Don Maynard
The CAFKA website describes Maynard’s piece as being reflective of “those moments in life when things are full of light and filled with possibilities – moments when gravity is an option and not necessarily a given.”While the buoyancy of the house does indeed recall moments of joy and exuberance, the tethers also serve to reminds us of the reality of our situation. We would like to align the tethers of “Maintaining Gravity”, with the tethers of our material existence – as creatures, and as political subjects. While we may feel as if our selves can extend into different realms, the material reality of our bodies remains. At this point we are reminded of W.B. Yeats’ poem “Sailing to Byzantium” . As the speaker moves towards death, he recognizes the constructedness of his ideas of death and immortality and also the creaturlieness of himself. The speaker tells us that he is “fastened to a dying animal”. The speaker exists in both an animal and symbolic life.
Relating these ideas back to Becker, the situation of Maynard’s piece recalls our own situation in regards to our conceptions of our own mortality. The tension between public and private space, which is built into the installation, is analogous to our own approaches to moments where we experience the sublime or transcendent. While we can recognize both our creaturlieness and our symbolic existences, we have difficulty reconciling the two. Becker claims that much of what we do in culture then, serves to repress the animality and finitude of our existence. In order to truly understand our existence, Becker encourages us to follow Kierkegaard’s logic which leads up to a leap of faith. Becker tells us that this process is filled with dread as we recognize that our ‘hero systems’ or our ‘armour of character’ are merely balms which disguise the fundamental truths of our existence.
Becker then beckons us to examine our own finitude and creaturlieness. We are asked to examine our most important values and therefore transgress or undermine their very existence. It is this transgression which we then wanted to apply to Maynard’s installation. We hope to have engaged with the piece in a critical and subversive way, by violating its public and private values.
