OCR Output

Bopy, THE GAZE, AND ABSTRACTION: FROM SAMUEL BECKETT TO BRUCE NAUMAN

same actions “over and over again, many many times,” in order to arrive at his
“destination,” whose obscure identity seems to be limited to the act of simply
sitting down.”

Watt’s walk is also characterized by the excessively orderly spatial
orientation adopted. Rather than proceeding at random, he aligns his
movements with the four cardinal points, and honors them in a totally
methodical order. Distinct from any embodied space, the importance of these
directions resides in their having been instituted by the Other: the “treasury
of language” offers them as a universal principle of orientation. *4 For want of
being able to situate himself in reference to inhabited space, Watt is required
to refer to coordinates that remain devoid of any human signification: north
is not an object of perception.”° Thus, Watt seeks a reference point in what is
fundamentally a limitless universe that allows for no subjectivity. It is as if, for
want of a complete bodily image, the subject were making an effort to pattern
his movements on universal abstract coordinates, within which his restless
walking could inscribe a frame.

NAUMAN’S GEOMETRICAL “BECKETT WALK”

Nauman’s “Beckett Walk” seems to be a transposition of Watt’s manner of
walking. Hands held behind his back, bust straight, legs stiff — like those of
Watt and Molloy”® — Nauman’s point of articulation is located in his hips.
Bust upright, and standing on one foot, he holds the other out at an angle,
as if to seek the right direction; he then pivots and, once the orientation has
been determined, tips over onto the other foot, his free leg and bust held
horizontally. The process is repeated for the duration of roughly one hour. In the
video, Nauman appears as a purely geometrical figure on a neutral grey-white
background. Abstract geometry penetrates his body, dictating its movements.
Nauman’s reading around behaviorism inspired his performances, pointing
to an imperative demand for perfect, unthinking obedience. ”” While the
studio itself appears reminiscent of Beckett’s “closed places,” such as seen
in The Lost Ones, for Nauman, it is like a reproduction of the “Skinner box,”

23 Beckett, Watt, 30.

Lacan’s “treasury [or thesaurus] of the signifier”. Ecrits, Paris, Seuil, Le Champ freudien,

1966, 806.

25 See Jean-Claude Milner: The Tell-Tale Constellations, trans. Christian R. Gelder, S: Journal
of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique 9, 2016, 31.

26 Beckett: Molloy, 45, 56.

See Robert Storr: An Incantation of Our Time, Bruce Nauman (exposition, Fondation

Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, du 14 mars au 21 juin 2015), Paris, Fondation Cartier

pour l’art contemporain, 2015, 71.

28 See Beckett: Fizzle 3, in The Complete Short Prose, 236.

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