Oldal 111 [111]
LLEWELLYN BROWN
55
of the stage in Quad — “E supposed a danger zone”* — marked only by the
abrupt swerving of the dancers. We could call such invisible squares Beckett
and Nauman’s version of Malevich’s painting, of which Gérard Wajcman
states: “The Black Square is the absence of an object, how to put it, embodied.
It is this absence.”**
Rather than commanding the scene, the spectator is immobilized and
powerless: one is reduced to the status of a voyeur observing through a keyhole,
rather than one situated at the center of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. What
is offered up to the spectator’s gaze is limited to what appears within a narrow
angle. Nauman thus appears as an uncontrollable being, since he escapes this
space: he leaves the field of vision, moving not only across the screen but also
backwards and forwards in relation to the camera. Nauman bores a hole in
the gaze of the camera, as if he were taunting it: he possesses much more
freedom than the spectator since, at certain moments, he crosses over the
field of vision, leaving only parts of his body (torso, legs, back, head) visible.
Sometimes the frame is empty, and the spectator is unable to follow him.
Nauman explains: “Part of the activity takes place within the range of the
camera, and part of it out of the range of the camera. You can see that the
room is larger and the only contact you have is the sound of the activity, and
then finally the figure comes back into the range of the camera.””” The space
that remains out of reach also escapes the visual control of the spectator.°®
Moreover, as Connor’ and Francois Albera® observe, all of Nauman’s
movements appear to be accomplished in defiance of the laws of gravity, as
he gives the impression of walking up and down a vertical wall — headfirst
— asa result of the camera angle. This counterbalances his pounding feet,
and the dull but luminous décor confers on the image a dream-like quality,
as if it were withdrawn from worldly space and time. Nauman explains that
the video was intended to be endless: “My idea at that time was that the film
should have no beginning or end: one should be able to come in at any time
and nothing would change." This experience of timelessness is reinforced by
the unbroken sound of the machine recording. What appears on the screen
thus remains totally autonomous, as if situated in another space, escaping
the spectator’s control. This autonomy produces a strange fascination in the
55 Beckett: Quad in The Complete Dramatic Works, 453.
Wajcman: L’Objet du siécle, 95. Wajcman undertook a similar exercise in his novel L’Interdit
(Paris, Nous, 2016 [republication]) where the running titles and the constant footnotes
frame the text which, as such, is missing, appearing only as the blank page.
Nauman in Kraynak: Please pay attention please, 310.
See Francois Albera: Nauman cinématique, in Nauman Bruce: image/texte, 1966-1996,
Paris, Centre Georges-Pompidou, 1997, 53.
Connor: Shifting Ground.
Albera: Nauman cinématique, 53.
Nauman in Kraynak: Please pay attention please, 146.
+ 110°