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
