Lynn Brunet’s “Homage to Freemasonry or Indictment? The Cremaster Cycle,” makes a correlation between the ritual practices of Freemasonry and Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle. Brunet also suggests that the films are a sort of catharsis for sexual abuse that may have occurred in Barney’s own childhood. Although I could not find any information validating or contradicting this idea, it seems a bit rash to jump to that conclusion. To support this theory Brunet uses Pierre Janet’s Trauma Theory and its notion of depersonalization and claims “In Barney’s work it could be argued that there are many examples of such depersonalization: blimps float, [and] aerial views look down on the scene below” (106). However, those things are not indicative of Barney’s own psyche, blimps do fly above sporting events and aerial views are common functions of films, they allow all aspects of the scene to be scene at once.
Another claim by Brunet is that “the artist’s obsessive use of Vaseline, a popular medium for penile lubrication, suggests that it could be a tactile reminder of a repressed traumatic memory” (107). Although this statement could be true, the use of Vaseline could have nothing to do with repressed childhood traumas experienced by the artist. Barney’s use of Vaseline could have some sort of sexual connotation and maybe he uses it also for its aesthetic properties, neither reason allude to any sexual trauma experienced by the artist personally. Although Barney could be trying to come to terms with his own childhood, The Cremaster Cycle could simply refer to maturation of any person and certain rights of passages experienced by everyone.
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I am a believer that we spend our entire lives trying to deal with, work out, forget, re-live or at lease re-visit our own childhood (along with many other things- this isn’t the primary reason we get up every day and it is most certainly not the only thing that makes up our lives from day to day). After reading Kaylee’s post and going back to refresh myself with the article, one sentence that was highlighted stuck out. First paragraph page 98- Ralph Rugoff’s suggestion as to how we may need to analyze art “it might be useful to examine certain types of contemporary art from a forensic perspective, that is, as evidence and traces of a crime”. I spend the majority of my time as what Mr. Rodger’s calls an “emotional archaeologist”- who looks for the “roots of things” specifically relating to why you feel certain ways about certain things and why you behave in certain ways… essentially, why you are who you are. It can be a rather complex & complicated process, but in my opinion, there are connections between everything. If you want to (like Brunet did in her article) find a way to say X is a direct result of Y experience, it’s possible. The ways in which Lynn Brunet links Matthew Barney’s use of Vaseline to repressed traumatic memory in large part because of it’s close association with penile lubrication in main stream society (who decides what main stream society is anyway) —is plausible, yes, but definite- absolutely not. I admire and applaud her for making these sorts of statements (X is here because Y happened) that she does throughout her entire article, but the part that I personally am uneasy with is, her way of creating a possible truth based on assumptions and placing a narrative that speculates happenings (seemingly negative happenings at that) of another’s earlier life. When you believe something enough- even if it is an idea or hypothesis, with no factual basis or truth- to call it your own, write it down, get it published, and put it out there for an indeterminable amount of people to read… you are defining yourself through that idea. What if she’s wrong? How does a person think they have enough merit to go around claiming this such as this? Then again, to contradict myself almost completely- every “great thing “(invention, theory, system of knowledge, structure-both tangible and metaphysical) started out as an idea. An idea that someone thought about enough to think it had relevance and deserved to be shared with others… and they wanted to claim this idea. That’s why they “published” it, so everyone would know what they thought. When you give information to someone, you are further defining your ever-evolving identity to that person. Also, you can never truly convey yourself to another (due to the constant deference we talked about at the beginning of the semester), in transit from you to them- it gets distorted and you never really know what someone thinks (about you, about your ideas, about what you stand for or about something you are trying to convey to them through text, word or otherwise). The thought process (X is here because Y happened) Brunet proposed in her article is something I think about in my head constantly, but would more than likely never publish. It’s too definite. I mean, if you think it, great… but it’s just what you think- it’s not the truth. I suppose the larger point I’m making here has less to do with the content of the article itself and more with issues we have discussed over the semester. I feel like, How can you be alright with making statements that define who you are; you don’t know who you are. And if you do think you know who you are, it’s going to change very soon anyway- and also, if you think you know exactly who you are- you probably aren’t being honest with yourself.
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