３.TIME AND INDEX

1.    Texts of Jenny Holzer

 In interview with Michael Auping, Holzer described that “…….When I was writing the statements, I wanted them to seem as if they were the strongly held opinions of individuals.  ……. They are conflicting truths, however, because there are over two hundred fifty different viewpoints in the collection.”₂₁(for “Truisms”)

 The word she used “conflicting truths” is appearing in all her texts. In another word it is reality. “Inflammatory Essays” consists of 10 chapters and each chapter is made of 100 words, 20 lines and alphabetically ordered. She said about this, “I wanted them to be recognizable as part of a series. ”₂₂ As this, her texts have relations each other. However it seems not to connect each other in general thought. So that I can say the relation is unusual. For example, the sixth chapter of “Essay”, the text described about “freedom”. “DON’T CONTROL OR MANIPULATE.”₂₃ But the tenth chapter talks about “domination”. “THE MOST EXQUISITE PLEASURE IS DOMINATION.”₂₄ Here is a conflicting. Why does it happen? Because we think that messengers are the same. But we must know that she was writing from different viewpoints. These 10 chapters have been written from 10 viewpoints. I can say, in each chapter, subjects are different. She connected them together and made one work (brought them in one place). Each had become having relation that is connected by new code (very poetic). This new relation shows reality of the world (it is full of conflicting).

 Using many different subjects, she stands above all. Her viewpoint is taking God’s eyes that are looking at the subject. God is a ghost. It does not have a body and cannot speak, but comes into some subjects to speak. Subjects are humans who have bodies, feel stimulation and jouissance. However they can express their bodies only by words (signs). All we can get from representation is thought (not pain) or we can re-experience their stimulation and jouissance as a simulation.

 By Heidegger, “Human behaves as if we are the creators of the language and host, but language is our owner. Because by essence of the language, language speaks. Human is answering to language hearing that the language talks to us. Language makes us sign. Thus at first, at last, language induce us to the existence of language.”₂₅

 In Holzer’s work, the texts (language) existed before it has presented and also before it had make a meaning. At first language existed, and then it became the text and finally it has presented. I can say whole presentations were under her control, they cannot escape from their contexts that are presented, but the texts are living independently. It is ready to escape from its context and also from Holzer. It keeps “the sensuous materiality of the signifier” and we can feel “the sensual thickness of the language”. Exaggerated presentations were effective equipment to have an illusion of reality to us. In another word, she offered a theatre where her texts can take place (live).

Now I make focus into the subjects of her texts. She uses “I” as the subject of her texts in the series after “Truisms” It is the difference of her texts between “Truisms” and that after “Truisms”. However, I must consider the subject referring Lacan’s discourse.

By Lacan, “We should not think that the subject is only a speaker of the text or the pronoun appeared in the text. The French word “ennonce” means text, but there are many texts that do not leave the clue to find the subject. For example, when I say "It rains", the subject of this action is not included in the text……..So that the subject of the text is not always as same as the subject of sentence "I".”₂₆

I suggest now, it is helpful to refer this notion to the notion of the “index” quoting Rosalind Krauss.

Notes