Estructura interna del proceso

A French thinker and cultural theorist of the twentieth century Bataille occupied a position outside academic philosophy and received no formal training. This allowed him a freedom to cover diverse topics outside the constraints of any one discipline.5 The history of art, the importance of sacrifice, eroticism and death were key areas of study for Bataille, who was greatly influenced by anthropological theory. Bataille’s central discourse investigates the extremes of human existence and the margins of socially acceptable behaviour. “Freedom is nothing”, Bataille states, “if it is not the freedom to live at the edge of limits where all comprehension breaks down”.6 The experience of life on the margins explores transgression. It is this perspective which informs Bataille’s understanding of art and the subversive image. Subversive images are overwhelming for the viewer, inducing rapture and a distancing from the “banal representations” of the ordinary.7 Erotica represents a strain of subversive imagery, and its function is to try and break the taboo of experiencing death and eroticism. For Bataille, the impulse to transgress through the image is used in an attempt to break the taboo. The taboo is not broken, however, just suppressed.8

In essence, the erotic is a violent transgression of a taboo, the taboo that makes images of sexual violence intolerable.9 As a cultural theorist (and categorised as post-structuralist), the tendencies of Bataille to universalise transgression and taboo is in marked contrast to the structuralist Classical historians of the 1970s, such as Vernant. In his introduction to Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, Vernant goes to lengths to emphasise that Greeks are both like and unlike us; “The Greeks are distant enough for us to be able to study them as an external subject …. and yet they are sufficiently close for us to be able to communicate with them without too much

4

Bataille (2006) 50, much of this discussion has been greatly influenced by Bataille's study into sex and taboo.

5 _{For a brief summary of Bataille and his themes, see Poster (2000) 77. For a detailed assessment of his life}

and works, see Surya (2002).

6 _{Bataille The Impossible 40, for translation see Noys (2000) 10.} 7

Noys (2000) 20, Bataille Encyclopaedia Acephalica.

8

Bataille (2006) 36.

9

difficulty”.10 This perspective is grounded in a particular concept of the Greeks as something knowable to us. Indeed, in Foucault’s three part exploration of sexuality, he conceives of the body as “totally imprinted by history”, meaning that the body is a thing subject to change and experienced through social constructions.11 Bataille has no time for any historical attitudes. His approach is a generalised and radical one, based upon a concept of human nature and the role of art in human life. He is concerned with experience; the experience of the subversive image as an attempt at transgression. It is from this experienced based perspective that Bataille is useful to think with. Throughout this entire study the focus has been upon experience; how was the vase experienced within specific relational contexts? What aspects of the vase determined experience? What is the viewing experience of images which informed the viewer’s identity? And here, what is the experience of images which attempt to engage with, but cannot pass beyond the impulse to transgress? Let us turn to a brief exploration of transgression and taboo, using Bataille’s emphasis upon the violence inherent in eroticism.

To experience visual erotica as both an artist and viewer is to enjoy the pretence of wilfully ignoring the universal taboo against sexual liberty and violence. According to Bataille, transgression is a violent attempt at breaking a sexual taboo. Violence is beyond language and beyond representation; however the ability to experience violence is an essential freedom but impossible. The erotica discussed here encounters the taboo against sex and violence, but falls short of transgression, as such imagery relates to socially acceptable desire. The experience of this type of erotica allows the transgressive urge to be kept at a safe distance. The artist and viewer are too passive to transgress, encouraged to desire through social expectations. At its core, the universal taboo, defined by Bataille, is a social law induced by fear of behaviour that is detrimental to work and economic stability, common to all humanity. The taboo is universal – but the prohibitions vary in each society. Transgression is an extreme state which conflicts with the functioning of society, and therefore has to emerge outside social values. To transgress the taboo is to acknowledge it as law, violate it, and then, in the words of Bataille; “trespass into a forbidden field of behaviour”.12 This makes true freedom possible. Permission to transgress – a contradiction in itself - is experienced during times of feasts and festivals that celebrate transgressive behaviour, whilst simultaneously

10 _{Vernant (2006) 14.}

11 _{Foucault (1986a) 83, see also Foucault (1978) and (1985) in particular for sexuality in the ancient world. In}

direct opposition to Foucault’s analysis, see Davidson (2008).

12

experiencing terror and fascination in the knowledge of their violation. Yet, this too is socially constrained. The images examined here are pornography, not the representation of transgression. This means that they appear on the cusp of transgression, combining violence and sexual liberty, but their popularity and mass circulation suggests the use of a conventional language of desire.

Pornography is driven by popularisation and the mass market in democratic society.13 It is not a representation of sexuality, but a practice of representation. In the words of Kappeler; “Pornography is not a special case of sexuality; it is a form of representation”.14 Pornography does not reflect sexual practices, but a commercially viable concept of culture. There is no reality here, just the influence of the dominant ideology of desire; in our case, the desire of an Athenian male citizen. Images and themes changed as a representational practice, which did not coincide with actual changes to sexual practice.

What does this mean for the experience of the erotic vase painting? The surface of the vase produces an ideal venue for the representational practice of erotica. First of all, as stated above, the vase was the most mass produced object intended for use within private relational contexts, such as the home and gifts at shrines and graves. Although outside the realm of public art in the sense of official control of its content, the surface of the vase permitted a relative freedom to explore. However challenging an erotic image may appear, the imagination of artist and viewer are still constrained by the social conventions of desire. This is not Bataille’s idea of freedom. The physicality of the vase did offer something of a contradiction when decorated with erotic imagery; the vase was essentially useful, whereas the image is for pure entertainment and pleasure. This mixture of purpose and pleasure in one object creates a tension, and out from this tension the experience of the painted vase as both arises. The viewer experiences two forms of representation; the abstraction of the female figure as an erotic object, and the abstraction of the male figure as a personification of the phallus. Returning to the relational context, the experience of the erotic vase painting is generally assumed to have been in the symposium.15 This context, like the feasts and festivals referred to Bataille, permitted sexual exploration. And yet, this experience stops short of transgression, as the viewer’s desire is limited to conventional sexual urges. This is not to suggest that unconventional sexual acts did not occur, but that they were not part of the representational

13 _{Hunt (1993) 11-13, 24.} 14 _{Kappeler (1986) 2.} 15

For an example of the effect on this context on interpretation, see Lissarrague (1990) in particular. Stewart (1997)156, suggests that erotica is influenced by the sympotica discourse.

practice. It is what the viewer is not shown that occupies the margins.

Transgression of taboo is by its nature beyond the boundaries of representation and language. It can never form a social part of an identity, and it can never be framed by society. Therefore, transgression has to occur in an open-ended space; somewhere beyond context and without social order. It is something uncertain, ambiguous, hidden and un-representable. The erotica considered here can be put into two catagories; explicit and implicit erotica. Explicit erotica which represents the fulfilment and gratification of conventional desire is pornographic in nature, either encouraging imitation or absolving sexual urges.16 Implicit erotica refers to the un- representable; something which occurs in a space without context, and leaves the viewer wondering what will be the outcome. As discussion progresses from explicit erotica to implicit, we shift towards freedom that Bataille bestows to make transgression possible, but the viewer is not permitted to know the outcome.