So, what does that have to do with anything?

A few weeks ago, I was talking about how the envisioned scenario for the piece involves a kind of disembodied mythologies. When I talk about that, I am trying to work with a destabilized version of Barthes' construction of the myth. Anna and I have compiled a list of seminal moments in lives: nervous breakdowns, dying in somebody's arms, giving birth, etc... These moments are deemed those which can reveal the essence of our lives, and maybe contain the hidden pathos or meaning of it all. They form the mythology of a life cycle (hence their popularity in hollywood movies).

What Anna and I are trying to do is destabilize the mythology by removing the building blocks of the form. If the myth cannot exist without functioning signifiers and singificants at the base (those at the very top of the diagram), the myth no longer functions, and must be re-examined or re-negotiated.

Why do these myths need to be re-examined?

Well, I think my interest in re-examining our mythologies of the sequence of a life is largely based on where I am in my own. As an aspiring artist, the peaks and valleys of my career seem to be already choreographed, and it is my role to fulfill them or not.  What success is for me seems to be pre-conceived rather than based on my specific vantage point. What one is supposed to do after graduating university is similarly choreographed. Obviously, I am supposed to graduate, join a prestigious company and tour the world doing great dance works, impressing dance audiences everywhere with my understated virtuosity and captivating presence. But what does that have to do with me?

I'd like to refer back to the Godard quote: "Everything has been said provided words do not change their meanings and meanings their words." This relates to Barthes' understanding of mythology. We have such a comprehensive system of symbols, that when I write the word "rose" it means so much more than what is actually there. Similarly, when I write "success" or "failure" there is so much in our collective mythology that prescribes what that is. In that sense, everything has been said, and there is no room for self-determination, or for saying something new or individual. The world portrayed in Alphaville is truly that. Thus, in order to determine our own, specific path and leave the world of mythologies, we must destabilize our collective mythology. 

But how does one de-stabilize a myth? That's where it gets hard.

My proposed system is the following: let's say we have an image of a dying man in a woman's arms. The signifier of observed death is combined with the signified to create a myth that means injustice/martyrdom/the like. When this image is juxtaposed against a tableau that confounds the premise of the first the myth is somehow rendered invalid. If we juxtapose the 'dying in arms' image with a subsequent image that could be as inert as the same pair waiting for something together, the first mythological image is rendered invalid. The man is no longer a martyr because he's not really dead, the woman is no longer tragic because she hasn't really lost anything. The sign/signifier (in the middle of the diagram) is knocked out and, hopefully, we are left to reexamine what it is to experience and witness these important moments in life. Perhaps the juxtaposition can lure us away from our knee-jerk understanding of obligatory emotions and acceptable reactions and bring us towards an interest in the specific peculiarities of any given situation or relationship.

We claim to have some understanding of the moral of the story in the seminal moments of our lives(i.e., death=sad, wedding=happy), but perhaps by questioning the signage supporting the mythology, i can convince a person or two to re-examine what it is to be with somebody else or even just to witness somebody else. Or even convince myself.