The Maenad Movement

"The Sadness of Cotton Candy" 2008 - unfinished
Shannon Bangs, oil on canvas
24"x18"
(thank you Ryan for its name)

“The Following Are Associated With Sheep: A Visual Analogy of the Body/Soul Relationship, Function, and Value in Accordance to Foucault and Plato”

In 1996, the first successfully cloned living organism (a sheep named Dolly) was born and introduced to public society the following year. She was constructed from an extracted mammary cell taken from a host sheep which was then stripped of its organic nucleus and replaced with the DNA of the sheep from which was Dolly was cloned. This new cell was chemically stimulated to divide six times and was then inserted into the womb of yet another surrogate host sheep in order to further develop and to birth the cloned organism.

Upon setting out to articulate the contrasting visions of Foucault’s soul/body relationship to that of Plato’s one image kept recurring in my mind; sheep. It seemed irrelevant at first but it was so persistent I decided to sit down with my journal and allow a flow of associations to come forth. The more I explored the sheep’s intrinsic cultural/religious symbolism, its historical relevance to civilization and its contemporary scientific/medical significance, I felt as though it could and does visually encompass the ideologies not only of Foucault, but also Plato. In other words, I chose to create the painting, “Sheep” to stand in as a visual representation of Foucault’s social theories and observations of modernity’s practices and conceptual approach to the body, but also to act the same for Plato’s conception of body as limiting; that which in essence must be sacrificed in order to achieve true virtue, or more accurately, philosophical divinity (knowledge). I have made references to the texts, but I feel it is important to imply rather than point out absolute specifics toward the relationship of their concepts to the imagery in the painting. I feel that excessive searching for exactness in explanation undermines the purpose of a painting, or any visual art for that matter.

Continuing on with Plato, I will begin by noting that although he was not a Christian nor had knowledge of Christian theology which holds major associations with sheep, the sheep, along with other valued livestock were sacrificed during his time. They were a physical commodity offered through bloodshed and death to earn spiritual favors and virtues from the Gods. When Christianity came along a few hundred years later, Christ became the sacrificial lamb representing the cutting off of the body in order to achieve enlightenment but also, he was the shepherd; the guardian of the wayward flock, leading them (humanity) on the pathways to virtue.

In Phaedo, Plato says (as Socrates), “Now weren’t we saying a while ago that whenever the soul uses the body as means to study anything, either by seeing or hearing or any other sense—because to use the body as a means is to study a thing through sense perception—then it is dragged by the body towards objects that are never constant; and it wanders about itself, and is confused and dizzy, as if drunk, by virtue of contact with things of a similar kind?” (30). Furthermore he says, “Now look at it this way too: when soul and body are present in the same thing, nature ordains that the one shall serve and be ruled, whereas the other shall rule and be master; here again, which do you think to be similar to divine and which to be mortal? Don’t you think the divine is naturally adapted for ruling and domination, whereas the mortal is adapted for being ruled and for service?” (31).

Sheep may or may not hold the same hierarchical or sacrificial connotations to Foucault’s theories as it does to Plato’s but rather may imply empirical and scientific associations, as in the case of Dolly or as with contemporary practices of genetic coding which has achieved legal status as intellectual property; an economy which can be bought and sold. Included in this association may be the excessive methodology (discipline) acted upon sheep in service of genetic engineering.

In his Docile Bodies, Foucault suggests that the purpose and value of an object is founded in that power under which it is subjected. Thus, we could say that purpose and/or value of a thing (which includes human beings according to my interpretation) is assigned and constructed. The body, he purports, (and I believe the will as well) is subordinate; secondary. Its value is economic and proficient. The body’s purpose is to serve these ends and its value is measured in its capacity to do so.

Foucault says, “Then there was the object of the control: it was not or was no longer the signifying elements of behavior or the language of the body, but the economy, the efficiency of the movements, their internal organization; constraint bears on the forces rather than on the signs; the only truly important ceremony is that of exercise [control].” (181). He also says, “…an art of the human body was born, which was directed not only at the growth of its skills, or at the intensification of its subjection, but at the formation of a relation that in the mechanism itself makes it more obedient as it becomes more useful, conversely… The human body was entering a machinery of power that explores it, breaks it down, rearranges it. …in short, it dissociates power from the body; on the one hand, it turns it into an “aptitude”, a “capacity” which it seeks to increase; on the other hand, it reverses the course of the energy, the power that might result from it, and turns it into a relation of strict subjection. If economic exploitation separates the force and product of labor, let us say disciplinary coercion establishes in the body the constricting link between an increased aptitude and an increased domination.” (182).

Cited Works

The Foucault Reader, Michel Foucault, 1965-1984; Edited by Paul Rabinow, Compilation, editorial matter, and introduction Copyright 1984 by Paul Rabinow. Pantheon Books, New York, New York.

Phaedo, Plato, 360 B.C.E., Translation by Benjamin Jowett, http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html

“Sheep" now entitled "The Sadness of Cotton Candy", Shannon Bangs, 2008 - unfinished,
oil on canvas, 24” x 18”