YOU suppose it had to happen, a week would come when, in truth, and to be honest, YOU have NOT managed to get to see an art exhibition. But then, of course, life is also worth writing (and hopefully also reading) about. And so, today, this week’s 750wordsaweek is going to be a METABLOG (bear with me) i.e. a Blog about YOUr Blog and about Blogging.
YOU did see the Goya show at Courtauld a couple of weeks back and some other shows about which YOU haven’t written of course, and YOU could ‘cheat’ by reflecting on those this week, but YOU have always had a bit of a thing about HONESTY and about the idea that art and writing and thought are at their best when somehow truly ‘of the moment’ and thereby underpinned by a certain ‘virtue’ – as opposed to the dissemblance also propagated very successfully by many artists and writers.
The reason YOU haven’t been out and about this week is that, having survived the assessments AND the dentist YOU came to a small ‘window’ in which to make YOUr own piece of work for a show that will be installed and opened next week In Leeds University. YOU could even add a link at this point -YOU suppose) http://www.wildpansypress.com/index.php/wpps/cheolsan/
YOUR own work (which YOU certainly had NOT expected to write about for this Blog -but here we are …) builds on YOUr initial, instant, intuitive fascination with photography and film as a special and relatively new means by which to transmit and translate a narrative subjectivity. Recently YOU have come to loosely refer to this as ‘romance’ and YOU conduct an undergraduate seminar titled ‘Technologies of Romance‘ at a well-known London art college.
Recently YOU were asked about the use of ‘YOU’ in YOUr Blog. Why choose that ‘persona’, that ‘address or position for Blog writing?
If you (that is ‘you’ that I am referring to here and not YOU i.e. moi… ) go to the very FIRST post on this Blog and/or read the ‘About’ or ‘Home’ sections, you will there get in touch with its roots, the heart of its motives, aims and trepidations. But the main reasons for choosing to use ‘YOU’ is to be sure not to ignore the true self-consciousness and multiplicity of the 21st century subject.
If YOU use ‘I’ then it seems to YOU that YOU are prone to take for granted YOUr subjectivity, persona and leave unquestioned what an ‘I’ might be.
Deploying the YOU seems rather to keep all this in play and in question – as it should be.
Furthermore, for YOU, ‘YOU’ also transmits more accurately the ‘romance’ of experience referred to above, in that a life and a subjectivity are in some way guaranteed, underpinned, let’s say justified by some form of narrative or narrativity – however complex or unformed that may often seem to be.
Of course, avoiding the neat and tidy ‘I’ and donning the persona of the YOU must inevitably also create a t least a frisson of a new relationship, not only with the self but also with those others we might also, normally refer to as ‘you.’
Though it is true that it may become confusing it could also be seen that using the YOU in this way subtly implicates the YOU as not entirely separate or different to you, and therefore YOU becomes a representative of others (e.g. seeing and writing about art that others may be unable to see, one of the original purposes of modern art criticism by e.g. Diderot), less (presumptuously) singled-out and less specialized than the ‘I.’
Finally, and this is perhaps more difficult to get across, having grown up in distinctly working class surroundings YOU are aware that ‘you’ can also be used as a way of referring to the self in colloquial speech.
E.g. you are a middle class academic driving to a dinner party in your Volvo and you get lost. You are troubled to find yourself driving through a council estate and, in desperation stop to ask an unemployed man for directions. Despite his slightly frightening demeanour and loud voice he replies to your urgent enquiry in a friendly and constructive manner, and in the following way: ‘No Problem Guv. Now, What You Do Is, You Go Up ‘Ere Until You See The Pub, Then You Turn Right, Then Second Left, An’ Keep Going Until You Come To Th’ Village and You Start To See Some Big, Posh ‘Ouses. Then It’s … MMM… Lemmefink …, MMMM The THIRD On Your Right’. OK? Yeah, Good Luck, No Problem Mate!, ‘Ave A Good One’
In this example you can see the ‘you’ is a substitute for the subject’s position, i.e. the self, and has a subtle but undeniable relationship with the so-called ‘Royal We’ which lies at the other end of the English class spectrum and which also shows that the habitual and commonplace ‘I’ which tends to dominate subjective address, is really only one, rather limited way of transmitting and translating and exchanging subjective experience.
YOU could go on of course, noting how the history of art criticism and art writing have longed tusselled with these questions, and particularly the way in which judgement might be either justified or simply avoided in art writing. YOU hope that readers of this Blog will have already noted that this is one of YOUr core concerns – and if you are interested this theme can also be followed through an article YOU recently published in Art Monthly magazine on the theme of art, Judgement and its (im)possibilities – again see link http://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/issue/dec-jan-14-15
Thank you for bearing with the Blog at this difficult time. YOU promise to return to writing about exhibitions a.s.a.p. (though next week may also have to be a METABLOG or about YOUR own show, or some other adventure
'ONLY YOU' – A few words on Art and Life In London, by Art Writer Paul O'Kane 
You make think.
LikeLike