March 1997 / Planet of the Arts 47 techino-tlois sinks down onto her rubber wheeled dolly/pedestal.) This piece humorously critiques what some feminists have seen as the essentializing semiotic of the mother goddess. The primal (possibly pre-oedipal/pre-language) mother has no brain and no voice. For Silverthorne, “wit is the place where the anarchic — wit in its relationship to the unconscious — and the elegant meet.” (Silverthorne, 1995) Silverthorne’s carnivalesque venus is ready for the freak-show equipped to be wheeled from town to town. This venus moves and laughs, but is wounded. Feeling a little tired from the mental exertions of this dance, how about a little lie down on Freud’s couch? It is worth noting that the main man himself had a bit of a goddess fetish, collecting these objets d’arts from antiquity to decorate his office. On the infamous couch was thrown a blanket covered with ancient birth symbols. (Ransohoff, 1976) And. if | were to gaze upwards whilst reclined — what before my wandering eyes should appear — but a reproduction of ol’ St. Oedipus himself. A fearful symmetry is imbricated in the oedipal triangle. Is the patriarchy a violent reversal of an original peaceful matriarchy? The idea that behind male dominance lies the reality of a maternal omnipotence is prefigured by Freud’s remark that the early attachment to the mother is like discov- ering “the Minoan-Mycenaean civilization behind the civiliza- tion of Greece.”(Freud, 1931) This cult of origins is an enduring, alluring illusion. A nos- talgia for the same sort of symmetry we saw in Eden. (Women beware, we know how evil that myth made us.) This time the way the notion of symmetry is justified, is because, once upon a time, (unproveable) there was a matriarchy, which became a patriarchy, an equal and opposite reaction. The emphasis on original symmetry is the origin of gender polarity. A more accurate equation would be the infinitely divisible vanishing point of reference. In the oedipal model the mother has no subjectivity. Therefore to identify with her is to dissolve one’s identity. Mother is the body, material, and object, and the father is the path to individuation and sub- jectivity. The oedipal dance of taboo and _ repression was centred around the “mommy, daddy, me” of the family unit, inherently heterosexual and arguably capitalist. While Freud centralized the Oedipal myth as the cornerstone of psychoanaly- sis, it has more recently been argued that the model no longer quite fits, perhaps Narcissus is a better myth for this historic moment. Though | am doing my best to escape it, the oedipal trian- gle seems to have it’s hooks in my personal genealogy. My father did indeed give me quite literally his gift of language. (His old underwood typewriter and the Oxford twenty-four volume dictionary are some of the relics | inherited.) To identi- fy with my own mother, would indeed have meant self- destruction. Dying by inches, addicted to prescription drugs, she has been waging a war against her own body. Yet to realize her alignment in this social/historical/psychological con- figuration is to see the myth for the tragedy that it is. Neither a failure nor a prophesy. Feminist psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin uses object rela- tions theory to revisit the Oedipal triangle. Asking why the mother appears only as a feared archaic figure which the father must defeat, (Benjamin, 1988) she asserts that the Oedipal model equals irreconcilable differences resulting in cast off femininity. She then turns to the debate on Narcissus and points out that Freud’s configuration left out, among other things, the possibility of the narcissistic pleasure possible in the separation process, not just for boys but also for girls. That missing potentiality, combined with the constantly pejo- rative view of “primary narcissism” as a state associated with the mother, and one which we should at all costs avoid sinking into, leads her to conclude that “the deep source of discontent in our culture is not Neither psychoanalysis nor the goddess have answered questions about daughters and their mothers. repression, or in the new fashion, narcissism, but gender polar- ity.” (Benjamin, 1988) The goal, in her view, is to balance sep- aration from parents with the ability to form adult attachments. Jo Anna Issak, curator of the exhibition “Laughter, Ten Years After,” also revisits Freud’s notion of primary narcissism. Hers is a reclaiming in the manner of “jouissance,” narcissism as a source of pleasure and power for women. Laughter becomes a political strategy. Certainly the questions not yet answered by psychoanalysis, or by the goddess, are the rela- tionships of mothers and daughters, their dance of individua- tion and attachment. And female desire cannot be contained only in the notion of repressed sexuality. Not when the goddess has been seen as brainless since antiquity. What if she had wanted a career? Does identification with the goddess signify body alone? Does the goddess have a brain? Silverthorne and Sj66 present two alternative feminist views of the goddess. Sj66 celebrates the body of women equating it with divinity and creation, Silverthorne presents her as a grotesque brainless joke. In de Boer’s techno-doll version she is just out there in space, a re- notalgiaized artifact; antiquity meets 1950’s space age and somehow transcends any involvement with the woman ques- tion. Pinned to the wall like a butterfly she does not even contain the “articulated” possibilities of his other toys, the armour made for mice and cats. Guns, bums, puns, boys, toys, nostalgia. Gazing at Gaia The boys with their toys managed to conflate venus and mars. This time the dance takes a cosmic turn. Freed for now from triangles, oedipal and otherwise, | now turn my gaze upon an oblate spheroid. Stepping outside the logic of linear- ity, science took a look at the whole earth. Like the goddess herself, the view of gaia is brought to us by technologies of visualization. Photographs taken from spaceships. Like Haraway’s cyborg, gaia is the bastard child of the military industrial complex. (Haraway, 1995) Rather exultantly James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory writes: Ancient belief and modern knowl edge have fused emotionally in the awe with which astronauts with their own eyes and we by television have seen. The Earth revealed in all its shining beauty against the deep darkness of space. (Lovelock, 1979) During the 1960’s independent scientist Lovelock was part of NASA’s Voyageur program which was seeking a way to detect whether or not there was life on Mars. His insight was that the atmosphere around the planet would be the best indicator as to whether or not life was possible. His explo- ration continued long after the Martian mission was canned, evolving into the Gaia theory, which describes the earth as a complex entity including the biosphere, oceans and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life in this planet. The end result is best described as homeostasis. Our experiments confirmed the theory and at the same time con- vinced us that the composition of the earth’s atmosphere was so curious and incompatible a mixture that it could not have possibly have arisen or persisted by chance. Almost everything about it seemed to violate the rules of equilibrium chemistry, yet amidst apparent disorder relatively constant and favourable conditions for life were somehow maintained. (Lovelock, 1979) Enter entropy into this dance. Entropy is the ever present drive towards disorder, universal dissolution. In Lovelock’s equation signs of the reduction of entropy indicate life. It is the global prevalence of entropy defying disequilibria which tips the balance of life over non-life, and keeps constant a highly improbable distribution of molecules. In cybernetic systems homeostasis is maintained not by grand design, but by trial and error. A non-linear self-regulating system of feedback loops. It is maintained by constant movement, there are no still moments in evolution. Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis was first put forward by Katherine Dodds in 1969 at a scientific meeting about the origins of life on earth. Science and Ontology meet in determining that great question — what is life? So is it science - or is it religion? - Lovelock keeps a slightly agnostic distance to the religious overtones of Gaia which weren't part of first edition of his first book. But in the preface to the 1995 edition he does broach the subject. “The idea of Mother Earth or, as the Greeks called her, Gaia, has been widely held throughout history and has been the basis of a belief that coexists with the great reli- gions. (Lovelock, 1995) And in his second book he includes a chapter entitled “God and Gaia.” (Lovelock, 1988) Whether or not the dance is sacred or profane (ritual or mental aerobics) is confused at this point. Since Lovelocks’ popularized scientific theory was first published in 1979, versions of gaia as philosophy has permeated both the goddess movement and the ecology movement. It lent scien- tific absolution to an older notion. Interconnection. As professor of the psy- chology of religion, Naomi Goldenberg puts it: The ancient pagan percep- tion that human life is part of larger web of life which includes all of nature. Like the ecology movement, theology sees human life in the dynamic planetary context which is deter- mined by the state of the water, the soil and the air. The entire earth is concep- tualized as the body of the Goddess and thus is sacred. No part of the ecosystem is separate from her, and thus no part of the material world is considered secular or profane. (Goldenberg, 1990) But the signifiers of the goddess movement are spirals and circles, ancient order, blessed “be,” not the trial and error of the anti-entropic cybernetic loops of the gaia system. The notion of constant motion continues its dance in my brain. Venus of Lespugue (back view) Ecofeminism — Trouble in the Garden It’s about time to leave this stuffy room, head to the wide open spaces where the wild things are. | will dance quickly through the ecofeminists camp. For certain situated versions of reality — time is running out. The viewpoints espoused under the banner of ecofeminism are as wide as and as con- tested as the those within the wider discourses of feminism. Ecofeminism is one feminist struggle amongst many. It has par- ticular poignancy in this discussion, as it is a fight over tech- nology, embodiment and politics. It is the worksite for a specific brand of feminist materialism. As Tzeporah Berman puts it: Ecofeminism reinforces a deep and very personal understanding of the connection between oppression of women and nature in patriarchal society. Although the term ecofeminism has been used in many ways,its basis is an understanding of the interconnected and mutually reinforcing subjugation of women and the domina- tion of nature. However, the description and explanation for these phenomena, as well as the prescription for change vary consider- ably. Liberal, socialist and radical feminism. all contribute to an ecofeminist perspective and policy. (Berman, 1993) continued on next page... Rubber sculpture (Untitled, 1989) by Jeanne Silverthorne March 1997 / Planet of the Arts 47 techno-tolls Sinks down onto her rubber wheeled dollyipedestal) This piece humorously critiques what some feminists have seen as ‘the essentiaizing semiotic of the mother goddess. The primal (possibly pre-cedipalipre-language) mother has no brain and ‘no voice For siverthorne, “wits the place where the anarchic wit in its relationship to the unconscious ~ and the elegant ‘meet." (Silverthorne, 1995) Silverthore’s carivalesque venus is ready for the freak-show equipped to be wheeled from ‘town t0 town. This venus moves and laughs, but wounded. Feeling a litte tied from the mental exertions of this dance, how about a litle lie down on Freud's couch? itis ‘worth noting that the main man himself hada bit of a ‘goddess fetish, collecting these objets 'arts from antiquity to ‘decorate his office. On the infamous couch was thrown 3 blanket covered with ancient birth symbols. (Ransohot, 1976) ‘And if I were to gaze upwards whilst reclined ~ what before my wandering eyes should appear ~ but a reproduction of ol” ‘St: Oedipus himself {A fearful symmetry is imbricated in the oedipal triangle. 's the patriarchy a violent reversal of an original peaceful ‘matiarchy? The idea that behind male dominance lies the reality of a matemal omnipotence is prefigured by Freud's Femark thatthe early attachment to the mother is ike discov- ‘ering "the Minoan-Nycenaean civilization behind the civliza- ton of Greece.(Freud, 1931) This cult of origins is an enduring, alluring illusion. A nos ‘aga for the same sort of symmetry we saw in Eden. (Women beware, we know how evil that myth made us) This time the ‘way the notion of symmetry is justified, is because, once upon 23 time, (unproveable) there was a matriarchy, which became 2 patriarchy, an equal and opposite reaction. The emphasis on riginal symmetry is the origin of gender polarity. A more accurate equation would be the infinitely dvsble vanishing point of reference. ‘In the oedipal model the mother has no subjectivity. ‘Therefore to identify with her i to dissolve one's identity Mother is the body, material and object, and the father is the path t0 individuation and sub- Jectivity. The oedipal dance of taboo and repression was Centred around the "mommy, ‘daddy, me” of the family unit, inherently heterosexual and arguably capitalist. While Freud Centralized the Oedipal myth as the cornerstone of psychoanaly sis, it has more recently been argued that the model no longer quite fits, perhaps Narcissus isa better myth for this historic moment. ‘Though | am doing my best to escape it, the oedipal trian- gle seems to have it’s hooks in my personal genealogy. My father did indeed give me quite literally his gift of language. (His old underwood typewriter and the Oxford twenty-four volume dictionary ae some ofthe relic | inherited) To enti 'y with my own mother, would indeed have meant selt destruction. Dying by inches, addicted to prescription drugs, she has been waging a war against her own body. Yet to realize her alignment inthis socalhistorcaipsychological con- figuration isto see the myth for the tragedy that itis. Neither a failure nor a prophesy. Feminist psychoanalyst Jesica Benjamin uses object rela- tions theory t0 revit the Oedipal triangle. Asking why the mother appears only as a feared archaic figure which the father must defeat, (Benjamin, 1988) she asserts that the Oedipal model equals irreconcilable differences resulting in cast off femininity. She then turns to the debate on Narcisus land points out that Freud's configuration left out, among ‘other things, the possibilty ofthe narcsstic pleasure possible In the separation process, not just for boys but also for girs That missing potentiality, combined withthe constantly pejo- ‘ative view of "primary narcsism” as a state associated with the mother, and one which we should at all costs avoid sinking into, leads her to conclude that "the deep source of discontent in our culture is not Neither psychoanalysis nor the goddess have answered questions about daughters and their mothers. repression, or in the new fashion, narcissm, but gender polar- fgg” Benjamin, 1988) The goal in her view, isto balance sep- aration from parents with the ability to form adult attachments. Jo Anna sak, curator of the exhibition “Laughter, Ten ‘Years After,” alo revisits Freud's notion of primary narcsism Hers i reclaiming in the manner of "joussance.” narcissism a5 a source of pleasure and power for women. Laughter becomes a politcal strategy. Certainly the questions not yet. ‘answered by psychoanalysis or by the goddess, are the rela: tionships of mothers and daughters, their dance of indvidua- tion and attachment. And female desire cannot be contained only in the notion of repressed sexuality. Not when the ‘goddess has been seen as brainless since antiquity. What ifshe Radwanted a career? Does identification with the goddess signify body alone? Does the goddess have a brain? silverthorne and 588 present two alternative feminist views of the goddess. 5100 celebrates. the body of women equating it with divinity and creation, Silverthorne presents her as a grotesque brainless joke. In de Boers techno-doll version she is just out there in space, a re otalgiaized artifact: antiquity meets 19505 space age and Somehow transcends any involvernent with the woman ques: tion. Pinned to the wall like a butterfly she does not even Contain the “articulated” possibilities of his other toys, the ‘rmour made for mice and ats ‘Guns, bums, puns, boys, toys, nostalgia Gazing at Gaia ‘The boys with their toys managed to conflate venus and mars. This time the dance takes 9 cosmic turn. Freed for now. from triangles, oedipal and otherwise, | now turn my gaze ‘upon an oblate spheroid. Stepping outside the logic of linear. iy, science took a look at the whole earth. Like the goddess herself, the view of gala i brought to us by technologies of visualization. Photographs taken from spaceships. Like Haraway’s ‘cyborg, gaia is the bastard child of the military industrial complex. Haraway, 1995) Rather exultantly James Lovelock, originator of the Gala theory writes: ‘dye hve fed emotion nthe ‘mej and we by teewson have During the 1960's independent scientist Lovelock was part fof NASAS Voyageur program which was seeking 2 way to Setect whether or not there was life on Mars. His insight a5 that the atmosphere around the planet would be the best indicator as to whether of not life was possible. His explo: fation continued long after the Martian mission was cannes, evolving into the Gaia theory, which describes the earth as 3 Complex entity including the biosphere, oceans and soil: the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for fein this planet. The end result is best described as homeostasis ‘ced stat the composton of he ents soaps wos so “iron nd icompable a matre Hott cod not ne post fave tan o® persed by chance Almost eying stot “comed to welte the nt ofequltaom cht, ye act “Sppaent order ately constant ad noua condor fo Me were somehow mantaned (ove 1979) Enter entropy into this dance. Entropy is the ever present rive towards disorder, universal dissolution. In Lovelock’ tequation signs of the reduction of entropy indicate life. ti the global prevalence of entropy defying disequilibria which tips the balance of life over norte, and Keeps constant 3 highly improbable distribution of molecules. in cybernetic systems homeostasis is maintained not by grand design, but by {al and eror. A nonlinear self-regulating system of feedback loops. is maintained by constant movement, there are no still moments in evolution. Lovelock’s Gala hypothesis was frst put forward by Katherine Dodds Jn 1969 at a scientific meeting about the origins of life on ‘earth, Science and Ontology meet in determining that great ‘question - what is le? So i ft science ~ of fit religion? Lovelock Keeps a slightly agnostic distance to the religious ‘overtones of Gaia which werent part of frst edition of his fist book. But in the preface to the 1995 edition he does broach the subject. “The idea of Mother Earth o, asthe Greeks called her Gaia, has been widely held throughout history and has been the basis of a belief that coexists with the great reli- ions. (Lovelock, 1985) And in his second book he includes a ‘Chapter entitled "God and Gaia.” (Lovelock, 1988) ‘Whether of not the dance is sacred or profane (ritual or ‘mental aerobic) is confused at this point. Since Lovelock opularized scientific theory wat first published in 1973, versions of gala as Philosophy has permeated both the goddess movement and the ‘ecology movernent. tent scien- ‘fie absolution to an older hotion. Interconnection, ‘AS professor of the psy- chology of religion, Naomi Goldenberg puts it: The ance pagan percep ‘on hat human ie pat ager web of He whch does a of ate” the the ecology, movement, {hesagy sees Maman He the dynamic planetary Contest which fs deter. tne by the sate of the Wate, te ol and the The enue eth concep ‘usta the boy of he ‘oes st er No part of the ecosystem Sepa om he, ads ro tof he tel weds 1 Neonates eco 0 profane (Galdenberg. 1990) But the signifiers of the ‘goddess movement are spirals ‘nd cicls, ancient order, biessed “be,” not the tral and error of the anti-entropie cybernetic loops of the ‘gala system. The notion of constant ‘motion continues its dance in my brain, Ecofeminism — Trouble in the Garden It’s about time to leave ths stuffy room, head to the wide ‘open spaces where the wild things are. twill dance quickly through the ecofeminists camp. For certain situated versions of realty ~ time is running out. The viewpoints espoused Under the banner of ecofeminism are as wide as and as con tested asthe those within the wider discourses of feminism, Ecofeminism is one feminist struggle amongst many. I has par- ticular poignancy inthis discussion, as it isa fight over tech nology, embodiment and politics. It is the worksite for a Specific brand of feminist materialism. As Tzeporah Berman, ats it: oferinsm refrces 2 deep and very personal understanding OF he conection between oppresion of women ad nature frercalsocety. Although he tem coemnc hasbeen ed In many ways bass san undestande of he tected Ss mutt renerc siopaien of weren athe dean fen frat Nowe th detonation fe these Fheorera 5 wel a the prescipton fr change vay conser Sob eral, Sct an ade ema a corte to 30 tcclerntpanpectne and pos. (Berman 1933). uber sete (nee, 199) ‘leone Siverinrne