Winter 2021 Zine

Jo DeWaal

Concentration:  Art and Business
Graduation Year: 2020

Jo DeWaal is a Gallatin junior/senior who studies art and business. She is particularly interested in examining how systems, such as gender, time, and the museum-institution, influence the art making process and expose faults in existing art historical cannons. Though Jo primarily works in photography and printmaking, she is also interested in how technology influences art. Always fascinated by the systems of time and language, Jo chose to create a “Word Clock” for her final project in Cyd Cipolla’s Tinkering in Feminist Technoscience. This clock was the second word clock Jo made. Instead of numerical elements around a circular clock face, the word clock is a square with word based forms of time (“It is half past four”). The clock is programmed to light up the respective boxes so that viewers can read the time. She hopes by having viewers read the time that they are able to realize our everyday reliance on the arbitrary systems such as language and time. As for technical aspects, the clock is a “sandwich” which features an Arduino based controller board and laser-cut plexi-glass enclosure.

Natalie Choi

Concentration:  Neuroaesthetics- Art Therapy
Graduation Year: 2024
 
From Natalie––
 
“I was born into a world of innovation at the heart of the Silicon Valley. Surrounded with newly emerging fields exploding with possibilities, I found myself enraptured with every subject I encountered. As a result, I’ve always struggled to fit my interests into one box By day I marvel at the complexities of neurology at my hospital internship and by night I stay up late binge-reading Sartre, Nietzsche and Heidegger. I couldn’t bring myself to commit to one field without the fear of losing the rest. During my first philosophy course, paradoxically named “The Idea of Nothing”, I realized I won’t have to. 
 
Prof Erickson’s class the Idea of Nothing is quintessentially Gallatin. While the topic itself is intriguing enough, it’s guaranteed that this class will engage you because he gives you creative freedom. We had students present zero-waste fashion, films with silhouettes and more. I even wrote a paper on amnesias and another on black holes.
 
This education will create a steady foundation of understanding, allowing me to later pursue research on the connection between mental illness and artistic genius. How does art therapy help one patient and then aggravate another into greater deeps of pain? By figuring out what made the painter of The Scream go mad or why Van Gogh cut off his ear, I hope to prevent future artists from similar fates. When it comes to my academic pursuits, Gallatin fits perfectly, offering me the freedom to personalize my education while providing a plethora of opportunities like this magazine you’re reading.
 
This was my final project in this class. Its an examination of black holes and an artistic representation of Einstein’s theory of relativity.”

Natalie Choi

Living in The Nothingness

Philosophers are obsessed with understanding voids. Neuroscientists are captivated by gaps in memory. Is it possible that the two are interrelated? Philosophy journalist Jim Holt brought up the question of if “Nothingness” could be a possible reality. Could a void be inhabitable to humans? When contemplating this question philosophers ran into two main issues. The first problem was simply trying to think up of what nothingness would be like as an environment. Coleridge’s little boy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imagine away the world but failed. French philosopher Henri Bergson also attempted to imagine a void but couldn’t factor out his own imagination of it, leaving behind what he called “the inner self” (Holt 47). Regardless of age and experience, the idea of a pure void is seemingly incomprehensible to the human mind. Secondly, imagining Nothing was problematic due to the observer argument, which stated that one’s perception of Nothing is in itself something. The only time Holt encountered complete Nothingness was in dreamless sleep, a state where he was completely unaware. According to this logic, the inability for philosophers to answer this question is because they rely on self reflection and thought experiments. Since awareness violates the Nothingness, one could never directly observe themselves living in the Nothingness; instead they would have to observe it in another person. In other words, someone would have to watch Holt sleep dreamlessly and observe the Nothingness that way. Sleep is a good example of obliviousness, however it is a temporary state whereas we are looking for a Nothingness that encompasses someone’s entire world. So how can we fully take away our own perception? The answer to this question actually doesn’t lie in our own mind, but a broken one: a brain that has neurological deficits so severe that it couldn’t perceive its environment even if it tried to. To patients that have retrograde and anterograde amnesia, they live with a reality riddled with holes. These neurological deficits have the ability to swallow parts of the patient’s memory, leaving their present as a disorganized chaotic soup. By examining case studies with different amesias and memory deficits, we can further understand how one can live in the Nothingness.

“If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it”- Oliver Sacks
Amnesia is the loss of memory, often in permanent and drastic amounts. Possibly the most famous case of complete amnesia is Patient HM. In 1953, Henry Molaison had an experimental brain surgery done to treat his severe epilepsy. After removing his hippocampus, his amygdala and his entorhinal cortex, his seizures finally stopped. However the surgery left him with anterograde amnesia so debilitating that he could only remember the last 30 seconds. This occurred because his hippocampi were the processing state to connect short term to long term memory. Imagine it this way: in normal brain, short term memories would be packaged and boarded onto a train which would follow a complex web of railroad tracks to reach its final destination- long term memory. Long term memory also serves as the conductor, overseeing the pathways for all trains. In patients with hippocampi complications, short term memories are still being processed and packaged. The trains are still running. However, its the railroad tracks that are leading the trains off a cliff. Without the conductor, the trains had no idea anything was off and continue as if nothing were wrong. Patient HM’s short term memories were flinging themselves off a cliff, falling into the darkness of the void, without ever reaching long term memory storage. This brings up two important factors that help answer how one can live in the void. First of all, because his past is perpetually being absorbed into a void, he technically lives in the Nothingness. Secondly, since his “conductor” no longer functions, Patient HM isn’t even aware of his own amnesia or any issue whatsoever. This removes the “observer” complication many philosophers struggled with. Since his lack of a hippocampus removes his ability to self observe, it creates the unique situation where he’s capable of truly experiencing the void. All in all, Patient HM is the quintessential example of a life lost to the Nothingness. Neurologist Oliver Sacks famously describes amnesia as “…the possibility of a pit into which everything, every experience, every event, would fathomlessly drop, a bottomless memory-hole that would engulf the whole world.” (Sacks 35)

Amnesia creates a route to how people live in the Nothingness, but what is it like to live there? Along with erasing memories, the void erased another indescribable part of the spirit. Patients with amnesia progressively displayed apathy toward everyday life. This symptom was not directly connected to their memory deficits but rather a side effect of losing part of yourself. For example, take Sack’s interview with a patient with retrograde amnesia.

“‘How then do you feel about life?’
‘I can’t say that I feel anything at all.’
‘You feel alive though?’
‘Feel alive? Not really. I haven’t felt alive for a very long time.’” (Sacks 36)

Even though amnesiac patients were not acutely aware of the terrible state they were in, many felt a sense of loss that pervades their entire life. Many neurologists noticed that their patients became increasingly hollowed out. It was as if the Nothing was seeping was into what remained of the person. Like German philosopher Nietzche said, “when you look long into the abyss, the abyss looks into you.” All in all, we rely on the past to contextualize the present, and without it, the day loses its meaning. Since memories from the past shape your preferences, habits, and personality, having amnesia forced them into a living in a mental void. Not only were they unaware of where they were, but who they were as well.

Even when lost on the turbulent waves of chaos and time, humans have the remarkable ability to continue to try to make sense of the incomprehensible. Take one case study of Clive Wearing, whose amnesia distorted his ability to attach the past to the present. As a result, he lived in a state of constantly “waking up”. Every moment seemed to him as the first time he was fully conscious and awake. His journal reads:

“8:31 AM: Now I am really, completely awake.
9:06 AM: Now I am perfectly, overwhelmingly awake.
9:34 AM: Now I am superlatively, actually awake.” (Kean 341)

Because the present was the only concept he could grapple onto, any evidence of his time before that moment was seen as false. This was an example of his mind desperately attempting to understand fragmented time. Kean relates this perennial state to absurdism, stating “Like Sisyphus’s boulder, as soon as he gets a purchase on his consciousness, it slips away. Like Prometheus’s liver, it grows back every few seconds, only to be torn out again”(343).

Amnesiacs not only grapple with time, but also their surroundings and who they are. Another unfortunate soul, William Thompson, who’s Korsakoff’s syndrome caused severe amnesia. In a constant state of bewilderment, Thompson would rapidly try to orient himself by identifying himself and the people around him. One moment his doctor would be a past neighbor, then Sigmund Freud, then a butcher shop client. However, this wasn’t a hyperactivation of his imagination; his mind did this impulsively and he fully believed every identification. This tendency was not one time phenomenon, but a condition called Frenzied Confabulatory Delirium which many amnesiacs found themselves in. The jumbled attempt to try to make sense of everything was a human tendency.
These two case studies show the persistence of the human spirit to make sense of the incomprehensible void. Even unconsciously, the human mind still searches for a past history- to make sense of the world around them. This is such a powerful yearning that the mind will literally create a world if one is unable to be found.

So can one truly live within the Nothingness? These case studies of amnesia bring us closer to the answer. Humans can experience a “Nothingness”, a chaotic void of a reality, but maintaining a state of Nothingness is impossible. It seems like even if a person is completely disoriented, stripped of their former self, and unable to perceive or react, they will still fight to make sense of it. Like Sisyphus and his boulder, they trod on even when faced with hopeless circumstances. Human consciousness seems to be a force that compulsively lights up the darkness, tarnishing the void. To answer the fundamental thesis of this paper, Nothingness is a state that humans can live in; however, Nothingness can’t survive in us.

 

Citations

Holt, Jim. (2013). Why Does The World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. 

Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. Odyssey Editions. 

Corkin, Suzanne. Permanent Present Tense . Basic Books. 

Kean, Sam. The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons. Little, Brown and Company.

Gabrielle Vardanega

Concentration: Public Health Through the Lens of Social Inequality and Environmental Justice

Graduation Year: 2023

From Gabrielle––

“I wrote this paper for my NYU London Interdisciplinary Seminar class titled: History of British Fashion. The assignment was to look at the clothing presented in an image or painting and connect it to the larger themes that we had been discussing in the class. Initially, I took the class because it was the only in-person IDSEM in London. However, as the semester progressed, I began enjoying the course, especially since it pushed me outside of my comfort zone. I had never taken any class or even planned to take a class on fashion, history, or curatorship. I realized I was more interested in the physicality of clothing, or even the absence of it, which lead to another project in which I presented an exhibition on PPE, or lack thereof, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.K. Although I loved the course and my professors, this class did not connect to my concentration in Public Health. I don’t think I would pursue another fashion-related course, but I am excited to further explore identity expression and inequality.”

Figure 1

Figure 1

Short Piece of Visual Analysis

When it comes to the content of this painting, the National Gallery of Art states that the identities
of the individuals are unknown. However, there are a lot of inferences we can make. The gentleman is
wearing a three-piece suit, specifically a grey jacket, waistcoat, and breeches. Interestingly enough, he features the pink lining of his jacket. The emphasis of his flamboyance contrasts with the fear of macaroni men discussed by McNeil. These macaroni men were considered fashionable until the 1760s when concerns began rising about the relationship between the love for clothes and homosexuality
. Despite these growing anxieties, the father in this picture is actively challenging the increasingly simple and dull clothing of men. The mother is wearing a silky green dress and an intricate headpiece. Her white silk shawl is notable since there was a prestige that comes with owning silk in the 18th century. As explored during the third lecture, since silk was mainly produced in China and India, it was an exotic luxury that embodied one’s class and status in society. From this, we can infer that the family depicted in figure one is wealthy, or at least attempting to present themselves as so. The daughter is wearing a white cotton muslin dress and a headpiece. She also has a pink silk accessory draping down from her left hip. As we discussed with the Ditchley Portrait, there is a lot of hidden symbolism in the colors of one’s dress. The light color of her dress can be interpreted to exemplify purity. Likewise, the holding of the instrument can symbolize intelligence. Perhaps, the choice in color and prop is a subliminal way to advertise the daughter for potential husbands.

Regarding stylistic details, the first thing I noticed was the dark background. The setting of the
painting serves to accentuate the whiteness of their skin. A white complexion and rouged cheeks were the epitomai of 18th-century beauty, particularly for women. Another notable aspect of the painting is that the women are sitting while the man is standing. These levels may not have been intentional. However, it affirms the uneven dynamic between genders where men were considered to be more significant and influential than their female counterparts. Likewise, the direction of their faces also further highlights the gender inequality of the era. While the women are looking to their sides, the man in the picture is the only one who gets a full face of detail. This is a sign of who the commissioner wants to be the focus of the piece. In other words, the man in the picture is deemed to be the most important which is, once again, reflective of the gender inequality of the era.

As a source, this piece has many strengths and limitations. A limitation is that the painting may
not tell the full story. As previously briefly mentioned, since the piece is commissioned, the painter may not be free to depict the occasion as it is. For example, as we have noted in class with images of Queen Elizabeth I, she was painted to look younger. One possibility, in the context of this image, is that the family may have purposefully worn clothes that exaggerated the extravagance of their wealth. Therefore, it is challenging to be certain that this image fully accurately depicts their reality. However, paintings are also the only snapshots we have of time before cameras, which is a strength of this source. Moreover, oil paintings, as a medium, also have advantages and disadvantages. As can be seen in the seemingly vibrant colors in figure 1, one of the positives of using oil paints is that it was relatively long-lasting. On the other hand, a downfall is that, like any antique painting, it must be meticulously cared for. This is arguably not as relevant since it is already digitized. However, this digitization can also result in a loss of detail, which is a particular concern for dress historians. For example, with decreased quality in the details of the dress, like its embroideries, there is less evidence of one’s status. Regardless, the intricate details may not be perfect, but there is a lot to learn from this painting, and the others like it.

Citations

Hayes, John. “British Paintings of the Sixteenth Through Nineteenth Centuries.” National Gallery of Art, 

Washington Cambridge University Press, 1992, 

www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/british-paintings-16th-19th-centuri es.pdf. 

Lee, Summer. “1592 – Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, Elizabeth I (1533-1601), Queen of England.” 

Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology, 7 Jan. 2020, 

fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1592-gheeraerts-ditchley/. 

McNeil, Peter, editor. “Conclusion: ‘Fashion Victims’, or, Macaroni Relinquishing Finery.” Pretty Gentlemen: Macaroni Men and the Eighteenth-Century Fashion World, 2018, pp. 218–229. Wheatley, Francis. “Family Group.” National Gallery of Art , 

www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.61393.html.