Output details

‘Dear Living person’, incorporating a two-part text published in Mute Journal and associated artworks/exhibitions. ‘Dear Living Person,’ Mute Journal. Volume 3 No. 1, Spring/Summer 2011: 112 -122; and Russell, J. ‘Dear Living Person II. Story of the Eyes,’ Metamute, 14 September 2011 Subsequently re-printed in Russell, J. ‘Dear Living Person,’ in Memorial Address: Marquise de Sade on the occasion of the Jean Paul Marat's and Le Pelletier's funeral, New York: Halmos, 2011: 87-107; Russell, J. ‘Dear Living Person,’ in Blast CounterBlast. ed. Anthony elms and Steve Reinke, Toronto: Mercer Arts, 2012, pp. 25-37; and Russell, J. ‘Dear Living Person II. Story of the Eyes,’ reprinted in F.R.DAVID "…for single mothers." Edition 10, 2012, pp. 81 - 104

The two essays ‘Dear Living Person’ and ‘Dear Living Person II’ use the fictional conceit of a dead and decomposing author as a vehicle to examine the relationship between fiction and theory; and the philosophical, political and art theoretical significance of the movement from human ‘subject’ to non-human ‘object’. Both texts were presented simultaneously as published articles and as constituent parts of artworks/exhibitions. DLP I published in Mute Journal, Spring/Summer 2011 and performed live at the ICA, London (2011). DLP II published in Metamute, September 2011 to coincide with the launch of the public artwork ‘Angel of History’, Focal Point Gallery, Southend (images from artwork used as illustrations in the article).DLP I examines the claims art makes to moving beyond boundaries and limits (of medium, discipline, and category) as a cliché of transcendence. This is described in relation to the operation of the false ‘master-limit’ between the living and the dead, with reference to Etruscan torture, and contemporary performances of institutional critique: Fraser, Krebber and Carpenter. DLP II is written from the perspective of a fly laying its eggs on the body of Margaret Thatcher, experimenting with different registers and contexts of ‘looking’ and ‘image’ in the writing of Foucault, Benjamin, Bataille and Steyerl. In particular, this involves comparison between the gaze of Benjamin’s famous angel (of History) moving backwards into the future and Margaret Thatcher’s reactionary performance of ‘looking backwards’ (as territorialisation). The significance of the essays is evidenced by the number of times they have been republished in international publications since 2011, including DDP I (published 6 times) including ‘Memorial Address: Marquise de Sade […]’, New York: Halmos, 2011 (with texts by Claire Fontaine and Paul Chan), and Blast CounterBlast, Toronto: Mercer Arts, 2012. And DDP II (twice) including internationally acclaimed ‘FR David’ journal (2013).