Antonin Artaud was born in Marseilles in 1896. He was an actor, poet, playwright, director and a dramatic theorist. He was associated with surrealist in the 1920's. Artaud later abandoned the surrealist movement because of his involvement with politics. Artaud was a major influence on playwrights such as: -Brecht -Ionesco -Genet -Albee At the prime time of his theatrical thought he created the concept of 'cruelty'. What Artaud meant by this was: (In over simplified terms that i found on some online booklet) Existence is evil; goodness is an act of will, and effort; to live well, or to live a 'good’s life requires an act of will, of great effort to counteract the inherent evil abroad the universe; therefore: it is cruel to have to continually make the effort to live without evil. In my opinion this guy seems very interesting because of the style of theatre he created as when I was reading about it seemed very interesting and I am going to research more on this guy he seems fun. :)
Antonin Artaud, also known as God's punching bag...
Okay, perhaps not, but he had his fair share of suffering when he was younger. At four years of age he contracted meningitis, leaving him easily irritated. Oh, he also suffered from Neuralgia, which is basically spontaneous pain. Oh, oh! And he was also susceptible to bouts of depression, and not the dramatic sort; medically justifiable depression.
Naturally, a child of such ill health couldn't be allowed to roam the world unbridled, so his parents did him the service of signing him into a sanatorium, a hospital for the chronically ill or those with long-term health problems. This wasn't an isolated incident, of course; a multitude of visits to the sanatorium, for five years all together was the reality.
He was granted a brief break from dubiously sterile conditions to be conscripted into the French army. Oh, in another dismal turn of fate, he was kicked out because he tended to sleepwalk. Artaud's roster of debilitating conditions continues to grow.
So, by 1919, medical science being incredibly advanced by this time, it was decided Artaud was to be treated with... That's right, opiates. Oh, oh, oh! And because of that spark of genius, he developed an addiction to his medication and opiates in general.
For a modern analog, opium is basically the erstwhile counterpart of morphine. Morphine itself, without going too much into detail, is a form of heroin that has had its chemical structure tinkered with a bit. I know, this stuff was medicine.
While this mightn't help us understand theatrical practices by Artaud, we can at least understand that his life was just some Cosmic Architect's cruel joke, and so perhaps it was no surprise that a man as dogged as himself would conceive 'Theatre of Cruelty'
LIAM SAYS THIS-(as it wont let him post apprently)- Antonin Marie Joesph Artaud. Born: 4th September 1996-Died: 4th March 1948 Born in Marseille, France his mother gave birth to nine children but only him a one sister survived. In March 1920 moved to Paris to become a writer, he had a at talent for avant-garde theatre. Whilst in Paris he trained and worked with some of the greatest directors. He suffered his entire life with illness even an addiction to opium. Artaud created theatre of cruelty, he thought theatre should affect the audience as much as possible he did this by using lighting and other techniques in a disturbing manner (sounds joyful). He also had rather bleak philosophy he rejected the idea of Utopias and is seen as the embodiment of aggression, (first impression, what a barrel of laughs!). A final fun fact the band Motley Crüe named the album Theatre of pain after Artaud's theatre of cruelty.
This guy actually sounds quite scary and rather disturbed (though I doubt I need to make that summary)
"Madman/theorist/philosopher/playwright Antonin Artaud's final work was a radiophonic creation entitled "To Have Done With The Judgment Of God." It was written after several years' internment in psychiatric institutions which roughly corresponded to the duration of WWII. During his stay at the asylum, Artaud's behavior was characterized by delusions, auditory hallucinations, glossolalia and violent tantrums. He underwent a myriad of bizarre treatments for this behavior including coma-inducing insulin therapy and electroshock therapy. "Pour En Finir Avec le Judgement de Dieu" is a heretic's scatalogical tirade at the extreme of the linguistic lunatic fringe. It was perhaps Artaud's electronic revenge against his incarcerators-- an invective broadcast from the end of the mind. It was commissioned in 1947 by Ferdinand Pouey, the director of dramatic and literary broadcasts for French Radio. The work defies description, and although it was actually recorded in the studios of the French Radio at the end of 1947 and scheduled to be broadcast at 10:45 PM on February 2, 1948, the broadcast was cancelled at the last minute by the director of French Radio, Vladimir Porche. Citing Artaud's scatalogical, vicious and obscene anti-American and anti-Catholic pronouncements as something that the French radio audience could do without, he upheld this censorship in the face of widespread support from many culturally prominent figures including Jean Cocteau, Jean Louis Barrault, Rene Clair and Paul Eluard. Pouey actually quit his job in protest. Artaud died a little over a month later, profoundly disappointed over the rejection of the work. It was not broadcast over the airwaves until thirty years later.
In the actual text of "To Have Done With The Judgment Of God" America is denounced as a baby factory war-mongering machine. Bloody and apocalyptic death rituals are described. Shit is vividly exalted as evidence of life and mortality. Questions about consciousness and knowledge are pursued and answered with more unanswerable questions. It all dead-ends in a scene in which God itself turns up on an autopsy table as a dissected organ taken from the defective corpse of mankind. In the recording all this would have been interspersed with shrieks, screams, grunts, and an extensive vocabulary of nonsense words-- a glossolalia of word-like sounds invented by Artaud to give utterance to the dissociation of meaning from language.
One would be hard pressed to find anything like Artaud's work being broadcast on radio or TV now, but to get an approximation of an idea of it, do this: turn on the radio to any station (except WFMU of course), turn on the TV with the sound up and the picture off, smoke a joint and just listen to the glorious sound of the babbling media. As good as electroshock therapy."
* Nicked off of http://wfmu.org/LCD/GreatDJ/artaud.html
Antonin Artaud was born in Marseilles in 1896. He was an actor, poet, playwright, director and a dramatic theorist. He was associated with surrealist in the 1920's. Artaud later abandoned the surrealist movement because of his involvement with politics. Artaud was a major influence on playwrights such as:
ReplyDelete-Brecht
-Ionesco
-Genet
-Albee
At the prime time of his theatrical thought he created the concept of 'cruelty'.
What Artaud meant by this was:
(In over simplified terms that i found on some online booklet)
Existence is evil; goodness is an act of will, and effort; to live well, or to live a 'good’s life requires an act of will, of great effort to counteract the inherent evil abroad the universe; therefore: it is cruel to have to continually make the effort to live without evil.
In my opinion this guy seems very interesting because of the style of theatre he created as when I was reading about it seemed very interesting and I am going to research more on this guy he seems fun. :)
Antonin Artaud, also known as God's punching bag...
ReplyDeleteOkay, perhaps not, but he had his fair share of suffering when he was younger. At four years of age he contracted meningitis, leaving him easily irritated. Oh, he also suffered from Neuralgia, which is basically spontaneous pain. Oh, oh! And he was also susceptible to bouts of depression, and not the dramatic sort; medically justifiable depression.
Naturally, a child of such ill health couldn't be allowed to roam the world unbridled, so his parents did him the service of signing him into a sanatorium, a hospital for the chronically ill or those with long-term health problems. This wasn't an isolated incident, of course; a multitude of visits to the sanatorium, for five years all together was the reality.
He was granted a brief break from dubiously sterile conditions to be conscripted into the French army. Oh, in another dismal turn of fate, he was kicked out because he tended to sleepwalk. Artaud's roster of debilitating conditions continues to grow.
So, by 1919, medical science being incredibly advanced by this time, it was decided Artaud was to be treated with... That's right, opiates. Oh, oh, oh! And because of that spark of genius, he developed an addiction to his medication and opiates in general.
For a modern analog, opium is basically the erstwhile counterpart of morphine. Morphine itself, without going too much into detail, is a form of heroin that has had its chemical structure tinkered with a bit. I know, this stuff was medicine.
While this mightn't help us understand theatrical practices by Artaud, we can at least understand that his life was just some Cosmic Architect's cruel joke, and so perhaps it was no surprise that a man as dogged as himself would conceive 'Theatre of Cruelty'
Ahem... Was medicine... And still is.*
ReplyDeleteLIAM SAYS THIS-(as it wont let him post apprently)-
ReplyDeleteAntonin Marie Joesph Artaud.
Born: 4th September 1996-Died: 4th March 1948
Born in Marseille, France his mother gave birth to nine children but only him a one sister survived. In March 1920 moved to Paris to become a writer, he had a at talent for avant-garde theatre. Whilst in Paris he trained and worked with some of the greatest directors. He suffered his entire life with illness even an addiction to opium. Artaud created theatre of cruelty, he thought theatre should affect the audience as much as possible he did this by using lighting and other techniques in a disturbing manner (sounds joyful). He also had rather bleak philosophy he rejected the idea of Utopias and is seen as the embodiment of aggression, (first impression, what a barrel of laughs!). A final fun fact the band Motley Crüe named the album Theatre of pain after Artaud's theatre of cruelty.
This guy actually sounds quite scary and rather disturbed (though I doubt I need to make that summary)
ReplyDelete"Madman/theorist/philosopher/playwright Antonin Artaud's final work was a radiophonic creation entitled "To Have Done With The Judgment Of God." It was written after several years' internment in psychiatric institutions which roughly corresponded to the duration of WWII. During his stay at the asylum, Artaud's behavior was characterized by delusions, auditory hallucinations, glossolalia and violent tantrums. He underwent a myriad of bizarre treatments for this behavior including coma-inducing insulin therapy and electroshock therapy. "Pour En Finir Avec le Judgement de Dieu" is a heretic's scatalogical tirade at the extreme of the linguistic lunatic fringe. It was perhaps Artaud's electronic revenge against his incarcerators-- an invective broadcast from the end of the mind.
It was commissioned in 1947 by Ferdinand Pouey, the director of dramatic and literary broadcasts for French Radio. The work defies description, and although it was actually recorded in the studios of the French Radio at the end of 1947 and scheduled to be broadcast at 10:45 PM on February 2, 1948, the broadcast was cancelled at the last minute by the director of French Radio, Vladimir Porche. Citing Artaud's scatalogical, vicious and obscene anti-American and anti-Catholic pronouncements as something that the French radio audience could do without, he upheld this censorship in the face of widespread support from many culturally prominent figures including Jean Cocteau, Jean Louis Barrault, Rene Clair and Paul Eluard. Pouey actually quit his job in protest. Artaud died a little over a month later, profoundly disappointed over the rejection of the work. It was not broadcast over the airwaves until thirty years later.
In the actual text of "To Have Done With The Judgment Of God" America is denounced as a baby factory war-mongering machine. Bloody and apocalyptic death rituals are described. Shit is vividly exalted as evidence of life and mortality. Questions about consciousness and knowledge are pursued and answered with more unanswerable questions. It all dead-ends in a scene in which God itself turns up on an autopsy table as a dissected organ taken from the defective corpse of mankind. In the recording all this would have been interspersed with shrieks, screams, grunts, and an extensive vocabulary of nonsense words-- a glossolalia of word-like sounds invented by Artaud to give utterance to the dissociation of meaning from language.
One would be hard pressed to find anything like Artaud's work being broadcast on radio or TV now, but to get an approximation of an idea of it, do this: turn on the radio to any station (except WFMU of course), turn on the TV with the sound up and the picture off, smoke a joint and just listen to the glorious sound of the babbling media. As good as electroshock therapy."
* Nicked off of http://wfmu.org/LCD/GreatDJ/artaud.html