Repositioning
I have come across this before. Frankly, I never paid much attention to its possible implications. Perhaps, what it meant at the time was different or that I was hearing it in a context which was not so loaded. And then it came up in “tittuping with Interality” by Ruth, and even then I could not see what was bothering me but somehow it stuck with me like a piece of well used chewing gum which is melted in the heat.
Repositioning or is it re-positioning?
In order to re-position, one has to have a position. Most of us here (and yes I include myself) are yet to establish a position. The great debate is often on the definition of such position. And the position if at all possible may be the great desire. But, why do we need to re-position something which is yet to find its position.
Position has a sense of stability; it may give us a point of view or indeed a sense for territorial. In warfare it is the deciding factor, it is your position that makes you the aggressor or the defender. Position provides us with the role that we play. Position is power, position is a platform, position is a place, position is a culture, position is a tribe and more, and position is the absence of all the above as that also is a position. Whatever it is, it is not so much as to what it is but that of the attachment to it. Is the attachment the same as the belonging?
And yet we need to re-position.
If I was in a bunker and I was advised to re-position, I would read it as a necessary tactical withdrawal, that the position is no longer sustainable and that I had to re-position. The intent is clear and the act follows. When I do re-position, I may begin to reinforce my initial position, so the re-positioning is a shift of the artillery but the aim remains the same. But the experience itself, the act of the re-positioning may change my position. Or indeed my re-positioning may be strategic. But do I need to re-position myself in principle. And what if the re-positioning has become a continues act, and the principle itself?
The temporality is an attractive prospect if you are in resistance but if it becomes a status which it often does, it is exposed. The need for the-in-betweens brought about the idea of interdisciplinarity. This differed from the cross-disciplinary approach and indeed it was not multi-disciplinary, it was not a position and not a hybrid. It momentarily offered the imaginal, the possibility of the none-place. Yes it challenged the position and perhaps we may have started to re-position. The intent was fantastical but not euphoric, there was no romance and clarity, no it did not exist. How could it? The imaginal took over, the complexities of the continues transitional.
So, why the re-positioning bothers me? It has become a formula, it has been diluted down, saturated with sugar, it is strategic or tactical and all is well if the intent is so. But what if it is a general prescription? An invitation for a continuous withdrawal and if I am on the run, I want to know what is it that I am running from or running towards. What is my intent?
posted by Seyed Edalatpour at 11:05 pm
3 Comments:
But maybe out of this networking, valuable, creative ways of liberating oneself from the "slave" (be it the one within us or outside us, be it "fear", the insatiable "desire machine", doubt, pretence, bureaucracy..) can happen through repositioning one's practice within the realities of the artworld and determine what role one wants to play in this on one's own or with others. Perhaps Interality can be about turning the realities of the artworld inside out..."
Ruth Bianco
But, why do we need to re-position something which is yet to find its position."
Position has a sense of stability; it may give us a point of view or indeed a sense for territorial."
Ali Edalatpour
I wonder if position actually is the complete absense of stability. Let's see if I can actually make a point here. I do agree, position can give a point of view or a "sense"...for "territorial", but only in that it reiterates that you are not stable, for as soon as you have "given" a position, you're in the process of losing it.
Does this mean that one or the other of these words "re -positioning" or "positioning" is obsolete? We are in a continual process of change, this is the beautiful thing about growth. I'll quote Lucy Lippard quoting someone else with "change is a process, not an event" to illustrate. You can't speak from a given position, but you can declare a position and present it. However, if you choose then to change positions, you are not actually "re- or repositioning" anything. You'll never fully return to the original, nor will the re-turn to a previously declared position produce the same result as the first.
So there is no re- in positioning then. The difference of deterritorialization and reterritorialization is the same thing, you leave one and you do not return to it, but in a completely altered context (and consciousness perhaps).
But you brought up not having even a position to declare. Tis true (curse) most of us cannot declare a position, and what of that? we are moving so quickly between/among positions, that there is no "need/desire" to reflect and declare.
This taking oneself out of ones context and placing oneself into a new context, that may be referred to as "re-positioning" is not repositioning at all, is it? its decontextualizing, and I may argue that it is (as in de/re territorialization) actually impossible to truly re-contextualize. What would be the point? Why go out, learn from others/sites/texts/etc. if you simply wish to re-turn to where you began? Certainly, if we wish to improve - grow - change - evolve, we would re-move (haha) disengage rather, the use of any 're'-s from our vocabulary. they are too stable, stagnant, stale, stuffed with baggage, every corner filled with cobwebs.
Ooo...but this should make us very afraid as well. Benjamin, as I'm sure countless others, including our mothers, warn against going for the complete tabula rosa. The dangers of starting over 'from scratch' are steep and rocky cliffs at times (and incredibally fresh at moments.
So the world of halfsies wins again, no? The world is all about balance, live life in striations with the wide mind of smoothness, get your omega 3 and oat bars, but remember to eat a little veg everynow again again, be wary of re-peating oneself without allowing for natural change (for without it, insanity is left).
Re-positioning is not the same as turning yourself and your practice inside out, but rather an abstract idea of imagining that you have, then stepping back into yourself moments, or minutes later as your changed self. Turning yourself and your practice 'inside out' only causes your challenging exterior to turn inwards, to protect its vulnerability for a time whilst you are distracted with the insides' new exposure to the 'outside', the 'other'.
I'm still confused, as ever, and trying to figure out how to strategically place a Rootbeer advert with the subject of "insider looking out/outsider looking in" within the context of travelers and artists (incl. artist travelers, artists who travel, artists who use travel, bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh...) It's a complicated re-, de-, un- dis- ing of -cognition, -turning, -positioning, t-erritorializing that gets ever lost in the spindly web of language.
First I must thank you for your response, I am glad you took the idea on board. I must admit it is only half cooked but then again it was meant to be so, that is what blogging is about. I do think this idea touches the very core of what we do hear and it is not only about words. Yes, true, writing is a form of practice and we can set up words, we define them in order to re-define only later. The same with the Absolutes, in order to show the degrees of a swing we establish the points of turn or re-turn. So, I agree with you if you are saying the same thing but there is no way of knowing that and this is the limit of language. Growth is not leaner but if it is not quantitive then it is as much about refinement. Continues transitional which may have no need to declare its position has an absence of position and that is its position. But all this does not worry me and the game of language which brings about the re, de … can trigger an impossible thought, the ambiguity and obscurities may draw us to uncharted territories. De-contextualisation. I may be old fashioned here but I still think artists are an intellectual force and as a force they are subject to political manipulation. This is not only about the content but also form. The position that we may eventually formulate is in relation to the external. The definition of such position is the very definition of us with the external and in this embedded the possibility of a force which may follow or lead but what if it is neutralised. And neutralised it will become if the absence is the form which we are seeking. Absence is where we do not declare therefore we are not at risk. With absence I can become whatever in order to conform providing that I do not have to commit. I am neutralised and forever I can have a presence in my absence.
Susan Hiller aludes to making a work and then discussing it so that you learn something about 'it', and one can assume youself as well.
One could choose to take this as a form of 'repositioning' if they accepted this as a legitimate word to use (reuse and abuse)...
Therefore, one must both make and discuss requiring one to have made in order to discuss as well as to discuss/consider in order to make (further). Or perhaps they are not linked so closely...
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