FUTURE-MEDIEVAL
”The speed of
darkness” is seemingly the opposite to “the speed of light”. Darkness moulds
form, and extracts the light, giving a sense of time through shadow. It is
atmospheric space, the sort of place a romantic artist might set their easel.
So you might say it’s a place where calmness and ease of thought are in the
air, and the play of shadow gives a restful sense of time passing.
Now, you could
do without this space and instead inhabit a future “lightspace” (see first
post), but it seems to me that is just one future. There is no reason why the
speed of thought, of calmness and meditation, can’t be part of a future. It’s
just not the transhuman one of algorithms (see 2nd post).
Through a French
contact - one Perrine Sandrea - I got into French BD in the late 70s – the
golden age of Pilote and Metal Hurlant – and retrospectively
their alternate reality futures are mind-numbingly accurate in a crazed way.
Perrine Sandrea *
What I want to
do is to relate the medievalism of BWS’s prints to, specifically, Chantal
Montellier’s bold, shadow-haunted futurescapes. Dating from late 70s/80s, these
are the first and best noirish alternate futures.
There’s a lot
you could write about alternate futures – the crazed cityscapes of Caza, Bilal,
Motter, Schuitten and Gilbert Hernandez – but I want to focus on the simplicity
of Montellier’s black and white style. Despite all the futuristic complexity of
the militaristic, media-fixated Wonder City, it shares one thing in common with
its successors, something that probably originates with Le Corbusier’s ideal
template of the ‘30s.
This is
basically that all the noble idealism is so fantastically misguided that all
the crazed, Machiavelian scenes follow almost as a matter of course. The
idealism is essentially rational totalitarianism. What this says is that one
vision is sufficient for humanity to have ordered, satisfying existences.
Obviously the fallacy is so laughable that Montellier and the others have a
ball playing it out.
It’s an Apollonian
vision, brought to its peak in the aims of transhumanism. What happens in
Montellier is that the vision is constantly undercut by the simplicity of her style.
What you can say (from post 2) is that things are simplified by the use of
shadow. It’s a way of moulding the form, establishing solid geometry, bold
design and silhouette.
Montellier does
this because she wants to create mood and tension. Mood and tension are created
by the irresolvable contrast of black and white. What occurs is what occurs in
BWS’s harshly shaded figure drawing (mythical prints - post 1). A type of
visual symbolism that tells us the shadowland expresses mood, gives a sense of
time and geometrical space.
Mood is a
product of simplicity and an artist’s sense of refined delicacy. Comic book
artists are very good at this subtle undermining of a logical Apollonian
vision. Montellier seems to use Professor Nimbus as her Einstein substitute; a
universal expert with vision and advise for the citizenry.
Motter’s version
of this is Radiant City (Mr X), making the “lightspace” connection
obvious. It’s the very simplicity of shadow that makes it impenetrable to
logic, its mutability of form and changing expression. Artists, whether they
are aware or not, are subverting complexity with a world of shifting moods and
expressions.
This world is
actually the geometric world of time and space. Unlike Einsteinian space, which
is theoretical, Euclidian space is almost stage-lit. The stage-lit sense of
presence that you get in BWS’s prints is a nice riposte to a world which is so
tenuous and seemingly chasing fanciful theories, when the world of time and
space is there in bold outline.
And imagination,
because that’s what the world of time and space is. Because it’s not tenuous or
fanciful, because it’s a simple, bold reality, it affects us and we are
moulded, inculcated. We can dream. The shadowland – another word for Euclidean
– is the world of romantic decadence, or heroic romance. Of gardens which
absorb light, that need water, oases, the picturesque days of yore.
Another artist I
became familiar with was Italian Hugo Pratt, creator of romantic seafarer Corto
Maltese. His use of line is subtle and intense. In A Ouest de l’Eden (Pilote
#52, 1978), the dividing line between light and shade in the desert almost
seems to shimmer with the sun, moving, you can imagine, with the passage of
day.
The passage of
time, trecking to an oasis, dreamlike images that affect the mind. Shadows that
mould things that are in time and place, transport us also across time. This is
an alternate reality to the tenuous theories of “Professor Nimbus”. The
imagination has free rein and, in the words of Grace Slick’s “Hyperdrive”, we
can
Think
ourselves light years ahead
Or put
yourself 1,000 years back in time
Despite what
“Nimbus” says, things are actually simple, and there is a purely pictorial
aspect that transports us across time. What we respond to are drama, graphic
and sculptural qualities.
These images
affect us because the energy of line is irresolvable. It’s always a balance of
opposing forces, like Newton’s action and reaction. This happens in a world –
an alternate reality – where the energy of shadow counterbalances light. Shadow
is the diminution or extinction of light and that gives us geometric shape,
sense of time.
Now, you could
do without that world, and you’d be worshipping at the shrine of E=MC². But the
point is that is the light equation; not everything is light. There are two
aspects to reality and one is simply lack of light or night. You can say that
is less important, but the entire span of history and prehistory is against you
It is equally
important, and together they are irresolvable. Artists, by their use of line,
are establishing mood and atmosphere by the use of contrast. They don’t exist
without contrast. On the one side is light on the other side dark and both are
equally important. That might sound childishly simple and I suppose it is. But
that is the way we look at paintings, that is the reality, and anything that is
tenuously complex is not the reality.
Urban futures
are all saying that in their various ways. Perhaps the prototype is Jean-Luc
Godard’s Alphaville (1965), set in a nightmarish Paris.
The myth (Lemmy
Caution) conquers Alpha-60 and the same is possible with E=MC². We don’t have
to slavishly follow the light equation, or live in “lightspace”. We can take
back the world of geometry which in fact is composed equally of darkness. That
is the land of irresolvable myths. Godard has this logical tyranny running
through the imagery, at one point E=MC² flashing onscreen (about 18 minutes in when Caution visits the dive his pal Henri is staying, going up the stairs, also with Fifi a few minutes later, later on when Alpha-60 is breaking down).
With a bit of
imagination, the vistas of a romantic ruin can draw us back in time. The
monumental qualities of stone, etched against Mediterranean sky, the heroic
aspect of a theatre. The fantastical geometry and geography are pinpointed by
the play of black on white, giving a graphical quality that is overwhelming in
its simplicity. As we sit on the top tier of the theatre, shadows gradually
lengthen and our mind is transported back to the ancient clamour of performance
and ritual..
Though the
theatre was large, and could accommodate an audience of no less than 15,000
people, the lie of the land made it impossible to complete the semi-circle as
in most Greek theatres.. But this was compensated for by the superb view in
front of the spectators, looking out across the valley and fertile plain to the
sea and to Lesbian Sappho’s island floating in the bay. In the evening the warm
air would rise from below, and in a gentle breeze, carry every word from the
stage up to the furthest corners of the auditorium.
Duncan Forbes,
Travels in Turkey, The Book Guild, 1987
The simple
dominance of ancient sites is a “good tradition”, bounded by time and
geographical space. The rain may fall, but we still feel safe inside. Was
this yesterday? Yes, because time is flowing through the ancient stones.
Forbes’s book
has a conversational, documentary quality. The pictorial aspect of things is a
very accurate representation of their aspect in time and place. Almost
Tintinesque. The graphical quality of stone and earth when limned, etched
against Mediterranean light. The graphic and theatrical are actually reality
and not the purely logical theory or ideology. Along with “lightspace”, we also
do not live in global-space or technocratic-space. They are just inventions of
a logical maze.
Alphaville, the light equation, the logical maze..
Without the shadowland there is no romantic decadence, no decay of light. The
twilight in an oasis with camels slaking their thirst in the frond-fringed
atmosphere.
You can’t
imagine a desert without an oasis, or an oasis without a caravanserai. It’s a
good tradition and traditions travel the fertile paths of Man. But fertility is
simply the absence of light. Ancient traditions are well aware of this fact and
there is no escaping it.
The way out of
the uncomfortable logical maze is mainly to be much more traditional, since
traditions exist in the scenic land of time and place. In Travels in Turkey
, written in the 80s, people still used donkeys, the simpler rhythms that are
tied to the land. The book is good at evoking the sense of a continual history
- Greek, Biblical, Ottoman, Christian - tied together by geography.
There is a sense
in which ancient traditions – whether Biblical, Greek, Medieval – are tied to
geography, and the simple drama of line drawings. Europe is tied to geography,
basically, not politics.
*If you’re out there Perrine, I need someone
to write French links to French pop-culture types, sort of PR.
The general drift is rebellion, a revival of l’esprit
de Monterey et ’68. Le deja-vu, c’est nous.