Deconstruction

This essay is an attempt to elaborate the narrative of deconstruction, as one of the strategies in performing and creative arts. An introduction of the strategy will be described in the first paragraph of this essay, followed by four examples of composition that arguably utilized this strategy. The sources of the compositions discussed can be found on the last page of this document.

Deconstruction is a strategy where the artist disrupts the fixed understanding of a viewpoint. This is done by dissecting the viewpoint into different fragments and re-establishing the links between them. The deconstruction strategy does not endorse repetition or alteration of an existing viewpoint, but rather the generation of a new one by analyzing how it is formed. One should recognize that the understanding of a viewpoint is relative to the relationships between the fragments, and it can be destabilized when these relationships are broken down. Deconstruction entails the recognition of emergence when new relationships are made between the fragments of the deconstructed viewpoint. The state of emergence is achieved when a new property arises that its constituents do not possess. A deconstruction strategy is thus an attempt to deny the inherent understanding of a viewpoint, and the idea of the origin of meaning. This innate idea of meaning without an origin is closely related to a school of thought introduced by Jacques Derrida, where it is meant to dissect languages and their meaning. He proposed that language in itself does not have a true meaning and by fragmenting each word in the text, conflicting relationships emerge and the true meaning of itself is undecidable.

I. Intersections IV (1954)

Intersections iv is a musical piece by Morton Feldman where he introduced his way of denoting his composition called “graphical notation”. Morton drew on the idea of freeing the sound from a traditional composition and progressed to a complex and abstract piece. The graphical notation does not contain any instruction, nor what instruments should participate. The only information in this piece is the pitch range and how many notes should be played at a specific time. There is no rhythmic or time-based directive included in the notation. For example, at one moment, five notes are to be played in the treble range along with one note in the bass range. Feldman argued that each thought needs its notation, and it could not have been notated conventionally.

Feldman demonstrated gracefully how deconstruction is used, and it is debatably the centerpiece of his approach to this harrowing composition. He broke down the relationship between various musical elements such as pitch, dynamics, rhythm, and harmonies, and admitted that their very definition can only be recognized in relation to each other. From a different perspective, it could also be argued that Feldman introduced his graphical notation in this piece in an attempt to free the elements from the grip of control that traditional composition elements imposed. As the elements are freed, they lose their inherent identities, leading to the emergence of catastrophe in the composition.

II. Rabbits (2002)

David Lynch’s Rabbits is a critically acclaimed web series released in 2002. The web series is viewed as a horror bit, even though Lynch himself insisted that it is a sitcom piece. The series depicts three humanoid rabbits along with the mystical events that took place in their home. The dialogues and soliloquies in this series seem incoherent, while some described it as “rearranged pieces of a written play”. This incoherency is ironically supported by the typical sitcom pre-recorded laughing track, as to suggest that the audience is cued to laugh at the said line. This series is also praised for the lighting, more specifically on how it is used to cast shadows on the characters (in contrast with traditional sitcom lighting, where lighting is heavily used to reveal the characters). With all of the sitcom elements placed and executed perfectly, the film presents an eerie paradoxical sentiment to the watchers and rightly lands it in the depths of the uncanny valley.

One could argue that Lynch applied the concept of deconstruction in an attempt to produce a satire on sitcoms. The elements of sitcoms are carefully fragmented and their relationships are distorted to give us a horror-like impression of the show. One of the most apparent aspects is the distorted relationship between the laughing track and the dialogue: As in Feldman’s work, both of the elements no longer have their recognizable definition as their relationship is disintegrated and re-established. As the dialogue between the characters is incomprehensible and mysterious, the laughing track becomes an eerie soundtrack as opposed to an indication of humor in the scene. Furthermore, the costume design and the lighting of the sets, along with the gesture of the actor, create a distancing unempathetic effect on the audience. This is in contrast with the common relationship between the actors and the costumes and lighting design of sitcoms, which is to reveal the focus and behavior of the character. Ultimately, these Ironic relationships redefined sitcoms into something horrific and mysterious, instead of the typical jolly and warm theme sitcoms offer.

III. Playtime (1967)

Playtime is a film by Jacques Tati where he attempted to depict future modern society and its consumerist characteristic. A special set is commissioned for this film, where a fake city called “Tativille” is specifically constructed on the outskirts of Paris. In reality, architecture plays an important role in developing the plot of each scene. Even though one could argue that there is no plot in the movie, the architecture dictates the direction of the actors and it is the central element of the comical humor Tati subtly pictured. Tati himself starred as Mr. Hulot, the primary character, and the film revolves around his experience in this futuristic metropolis. It is important to note that there is no main character ever introduced, and each scene is always filled with numerous characters, all in their way interacting in their small universe. For this reason, Tati also opted for wide shots for each scene and avoided close-ups to accommodate these interactions. This film is also praised for using audio cues instead of visual cues to direct the audience’s attention and reinforce the characters’ comedic circumstances.

Tati debatably broke down the traditional relationships between the cinematographic elements, predominantly between the actors, the physical space, the audience, the dialogue, and the camera. For instance, in the iconic airport scene, the actors are dictated to navigate their surroundings and consequently reveal their interaction between them. As the film progresses, it is becoming more apparent that the actors are utilized as props in the movie and they have no control over their destined coincidental interchange with other actors. As wide shots are used, the audience is demanded to become active observers instead of being merely passive watchers (despite the fact it is impossible to catch all the plotlines untangled in each scene). The film ultimately turned into a series of “live-action” stills with stunning photography and subtle comedic innuendos.

IV. Karawane (1916)

Karawane is a sound poetry composed by Hugo Ball in 1916. It is written in made-up and meaningless words developed by himself. Ball developed this concept of poetry where the phonetics of the words take precedence over the connotation and grammatical elements of the text. Consequently, such written texts are meant to be performed, as is the case with Karawane where Ball also read it to the audience in his nonsensical costume. In this context, Karawane can be argued as an experimental work of formulating words from the associated sound that it described. Each line of Karawane is written in different typography as if to express the theme or emotion of the phonetics of the line. Many have argued that the aggressive phonetics and tone in the piece suggest his anti-war stance, though as an abstract collection of gibberish phonetics it is open to interpretation by the audience.

Ball in his work Karawane disintegrates the relationship between the conventional elements of poetry. The most obvious one to the audience is arguably the distorted relationship between the text and its meaning, achieved by inventing meaningless and grammarless language. Ball intended to communicate his viewpoint through the sound of the text, instead of the intrinsic meaning of the words. This is also backed by his emphasis on criticizing the abuse of language in the journalistic world of his time. He further established the relationship between the visual representation of the word to the tone of the text. The seemingly random and anarchic choice of typography coincided with the underlying tone of each line, giving the audience the impression there is a space for interpretation.

Conclusion and Reflection

As seen in the four examples, a recurring set of thinking seems to be present: Fragmentation of elements, reestablishment of relationships, and redefinition of the elements and their collective behavior. On one hand, in compositions such as Feldman’s intersection, it is often observed that elements are often freed from control, opened to chance, and freely associated with each other. On the other, in compositions such as Rabbits, these elements are seemed to be cleverly planned and twisted in the opposite direction. Both actions lead to a distorted relationship between the elements, another observation that seemingly exists in the previously shown compositions. Once these relationships are distorted, they begin to lose their inherent definition. Consequently, the collective behavior of these elements is altered and often results in a contradicting viewpoint.

This strategy is often seen in art movements such as surrealism and cubism, where the works are inclined towards indeterminacy, deformation, and dislocation. Furthermore, this strategy seems to be explainable both in form of conceptual and technical sense. For example, it could have been very much associated with the technicality of the deconstructivist movement in architecture, where the rejection of euclidian geometry and linearity. It can also be seen in the technicality of multimedia arts where multiple elements from different viewpoints are forced to re-establish their relationship with each other.