles the “collective unconscious,” where elements of objective reality are combined with the archetypal and mythological.
The sado-masochistic aspects of the symbols, whose roots are in the prenatal sphere, are reflected in the combination of aggression, the fruit of which is in the female reproductive system, and her violent attitude towards suffocation, pain, and anxiety.
The manifestation of that state is the “scream”, as a scream in different registers (the title of one of my works)
The second symbol is “Escape from Freedom”.
“Man faces the terrible danger of becoming a slave to nature while remaining within his own consciousness. He is destined to be a part of nature and at the same time to be separated from it, to be neither there nor here. Man’s self-consciousness has made him a stranger in this world, he is alienated, isolated, enveloped in fears.” (Erich Fromm, “Escape from Freedom”)
These words describe with astonishing accuracy the repressive experience of our not-so-distant past and present.
Coercive measures are used to ensure “constructive agreement”, violence and terrorism are opposed to dissent, democracy, human rights and freedom.
The present study is directly based on personal experiences and recognition of facts. Man lives in a repressive society. Many have become victims of the totalitarian regime, including Minas and Paruyr Sevak.
Today, the tools of influence are changing, maintaining the repressive with minimal welfare in our pseudo-liberal-democratic society.
“Antipyretic pills or the crisis of democracy”: this is what I called one of my actions.
Today, it can be said with great confidence that the genetic “gestalt” of man is his vulnerable existence, plus his anxieties. Through the influence of various psychological mechanisms, it is shown that man lives in a “world of tense psychological drives.”
The third symbol: “The Search for God”
The scream as a prenatal pattern: its existence is paralleled by “escape to nowhere”, “escape from freedom”, “escape to freedom”, and the scream of despair is paralleled by anxiety as an existential pattern.
“Here and now” he will not be able to survive without God, the Savior, who is present with his “attributes” and “energy”, without the “existence of love” and “existence with each other”.
“There is nothing more artistic than loving people” (from Van Gogh’s letters) Being enslaved by “vile and unchangeable instincts”, man seeks liberation by coming to God in repentance.
The ecstatic cry of the soul and body is a call for freedom – as a “cry of freedom”, as the highest manifestation of the human spirit, as a fusion of the likeness of the human and divine spirit.
2002