21
Nov
2015
1

deconstructing a few academic defense mechanisms and distorted thinking with a gender bent and my bum on a donald judd artwork (wink)

the following is an account of my own humorous and dysfunctional defense mechanisms (rational) that help me hold myself together in the face of the threatening challenge of scholarly writing.

here is how it sounds in my head as a sort of fearless moral inventory:

I begin with admitting i am powerless and that generally speaking everything i read coalesces around in my nogging intertwining with my own perceptions, experiences and beliefs and becomes my own. I would like to sign my thinking like duchamp’s urinal and call it art and myself its author. but roland says the author, me, is dead and the patriarchical practice of scholarship demands an authoritative stance beyond the self as a primary source. scholarship requires that i admit to a higher power! sigh. alas, my mind mushing and melding makes source citing a bitch worth slapping.

fortunately i exist in in the age of cyber and hard drive searchability. so i hunt within my harddrive and cloud archive of collected research articles and books with particular terms and turns of phrases. this helps me locate the most probable source(s) of my hybridized ideations in order to generate citations (a list of those i would do harm to if i rewrap their thinking  as my own).

damn roland barthe for killing me as my own primary source.

this citational sourcing to establish authorative ground and a historical context from which to speak calls to mind my childhood. specifically those argumentative instances on the playground when my own authority was refuted requiring me to support my claim via an outside source—which happened to be “because my dad says so!!!” which wastypically  followed by an internal emotional tongue extension and waggle. and at other times, if provoked, a further claim that “my dad is smarter than your dad and can kick your dad’s ass!”

scholarly writing with all the freaking citations and distancing the self as primary source is very, very useful but none the less i sense it as a highly patriarchal system of hierarchical pecking order.

damn euro-white-man-academic-centric scholarship for killing me as my own primary source.

damn feminist artists for not dethroning academic scholarship in the name of “the personal is political (powerful).”

sigh. only two more papers to finish writing in which i need to cite myself right off flat white stage.

and by the way my dad with graduate degrees from MIT, my grandfather who was inducted into nuclear hall of fame for his seminal work at the university of chicago and textbooks on physics and radio electronics, my great grand father who introduced novacane to US dentistry, plus both my brother’s who have “real” (nonart) jobs can kick your dad and brothers’ butts! good thing i have familial men in my life to shore up my feeble female social position and artist to boot. frankly i am a pretty damn good artist, for a girl. (Wink)

PS this is humoruous uncovering of the silly defense mechanisms and thinking that bounce around in my head when i “feel” academically challeneged. I do understand that thinking and feeling are just what they are—thinking and feelings. these do not necessarily translate as “fact”.  and i rely on the familial men in my life to shore up my feeble female social position and status as artist to boot. frankly i am pretty damn good artist, for a girl, and only mildly academically challenged. (Wink)

BIG FAT INTERNAL GRIN AT MY OWN MENTAL HABITS!

IMAGE: me documenting my the silly joy i derived by sitting my bum on top of a honest to god donald judd artwork (with permission) while fewing the well hung work of agnes martin. November 2015.

Sometimes my own defense mechanisms keep me quite entertained and so i must “humbly ask god to remove my shortcomings.”

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