The work Land of Noman[1] concerns to the transformations of a female persona
which represents the three different societies visited by Ulysses.
Three islands, three societies, three women represented by female
performers in bodily transformations.
The video consists of three parts each one interconnected to the
Homeric narration through Ulysses novel by James Joyce.
There are three movements from one island to the other
1.
Calypso- The
pre-civilized island Ogygia[2].
A place of pathological inactivity, place of the fantastic,
exotic island belonging to the land of geographic imagination.
2.
Nausicaa- The
over-civilized island Skheria. Ulysses is re-establishing
his body, thinking about the future, peaceful, utopic, ideal place.
3.
Penelope- Place of reality, island Ithaca.
Penelope (in U represented by Molly) lying on the bed.
Literature
on the concept:
The labyrinthal Ulysses of James Joyce[3], consists
a multi-layered text where facts seem to proceed in time overlapping, though
the action takes place in 18 chapters spaced approximately one hour apart,
starting at 8:00am on Thursday 16 June 1904, and ending in the early hours of
June 17. Joyce produced a schema for the novel Ulysses to help his friend Carlo
Linati understand the structure of the book.
"As to Mr Dessy's suggestion I think that in view
of the enormous bulk and the more than enormous complexity of my damned monster-novel
it would be better to send him a sort of summary - key - skeleton - scheme (for
home use only)...I have given only "Schlagworte" [catchwords] in my
scheme but I think you will understand it all the same. It is the epic of two
races (Israel-Ireland) and at the same time the cycle of the human body as well
as a little story of a day (life). The character of Ulysses has fascinated me
ever since boyhood. …For seven years I have been working at this book - blast
it! It is also a kind of encyclopaedia. My intention is not only to render the
myth sub specie temporis nostri [in the light of our own times] but also to
allow each adventure (that is, every hour, every organ, every art being
interconnected and interrelated in the somatic scheme of the whole) to
condition and even to create its own technique. Each adventure is so to speak
one person although it is composed of persons - as Aquinas relates of the
heavenly hosts." James Joyce, Selected Letters,
ed. Richard Ellmann (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), p. 271.
Scene: The House
Hour: 8 am
Organ: Kidney
Art: Economics
Colour: Orange
Symbol: Nymph
Technic: Narrative (mature)
Correspondences: Calypso -
The Nymph; Dlugacz: The Recall; Zion - Ithaca
Meaning:The departing wayfarer
Scene: The Rocks
Hour: 8 pm
Organ: Eye, Nose
Art: Painting
Colour: Grey, Blue
Symbol: Virgin
Technic: Tumescence,
Detumescence
Correspondences: Phaeacia -
Star of the Sea; Gerty – Nausicaa
Meaning: The projected
mirage
Scene: The House
Hour: 2 am
Organ: Skeleton, juices
Art: Science
Colour: starry, milky
Symbol: Comets
Technic: Catechism
(impersonal)
Correspondences: Eurymachus
- Boylan; Suitors - Scruples; Bow – Reason
Meaning: Armed hope
Scene: The Bed
Hour: -
Organ: Flesh, Fat
Art: -
Colour: starry, milky, new
dawn
Joyce created the
eighteenth chapter for Penelope as
an epilogue . In the work The Land of Noman,
Ithaca and Penelope are considered as one chapter.
1. Ogygia-Calypso
Correspondences of Joyce: kidney, orange,
Homeric correspondences:
inactivity, pathological situation, place of the
fantastic.
Video description:
Calypso providing the Kidney.
2. Skheria- Nausicaa
Nausicaa is presented as
a mutant woman, as a notion of hyper-civilized femininity.
Scene: The Rocks
Correspondences of Joyce: grey, blue, virgin, blood, topic, flowers, female optacy,
pornography,
Homeric correspondencies: Utopic, non known objects,
quietness, hyper-civilized.
Video description:
Nausicaa is forming the island shape of Skheria
corresponding to femininity and at the same time captivity.
Η υποδοχή και η παγίδευση, ο εγκλεισμός
του Οδυσσέα.
a. rocks correspond to small bits of Nitron
(N) or salpeter (etymologically deriving from Medieval Latin sal petrae:
"stone salt" or possibly "Salt of Petra=salt of
stone"), νίτρον (nitron) =
salpeter + γείνομαι
(geinomai) = to engender, bring forth
b. Virginity is emphasized in this part by the presence
of blood -here in a blue mixture
of Kalium(Potassium carbonate, K2CO3) with Phosphorus (P)- , exerted from the female genitalia. Blood
is blue in correspondence with phosphorus, alchemically produced by urine.)
3. Ithaca-Penelope
Penelope on the bed, wet, she puts silicone connecting
her breasts of vitality.
Video description:
Penelope is forming raw energy
between her breasts, she affirms the fertilization by the fissiparity of the
silicon pattern on her body.
Symbol: Earth, (alchemical symbol of earth as presented on
the female body)
Penelope - Earth; Web –
Movement
Joyce correspondences:
Technic: Monologue (female), resigned style
Meaning:The past
sleeps.
Homeric correspondences:
Place of the real
Notes and references
1. ‘ My name is No-Man; No-Man each
degree Of friends, as well as parents, call my name.'
Odysseus conceived the name ‘No-Man’ (hellenic Ούτις/ Utis= nobody) to introduce himself and
later deceive Cyclops Polyphemus by its double meaning.
2. Ogygia and Skheria are mentioned as
phantom islands.
Phantom islands are islands that are believed to exist and appear on maps for a period
of time (sometimes centuries), and then are removed after they are proven not
to exist (or the general population stops believing that they exist).
3. Joyce noted for the last chapter of
Ulysses:
The clou of the book. The first sentence contains 2500 words.
There are eight sentences in the episode. It begins and ends with the female
word yes. It turns the huge earth ball slowly surely and evenly round and round
spinning, its four cardinal points being the female breasts, arse, womb and
cunt expressed by the words because, bottom (in all senses bottom button,
bottom of the class, bottom of the sea, bottom of his heart), woman, yes.
Though probably more obscene than any preceding episode it seems to me to be
perfectly sane full amoral fertilisable untrustworthy engaging shrewd limited
prudent indifferent Weib. Ich bin der [sic] Fleisch der stets bejaht (Letter to
Frank Budgen, 16.viii.1921, SL, 285)
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