The Cruelty of the Classical Canon

‘The Cruelty of the Classical Canon’ is a bookwork made for the group exhibition ‘The Book: Materiality and Make’, held at London Gallery West, University of Westminster, 4th February to 7th March 2014. The other participants were Christine McCauley, Dr. Katherina Manolessou and Emma Dodson. It is comprised of over 2,000 pages, with a hand-forged metal binding (blacksmith: Michael Wilkes). A version of the accompanying summary appeared in 'Varoom 25' (the 'Empathy' issue), in Spring 2014.

The intention of the bookwork ‘The Cruelty of the Classical Canon’(1) is to critique the weight of the classical canon of texts which dominate the intellectual, cultural and literary landscape of Western thought(2). The process by which the book was made involved an intensity which dominates the final object and places the drama of physical presence and material force at the forefront of any experience of the work. Weighing over 30 kilograms; encased in a hand-forged iron cover made from 130 year old steel and iron, and with over 2,200 pages of blank text, the book block involves an exposed sewn binding which itself tests the limits of that process. It asks us to rethink the book as an iconic cultural arte[fact] which shapes our encounter with ideas, by focusing our attention on the book-as-object; one which does not offer any conclusions or overt commentary. The coming-to-prominence of iron blacksmithing within ancient societies, and the invention of the alphabet are historically linked: 3,200 years of culture in the West are made possible by the prevalence of both iron and alphabetic writing, offering an implicit link between form and concept.

‘The Cruelty’ does not attempt to illustrate its concept, nor does it state its claims overtly, but asks us to empathise with its premise, through the sheer force of material ‘encounter’ as metaphor. It seeks to compel, not to communicate, to engage, not to explain, to offer material disruption in place of description. The title is a way of naming the divisive and problematic historical separation of ideas from their embeddedness within a material or bodily ‘event’. Language first cuts us away from experience, and the book completes this process of alienation. Finally, we are asked to accept both, as truth.

The human ability to empathise involves recognizing an ‘other’: it creates a mutual exchange between oneself and the ‘out there’. An empathetic object which similarly draws the ‘other’ to it, creating a connection and a space of deep reflection on complexities which lie beyond its immediate physical manifestation, forming a connection with that which lies beyond its boundaries: extending its concept. It does more than represent, it ‘presents’, and in doing so, it calls attention to the power of ‘encounter’, and its correlate, emotional resonance.

‘The Cruelty’ is a fully ‘present’ object, and yet one which has no purpose. The book is empty, and cannot be fully opened, and yet we are drawn towards the material enigma of such an object precisely because it poses a contradiction. This is where material empathy or empathetic materiality create ‘affect’: in the oscillation between the object and the viewer, such that a true dialogue takes place. The still, but forceful presence of material becomes a powerful response/rebuttal to the stripped-down, bloodless encounter of abstraction. The metaphysics of ideas is replaced by the sheer brute force of the-book-as-thing, placing material empathy at the very core of meaning.

1. ‘The Cruelty’ metaphorically stands for the stasis of written language, ideas, intellect, culture: expressed by the rigidity of iron, steel, and paper, which offer limits, boundaries and physical restraint [the law].

2. “He came to hate them vehemently, and to assail them with every kind of invective he could think of, not because they were irrelevant but for exactly the opposite reason. The more he studied, the more convinced he became that no one had yet told the damage to this world that had resulted from our unconscious acceptance of their thought.” Robert M. Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Bantam, 1975). Here, Phaedrus is referring to the classical texts of the Western tradition in the University of Chicago’s ‘Great Books Program’.