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Out of Stein: A Theory of Meaning for Stan Brakhage's Films 259 at an object, the mental representation we form of it does not conform strictly to the laws of geometric optics that describe mathematically the shapes that objects project onto a limited surface whose centre is our van­ tage point. Our previous experience with objects of its type, and the memo­ ries and anticipations those previous experiences furnish, become part of the experience ofthe object immediately before us. WhenI look at a box straight on (so that the axis alongwhich I view it is orthogonal to one of its surfaces), I do not see a square, as projective geometry would imply. I see this three­ dimensional box against a horizon of previous, remembered experiences that tell me what the box would look like from the side, from above, etc. This horizon of expectations, furnished by memory and by my corporal knowl­ edge of three­dimensional space, structures the percept presented to my mind. Because I have had other experiences of cubes and I know what it would look like from the side, from above, etc.; when I look at a cube I see a box in a three­dimensional space. All the paradoxes in which Cubist paintingbecame involved turned on the difficulty of representing the synthetic character of the perceptual process— of capturing its dynamicsin a static form. In this regard, Stein had the advan­ tage, for hers was an art oftime. The formation of complex unitythrough the accumulation of small differences is the essence of the perpetual processes (right down to the minuscule differences created by the eye's tremoring, to constantly refresh the cones in the retina) and of Stein's writing alike. As well, Stein's writing offers many structural homologies to the process by which the body forms perceptions—it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that in some of Stein's works (e.g., "Susie Asado") the rhythms consti­ tute somagrams—graphs representing the body's states over time—for, in the example given, she uses rhythm to imitate the physical sensations of intercourse. But if Stein had the advantage over the Cubist painters, Brak­ hage has the advantage over Stein, for his is an art of dynamicvisual forms (not language) that includes a temporal dimension; thus, Brakhage could combine the strengths that resulted from the Cubist's use of the materialof seeing with the strengths that resulted from Stein's use of temporally extended homologies to the structure of the perceptual process. The combi­ nation of his openness to film's medium­based potentials and his exquisite sensitivity to proprioception and, more generally, to the nuances of internal awareness, has enabled Brakhage to give us the most detailed evocations of the process by which the body forms perceptions that any artist has ever made. He has been especially good at conveying the subtleties of how that process feels from the inside. In recent years Brakhage has argued that Stein is a more radical, and more crucial, writer than Pound. His assessment is not one I can assent to: Stein's 260 The Films of Stan Brakhage span is narrower than Pound's and her writing, at its weakest, too man­ nered.367 Her self is less labile than Pound's and she lacks Pound's ability to assume several personae, and so the range of her verbal constructions is more limited. I also miss in Stein the heart­rending testimony of a sundered personality, speaking directly out of the various parts of himself, to heal the world. She seems, by comparison with Pound,wilfully difficult, as though her writing were a code constructed to conceal as much as it reveals. Perhaps the play of revealing/concealing that is so characteristic of her writing is the result of wanting to testify to the importance of her relation with Alice B. Toklas, a tribute she could not offer openly at the time. Her writing at its weakest seems to play with some secret (likely involving her relation with Toklas)—and to refuse to identify, name, describe, or locate itself in real space and time, as though she is playing with something we want to know, but she will not divulge. At such times, the formal properties of Stein's writ­ ing present themselves as signs that require decoding; and then they seem more like an enigma to be solved than a construction to be savoured. Con­ fronted with references that appear...

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