Cindy Sherman - Fugitive

Cindy Sherman - Fugitive

by J.E. D'Ulisse  2010

Madame Bovary, c'est moi - Flaubert

Beneath Via di Porta Cavalleggeri, a pigeon is trapped within the underpass. The bird dashes back and forth, its feet on the ground, dodging the lot of frantic Nuns, Chinese tourists, boy scouts and Brazilian transsexuals, all of whom are desperate to emerge on Piazza San Pietro. The pigeon, just desperate to emerge,  glimpses an opening from the corner of its eye, and launches into the air with a burst of feathers and flies out the other end at Via delle Fornarci. 

With Michelangelo's dome illuminated with a bright white light behind him, that light emanating and permeating the surroundings, the pigeon shat on the head of Gogol Swinecock. The shit bounced like a grey ball on Gogol's head, forming a bead in the air, and bounced on his hair once again. Gogol did not notice, desperately protecting his vodka and crackers from a similar fate, as the excrement rolled down his thick black velvety mane of manicured, coated and well conditioned hair. Gogol put more money into his hair than most people put in their vacation homes, which made sense because he had to live with his hair every day. He didn't take the train out to his hair on the weekends. He didn't let his hair out in the busy months to affluent tourists, but perhaps he should, it was very nice hair. 

He smiled exposing his sparkle fresh teeth and illuminating the 19th century Palazzo across the street from where he sat, with the reflection of the noon day sun. A Filipino nanny closed the shutters trying to block out the light which had awakened a baby within the room as glint from his teeth caused a motorcycle to swerve and hit a Polish tour group. It was a calm Wednesday. Gogol sat across from the scene at Bar Eva at a table outside.

Jack Ulysses took his black flat cap off his bald head and took a seat next to him and poured himself a glass of mineral water from Gogol's bottle and took a firm slice of lemon from Gogol's plate. Jack looked at Gogol, lifted his glass and said: 

-You're paying for this right?

Gogol groaned, turned his eyes skyward, and let the air out between the rays of sunlight coming off his illuminated teeth said: 

-I am a very important man, a man of the moment, no a man of many moments not just this one. I have a lot of moments to come.  Did you know in New York I live in the same building as Guns'n'Roses' original drummer? It happens to be in a former slum, the kind of place people used to die of tuberculous in, the kind of place people die to be in today, in fact the real estate agent was sure someone died there. In my very apartment!  And I own that place. Very historic, very hip. 

-So you are paying for this, said Jack

-You're mad, pay for your own water; responded Gogol.

-If you pay for this water, a plate of olives and a glass of wine, I'll tell you about what I am working on.

-That's five euro, better be worth it. 

-Did you see the Cindy Sherman show?

-No how was it?

Jack loosened his tie and pinched an olive black. 

-You walk into post office and you see a wanted sign, you look on the back of a milk carton and you see a missing person sign, and you look through the work of Cindy Sherman... what do you see? With the other three photos we are seeing a document, a reference of identity, an evidence that this person was. Be they a fugitive, a victim, or the disappeared, they are all references to what has been lost or hidden, leaving us with a reference image, which reproduces what she looks like. These announcements (which is what they are) could be thought of as the signet impression of a social contract wherein the State exercises it's authority and directs us to some one's existence. 

In the case of Cindy Sherman, the image is not a mark of that absence we are recording, instead it is the presentation of a character, or that the subject of the photo exists through the photo. We are looking at an artist create a vision of how some other woman looks, not how Cindy Sherman looks. That is part of what makes her work so impressive.

-Where is this going, if you want five euro out of me you got to do better than that, I am not a jobs program you taker; said Gogol. 

- I am just getting going. I was so impressed by her most recent series at the Galosian that I am thoroughly irritated. Art is an irritant, it gets under your skin and you just keep scratching at it.  When I close my eyes I see the bone white walls of Galosian, with its open space, they seems simple to exit, but seeing Sherman's work has transformed it into a labyrinth from which I am yet to escape. I keep scratching at the walls, clawing at the chalk white, perhaps through her work that I might find Adriane thread to guide me out.

-Yadda yadda yadda hurry it up, I have to get some pills for the chick I am sleeping with tonight. 

-Have I met her?

-Please Jack, I haven't met her yet.  

-Good one. In the current series she portrays a series of affluent older women, all of whom have an interest in beauty and in luxury. 

§1

-Wait a second, is portrays the right word? asked Gogol

-Jeeze you are picky, have another vodka. In Untitled #471 she sits in the foreground, in a powder blue dress, her lips painted the same color of the rose she holds in her hand. In Untitled #470 she holds a Spanish fan with traces of blood red, in a blood red dress, with blood red lips. In every one the focal point lands directly on the eyes, showing every line on the face. Certainly we are in the genre of portraiture. Should we say portrays the way we speak of an actors portrayal of a character? In both film and theater we would speak of these makeup and props in terms of mise en scene. As we add the effect of the camera, the fact that the makeup is designed to be seen at a close distance, we do seem transposed to a cinematic space. 

-Ok so is portrays the right word? snapped Gogol 

-Why wouldn't it be?

Gogol smiled and took something out of his pocket:

-Well I just happen to have my absurdly expensive IPhone on me.

-Oh jeeze. 

-I can be pretentious too, and I paid for this phone, and for you for that matter so I plan to get my five euros worth. 

Gogol drew a bit with his finger on the glass front. 

-What does it say? asked Jack

-I don't have service, hold on, said Gogol getting up. Shoving a German boy scout in front of passing cars delaying the motorists long enough for Gogol to run a comb through his hair. Gogol came back to the table:

-Wikipedia says it is  an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. 

- Please not wikipedia how about the OED? said Jack sipping his glass of wine. 

- Good question, said Gogol as he stepped over the motorcycle which had crashed into the Taxi while evading the Boy Scout. Finally connecting to the Internet in the area where the motorcyclist was clutching his broken leg as the Boy Scout performed first aid as the Cab driver screamed about legal action, Gogol returned to the table. 

-Well what does it say? asked Jack

-You know it is really hard to look this stuff up with all these noisy Italians. But here is what I got : to show or  describe in a work of art or literature, to show or describe in a particular way. And if you go from Portrait a painting or drawing or photograph of a person, a written or filmed description from the old french portraire. 

-Ok so is portrays the right word? murmured Jack over his second glass of wine. 

-How the fuck am I supposed to know, it's your essay, huffed Gogol.

Jack smiled closed his eyes and said:

How should we view the photography of Cindy Sherman? As the diverse slices of a vivisection? As moments  of the crest of an wave incoming to the shore? As the production stills of a genius director with a very short attention span? How ever we view her work we must also view her, it is almost always her in the photos (see §6 ). In fact it is accurate to state that the signature of her style, which shifts in seismic directions between her diverse series, is her presence in her work. The other aspect of her signature is that it is her the takes the pictures. Thus on one side of the line sits Sherman the artifact (s') and on the other is Sherman the artist (s). In fact we could call s' the thing or things that s put of herself into the work. Let us then place the photo subject before of the camera and separate from the artist: 

s'/s.

-Oh that's original, moaned Gogol looking down on the bar napkin. 

-Originality is overrated, said Jack. 

§2

The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told. - Cindy Sherman

-Take the first step into the maze, we need to speak about the character that is the woman inside of the portrait. Sherman is acting a role, creating a character, so we speak in terms of a narrative. We begin to attribute characteristics, intentions and tonalities to this phantom Sherman has photographed. Then let us have C stand for the character : 

(c) s'/s

Gogol raised his hands:

-Why is c bracketed off.

-For clarity

Gogol waived his finger:

-You missed the boat on clarity ten minuets ago, besides it is less clear; why you would separate c...character from s'...those aspects of the author which are included in the work. Clearly they are hung on each other.

Jack waved his hand:

-Granted, granted but now I am attempting to show what we can say is included in the presented material of the photo, and we need to keep all of these types of information distinct from s'. Why? Because s', as a component of the photo has a different relationship to the creative process, and to the author herself, that the other types of information. Now stop nit picking. 

The photographic subject is transformed by the portrayal. She is covered in makeup, lit, and in costume. Each of these is trying to get something across to us about the subject being portrayed. In #471 the jewelry on the figure understated, yet clearly expensive. In #464 the jewelry hanging on the woman is much more forceful and is a counterpoint to her sequined evening gown. In #468 the lack of any jewelry with the exception of one diamond broach speaks to the reserve of the character. In #477 the garish gold chain and cowboy hat speaks directly to whom this woman is. In all of these cases these elements are used as a series of semantic codes, as if these were women who have scheduled the photographer, carefully chosen what to wear to say something about themselves. 

 (sem ⊆ c) s'/s

or that the semantic codes are part of the set which is the character which effects s'. 

-So you are borrowing from Barthes, asks Gogol. 

-I am stealing from Barthes and he stole from Pierce. 

-No you are borrowing, stealing is far more dignified. Those are information codes, so from the start you are saying an abstract idea is more important compared to what we are actually seeing. 

-I am setting up a series of categories, that I can start organizing the visual into. At two points, the image has been an idea. First when Sherman is gathering the props, putting on the makeup and designing the composition. Second when we look at the image and take information away from it. Perhaps these ideas are in shadow, perhaps they are bundled, knitted, woven together, so that we can not put our finger on these ideas but they are there. Take a look at what we see.

All of semantic codes, what is describing the character are made of common cultural references. In #466 the long gown, the Italian villa background, the long pearl drop earrings, the high heels and the pose are all stereotypical signs of wealth. In fact the portrait looks as if it were taken for a magazine article (we can say the same about #471 but for a very different article). What is clear, is that the ways that these women are presenting themselves through commonly shared cultural codes, rather than through the personal, the private, the intimate. Thus the voice codes (sem) are derived from common knowledge codes (ref) completely undifferentiated. These are women who speak through common knowledge and conventional wisdom.  

({sem⊢ref} ⊆  c) s' / s

The photos also bring forth a variety of difficult subject of time, beauty, age, power and the state of an older woman within society. These are all issues that work in the symbolic register and interestingly have no relation to the character of the woman. Now perhaps there is nothing symbolic here, that there are no deeper meanings, no dark archetypal tones, nothing of the universal and human. The point is that the symbolic codes aren't presented, like the reference or semantic codes. Here, if they exist, they rise out of the relationships between the presented codes.  It is just as credible for us to see them or not to see them, as is is credible that Sherman intended or didn't intend them. Thus the derivation of semantic codes from reference codes is part of what the character is, whether or not there are symbolic codes present or :

(sym ⇒{[ref ⊢ sem ] ⊆  c}) s'/s

This begs the question, why are the cultural codes and the voice codes so strongly associated, braided together in the character, yet the symbolic codes arrive from the relationships within the work?

-Oh yea I am begging. Don't you have better things to do? 

-Shussh.  I make a lot of this relationship between sem-ref-c but in theater and cinema this is a normal process. Having a fixed temporal span with which to introduce the character, the work does so with material that is available to the audience. In the portrait the temporal span has been reduced to an instant, the opening and closing of a camera iris once. In fact the derivation of semantic codes from reference codes are not just part of the character, but it is the character. There is no other information that the character can be derived from. Now there may be some parts that can arrive from other sources, things brought to the portrait from outside, so let us say that character is a semi - direct process of the derivation of sem from ref. Think of it like an Oulipo restriction 

 ref ⊢ sem ⋊ c →

                    [sym + c ⇒ p]s'/s

§3

-Oulipo, what the fuck is this? That is all about making works of art through restrictions not describing them. I want my five euros worth of explanation or else.

-It is useful in describing though. By thinking of it like a revising process gives us a way we can describe the work in a more elegant manner. Especially since it helps draw out the relationships in the work. Sure it is completely wrong, ok this formulation is also really flawed. These portraits are sharply divided into foreground and background elements. 

Let's say that we can differentiate between two strains or modes in the visual arts, the optic and the haptic. The haptic are to those sensual aspects to an image (warm and cold colors, sharp & soft focus, velvety or crisp hues) while the optic are those exclusively visual elements (line, direction, motion). Well looking at #471 we can see from the foreground figures extremely geometric pose, parallel to the frame, back at a ninety degree angle and the intense play of line in her body, that the optic dominates the foreground. The background, with it soft focus and misty light, is dominated by the haptic. We can also state that  the background differs from the foreground in that the sem codes are not defined from the ref codes. Instead there is a polysemic relationship, where what we see in the background can be seen as both. So the open window in #471, thrown out of focus is a sem code in that it is chosen as something that says something about the character, but it is also tied into wealth imagery because it is clearly in a large expensive house, but it is also tied into other meanings through genre conventions. What is clear is that there is one is not derived from the other, but instead they coexist.

(opt  [ref ⊢ sem ⋊ c]s' ∂ hap  [ref=sem])  s'  ⊆ p / s

-And then we can keep adding elements to this construction and it will keep getting longer and more confused. After a very long time you may get a string of symbols, which might act as some kind of a roadmap to the portrait, but it will be nothing better than an inferior copy  of the portrait. This is a fucking mess, Gogol groaned. 

-Slack my friend, have a cracker and wipe that stuff off your head and listen. Previously we had introduced the idea of the portrait functioning under a restriction, which occurred in its revisions. We have already said that the portrait is just the emergence of a process. What if we use this concept of restriction to simplify our construction. Let us designate a separation of positive from negative space in the portrait. 

so what if we say that 

R1 is all material codes (those not arising from relations within the work) will be cultural or R1 = {ref, sem}which is the background

R2 positive space will be dominated by optic modalities or R2 = {optic  pos}

R3 within positive space (R2) a hierarchy of codes will be established or  R3 = {ref ⊢ sem}  R2 ∴ R3 ⋊ c

R4 symbolic codes are the relationship between the foreground and the background or R4 = {R1◅R3}

so: 

R1 {ref,sem} →  

R2 {optic  pos}→    

  R3 {ref ⊢ sem}  R2 → 

      {R4{R1◅R3} = sym + (R3⋊ c) [s'] ∂ R1} ⊆ P || s 

or 

The background is formed first, then the details of the physical elements are added in, then the physical details are placed under a hierarchy of signs. 

-What a sensational description of the creative process, placing the physical details under a hierarchy of signs. It sound like jacking off, moaned Gogol. 

-I am not trying to reconstruct how Sherman did the portrait but it is interesting to note that the backgrounds were are captured separately from the foregrounds. At completely different times. It would interesting to see if the backgrounds where captured before or after the foregrounds? Still we are tracing a logical history of the work, an imaginary history. There is no need for it to coincide with it's physical history. 

-God forbid there would be a correspondence with reality. 

-Oh please next time you write a letter to reality send my apologies. And pass the address my way because there are some complaints I would like to send. What I am proposing is a different way of looking at a text. As opposed to the apparent mode where we look at all of the presented materials, the revisional mode looks at the resultant material and attempt to reconstruct the processes which composed it. For example the color relationships through the work like the color of the rose, the lips and the dress, a haptic modality would be added after the R2 so 

R5 states haptic elements will have semantic value or R5 {hap  sem}

R1 {ref,sem} →  

R2 {optic  pos}→ 

   R5 {haptic  semantic} →  

      R3 {[ref ⊢ sem]  [R2 + R5]} → 

         {R4{R1◅R3}= sym + (R3⋊ c) [s'] ∂ R1} ⊆ P || s 

§4

-What are you getting at? You have been dancing around this pretending to do one thing but doing something else. 

-I am walking through a labyrinth and if I hit a dead end I go back. 

-You lie! You knew where you were going before you started, so own up! Gogol shakily stands up. 

-What makes this sad is that you just don't want to pay for my olives. It is the olives isn't it. 

Gogol looked sideways, shifting his feet and sat back down again:

-Perhaps I hate olives but it is the principle. Stop looking at me like that I am serious! I have principles! Stop laughing and tell the truth!

-Well maybe I do have an ulterior motive. Maybe I am trying to point out a work of art as something that encodes it's productive process into itself and in a sense encodes time into itself. 

-A time bomb. 

-I like that, a time bomb. A work of art like a trick with mirrors, or something that throws a shadow, but a shadow that goes back in time. Maybe...or maybe not. I am making this up as I go a long, so I am a bit cloudy but what is clear is that certain transformations exist on the appearance of the work, as a distinct thing (R1 background, R3 foreground) while others are conserved and concealed in earlier transformations ( R2 & R5 ). Don't think in terms of depth or surface. R2 & R5 are there in the portrait, they do exist but just as aspects of R3. At least we can say that R3 contains the traces of R2 & R5. 

Gogol slammed his fist on the table:

-Can we really say that! You are deluding yourself and evading the fact that art doesn't work that way. It works with your dick, it spews out of your nuts, it's a rape in an alley. You break things up into little numbers and you loose the blood Jack. That's why you have trouble writting Jack, or at least, why you have trouble getting published. 

-I am spilling a bit of blood. Just follow me. 

Any number of restrictions can now be added to the process, which continue to more narrowly define the portrait. The idea is that a restriction is added to the process upstream of the elements that it affects. Thus the revisional mode is a diachronic one.  You could continue to add restrictions till you finally arrived at the image. As if a machine were to reproduce it, without inspiration, voice or humanity. 

For example we have already in R5 included the relationship of color into semantics, and we could write that in but I won't because I am lazy. The big issue are gender signs which need to be accounted for. The gender correlation between the feminine character , the rose in her hand and other possible feminine signs (dark caverns, nature images, gardens, rooms, giant flower all of these are traditionally considered feminine images, or to have some feminine value. Do they here perhaps not, this is a choice the viewer (and perhaps the author) makes. Considering also that Sherman mostly does images of women, well you'd think that there would be a restriction up top...but it is not. We add things higher up on the chain as it affects things lower down on the chain and gender is not all encompassing, it only directly affects things in the symbolic register. 

Rgender - all symbolic indexes will be a part of the a feminine set or  Rgen { sym ⊆ fem } :⇔ { R4 ⊆ fem } thus it is added to the process very late in the generative chain. 

Revision :

R2 {optic  pos}→ 

R1 {ref,sem} →  

   R5 {haptic  semantic} →  

     R3 {ref ⊢ sem}→ 

       R4 {(R3 ◅ R1) = sym}→

         Rgen { R4 ⊆ fem }→

Apparent :

          {Rgen + (R3⋊ c) [s'] ∂ R1} ⊆ P || s

§5

Gogol fingered his empty glass:

-Why do it this way instead of creating a Sherman restriction?

-The reason to do it this way, instead of having an Sherman restriction, is a difficult question to answer. 

-Because your full of shit. 

-Be quiet and have another vodka. Sherman's presentation or s' in P is clearly bracketed off, it is a solid point, a lynch pin of the process. Isn't it not more simple to add something right up top to justify how solid the s' figure is in the process? What would it say? Let us say that Sherman will be added at this point in the revision and that it's presence would fix strong gender identification. In other words in the place of Rgen. Still it is a very different formulation. 

Rs { s'  R4 ∴  R4 ⊆ fem }

which then changes the Apparent layer to :

Rs + (R3⋊ c) ∂ R1} ⊆ P || s

This formulation is certainly more elegant; the presence of Sherman in the work now has a transformational root, and a transforming purpose. In  this vision the Sherman-subject-author-actress, rules over the photo. She is what guides and determines all symbolic relations. This is the Author theory, but I don't think it is accurate. 

-Oh you don't do you! I ought to let you have what for! Authors are the best fucking thing since sliced bread and dildos. Teach you... Author denying bastard. 

-Sit down. First it would occur very late in the transformational chain, which seems odd to me when her presence in the work seems so fundamental to it (though there exists work of Sherman's which does not have her as an actress... see §6 ).

Previously it was stated that s' could be considered everything that Sherman puts of herself into the work. Thus her body, her signature, some form of intangible presence. The above formulation states that this quantity fixes gender identities within the work. In reality it doesn't do that. 

Sherman has dressed up as men as well as women. The variety of woman she has impersonated is enormous, if the s' is similar in all of her works, then there should be some commonality of gender symbols. And there isn't, they vary wildly. Considering the mass number of gender identifications that s' seems to have no value. That s' performs no specific function.

-Why not have s' be the choices exercised by the artist? That would be obvious and consistent.

-If we say that the s' role of gender attribution is the same as the role of an artist exercising it's free will and choosing, and thus gender is a result of will. The problem is that you could say this about the entire portrait, that it is all formed by whim and will. In other words the statement tells us nothing. 

Take it a step further, what is affecting what here?

§6

Let us imagine a Sherman piece without Sherman. Let's look at #255, part of her sex series. Very different work, with a very different process. 

There is no differentiation between foreground and background space. As such the symbolic can not be derived from the relationship between them. Yet clearly there is a symbolic register occurring here. Yet look at all the things that remain the same. Positive space remains optic dominate, haptic modalities still affect the semantic register (look at the sense of the surface of the mannequin), and we are still deriving all of the semantic (voice codes) from conventional wisdom referents. So the generation of 255 begins to look something like this 

Revision :

R2 {optic  pos}→

   R5 {haptic  semantic} →  

     R3 {ref ⊢ sem}→ 

     

So where are the symbolic relations? The photo is of a medical dummy in a position of sexual availability. The position is that of a woman offering her vagina to a sexual partner. As in pornography, the subject is being offered to an idealized off frame sexual subject. Or the subject (the dummy) is being presented as a sexual object to a viewer. It strikes as uncanny, it effects as an irritant to our sexual security. We are given all of the signs of sexual, and sensual, with the possibility of the sexual being completely forbidden. 

Gogol raised his fist:

-What crap! How are the sexual and sensual forbidden!

Jack stared at Gogol:

-Guy, it's plastic.

-Lots of guys ride the extruded ladies. Right now someone is Rome is riding the lubed trampoline and loving it.

-But there is no flesh and blood, no wet, no soft skin. 

Gogol smiled:

-Show me the picture where there is, you phenomenological pretentious fuck. They are all just pictures Jack, none of them have wet pussys, none have soft breasts, none of them have soft thighs, or long flowing hair we can grab from behind as we ride them all the way home. It is us men, we are the Japanese fighting fish. Wave a red flag, we fight. Raise the blue, we fuck.

Jack smiled:

-But just like in the wanted poster, the missing photo, the hidden presence of character, the pornographic is an announcement of existence. We relate it back to previous vaginas, missing vaginas, the possiblity of future vagainas, and in general to the current lack of a vagina. 

Gogol raised his finger:

-You mean Vaginen, the pural of vagina is vaginen. 

-How do you know that?

-It's burnt into my soul, said Gogol. 

-That I can believe. Or at least the current lack of an object for which we have some sexual attraction to. 

Sherman has done something quite different. Her dummies are not there in place of something else, they are unmistakably models. The inflatable lovelies have eyes, cheek bones, elements of an identity. In Sherman there is no anthropomorphism possible, there is only complete anonymity, total death of the individual. The sexuality of Sherman's dummies is the forbidden, the sexual positions are not there in place of some other sexual act, the image is the act itself. 

-Not buyin it, there is probably some guy wackin off over the gallery catalog right now. Maybe even over this very essay...shuddering concept hun? said Gogol

Jack shuddered:

-Don't point him out, it will give him a big floppy. 

The irritant aspect of the images arises from R3, travesty, a comic mode. By redressing reference codes as semantic codes we create a kind of double vision, but leaving it here just gives us some explanation of the unease, but it still doesn't generate the symbolic register that is there in the work. 

The only way to generate the symbolic register is by supposing a textual strategy, a machination who's existence is hidden by the work which simultaneously suggests it. To create the environment where we could have a symbolic register, where we could be agitated into contemplating a dummy with it's faux ass in the air, offering its faux vagina to a faux off camera subject (which could be the viewer or the author) you need to create a suppression of the fleshy aspects of sexuality, the animal, immediate and icky aspect of it. 

-You are a freak, said Gogol. 

-Clearly.  The context of the dummy pieces was the furor surrounding the NEA exhibition on R. Maplethorpe. The political response was that congress gutted the NEA. Sherman, who was a close friend, felt that a response needed to be offered. Now here is what is interesting, the response to the furor over Maplethorpe's work is obvious: transgressive nudity (because congress didn't flip over the flowers or the album cover art). So here is Sherman, an artist who's entire career has been based on photographing herself, which immediately brings to mind Maplethorps own self-portrait (bullwhip up ass). And Sherman shoots mannequins instead. 

Thus we would imagine that we have arrived at a very deep restriction, not that genitals cannot be show, but Sherman's genitals (specifically) cannot be represented. At the very least the human aspect of genitals can not be represented. 

-This is an extremely Freudian vision. You are being too obtuse, what do you mean? with one raised eye Gogol said. 

Jack looked around, feeling a bit uncomfortable. Seeing only Germans around him he decided to speak. 

-Well you know, you could also see a medical drawing of a vagina and it wouldn't be arousing. It isn't just present the genitals and be aroused. I had an editor friend who did a doc on porn once, not a porno but a real doc, this was a woman mind you, and there was a scene she was cutting that was a sex scene. 

-Yea, yea, yea, yea common...

-Well she didn't have any hang-ups or anything, but when she was cutting the scene she had to do it with the volume off. The moans just lit her fuse. 

-Don't hold out. Was it a lezbo scene. 

-In fact it was, and a good one too, but in any case the point is that it isn't just see a vulva and get hot. There are other signs. 

-Yea like that twist of a lip...

-Gogol

-The hard inflamed nipples...

-Gogol

-The hot blood engorged pudenda

-Gogol this is really uncomfortable

-The dripping hot cunt of Cindy Sherman!

-Gogol even the Germans are looking at us. 

-That's cause they want to see it to. Germans are delightfully freaky! 

-We understand every word you know, said a German woman at the other table,

-Do you have plans for this evening, asked Gogo 

-In any case you need only to state that the signs carnality in general needs to be excluded from the set of P. 

-And it  is a Goddamn shame! Another Vodka!

-Will you stop it! Thus the irony, the humor and extreme sense of dislocation and disturbance in Sherman's work can then be traced to the presentation of gender information in the symbolic indexes (in the apparent register) accompanied by the suppression of carnal presentation in the revisional history. Thus the normative formulation of gender = sexuality has been shattered, just not in the apparent register. 

Why a deep restriction? Let us assume that the restriction on carnality were to occur closer to the apparent layer. That there was a carnality posited that was forbidden to be shown. Where do we see this occurring. 

On the Spice Channel they take hard core pornography and edit out all of the penetration and the cum shots. Here we have all the editing and suggestion of carnality with the restriction of showing it. Still there is a more elegant example in Bernini's Truth Unveiled By Time. Here we see one of Bernini's famous textiles emerge from beneath the feminine figure of Truth to cover only her vagina, leaving the rest of her revealed. 

In Sherman's work there is none of the earthiness of these two examples, none of the flesh, nothing of the Carnal. The restriction must be extremely deep, almost primary. Even in her breast feeding allusion (Madonna and Child) in #216, there is nothing to suggest the immediacy, the drive, the messiness of the flesh, in fact this is one of the things that brings out the Madonna and Child reference.  

Which means that the revision of  #471 looks something like :

Rcarn {carn ∉ P}→

   R2 {optic  pos}→ 

R1 {ref,sem} →  

   R5 {haptic  sem} →  

     R3 {ref ⊢ sem}→ 

       R4 {(R3 ◅ R1) = sym}→

         Rgen { R4 ⊆ fem }→

Apparent :

          {Rgen + (R3⋊ c) [s'] ∂ R1} ⊆ P || s

The real challenge of the medical dummies, and of #255,  is to the s' part of the process. The point of the s' is to state that Cindy Sherman is in a Cindy Sherman photo. And she isn't here. Unless...

well unless she was never there at all. I am still trying to get my head around this but if s' is an empty set, exists only as an absence, well you resolve the whole problem. 

§7

Gogol pulled the floss out from between his teeth:

-So what's it gonna be now Jack, post modern bullshit or the ghost of the author? No wonder you can't get this shit published. 

Jack rubbed his hand on his sun burnt bronze bald head:

In #255 a carnal restriction has been posited (Rcarn), and thus we can state that the symbolic register is the result of the relationship between this restriction and the attribution of gender (Rgen). This makes #255 very different from #471 in how it creates symbolism. 

In #471 the symbolic register (R4) is derived from the relationship of foreground to background, that this relationship creates a broader metaphor. In #255 the symbolic arises from the image of sexual availability (in a animal sense) with absolutely no animal sense within it, the total lack of sexuality. This total and obvious lack is obvious, disturbing and it is fundamentally comic or better stated ironic. Thus the symbolic in #471 the R4 :⇔ (another name for) Rmetaphor, while in #255 R4 :⇔ Rironic. 

So then the process of #255 looks something like: 

Gen :

Rcarn {carn ∉ P}→

R2 {optic  pos}→

   R5 {haptic  semantic} →  

     R3 {ref ⊢ sem}→ 

        Rgen { R3 ⊆ fem }→

            Rironic {(Rgen ◅ Rcarn) = sym}→

Emer:

 {Rironic + (R3⋊ c) [s']} ⊆ P || s

              

Or in English we could say that the character of the portrait is the semi direct product of the presented figure of the dummy (keeping well in mind that there could be other sources that the character is derived from). This in addition to the irony of the piece (sexual presentation with a total lack of sexuality) is all part of what makes the portrait the portrait. And what about s'?

s' is supposed to be all of the things Sherman puts of herself into the portrait, with the sign for this being the body of Sherman. Yet the body isn't in #255, so do we eliminate s'? Do we transform s' into some other quality? 

In the above illustration, ever figure is derived  from a series of preceding figures, including c (coming from foreground elements) and P (coming from the presentation of the other figures). Only s' has no preceding transformations, only does not interact within the work. It is almost as if it was not there at all. 

With this in mind it should not be surprising when Sherman stated: I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.

#255 has every sense that it is a work by Cindy Sherman. The view looks at it and there is no doubt that it is her's or at the very least there is no shock that it is her work, yet her body is not in it. s' is everything Sherman puts of herself into the portrait,  it is the signing subject, it is her signature. The representation of her body within it is irrelevant. 

Further since we can account for all of the presented elements within the work in a series of trans-formative restrictions, s' is not a presented element, it is a silhouette, a lack, an empty set ∅. Derrida has stated that a work is always a sign of the death of the author, or at least the absence of the author, and from what we see here, it is the case. We can see the unity of Sherman's work, we can see how these pieces form a family, we can attribute an author but we cannot find her. She has created her work and she has escaped from it leaving her outline.

Thus the revision of #471 :

 Rcarn {carn ∉ P}→

   R2 {optic  pos}→ 

R1 {ref,sem} →  

   R5 {haptic  sem} →  

     R3 {ref ⊢ sem}→ 

            Rmetaphor {(R3 ◅ R1) = sym}→

         Rgen { Rmetaphor ⊆ fem }→

Apparent:

          {Rgen + (R3⋊ c) [s' = ∅] ∂ R1} ⊆ P || s

As the artist Sherman is the photographer, arranging the elements within it, so does the audience, the viewers sit and observe these same relations. Could it not also be stated that this absence left by Sherman is filled by the viewer? That the upon viewing the work we step into the empty space? or :

{Rgen + (R3⋊ c) [v] ∂ R1} ⊆ P || v ?

Gogol looked up:

-You mean the reader is the writer?

Jack spit the olive pit out of his mouth and washed his mouth with wine. 

-Shit look at the time, Jack said and dashed down the street. 

Gogol looked down at all of the napkins, filled with scribbles, numbers and notes. He moved his right hand to scratch his head through his hair, but reflected it was best not to mess with perfection. Instead he ran his finger along the white porcelain pride of his teeth, burning out the retinas of a nun in the distance with the glare. He sighed:

-That wasn't worth five euro...