A NEW PERFORMANCE BY DAVID VINCENT: L'ANGUILLE
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February, 23 2003
The situation: As I was reading the text of a piece by the
artist
Douglas Gordon, "Past, Future, Present", I misread part of it
and drew interesting conclusions.
The artist: I, David Vincent, have the right to steal, modify and destroy
pieces without the author's consent. I can create new pieces by crossing two
distinct artworks. I can create new artists by interbreeding one with another.
The performance: The text by Douglas Gordon is as follows:
"In 1905 an experiment was performed in France when a doctor tried to communicate
with a condemned man's severed head immediately after a guillotine execution.
"Immediately
after the decapitation, the condemned man's eyelids and lips contracted for
5 or 6 seconds. I waited a few seconds and the contractions ceased, the face
relaxed, the eyelids closed halfway over the eyeballs so that only the whites
of the eyes were visible, exactly like dying of newly deceased people.
At that moment
I shouted "Languille" in a loud voice, and I saw that his eyes opened slowly
without twitching, the movements were distinct and clear, the look was not
dull and empty, the eyes which were fully alive were indisputably looking
at me. After a few seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and steadily.
I addressed
him again. Once more, the eyelids were raised slowly, without contractions,
and two undoubtedly alive eyes looked at me attentively with an expression
even more piercing than the first time. Then the eyes shut once again. I made
a third attempt. No reaction. The whole episode lasted between 25 and 30 seconds."
...on average,
it should take 25 and 30 seconds to read the above text..."
Instead of reading "At that moment I shouted "Languille" in a loud voice", I
actually read "At that moment
he shouted
"Languille" in a loud voice". It didn't occured to me that somebody having his
head cut off, even though he would still be living for a few seconds, wouldn't
be able to emit one single sound because his vocal chords would have been cut
as well.
Then I started wondering why a dying condemned man's last word would be "Languille".
First I thought that there was probably a misspelling in the text : it should
have been "L'anguille". The apostrophe would have been forgotten when the text
had been translated from french to english! "anguille" is the french word for
"eel".
I could think of two reasons why this guy shouted "L'anguille". Here is the
first one : as he was dying, the materiality of words was becoming more pregnant,
and "anguille" sounds a bit like "guillotine". So in a way, "anguillotine" was
not illogical in this context. This argument seemed very convincing to me. But
an other factor came to my mind : "anguille" is an animal which is not unrelated
to the concept of cutting. There is a very famous dish, called "Lamproie à la
Bordelaise". It's even more delectable, scarce and expensive than "truffles"
or "foie gras". I had some once and the eel ("Lamproie" is an eel) was cut into
several alike pieces.
Then, I don't know why, I looked into Google for "How to kill an eel", and what
I found was amazing. First I ran on a very bad but enlightening joke. It's a
bit long but it's worth reading :
HOW TO KILL AN EEL (a true story)
Little Johnny
was 7 years old, and like other boys his age, rather curious. He had been
hearing quite a bit about courting from other boys and he wondered what it
was and how it was done. One day he took his questions to his mother, and
she became flustered. Instead of explaining things to Johnny she told him
to hide behind the curtain one night and watch his older sister and her boyfriend.
This he did, and the following morning Johnny described everything to his
mother.
Sis and her
boyfriend sat and talked for awhile, then he turned off most of the lights.
Then he started to kiss and hug her, I figured sis must be getting sick because
her face started looking funny. He must have thought so too because he put
his hand inside her blouse to feel her heart, just like the doctor would.
Except he's not as good as the doctor, because he seemed to have trouble finding
her heart.
He was getting
sick too, because pretty soon both of them started panting and getting all
out of breath. His other hand must have been getting cold because he put it
under her skirt. About this time, sis got toward the end of the couch. This
was when the fever started. I know it was a fever because sis told him that
she was really HOT.
Finally, I
found out what was making them so sick.... a big eel had gotten inside his
pants somehow. It just jumped out of his pants and stood there about 9 inches
long. HONEST! Anyway, he grabbed it in one hand to keep it from getting away.
When sis saw it she got really scared. Her eyes got big and her mouth fell
open, and she started calling out to God and stuff like that. I should tell
her about the ones I saw at the lake!
"Anyway,"
sis got brave and tried to kill the eel by biting its head off. All of a sudden,
she made a noise and let the eel go... I guess it bit her back. Then she grabbed
it with both hands and held it tight while he took a muzzle out of his pocket
and slipped it over the eel's head to keep it from biting again.
Sis lay back
and spread her legs so she could get a scissor lock on it. And he helped by
laying on top of the eel. The eel put up a hell of a fight. Sis started groaning
and squealing and her boyfriend almost upset the couch. I guess they wanted
to kill the eel by squishing it between them.
After a while
they both quit moving and gave a great sigh. Her boyfriend sat up and sure
enough they had killed the eel... I knew it was dead because it just hung
there limp and some of its insides were hanging out. Sis and her boyfriend
were a little tired from the battle, but they went on courting anyway. He
started hugging and kissing her again. And by golly, the eel wasn't dead after
all. It jumped straight up and started to fight again. I guess eels are like
cats.... they have nine lives or something.
This time
sis jumped up and tried to kill the eel by sitting on it. After about 35 minutes
of struggle, they finally killed the eel. I know it was dead this time because
I saw sis's boyfriend peel off the skin and flush it down the toilet.
Mother fainted.
Next, I discovered an other text, explaining the real method on how to kill
an eel. It says : "To kill an eel you shouldn't hit it near the head, but
near the tail". At that point, I was really convinced that I was on something
very big, about death, ecstasy and words. But then I went back to the text
by Douglas Gordon and I realized my mistake. "Languille" was probably the
name of the condemned man!
Conclusion: You know, as mathematicians say, when the premices
are wrong ....
Anglais
-> Français
Anglais
-> Français -> Anglais
Anglais
-> Français -> Anglais -> Français
etc.