Changing Opinions

http://www.artundonebyevie.blogspot.ie/2013/05/changing-opinion.html video created to the music of Philip Glass, highlighting the photography of Brooke Shaden and various artists. ~ the awakening

Foucault's History of Sexuality

Michel Foucault's "The History of Sexuality" pioneered queer theory. In it he builds an argument grounded in a historical analysis of the word "sexuality" against the common thesis that sexuality always has been repressed in Western society. Foucault maintains that since the 17th century, there has been a fixation with sexuality creating a discourse around sexuality.

In "The History of Sexuality", Foucault attempts to disprove the thesis that Western society has seen a repression of sexuality since the 17th century and that sexuality has been unmentionable, something impossible to speak about. In the 70s, when the book was written, the sexual revolution was a fact. The ideas of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, saying that to conserve your mental health you needed to liberate your sexual energy, were popular. The past was seen as a dark age where sexuality had been something forbidden.

Foucault, on the other hand, states that Western culture has long been fixated on sexuality. We call it a repression. Rather, the social convention, not to mention sexuality, has created a discourse around it, thereby making sexuality ubiquitous. This would not have been the case, had it been thought of as something quite natural. The concept "sexuality" itself is a result of this discourse. And the interdictions also have constructive power: they have created sexual identities and a multiplicity of sexualities that would not have existed otherwise.

Confession is the basis of sexuality

Historically, there have been two ways of viewing sexuality, according to Foucault. In China, Japan, India and the Roman Empire have seen it as an "Arts Erotica", "erotic art", where sex is seen as an art and a special experience.

In Western society, on the other hand, something completely different has been created. This is what Foucault calls "scientia sexualis", the science of sexuality. It is originally (17th century) based on a phenomenon diametrically opposed to 'Arts Erotica': the confession. It is not just a question of the Judaeo-Christian confession, but more generally the urge to talk about it. A fixation with finding out the "truth" about sexuality arises, a truth that is to be confessed. It is as if sexuality did not exist unless it is confessed.

Foucault writes : "We have since become an extraordinarily confessing society. Confession has spread its effects far and wide: in the judicial system, in medicine, in pedagogy, in familial relations, in amorous relationships, in everyday life and in the most solemn rituals; crimes are confessed, sins are confessed, thoughts and desires are confessed, one's past and one's dreams are confessed, one's childhood is confessed; one's diseases and problems are confessed;..."

This forms a strong criticism of psychoanalysis, representing the modern, scientific form of confession. Foucault sees psychoanalysis as a legitimization of sexual confession. In it, everything is explained in terms of repressed sexuality and the psychologist becomes the sole interpreter of it. Sexuality is no longer just something people hide, but it is also hidden from themselves, which gives the theological, minute confession a new life.

"Coming out" as a concept did not exist when Foucault wrote "The History of Sexuality", but this process of confessing homosexuality can surely be interpreted as an expression of this urge to confess. There seems to be a compulsion to reveal one's sexuality to confirm its existence in our society. In Ars erotica, a very different view is held, and people are content to let it remain a secret in the positive sense of the word.

The reason sexuality should be confessed is to be found in the Christian view of it. It was not, as it is today, seen as a strong, obvious force, but as something treacherous, something only to be found by careful introspection.

Therefore every detail had to be laid forth in confession; every trace of pleasure experienced had to be examined to find the traces of sin.

In this attention to details the reason sexuality is given such importance in our society is to be found. Making sexuality something sinful did not make it disappear. Quite the contrary: it was reinforced and became something to be noticed everywhere.

Power relations
There was also an element of social control in this. A power relation was created between the preacher and the confessant, between the psychoanalyst and his patient. Power relations are to Foucault central to any analysis of society, and this is especially true for sexuality. Power relations are formed in all relations where differences exist.

What Foucault means by power is not necessarily what is ordinarily meant by the word. It is something ubiquitous and cannot be thought of as dual, as creating a division between those dominating and those being dominated. Power in Foucault's meaning of the word is not an exclusively negative force. He claims that we have had a juridical view of power in our society; we tend to see it as something negative, oppressing, defining what is not to be done. Instead, power is the basis of Foucault's analysis of society. Common power relations related to sexuality are, in addition to the ones mentioned between the one who confesses and the one that receives the confession, those between teacher and pupil, between parent and child, and between doctor and patient.

Sexuality in the 19th century
Thomas Kuhn is a philosopher of the history of science, who claims we should understand how what is now seen as prejudice could be accepted as science.

With enlightenment, the view of sexuality as something sinful to be confessed mutated. It was adapted to modern demands of rationality by turning itself into a science. Foucault makes a strong distinction between what we would still today call science and a prejudicial doctrine on human procreation.

"Comparing these discourses on human sexuality to those from the same epoch on animal and vegetal reproduction, the difference is surprising. Their weak tenability - I won't even say in scientificity, but in elementary logic, places them apart in the history of knowledge."

The doctrines on sexuality postulated several "unnatural" sexual behaviors. In the 16th century, the focus was on regulating the sexuality of the married couple, ignoring other forms of sexual relations, but now other groups were identified: the sexuality of children, criminals, mentally ill and gays.

"The perverse" became a group, instead of an attribute. Sexuality became seen as the core of some peoples' identity. Homosexual relations had been seen as a sin that could be committed from time to time, but now a group of "homosexuals" emerged. Foucault writes: "The sodomite was a recidivist, but the homosexual is now a species."

"The homosexual of the 19th century became a person: a"past, a history and an adolescence, a personality, a life style; also a morphology, with an indiscreet anatomy and possibly a mystical physiology. Nothing of his full personality escapes his sexuality."

Seeing gays as a group is now taken for granted, but before the 18th century the idea would never had occurred to ask the question whether homosexuality is a function of heredity or of upbringing. It was simply not seen as being a fundamental part of the person, but instead as an action, something s/he did.

But homosexuality was not the only object of study for the medical "science". Foucault identifies four reoccurring themes:

The body of women became sexualized because of its role as a child bearer. The concept "hysteria" was invented and seen as a result of sexual problems.

The pedagogization of the sexuality of children. Children should at all costs be protected from the dangers inherent in masturbation and other sexuality.

The socialization of reproduction. The importance of sexuality for reproduction is recognized and put into context in the study of population growth.

The sexuality of adults becomes an object of study and all forms of "perverse" aberrations are seen as dangers.


Foucault emphasizes that the aim of these new moral codes was not to abolish all forms of sexuality, but instead to preserve health and procreation. Many forms of sexuality were seen as harmful and they wanted to protect health and the purity of the race. A mixture of ideas on population growth, venereal diseases and heredity ("degeneration" was to be avoided) created the idea that many forms of sexual conduct where dangerous.

Constructivism
Now that sexual actions were being identified and their naturalness and healthiness was analyzed, the concept of "sexuality" was created. Foucault comments on the four phenomena mentioned above:

"What are these strategies about? A struggle against sexuality? Or an attempt to control it? ... Actually, it is rather the production of sexuality. It should not be conceived of as a distinction founded in nature that power attempts to subdue, or as a dark domain that knowledge attempts to gradually uncover. It is the name that can be given to a historical measure...

This view makes Foucault one of the first constructivists" in this area, claiming that sexuality and sexual conduct is not a natural category, having a foundation in reality. Instead it is a question of social constructions, categories only having an existence in a society, and that probably are not applicable to other societies than our own.

This is why we should not speak of "homosexuality" in, for example, antique Greece. What we now call homosexuality cannot exist outside our specific cultural context. The same goes for all sexuality. Sexual intercourse is necessary for procreation, but that does not mean that sexuality, comprising and theorizing about all erotic behavior, is a natural or necessary category. Sexuality is more than sexual behavior. The largest part of its meaning lies in its cultural connotations.

It is this view that has given "The History of Sexuality" its significance. For the first time, sexuality is analyzed as a social construction, a perspective making it possible to study the origins and the development of our view of sexuality in a totally new way.

Samhain Blessings

Eabha Rose's Art Undone - Chains from trian kayhatu on Vimeo.

http://www.firstpost.com/topic/person/bela-tarr-eabha-rose-wishes-video-poiDwbiZKyg-87410-24.html

Eabha Rose "Wishes"

Awakening Signs ~ Love and Light ~

falling through the fractured light

victimhood as the ultimate rush

Django Reinhardt - It Had To Be You

Aya

you know who you are...x

'We can't excavate the soul, only touch her outer lips with the fearless heart of metaphor. The soul can't excavate herself, only in some kind of mantra of Light. Like the sun we can wake up from a dream to The Dream. And the divine expansive Dream leans on the grace of flesh. We're a flaming imperfection of lovely beauty, like flocks of small birds lost in a world of sky where anything is possible. A Mystical Maze. Our hope rests on the evolution of time, on the All we cannot see. ' 

(heart of everything)

Hologram

treasure

 

 

From this, the treasure secretly gathered in your heart will become evident through your creative work.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Il lamento dell'imperatrice-Pina Bausch ~~ to Dissolve into Dance xxxx

Reflections .... Art Brazil

http://theartbrazil.blogspot.com/2011/12/mirror-or-sentiment-of-dwelling-in.html?spref=fb

A touchingly honest sharing of images, thoughts and feelings from an amazingly talented wordsmith. Thank you Carol x

Pink Floyd & René Magritte - Surrealismo

L'Eveil

You’ve been walking the ocean’s edge,

holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under and deeper under,

a thousand times deeper!

(Rumi)

I give you your power,

Your freedom is my gift;

Under a sky of stars,

My final wish xx



Our bodies are apt to be our autobiographies.  

~Frank Gillette Burgess

Winged Migration / Nick Cave - To Be By Your Side /

Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique (II. Un bal)

(Emil Cadoo)

'My first vision of earth was water veiled. I am of the race of men and women who see all things through this curtain of sea and my eyes are the colour of water. I looked with chameleon eyes upon the changing face of the world, looked with anonymous vision upon my uncompleted self.'

(Anais Nin)

To Be One With Each Other

What greater thing is there for two human souls

than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen

each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,

to share with each other in all gladness,

to be one with each other in the

silent unspoken memories?



George Eliot

The Cure - Pirate Ships

Francesca Woodman

W. B. Yeats on Magic

"I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, in what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in the visions of truth in the depths of the mind when the eyes are closed; and I believe in three doctrines, which have, as I think, been handed down from early times, and have been the foundation of nearly all magical practices. These doctrines are:

(1) That the borders of our minds are ever shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single mind, a single energy.

(2) That the borders of our memories are as shifting, and that our memories are part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself.

(3) That this great mind and great memory can be evoked by symbols."

(1903)

Tricky - Piano ( the fruity one)

Michael Nyman - The Heart Asks Pleasure First

taste

Then, just as she is about to fall over, a flood of heat washes over her. The shadows fade and she bathes in the glow. It drips from her lips. She dips a finger in to the light. She is at one.

I am standing tall and I can feel you watching.
****

I am hiding beneath my clothes.

moonmilk

Ryan McGinley

http://nextseason.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/ryan-mcginley-moonmilk-series/

Summer Camp - Round The Moon (Music Video)

Kate Bush - Song of Solomon (Director's Cut 2011)

the space in between

Арво Пярт. ''Вариации на выздоровление Аринушки'' .

On Midsummer's eve ~

Midsummer Blessings

Midsummer

A power is on the earth and in the air,

From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid,

And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade,

From the hot steam and from the fiery glare.

Look forth upon the earth--her thousand plants

Are smitten, even the dark sun-loving maize

Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze;

The herd beside the shaded fountain pants;

For life is driven from all the landscape brown;

The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den,

The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men

Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town;

As if the Day of Fire had dawned and Sent

Its deadly breath into the firmament.

by William Cullen Bryant

See you there...x

Theseus:
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown,
the poet's pen turns them to shapes
and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination

Queen Hyppolita:
 But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images
And grows to something of great constancy;
howsoever strange and admirable.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 5, Scene 1

Kate Bush Flower Of The Mountain ~ reciting Molly Bloom

Kate Bush - The Sensual World

"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. "

Eclipse

http://vimeo.com/25148005

Katie Melua - Just Like Heaven

Brandon Flowers - Crossfire

The Killers - Mr. Brightside

From the Life of Marionettes (Dream within a dream)

Those illuminating silver threads, the earliest, most delicate threads that bind us together, those same ones so often hidden within our elaborate tapestries, yet, when we surrender and allow the light to fall upon us, those threads shine the brightest…they set us off!

Willy Ronis C.1950

Jan Saudek

let me in, you said.

I did.

I pulled you deep inside me
- into my heart

(E.R.)

The half asleep sex…the half dreaming soft wet sex where she is opened up between worlds to spin and twirl..where he is all in her dreams and outside of them...

The Mind Benders 1967 Trailer

He gazed a gazely stare - a tribute to The Mind Benders

Child in Red

She walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.


Rainer Maria Rilke

George Frideric Handel - The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba

The Cure - Just Like Heaven

'Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. At the peak we have transcended all pain. The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all the others behind - our drunken brother, our schizophrenic sister, our tormented animals and friends. Their suffering continues, unrelieved by our personal escape.

In the process of discovering bodhichitta, the journey goes down, not up. It's as if the mountain pointed toward the centre of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it. We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us we move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.' - PEMA CHODRON

Out on the Weekend by Neil Young

Kate Bush - King of the Mountain

The Master Switch ~ Cormac Figgis

http://cormacfiggis.blogspot.com/

Scott Walker - My Death

Placebo - Pure Morning from Placeboworld on Vimeo.

Jacques Brel - Jef

Reason Or Rhyme

To love somebody Nina Simone

D*e*g*e*n*e*r*a*t*e*S

The Dragonfly

Eros the Man

Eros the Woman

Blixa

Blixa Bargeld (with Die Haut) - Johnny Guitar - Live, Berlin Tempodrome,...

http://www.cormacfiggis.blogspot.com/

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Weeping Song

Einsturzende Neubauten - Blume

http://youtu.be/DAvG9PxXZ7E

reflection

looking glass

(Francesca Woodman)

http://youtu.be/Ma0VlDAWl1o

Rose Tattoo

http://youtu.be/qghbAoyBKGk

(featuring Ruby Friedman...photography: Brassaï)

R.I.P. Wonderful Artist

http://ipmed.org/

http://wellbeingfoundation.com/index.html

bon iver - skinny love

Coil - The Dreamer Is Still Asleep

Bjork Hunter (strings)

Smashing Pumpkins- Soma (1994)

Tom Waits - Martha (album version)

Happy Weekend xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao0BdtZr2_M

~~with a mighty expectation of relief~~

The Wall Live Berlin 06 Mother.flv

Fingers of an artist....sensitive and knowing xx

Pink Floyd The Wall - Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

THE WAYSEER MANIFESTO - [Official Video] (HQ)

Tom Waits - You Can Never Hold Back Spring

Maggie Gyllenhaal Secretary interview

La Forêt Rouge (Robert Wyatt)

...The shadow man does see her. It is cold and lonely all around, but the eyes can see through darkness and he feels the healing presence.

And the wanderer knows that she reads clearly the scars, for she has been in contact with danger more than once too, and just has the elegance to hide the fear and tears behind beauty and smile.

(TDO)

The Man Who Wasn't There - Moonlight Sonata

Bach, J.S. - "Air" Orchestral Suite N° 3 in D Major_BWV 1068

re-visiting ~~~ my favourite adventure of Jasmine and Rose

(from Le Manoir de Lord Tennington by 'Evariste Arsonval' - translated and adapted from the French by Eabha Rose)


Invisible and free! Invisible and free! ..." exalted Margaret in the magnificent novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. Elsewhere, naked in the clouds, the beautiful sorceress (as sung by Robert Desnos, the most courageous of poets/alchemists) rode her magic broomstick to the masked ball hosted by the King of Darkness, who had been disguised as a snake in the Garden of Eden.

Naked, Rose was not yet, but speeding through the clouds whilst clinging tightly to Jasmine who steered the broomstick, she enjoyed her first experience of flying with her beloved sorceress. Trembling with fear, mad with pleasure, she admired the virtuosity with which this beautiful thief sailed though the sky a few hundred metres above the streets of Dublin.

"The Master and Margarita!" remembered the scholar...."The best novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, a journey of balance between good and evil, a confrontation with Satan, on the thread of love....But here begin the adventures of The Mistress and Rose! ... What will happen next? ...' she wondered as she laid her cheek tenderly against the back of her dearest Jasmine, feeling blessed that she had been abandoned to this fate ....

"This is not the time to be emotional, Rose", Jasmine said as she turned her broomstick to avoid the steeple of St. Patrick's Cathedral. "I fly, you do not move except when I tell you to move....For now, cover your eyes... I do not want you to know where my lair is..." - And the sorceress gave her a blindfold behind which Rose hid her eyes.

Rose was now in darkness, hundreds of feet above the ground, not knowing where she was or where she was being taken, balanced percariously, hardly daring to hold Jasmine for fear of displeasing her. She tried to find comfort in hearing the voice of the witch whose beauty was unveiled by the wind, and so told her humbly, "O, Jasmine..I do not see anything."

Jasmine replied immediately... "Call me Mistress. I don't want to have to say it again.... "

- And it was as if Rose had been slapped again by Sonia but even more painfully and by the dry voice of the woman with whom she was sailing. Rose felt hurt and embarrassed. She wanted to be gone, to have never known Tennington, to have never been invited to join Jasmine. She wanted to return to a familiar place, to a warm pub with a beautiful university friend, to talk about literature, to dream ...

"Am I dreaming?" Rose wondered ...This troubling thought tore at her while the broomstick began to nose dive as if Jasmine had intended to crush them both to end this shameful adventure. And indeed the silent witch, in the most daring defiance of universal gravitation, waved her wand and, as they dove at great speed, the Earth, by Magic, opened before them. They passed in to a dark underground labyrinth where large rocks began to part, opening the passage, their pace slowing significantly.

Suddenly the broom stopped, resting motionless in the air as it waited patiently for Jasmine to disembark. She grabbed Rose and threw her across her shoulder and then with the same force, threw her on to the bed before slipping the blindfold from her eyes. Jasmine then returned the broom to the closet before changing in to a dark red negligee which revealed her fullness as well as her wild yet sensual beauty.

"Dearest Mistress", said Rose, "thank you for saving me."

Jasmine turned away..."I have not saved. I've removed."

"But you removed me to save me...."

"Not at all. I have removed you to take you as my apprentice witch as Beatrice was stolen from me... Due to stupid modern ideas, it has become so difficult to find a submissive female apprentice.. Males are scrambling to fill the role but they do not understand it as a woman does. Why do you think Beatrice was stolen? Why do you think these pesudo-alchemists wanted you too? To educate? to protect you? Not at all! They are selfish. They only want you to serve them. An instrument like you should be handled with dexterity. Hush, now, I want to read and write some....."

Under the candlelight, Jasmine noticed the cabalistic signs woven through the text she was reading. "The Master will understand. He knows the Book of Books. He cannot ignore the cabal. I sent him a quick note to thank him and reassure him. It is better that we have an ally. After all, it was he who found you. I do not think he wants me. He has both Sonia and Beatrice. He is smart enough to know that you are perfect to serve me and I am also here to please you..."

"Now it's time to get ready to eat, Rose.. Take off your hood, take off your clothes. Put this on." Jasmine handed her a transparent cotton dress.

"But what should I wear underneath, Mistress? "asked Rose, unveiling her fair face as the hood fell around her shoulders.

"You do not ask questions. This is the second rule. If I wanted you wear something underneath, I would have given it to you."

Rose, without daring to look up, took off her shoes. She then undid her garter belt, her stockings falling to her feet before she placed them gently on the bed. Rose then released the straps of her dress and stepped out of it. She then arched her back to undo her bra before lowering her panties. A blushing Rose stood naked before Jasmine, who watched her intently.

"Stay like that for now", said Jasmine. "I need to look more closely." She approached Rose, caressed her breasts with the tips of the fingers, slightly scratching her. She tasted and chewed the nipples. "Very nice', Jasmine said massaging the pale firm breasts presented to her, their nipples responding to the witch's touch. Jasmine then introduced her finger in to Rose's mouth.

"Suck....." she said..."Yes, voluptuous and sensual....Perfect".

Turn around for me to consider your butt." Rose turned around.

"Well trained, well shaped... There is no denying you are very nice, but it's not just the aesthetics that matter in life - the material must be resistant too." Jasmine then pinched Rose sharply on her bottom. Rose bit her lip to keep from crying. "Very good. Firm and responsive. You are what I am looking for...." And she smacked Rose with her strong elegant hand... "But it is not yet time to have fun, for now we must eat..."

R.I.P. wonderful artist x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSaSkMp7-X8

Eabha

Suit Man, Eabha, Anne

The Black Rabbit, Dublin, 12th March 2011

Eabha, Paul

Anne, Paul, Eabha

Eabha, Anne

Erik Satie - Gnossienne No. 1 (Tharaud)

Moderat - Rusty Nails

Celene, Anne

The Black Rabbit Cabaret

Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely

Bruce Springsteen - I'm on Fire

The Lady Eve (1941) - Theatrical Trailer - © Paramount Pictures

Kate Bush - Sunset

Burlesque Night @ Sugar Club, Dublin, 18th February 2011

Beauty, Samuel

Samuel

Mathieus