The University of Wisconsin-Madison
VISUAL CULTURE CLUSTER
Michael Taussig Workshop
"Color and Heat"
Reading 2
The Visual Culture Cluster and the Center for the Humanities are
pleased to invite you to participate in a workshop led by Michael Taussig on
Thursday, October 14 from 2-4pm. Seating is limited and advanced reading is
required. Please let us know in advance if you would like to attend:
visualculture@education.wisc.edu.
"Starting with my recent book, My Cocaine Museum, I am exploring color
as something in the same league as heat granting us insight into
what, following Nietzsche, I call the bodily unconscious. I see "color"
as up for grabs, color theory as a sad and sorry state of affairs, and
instead follow up on Howard Caygill's insight in his study, "The Color
of Experience," being an analysis of Walter Benjamin's essays on color
as something active, even spiritual;, which takes the viewer into that which
is being perceived thereby blurring or even extinguishing the
distinction we are fond of making between subject and object.(You can find most
of Benjamin's essays in vol 1 of the Harvard publication of
his Selected Works). I am ably assisted by William Burroughs' and Marcel Proust's
lavish use of color in their writing, not only to
further explore this question of the viewer passing into the image, but of connections
between color and words."
For trouble accessing this page, or for additional information please contact: visualculture@education.wisc.edu.