ࡱ> WYV >bjbj,(,( 0JNBNBW1 ,,&666JJJ8J7<,s%!6q66$qqq66qqq8 y9{)H<7 ,!q!8q68Hq7!B :   Perceptions of the Infinite: moving into the dream spaces of Reality with Kathy Acker Kathy Ackers text Russian Constructivism, originally part of her novel Don Quixote: which was a dream, reprinted in Blasted Allegories and Bodies of Work, is a text where a myriad of conceptions and ideas that relate to her method of art-makings(plagiarism, cut-ups, appropriation) co-exist with her position as a female artist and writer living in the world. In this text certain themes come up in various literary forms and genres, in particular, displacement and love, and also how displacement, or the way she is moving through or experiencing space or place affects Ackers conceptions of love and relationships. One way of reading Russian Constructivism is as a kind of journey or set of interactions between Acker and some of her lovers within a number of a different cities and environments, some real, some imagined, centering on St. Petersburg in particular. Like in certain films, such as Hiroshima Mon Amour, or in Alphaville, or in the ideas of the Situationists, a utopian imagining for a city or environment where dreams or love and poetry are possible is often countered by dystopian environments, or cities that have been subject to some kind of massive trauma, and which have deeply and negatively affected the capacity for two people to love each other within a romantic relationship. Maybe in some ways in spirit closer to the Situationists, her poetry which appears in a number of images, and poems and translations could be transforming the hurt and pain that she writes about in regard to relationships, and the spaces in which she is living. These changes brought about through her way of writing and art-making emphasize her feminist, anarchist and punk rock stance, which inspired countless other female writers and artists. Realizing that this text originally appeared in Don Quixote: which was a dream, an avant-garde plagiaristic appropriation of a classic text, further highlights a strong and radical feminist impulse in her writing. Recognition: Im really hurting. One of this hurts preconditions is Im in love with you. A city in which we can live. Whatre the materials of this city. (Acker 1997 p. 112; all page numbers of quotations in text refer to Bodies of Work) The two real relationships Acker writes about, or in two letters she addresses to one of her lovers included in the text, are both heterosexual, and seem to be ones where alongside the passionate emotions and feelings of most romantic relationships, economic concerns come into play, presumably because of a shared living situation. Both relationships end disastrously, in linear time anyway. Its not possible I can feel again after a winter and spring of no sexual love then for the second time in five years I moved in with somebody. That failed violently forcibly. (Acker 1997, pp. 120-121) In writing about or to her lovers, Acker repeatedly returns to and problematizes the concept of ownership. The text shows how notions of ownership, or economic transactions often subtly and insidiously infiltrate various institutions of love, such as marriage or living with someone in ways that are normally associated with activities like prostitution or even drug dealing. These transactions seem to be blocking passion, joy and the ability for the lovers to find a city in which [they] can live. The relationships seem to be fueled and troubled by need, desperation, perhaps reaching into a form of madness; the speed with which she talks about her feelings sounds as much like a drug addict as a lover. Meanwhile in the alleyways, Dear Peter, I cant stand living without you (Acker 1997, p. 108) Sixteen hours until I see you again. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. I can count 16, but youll probably not want to see me. If I see you, Ill want you. If I dont see you, Ill die. Im going nuts. (Acker 1997, pp. 108-109) In addition there are several scenes where she writes against or at least in response to the intrusion of this ownership that is hurting her in these relationships. In one scene she is being thrown out of her house; in another she writes about her lovers wife. A reader cannot miss the kind of economic machinery, perhaps financial dependence on her lover or vice versa, having a safe place to live in, etc. that must be around in these kinds of exchanges. What also becomes apparent is that the implied economic transactions are only one aspect of the ownership that is being imposed on her. Historically the economic dependence that usually a female would have on a male created scenarios in which the male would have the ability to mentally and psychically colonize a dependent persons mind(again the parallels between the way Acker is talking about heterosexual love relationships and prostitution and drug dealing become apparent, as an underlying requirement of the partnerships is that one partner becomes dependent on someone else, and is far less powerful.) When Eddie was kicking me out of his house, I put a razor blade into my right wrist in order to stop Eddie from saying You dont know how to love. No man will ever love you. The people who saved me from deathre my friends. (Acker 1997, p. 123) [in first letter to Peter] I dont know what Im doing. Youre the only life Ive known in a very long time. How can I let go of life again? Youre my day and night. Forget it, little baby, hes told you clearly he doesnt want to have sex with you and he only wants you so he can revenge himself on his wife cause she once left him for a richer man. You are my madness. Come in me, my madness, and since youve already taken me, I beg you with everything that is me to take me. Im sold, but not yet enjoyed. (Acker 1997, p. 109) Having been displaced from her home, or having been cast into a secondary love role because her lover is using her to revenge himself on a wife, she fights with an alert and urgent consciousness in her writing that recognizes that the love and pleasure, and perhaps also madness she longs for in her relationships, and a space where she could enjoy this kind of love is initially being actively taken away from her because of a mechanistic power principle or ownership that has nothing to do with enjoyment or love. Furthermore, she also invokes her friends as the people who saved her rather than her lovers, suggesting that friendship moves past the boundaries that economic situations and psychic colonization are imposing on her in her romantic relationships. *** Ackers movements and nomadism through her cities or her environments begin to take shape, and that love through her working with poetic images. The images Im concerned with, almost dotting the essay, are mysterious, and approach something strangely pure and surreal, even if the content of the images is often violent, hurtful and emotional. This might be the means or the mechanism by which her critique of ownership, and perhaps her critique of whatever problems or pain she is discussing, becomes as powerful, or visionary as the system of ownership that has dominated her love relationships as discussed earlier. The images could be viewed as a crux or compass through which readers can further access her writing. Theres a quality to these images that is unusual, and they seem to describe her experiences of love and hate, but also in a broader vision, perhaps even psychogeographically the VERY city-space she is living in. In Peter one morning, the female weightlifter fell out of her loft-bed. It was a beautiful day, late in September. Larks were singing and drops of sunlight were filtering through the navy blue Levelors (through the clouds through the pollution through the surrounding buildings walls) which she hadnt opened since she bought them cause she didnt want to see junkies shooting up. A newspaper below her fallen body: CITY OF PASSION (Acker 1997, p. 108) Somewhat similar to the films mentioned earlier, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Alphaville, within images of Ackers text the city takes on a dream-like quality amidst the hurt or trauma or dystopian circumstances, places where her perceptions are almost floaty and contradictory, and the connections or trajectories between the various locations or markers are indirect and unspecified. (This kind of un-specificity is in direct contrast to other parts of her text which specifically mark locations, and the kinds of nightmare miseries that are being experienced in those places, particularly in St. Petersburg, and mirror far more closely her experiences of ownership in her relationships.) In the weightlifter quote she is displaced from her bed and falls into a city called Peter, a fictional space, or perhaps standing in for St. Petersburg, or poetically linked to one of the names of her lovers. In this city, even if were not sure exactly where it is or where she is after she falls(falling out of the loft bed could also be read as a metaphor for waking up), perceptions of her space are piled up in a list formation: beautiful day, late September, larks singing, drops of sunlight, pollution, building walls, junkies shooting up, and a newspaper beneath her fallen body. Thus a seemingly awful event is transformed, not into something beautiful at all, but into a space where reality can be seen, and possibly experienced. Rather than dwelling within an imaginary non-state of being, like a mere kid looking for home, or longing for security, Acker, the writer, chooses to resist through poetry. These kinds of indirect movements or poetic ways of experiencing her space continue in her narration; just after the above quote she writes Meanwhile, in the alleyways, almost like a stagenote, as she begins her first letter to Peter. (Acker 1997, p.108). After the second letter to Peter, before beginning a brief allusion and historical anecdote about some early twentieth century avant-garde Russian/Soviet artists she writes Walking the streets.(Acker 1997, p. 111). As readers we dont know which streets. In the last section of the text, Russian Constructivism subtitled Deep Female Sexuality: Marriage or Time which begins with the quote discussed above, When Eddie was kicking me out his house there is a slow, almost magical build-up of several surreal and strange images, leading to an intensely vivid description of sex and perhaps love. (Acker 1997, p. 123). Thus in this section time seems to move in reverse, and we see her moving away from hurt and pain, and begin to make the space she is dwelling or moving in hers. Also we do not know exactly who she is speaking to in these sequences. You said, Light light. Those who survive must learn mathematics. For me theres just love, Im scared of love. I run away from an immediacy. One of my legs is extending outwards. Youre owning me. A sky of hot nude pearl untilcrickets in these sheltered placesthe wind ransacks the great planes. You are taking over control so I can relax. Im alone on an island. Im all by myself. (Acker 1997, p. 124) She apparently has moved away from the dystopian city, into a more exotic locale, one that seems more like a dream, or perhaps another dream space that stands in for the city, in the same way as she calls her space Peter before. Here she seems to be able to create openings in her space, and perhaps the verb she uses whirling is somewhat akin to what the Situationists are referring to when they speak about drift and the derve. Here, Im waiting for what is to follow my collapsed dreams. Ill be more precise: Im waiting for you cause I cant know anything and everythings whirling. His hand put itself on top of the clitoris and pressed. It didnt move. Her own hand was resting on her clitoris. His hand pressed down, through her hand, on the clitoris. Im alone againon this island. Ive my books around me. I dont know why I feel lonely. (Acker 1997, p. 124) Poetry becomes a means of movement and empowerment for the writer, a form of magic, and it is in this space,where she creates her own mobility through these images, and for the first time in the text joy or pleasure begin to be felt and seen; perhaps it is also possible to read some of these sequences as a parallel to Situationist ideas regarding play. I remember waking up. First, I see your head. I see your eyesre open and youre looking at me. I have to smile because your obvious love for me makes me smile. (Acker 1997, p. 124) Lamplights hang over the edges of the park running through the vertical center of the Nevsky Prospect, from its beginning at St. Issacs, about fifty blocks north, to its black section in the depth of the seventeenth line. The geographical divisions are actually racial: ghettoes, each one on the whole about nine to sixteen blocks large, dont mingle. This past year the ghettoesre beginning to physically cross cause the richre now trying and will take over this whole city by buying all of its real estate. The islands especially Vasilyevsky Island are the drug oases. The hookers centersre the Millonaya, again Vasilyevsky Island (pimps always get their puppets hooked), the large black bridge across the Neva, and the Winter Canal.(Acker 1997, p. 107)  Acker also includes a reference to musician King Sunny Ad which also speaks about being thrown out of a home situation. King Sunny Ad. King Sunny Ad, I hate your guts. You were my sun and your house was my house was my home and you threw me out like a kid without a home (you), saying, All you want is security so you dont love me at all, and then you didnt even understand that I love you. Thats why this moments infinite(Acker 1997, 110). 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