Naturally, [the collector’s] existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship to ownership […] also, to a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value—that is, their usefulness—but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate. The most profound enchantment of the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are frozen as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock of his property. The period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownership—for a true collector, the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object. In this circumscribed area, then, it may be surmised how the great physiognomists—and collectors are the physiognomists of the world of things—turn into interpreters of fate.
“In less than an hour you can learn to recognize the emotions concealed in micro expressions.” “Cutting edge behavioral science for real world applications” “The truth is written all over our faces.” “FACS Facial Action Coding System” “F.A.C.E. Facial Expression.Awareness.Compassion.Emotions.” Paul Ekman
on faciality, zur gesichtsphilosophie, nr. 332
Gesetzt, der Physiognom haschte den Menschen einmal, so käme es nur auf einen braven Entschluß an, sich wieder auf Jahrtausende unbegreiflich zu machen.
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fresh Hell, Palais de Tokyo
“Was das Gesicht betrifft, so ist das Problem an einfachsten dadurch zu lösen, daß man es ganz wegläßt” Rudolf Arnheim: Kunst und Sehen: Eine Psychologie des schöpferischen Auges, S. 208
on faciality, zur gesichtsphilosophie, nr. 327
He [Proust] is filled with the insight that none of us has the time to live the true dramas of the life that we are destined for. This is what ages us— this and nothing else. The wrinkles and creases on our faces are the registration of the great passions, vices, insights that called on us; but we, the masters, were not home.
Wir sind nur Mund
timeimmemorial:
Wir sind nur Mund. Wer singt das ferne Herz,
das heil inmitten aller Dinge weilt?
Sein grosser Schlag ist in uns eingeteilt
in kleine Schläge. Und sein grosser Schmerz
ist, wie sein grosser Jubel, uns zu gross.
So reissen wir uns immer wieder los
und sind nur Mund.
Aber auf einmal bricht
der grosse Herzschlag heimlich in uns ein,
so dass wir schrein — ,
und sind dann Wesen, Wandlung und Gesicht.
We’re only mouth. Who sings the distant heart
that dwells whole at the core of all things?
Its great pulse is parceled out among us
into tiny beatings. And its great pain
is, like its great jubilation, too much for us.
So, again and again, we tear ourselves loose
and are only mouth.
But all at once
the great heartbeat secretly breaks in on us
so that we scream — ,
and then are being, transformation, visage.
— Wir sind nur Mund [We’re Only Mouth], Rilke. Trans. Edward Snow
beetleinabox:
Cindy Sherman, Untitled 316, 1995 (Metro Pictures Gallery)
Jay Bernstein writes:
In Untitled 316, which is a doll face in close-up, turning the whole doll thereby into a mask, Sherman potently captures this duality within the mask by providing a layering of masks, revealing below a smooth outer surface (mask) another mask, scarred, pitted, ravaged — the inner mask the truth of the outer mask, the layers of masking replicating the history of the mask. The ravaged mask animates the smooth surface mask, making the latter the repudiation of the former. And, of course, the eyes of this doll are human eyes, no longer frightened or stiffened — it is too late for that — but unutterably sad. Kafka eyes.
Es ist die Geste des Lösens. Die Spannung der Gesichtsmuskulatur gibt nach, jene Spannung, welche das Antlitz, indem sie es in Aktion auf die Umwelt richtet, von dieser zugleich absperrt.
“
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Theodor W. Adorno - Philosophie der Neuen Musik, S. 122
on faciality, zur gesichtsphilosophie, nr. 299
und weiter: “Musik und Weinen öffnen die Lippen und geben den angehaltenen Menschen los. Die Sentimentalität der unteren Musik erinnert in verzerrter Gestalt, was die obere Musik in der wahren am Rande des Wahnsinns gerade eben zu entwerfen vermag: Versöhnung. Der Mensch, der sich verströmen läßt im Weinen und einer Musik, die in nichts mehr ihm gleich ist, läßt zugleich den Strom dessen in sich zurückfluten, was nicht er selber ist und was hinter dem Damm der Dingwelt gestaut war. Als Weinender wie als Singender geht er in die entfremdete Wirklichkeit ein. […] In der Potentialität der letzten Phase der Musik meldet sich ein Wechsel ihres Standorts an. Sie ist nicht länger Aussage und Abbild eines Inwendigen, sondern ein Verhalten zur Realität, die sie erkennt, indem sie nicht länger im Bilde sie schlichtet. Damit verändert sich bei äußerster Isolierung ihr gesellschaftlicher Charakter.”
a translation:
“It is the gesture of release. The tension of the facial muscles, the tension which both directs the face into action on the environment and seals it off from that environment, is released. Music and tears open the lips and set the arrested human being free. The sentimentality of inferior music recalls in its caricature what superior music is truly capable of shaping at the boundary of frenzy: reconciliation.* One who lets himself go in tears, or in a form of music no longer resembling him in any way, at the same time lets the stream of everything he himself is not, everything which had been dammed up behind the wall of the objective world, flow back through him. As one who weeps, or one who sings, he goes forth into alienated reality […] The potentiality of the most recent phase of music indicates a change in position. It is no longer the statement and image of an inner factor, but rather an attitude towards reality, perceived by music, but no longer glossed over in the images. In the extreme isolation resulting therefrom, the social character of music changes.” Adorno - Philosophy of modern music, 2003, p. 129 (the book was also translated as Philosophy of new music, from where i stiched in the sentence marked with *, that i couldn’t find from the first version.)
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Un portrait, on s’en est peu à peu aperçu, n’est pas ressemblant parce qu’il se ferait semblable au visage, mais la ressemblance ne commence et n’existe qu’avec le portrait, et en lui seul, elle est son œuvre, sa gloire ou sa disgrâce, exprimant ce fait que le visage n’est pas là, qu’il est absent, qu’il n’apparaît qu’à partir de l’absence qui est précisément la ressemblance.
Maurice Blanchot, L’amitié, p. 43.
Jean-Luc Nancy, Le regard du portrait, Galilée, Paris, 2000, p. 37.
