The Poetics of Self-Help

Hanne Lippard: Flesh
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
20.01.17 – 09.04.17

An exposed spiral staircase. A countdown and a question. Little else exists in this ascension. Trapped in the square room floating above, under a low ceiling and a beige carpet, a voice gently speaks. It is the voice of Hanne Lippard, but it might as well be from a nature documentary, so clear and informative, so precise, so soft. Here we are, in this barren room, waiting, listening, reflecting.

How do you see yourself in ten years?

She asks. Her voice circling the space. You close your eyes, trying to answer the question. Meanwhile the voice persists. Can it be that the one who asks the questions also has the answers? Before we’ve delved in too far, it ends. And once more we find ourselves in this small chamber, the words echoing in our heads, our bodies more present than before. This is the poetics of self-help. Flesh represents the opportunity for us to find ourselves, to decide on our future, to contemplate our career choices. In between a series of questions there are constant instructions. The voice asking and demanding that we listen, that we follow, but where does this leave us? Nowhere? Empty? Perhaps.

There is a serious undertone to the lightness of this work. We know this language. You hear it all the time and everywhere. Yet in this context its meaning is transformed. Instead of helping us, Lippard’s craft poeticises the emptiness of these forms. Taken, stolen and consumable, the language in Lippard’s poem exists in your Twitter feed, on posters, in advertising, in television, radio and text messages and in your yoga class. The very vernacular of everyday conversation punctuated by a reverence for the self-rewarding, self-prophesising habits of capitalism.

How can I

Earn 100 euros in 1 minute?

Earn 200 dollars in 2 minutes?

Earn 300 pounds in 3 minutes?

As such, the beautiful tall staircase which carries us into the chamber takes on new meaning. Its transcendent beauty emblematic of the false glamour of career incentives. ( We all wish to climb the ‘career ladder’. ) This idea compounded by the austere room we find ourselves in. The austerity an obvious nod to the reality of the current political climate. Promise and hope, met by a defining sweep of defeatism and failure. Lippard is the voice of reality: job-hunting, cover-letter writing, interviewing, working in corporate culture and seeking leisure in every nook and cranny possible. The reality being, that there is no conclusion, that there are merely empty plateaus and hollow rooms. She lets us know, ‘We need help’. This is not a new story: from the Tower of Babel to any kind of pyramid scheme, where there is hope there is always tragedy, especially when dealing with the nature of language. Lippard’s piece compounds the helplessness of existence. She wishes to be your counsellor, but instead becomes the hypnotist, enabling your confusion and disorientation.

This is not my first experience of Lippard’s work. I have seen her perform multiple times. Each time, her computer-like voice capturing the inner conscience I’d rather ignore. However, there is a certain lack to this noise, a lack of passion, a lack of self. And this lacking can often make you feel disconnected from the work. At times, you want something that speaks for you, that takes over and completes you, such as you might find at a music concert or in a theatre. Lippard actively goes against this. She positions herself nowhere. Existing as a kind of ethereal cloud of words and presence. The constant, never changing, rhythm of her voice, becomes something more than her, more than all of us. Instead we become interconnected. Everyone in the room is one and the same. Our identities are stripped, leaving us just as figures in space, feeling and breathing. Or as Lippard says:

As a body

As anybody

As many body

As a nobody

As one’s own body

As an unknown body

As unknown to anyone

As anyone to anyone

As annoying to everyone

As unknown and alone

Flesh represents Lippard at her most provocative. Sitting alone in a room elevated high above the gallery we attend a consultation with her. Some people might say it’s too long. Thirteen minutes of non-visual interaction. Again, you feel there is a sense of purpose in this choice. Do we truly lack the concentration? Or are we afraid that what Lippard is saying is so pertinent that it’s hard to listen to? I stayed for a second listening. In the end, I was left feeling more aware of my failure than before. More aware of my body. More aware of my place in society. We make many demands on ourselves. And culture itself seems littered with similar concerns: search YouTube for motivational speeches, and you will find thousands! Or the notifications from apps such as Headspace, giving you daily guidance, making you feel good. When it comes to contemporary culture, self-development is at the peak of our concerns. There are moments in the piece where the voice moves around the four channel speakers individually, and in these moments, we strain to chase it. Chasing Lippard’s voice is like chasing our dreams: no matter how close we feel, it is always moving away from us, beyond us, and driving us somewhere other than where we expected. It takes the reality of the modern world and holds it up as a mirror, dissecting the gloss. Once I had reached the climax, I can only say she helped me to ask the questions I was avoiding in my life. Filling us with feeling and sourcing our most feared emotions. Ending full circle with the same question that we began with, but a different answer.

Where do you see yourself in ten years from now?

pause

DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO IN FIVE LIVES

1. IT

2. IT’D

3. ID’T

4. IT DIDN’TDNDDT

5. IT DIED

What might seem underwhelming about this work is the very thing that defines it. In inverting the escape route, Lippard’s piece takes you on a short journey to your centre, and to the centre of your environment. Existence is important; through language we find meaning. Yet Lippard takes language that has no meaning, and by listening closely to that language she deciphers its semantics, and finds poetry as a result. That is the gift Lippard wants to give us. That is the gift we are left carrying. And while giving is a gracious act, in this instance we are left burdened by ourselves and our own self-criticisms. I feel Lippard wants us to help ourselves, without judging us, or by showing us something we didn’t know before. She suggests that we know all we need to know already; we just need to ask the right questions of ourselves.