The medium as a figure of communication

In the context of my essay on Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture Torso, a plaster cast of a hot water bottle, I have been thinking a lot on the different manners in which we can understand and use the word “medium”. I have tried to situate the term in the context of a person or thing that behaves as a conduit for communicating with the dead. I read bits of John Durham Peter’s book Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication and found his discussion of “human channelers” very interesting. Although not directly applicable to Torso, what struck me the most was his claim that this kind of spiritualism has been seen as an activity primarily belonging to women and has been manifested in efforts to fight for women’s rights. He explains Ann Braude’s claim that engaging in spiritualist activities gave women the chance to dismember gender stereotypes relating to passivity by way of public speeches and demonstrations.

This statement made me think of Bruno Latour’s argument that “We Have Never Been Modern” as it is an example of appropriating “premodern” or mystical ideas with the purpose of achieving progressive thinking about and action towards gender equality.

What I like about working with this definition of medium, especially in an art historical context, is that it is applied to humans in addition to technologies or to methods of making with inanimate materials. I like the notion that we as humans also facilitate conversation and communication and that even though at times things may seem to come out muddled and not in accordance with the desired message, we continue nonetheless to tell each other things. With regard to a medium as a living figure that converses with the dead, I feel as though the telling of stories functions to keep the departed vital and communicative.    

Robert Bonner, 1862–1875, William H. Mumler. Albumen silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 84.XD.760.1.1