Forceps - Intimates, on Letters and Packages

CEP PROPOSAL 3: ART IN INTIMACY

I propose to investigate the kind of creative activity that goes on as part of intimate relationships.

Common examples of this are:

• Creative letter writing.
• Hand-made cards.
• Art given as gift.
• Playful note-writing.
• Love poetry.

There are few things more intimate than this, the most authentic, the most phatic of communications. Saying, "this is a part of me, a part of my life and a part of myself, that I want you to have."

It is no coincidence that these are often the possessions most treasured, often with their own dedicated place (commonly a box) in the recipient's life. They are actualizations of the giver, and actualizations of the giver and recipient's relationship. As such, they often remain as precious memories, long after the relationship—or the giver—has ended. In this respect they are similar to Susan Sontag's description of photographs:

"All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt."

In a world where distance-intimacy is increasingly relevant in most peoples' lives, such easily packaged intimation is becoming an important part of today's relationships. Different forms of transmission, email, post, SMS, are each being positioned as having unique creative-intimate possibilities. And it is lovers who are the vanguard of such technologies, far more desperate to bridge the gap than any poet.

I propose to investigate this sphere of creation, desperately important to many people's lives, yet necessarily private. In a world with such easy available creative potential, I would not be surprised to find that most people's artistic practice is the tip of an iceberg, while innumerable letters, poetics, and gifts remain submerged.