Seduction

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Seduction, as described by Jean Baudrillard, stands in matchless opposition to love. For whereas love can be a solitary affair and one’s love is unanswered, the seduction cannot be solitary. It is, on the contrary, a dual between the two.

On all levels, the seduction is paradoxical, for just as seduction can mean both to seduce and to be seduced, you cannot seduce without already having been seduced. It is a game of distance, shrouding and the ambiguity of the sign. It is a game of misinterpretation and plurality. In the core of seduction, the subject seizes to exist, and leaves only the desired object behind. For according to Baudrillard, the subject cannot seduce, only the object can become the target of desire and thereby take the role of the seducer.

He who sees himself as the seductive subject, prowling for his prey, he has already been lost in the illusion of his own game. The seductive object in turn, stands undefined and hidden in this timeless game.[1]


[1] Baudrillard (1987)

Quantified Self

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The Credit Card is the New App Platform

I wonder how many aside from me are terrified by this optimistic, hopeful and expectant article?

For my part, I believe I am already quantified quite enough. I am already sufficiently confused by the multiplicity of possible world views: on one hand, on the other, see it from this side, turn it around and upside-down. Hush now! The card is speaking: you could have a coffee, but see, on the other hand, you could also have a haircut. You could enjoy a movie, but you could also buy a cheese – we have one on offer. Let me take you always to where you are not. The description of the credit card apps sounds schizophrenic at best.

Please do not offer me, please do not optimize me – I need my flaws if I am ever to work.

Time to bring out the cash, I think!

The Traveling Magician

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I returned to London with a traveling magician. He showed me soliloquy in a spinning coin. He sat across from me in a crowded Bus, enveloped in thoughts, eyes shut and a heaven-faced nose. His calm and solemn sight gave the appearance of a praying devout. Yet while his face stood still, his fingers moved in rapid repetitions. It held resemblance to those simple tricks of finger acrobatics most often performed on school benches when boredom strikes – resemblance, yes, but in his hands the idle game was perfected to the turn of perversion. With smoldering tangents and a praying face he broke the rules of physics on the nodding bus. £2 coins winked across his knuckles. Faster and faster, still. I expected them to soon reach a point of climax, whatever this may look like in the case of a coin, some point of ecstasy where they would seize existence in the little death. Suddenly, with a movement too quick to take any proper notice, he had grabbed the coins in the palm of his hand. His left hand dug deep in his pocket, and pulled out another trick. Into the pocket and up came the cards. He mixed, fanned out, revealed the 2 of spades, flicked his fingers and made it disappear. Again he mixed, fanned them out, mixed, fanned, revealed the 5 of clubs, flicked and it was gone. Cards were laid to rest and now silver balls started switching through his fingers. These were harder to maneuver. His fingers moved slower, and mistakes were made. The balls dropped back into the dark and he began again his finger gymnastics. Joint by joint he warmed his hands. Limbering in exotic movements, creating waves and braiding tangents. I could not for a second take my eyes from him. He, in turn, never saw me. I came to think of Lacan’s far too famous can floating in the sea. Do you see it? Well it doesn’t see you. I looked at him, saw him behind the crystal ball. I saw and followed: the dance of accessories. Pendants taking center stage. With the certainty of a surgeon he’d rolled the coins and dissected my being. He never looked at me, he only saw. He saw me as I fell from grace, fell from my role as the traveler and became the mal-placed audience. I was no longer protected by my seat and my forward-gaze, my silent face and focused distractions. I was no longer the passenger – he was. Despite his unusual behavior, I had become the notable. He, with his closed eyes and solemn expression had no problem belonging to the crowd of an ordinary night bus. Only I, with my open eyes, smiles and amazements, I had been lured from my role. I stuck out like a sore thumb, as the saying goes. His thumbs were without pain, unswollen and in full movement.

I had gone into the non-belonging. In the glance of the crystal ball, I had become the screen. I was no longer part of the picture. Suddenly, his lack of discomfort in the presence of my gaze made my stomach turn. Each tangent stared so directly at me, communicated directly towards me, yet without ever recognizing my presence. It was the soliloquy of objects. Deep dive and up came a shimmering crystal ball. In a worn-down, London double-decker, no different from so many others, a crystal ball was levitating; dancing. Blindly.

Abnormally Funny

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PC went out the window and honesty took its place on the basement scene of Soho Theatre. Comedians wobbling, limping, feeling their way onto to the small stage, facing their audience and speaking about life, love and disability.

Hey, you! Are you deaf?! a blind comedian narrated, “No, I’m not deaf, I’m blind, thank you,” “You’re in the middle of the road, dude,” “I know that, I am trying to cross it”

On Monday the 23rd of April, I went to the first of a series of stand-up shows, purely done by disabled performers. It was fun; a lot more fun than I had expected. I had feared a toe cringing session, to the point of podiatric cramps. But the jokes were warm and inclusive,  the laughter sincere, roaring and filling every corner. For the most, at least.

Now, it may have been a fluke, coincidence if you may, or it may have been a grim reality, but what I sensed on the Monday scene was that it was a lot harder to laugh at those who were mentally disabled than those with physical disabilities (what a wonderfully politically incorrect sentence this is!). The reason for this, I am sure lies at a much deeper level than what I can here bring forth, but let us still look, if not delve. For today when I went to the Brains exhibit currently running at Wellcome Collection, I was reminded of the more than 9000 brains stored in the basement of Risskov Mental Asylum in Århus, Denmark (think of all the humour!). It occurred to me, as it has to so many before me, that our bodies are not in fact our own. I lease out mine to an international broadcaster during the week for instance, and when my fingers in the hours of leasing run across the keyboard, it is not because they so have chosen, they do not press A, because I feel a basic desire to do so, but because they have been paid to appear in the fight for a higher goal chosen by their employer. In the same manner, when illness strikes, your body is, for at time at least, given to the world of medicine to appear in the struggle for health returned. These are common theories; they are not the product of my mind.

Back to the humor and the brains in Euston: I was standing in the exhibition with my dear friend, we were watching a movie, probably shot at some point in the 1940ies explaining a surgical procedure in which part of skull is removed to disclose the brain. Throughout the video, throughout images of drills, scalpels and electric saws, our jaws lay on our chests in wild amazement, and, when things got too unpleasant, a joke was exchanged between us, just to lighten the mood. Despite the serious scenery, it was not at any point difficult for us to find something to laugh at. Mind had become matter, and perhaps this was exactly the kind of physicality, the distance, needed to crack a joke.

Perhaps humor can be said to be a matter removing yourself from the mind of the situation. Approaching severity through bypassing the emotional infiltration may allow for later contemplation. Thus, when the comedians spoke of their experiences, not once did they mention how they felt, but rather how they acted. Perhaps this is the relationship that brought the audience to a silence when the schizophrenic comedian took centre stage. The experiences then relayed were of mind, not of matter. Perhaps it came too close for us to laugh – or perhaps it was just not funny.

 

The turtle and the ladybug

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Once upon a time a turtle and a ladybug came together in a queue to the microwave. It might have been love at first sight or possibly not until the second, however no matter how many times the lens of the eye had to draw together, no matter how many times focus had to be shared between the two before the visual stimuli translated into deeper emotion, when the turtle first turned and looked at the little ladybug he thought, ‘what a shiny shell she has’.  Her shield blushed a darker red and her black dots fluttered nervously as she joined him in this first contact and thought ‘what a strong shield he has!’ Notice here my friend, in this odd meeting, that what was shell to him was shield to her, for although the two had different names it were the likenesses that they saw first.

I guess they both felt puzzled when the queue began to fade, or rather when the world around began to stir. For when their eyes met, buildings turned to blocks and danced in shifting waves across the street. Soon they noticed that their chairs began to stretch, the Thames was thirsting and that Big Ben had gone to sleep. Another world began to form in the mist of London, one where Q was X and passion melted off the concrete walls to clench the thirsting Thames.

The turtle and the ladybug both felt the potential of their meeting. They read in the stars and saw that if he could learn to bend and she could learn to trust, then their passionate potential could be realised in that highest of all fairy-tale endings: the ‘happily ever after.’

‘Easy, piecy, pie and yksi, kaksi, kolme’ they exclaimed. For how can you lose when you know how to win? However, it is not always easy for a turtle to keep up with a ladybug, and as spring came, and their passion spiralled still stronger with lustful warbles and shooting trees the ladybug felt a breeze and took to the air. Aroused by a love that could all but be contained within her little beetle body, she laughed and giggled and smiled, flew in pirouettes, surfed the fountains and salsa’ed above the park. In the waves of this joyful ecstasy the little bug forgot about her cherished turtle who ran on the ground below, out of breath and desperate to keep up.

Ribbons of yellow butterflies flew from every corner of the sky and joined the ladybug. The turtle saw them come and tried to warn his dearest bug, but she would not hear; she was far too happy to trust her ear. The butterflies flew still closer, attracted by her love. They flew around her in loops and bows, she laughed and twirled and then they formed a noose. The turtle called again, he tried to call her down, but now she could not hear; she had butterflies in her ears. He tried to tell her that time was not yet for celebration. The butterflies danced and tightened their noose, chewed at her wings and raped the little ladybug who rejoiced in her tormenting passion. The turtle cried for her to land, for he had already promised his heart to another. Through the rhythm of the beating wings his words reached the ladybug; short gusts of words that one by one shattered and spread her heart like sand across the sky. From amongst the butterflies she pleaded with the turtle to abandon this ancient promise and give his heart to her. He begged her for trust and patience, he begged her to come down, away from the torment that ate the dots from off her shell. But she could not land. Her heart was drizzling to the ground. When the first grain landed the butterflies began to die.  She cried in fear and flew towards the sun, away from the pain of the falling heart. Once again the turtle called to her and begged for her to trust, but soon all he could see against the blue was the rain of dying butterflies.

For months and months the turtle travelled through a trail of bloody sand and final yellow cramps to find again his little ladybug. He cursed himself and every butterfly he met, and every day he would try his best to bend, but his shell was rigid as it had always been. One day, in the heat of summer, his trail had ended and out there in the distance he saw a red dot land. He ran to her as quickly as any turtle can. The ladybug met him with a smile – she would have hugged him, I am sure, if she had arms. Her shield was damaged, the turtle noticed, but it still had that shine he once had loved. He looked at her with the greatest love, she replied with warmth. He wanted to invite her to the heart of his shell, but as she looked around, the blocks had settled, the Thames was flowing, and Big Ben stood once more erect. She looked at him and his green expressions with her head askew, but understood not a single word. Then, with a friendly compassion, she fluttered her wings and looked to the sky.

Contemplations on early 21st century love

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Let me fall in love. Let me meet that tall, dark and handsome prince who will carry me to his castle on a sparkling Colgate horse. Let me feel consumed, and let me consume in turn. Let me feel the need to prink and to prune like the amorous powder pigeon.

The decision has been made: here and now, I shall fall in love, and passionately so. Now, if I could only choose upon the site. Match.com is nice, e-harmony too, zoosk is free, but perhaps I need something more specialized than that. Something like beautiful.dating or IQmatch? I have money to spend, now all that’s left to do, is to choose the algorithm of my love. At a click of a button, and I have access to the shelves of men, or women if I so prefer. Married, single, tall and short, there is one for every mood. A simple affair, or even marriage I’ll say. Dating sites truly are entertainment at my command.

Mass consumption has before been read in the light of seduction, but dare I say that seduction has faded from the plane of love? When we look upon the dating profile, we see all the attributes from eyes to income, we decide upon the partner that we want, and we click in response: a wink, a like, a fan? Each click of the finger is a new sentiment of approval. And each is bought with petty cash.

The love-starving singleton finds working for the means of consumption so consuming of time that we don’t have enough to find the love that we hunt. And so we pay. We pay for the match-making algorithm. Pheromones, desire, passion and tearing are devoured by time and replaced by numbers and money. Time is money, they say, but then does math equal love?

Online dating is the mass consumer’s answer to the necessity of breeding. We go online, enter our criteria for the perfect mate, enter interests and hobbies, and with the swipe of a card, we are matched with our equal. Love has turned to a matter of simple algorithms and the little penny. You pay for what you get, and obviously, the best men are on the most expensive sites. It is only common sense to invest the petty mammon in my future spawn.

Do not be cheap in love! Pay 10s, 20s, perhaps even 30s of Great British Pounds a month to meet your match – because you are worth it. What does this mean? We pay and expect value for our money. It is certainly not the services on the site we pay for: all are slow, heavy and with embarrassingly poor email applications. We pay for the partner. We pay for the hope of love. What does that mean? If we don’t pay, we don’t find love? And what kind of love is really a love that is paid for: prostitution comes to mind..

Softer claimed; a designer love (check the boxes, please); it is the chilled thoughtfulness of chosen designs, not unlike a subway sandwich (which dressing do you want with that?). I’d like my man with the softness of mayo and passion of chilli, please…and extra cheese, please. What does this mean? Where are we going? Why are we not stopping working in order to find the love we so hunger for? We say we don’t have time, and then we pay to find a quicker love. We pay because we are too busy earning money.

The passionate love continues to be the aim of the 21st century match-seeker. An impossible task when seduction has been placed within the frame of capitalism – I want only store-bought passion. In mint condition, please! No muss, no fuss. Let me unwrap him and see perfection. Keep cool. Consume within three months after opening. Ack, he went stale. It is time to get another. For the early 21st century match-seeker, the means is capitalism.

My lover and I, we are both out there. Now we must sync up our pattern of consumption so we can meet.