confessional manifesto

I visited this exhibition at Central Saint Martins with a friend who’s work was in the show and made some progression with my intended outcome as a result. (The name of the show was Human Manifesto which I think was a generic choice for the work and has nothing to do with my initial proposal of a ‘’confessional manifesto’’). The show was a selection of curated student works under the themes of LGBT/Queer bodies - te intersection of identity of physical form. The works were mixed media, including photography, sculpture, print and performance. All of these elements gave me inspiration for how I could present my research and more importantly, allowed me to reflect on the elements of the research I am most interested in. This is what I want to consider first. 

VULNERABILITY IN CONFESSION

There is a crossover between the themes of this exhibition and my area of research. What unites them is the idea of vulnerability. In the previous post I discussed how voluntary vulnerability is inherent to my past work and my approach to confession. This exhibition cemented that for me. To confess is to make oneself vulnerable - externalising negative experiences or emotions to reach a sense truth. The works at the CSM show were not confessional necessarily but the element of chosen vulnerability in expressing marginalised identities, especially through physical and bodily forms, are in a similar vein to confessionality I have found in other works. It was a note I made early in the research that the art movement of ‘Confessional Artists’ was ran predominantly by women and marginalised groups ( by race or sexuality). A lot of the work at the Human Manifesto show could easily be considered ‘confessional art’ - in this case, there was a lot of vulnerability in the works in a context of exposing physical bodies and historically repressed sexual identities. This was done with a sense of comfortability and shamelessness. For instance, this piece (Untitled, Emma Charlier) of monoprints very closely resembles similar monoprints by Tracey Emin in both content and the style of her signature confessionality. Charlier’s prints say ‘’If you love women so much why don’t you just marry one??? yea that’s the plan actually’’ and ‘’how could I hate my body when it looks so much like yours’’. They’re emotionally wrought in a similar way Emin’s work. 

Artistic value of chosen vulnerability seems to correlate directly to lack of political or social agency through the work of the confessional artists - and their influence on contemporary works today as in the case above. 

This is highly connected to Foucault’s understanding of confession in a context of social power dynamics. I’d like to research and develop the link between this ‘’chosen vulnerability’’ within confession (including confessional art) and Foucault’s analysis of the politics of confession. His concept of power inbalance between confessor-confessee has been looked at in more depth in other blog posts. Vulnerability within this context is something I will likely be focusing the project on moving forward in relation. 

DISPLAY INSPIRATION

The second major benefit of the exhibition was looking at multiple different ways of displaying artworks with strong conceptual a basis. One immediately caught my attention. I think the work itself is interesting but not necessarily impressive - it was the idea which it gave me for my own work that I am really excited about. 

The work itself was photography displayed in a metal frame sculpture. Three separate photographs were hung in a staggered fashion from the frame, in various printing methods, the first two being mostly translucent. Each pictured a  nude women. In the front, there was a clay sculpture of a nude women in the same position as the photographs pictured. 

I have a plan to recreate a similar work, but ‘’life sized’’. It would be the dimensions of a small room, so the audience can walk through the gaps. The photographs would be replaced by something else, potentially a mixture of mediums but all transparent - for instance, one as printed images, one as a projected film, another as a screen of text. 

Each screen would account for a various element of the research, perhaps each would track a different part of the history of confession as Foucault outlines (from premodern to contemporary). The value of the transparent screens is that it is so similar to Foucault’s approach to the history of confession - it will allow the whole to be seen through the close examination of what is behind it. This is his archeology. 

This is a good solution to the problems I have had when considering the display techniques, which I will outline in another post. It also leaves open the possibility of audience interaction and multi media presentation.

Confession has been a key theme and area of interest throughout some projects I have worked on in the past. These have been through multiple mediums and frequently personal, but in a few instances the confessionality was channeled through others (whether real or imagined). The value of vulnerability in confession has been the predominant focus in all of the work. I think this history of my interests explains a lot about my approach to confession. 

Most recently I wrote a poetic prose piece to be published in a zine format, entitled ‘’I Know What Life is Like Because I Am Living’’. It was written with the criteria of being ‘’urgent and intense’’. It followed a character in contemporary London who is nameless, ageless and genderless. The work explicitly references ‘’the confessor’’ as one of many archetypes which the character embodies, at the beginning and end of the narrative. Throughout, these small and mundane ‘’confessions’’ build the story and the character. It is also confessional in the sense it was inspired by the ‘’stream of consciousness’’ works of Modernist authors (Clarice Lispector, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf) who utilised inner monologues of the characters to shape and build narrative. It’s interesting that this convention of modernist writing emerged at the time Freud’s methods of psychoanalysis where being popularised globally, which according to Foucault, is inherently confessional. (find a reference).

Some extracts from I Know What Life is Like Because I Am Living are pictured below.

The character makes it clear that this is a mechanism, similar to the concept I began this research with of ‘’the confessional mechanism’’ in which something is gained out of producing ‘’truth’’ from confession (ref to Foucault). The character in I Know What Life is Like… is gaining something from their selective vulnerability. The idea of deliberate ‘’foolishness’’ as a means of vulnerability is another theme in some earlier projects I’ve worked on.

Last year, my work ‘’Notes from 1797’’ was displayed at UoG 2nd Year Show. It curated and reproduced extracts of the teenage diary’s of Elizabeth Fry, an 18th century Quaker and philanthropist. For that project, I did a lot of research into the confessional artists and the confessional nature of diaries/journals. Writing diaries is confessional in the way that it externalises the private and often negative emotions and experiences of the writer. It also includes an element of narrative. Through confession, narrative is created. This idea of self-narration in confession is a core of confessional art too.

Notes From 1797 is pictured below. I photographed the original handwritten texts of Fry’s diaries, digitally extracted the chosen quotes, and reproduced them in vinyl prints to be transferred onto the gallery wall. I was extremely happy with the outcome of displaying emotionally wrought and private writing in a public space. It’s important to mention that these diaries are already public, and where likely written for the intention of publication. I also used the core Quaker value of truth and transparency to validate what could otherwise been disrespectful to Elizabeth Fry’s legacy. Other theoretical research went into the work too, including the idea of abstraction as a curatorial tool. It was not immediately apparent from the work itself where the quotes were taken from, or that they were quotes at all.

At the same time I was working on Notes from 1797, I also wrote, directed and produced a short film, entitled Violet Nights, on a micro budget (funded by an Arts Council writing group I was selected for in 2016). It’s a film about nuanced loneliness and vulnerability of Queer Identity, but told through an absurdist and theatrical narrative about clowns. It looks at how ‘’making a fool of yourself’’ can be a means of connection and fulfilment. This is not necessarily confessional, but the fundamental value of vulnerability for personal gain is the same, at least through my own conception of these things. I had made this idea clear in my own life and work before I’d connected it to the history of confession.

In response to Notes from 1797 and Violet Nights, I drafted a personal ‘’manifesto’’ along with some friends which we entitled ‘’The Gay Giddy Fool Manifesto’’ -  a reference to the Elizabeth Fry quote which was at the centre of Notes from 1797. This is pictured below. 

(a more analytical look at the film and its themes will be written after production)

For an upcoming group crit. session, I am making a short film which draws a parallel between Youtube ‘apology videos’ (and more loosely Youtube ‘storytime’ narratives) and an Anglo-Saxon penance prayer. This, of course, is an iteration of the comparisons between confessional forms of social media and early religious forms of confession as penance.

In writing the script I will return to the Michael Drout’s seafarer project documents (link here) which give examples of ‘bodily confession’ prayers and look at their significance. I have also read an article entitled ‘’The form of confession: a later medieval genre for examining conscience’’ by Michael E. Cornett (link here) to gather material and inspiration for the ‘prayer’ section of the script.

For the confessional Youtube videos, I have watched and transcribed some of the most prolific examples (Laura Lee and Logan Paul primarily). These were both subject to mocking and criticism for their lack of sincerity which potentially has implications I’ll look at later. I have also briefly looked at ‘storytime’ videos to examine and recreate some of their conventions. These are often more sincere and importantly, they frequently discuss extremely personal topics, including very physical and bodily topics.

The film will use a character, but presents itself as real. She’s a young distressed woman who is confessing a failed relationship to her audience. She apologises for lying to her viewers about it in the past. This uses all the conventions of ‘vulnerability’ on Youtube - crying, low quality, jump cuts, melodrama, babbling and asking for forgiveness. The visual and audio will be extremely easy to recreate based on

Over the course of a couple of minutes, this sequence merges into the another - the anglo saxon prayer. The same character begins to talk oddly about parts of her body and asking for forgiveness. Eventually she is reciting an entire obscure prayer, which has its focus on listing parts of the body as metaphors for wrongdoing, in order to repent.

This prayer sequence will have a much different aesthetic - it will be explicitly staged and dramatic. Because the prayer is so obscure, I want to be reflected. I also want it to be an explicitly critical and distanced from the accompanying sequence. The style will take inspiration from a Youtube channel ‘’Contrapoints’’ which uses similar characterisations to make long format video essays of social criticism and analysis, in a recognisable style which is visually theatrical, slightly melodramatic. Primarily I’ll recreate this with lighting and audio. I have experimented with this visual using the actor and am pleased with the results, but plan to make it more exaggerated in the filming.

In the acceptance of Foucault’s overarching philosophy in regard of the political history of confession (as opposed to the original use of his material to support the surface level of my own comparison), some other theoretical problems I’ve encountered began to resolve. The first one being the fundamental lack of definition for confession, ‘confessionality’, ‘confessionalism’ and the ‘confessional mechanism’ within the project. My intention at the beginning of the project was that this would come quickly and naturally with the research. However I was stretching the term so broadly that the breadth of the research kept increasing and was beginning to disintegrate.

Foucault also does not specify a definition of confession, only using cases in point to aid his analysis. For the most part they are obvious religious confessions. But later in his look at contemporary instances, it’s not so clear. He talks of our ‘singularly confessional society’ through a wide range of examples from psychotherapy to love letters. For Foucault these are all ‘’archeologically’’ inked to the medieval confessions via the underlying power dynamics and social function. Shall they still be regarded as confessions? They all have confessional as a quality but Foucault makes no claim they are in themselves ‘’confessions’’ necessarily - although many are.

I have drawn up these practical definitions which fit Foucault’s use of the terms, my own sense of the terms and importantly, the official dictionary definitions. This has created a coherent vocabulary for the project.

Confession: an externalisation of something internal: a thought, feeling, action or experience. The internal element must be negative and/or harmful to the individual. Typically they are shameful or distressing to the individual. A second party must be involved: that is, a witness to the confession whether it’s an audience or singular individual.

Confessional: an act or behaviour which has the qualities of a confession.

Witness to Confession: the second party involved in a confession, the observer or the audience. For Foucault, the nature of the witness is to have power over the confessor no matter the intention or context.

The Confessional Mechanism is my own term for the specific function of the confession. It began optimistic focal point of my proposal. I had the sense that the confessor experiences some form of relief from their confession (short term or long term). There is a possibility of empowerment through this vulnerability. This is an incredibly individualist approach and solely looks at the confessor rather than the witness.

However, Michel Foucault looks almost entirely at the relationship between the confessor and the witness to the confession. It is this he uses to trace confession from its medieval roots to its forms today.

My project began from an individual level of confession. I was incredibly pleased to immediately find the Foucault text to back up my intuition that a comparison could be drawn, or rather, an exact lineage of confession from religious to secular context. However, his societal and power-focused approach differed hugely. I was not interested in the problem of power in confession, instead wanting to focus on a supposed catharsis of the individual.

A lot of my problems with the conceptual development have come from trying to merge these things. That is, using Foucault’s theory to prove my initial proposed idea meanwhile knowing it was significantly different in scale and approach. I cannot reject his theory of power for my own project while using the same text to ground my ideas of confession. I have only recently been able to articulate this and in doing so things have become clearer, but some questions have arisen.

Almost all of Foucault’s published writing on the topic of confession are found in the work entitled ‘’A Will To Knowledge’’, the introductory volume in a series on the philosophical history of sexuality in the West. In Foucault’s terms, sexuality is something which historically got ‘caught up’ in the wider power dynamic employed by confession. The way society regards sexuality today and since the medieval period has been an evolution of this broader dynamic.

Sexuality involves the immediacies of desire and pleasure in conjunction with its far broader purpose of the continuation of humanity - making it both spiritual and political in nature. The intersection of immediate and transcendent within sexuality makes it an ideal part of life to be appropriated by systems of power. According to Foucault, this dynamic of power still exists in contemporary forms but it can be traced back to a much earlier time in Western society, exclusively through early Christianity. This is made apparent by one key moment in church history for Foucault, and that is during the Lateran council reform of the Catholic church in 1215. This was the moment when confession was formally made obligatory for Catholics. Of course, combined with the social climate of Medieval Europe (unified church and state), this meant that confession was in some ways legally obligatory too.

Conceptual Development and Personal Biases. January 2019.

Up to this point of the project, I have been making the comparison between contemporary forms of confession, specifically within a digital realm, with religious confessional cultures. Specifically my research and comparison has narrowed into confession on social media specifically, and the Catholic confession in Medieval Europe as discussed by Foucault in History of Sexuality: Will to Knowledge. I collected research about this into a short publication which can be found here: (document pages to be uploaded onto blog).

The Foucault text has become gradually more central to the project as my research continues. There have been multiple stages of development which have come directly from an initial critique of the text and later an acceptance of it. I have described earlier how I initially saw Foucault’s premises as contrary to my own premises, specifically his idea that Western society is already confessional: confession is at the core of discourse, and this history can be traced back to the function of Medieval religious confession (add ref here, passage from second chapter). I realised that this coherent ‘traceability’ of confession meant that I had to alter my idea that ‘the return to confession’’ was a novel suggestion. If confession has been here all along and is fully integrated into the foundation of Western communication as Foucault suggests then ‘’re-integration’’ is futile - this re-integration being the centre of my initial proposal. However, this traceable history backed up my idea that confession has a mechanical role in communication, both for society and the individual, with ‘’the production of truth’’ (in Foucault’s words) (add ref) at its centre.

Later, I was reluctant to accept the deeper consequences which Foucault suggests - those which relate to social power. Foucault is critical confession’s role in society, seeing it primarily as a means of power and control of the masses. He looks at Catholic confession in Medieval France as a case study, specifically the Lateran Council reform of 1215, which specified exact ways in which confession was to be carried out, and more importantly, made it mandatory by law. Confession was a way in which agents with power integrated themselves into the very foundation of individual’s lives. He states that this still exists contemporary manifestations of confession. An example given is the relationship between doctor and patient: the doctor has inherent power over the patient by the nature of their discourse, which is inherently confessional (the patient admitting ‘’I have a problem with my body’’ in hope of treatment). This power, especially in the medicalised forms, is termed ‘’bio-power’’ by Foucault and can also be seen in psychiatry, prisons and even schools. I was fascinated by this theory of Foucault’s, but was reluctant to accept it because of the consequences the power dynamic would have on my project’s development and my own personal assumptions. I had approached ‘’confession’ with optimism that it could be ‘reclaimed’ as a means of personal fulfilment. In its secularisation, I had assumed that confession would give power back to the confessor. This is not the case for Foucault. In his line of theory, the context of the confession may change but the underlying power structures are what remain. Clearly, my initial proposal was the reverse of this.

I had specifically considered the similarities of pre-Lateran council confession and the current state of messy and unregulated confession in the digital realm. In loose terms, I considered the idea that an outcome of my project would be to mimic the Lateran council reform, as a way of giving new structure the confession to make it positive and effective. But this was entirely overlooking Foucault’s primary theory of power dynamics in confession. What are the consequences on the comparison between Medieval and contemporary digital confession, if Foucault’s power dynamic is accepted? Who is the agent of power? In accepting Foucault’s overarching theory, these are new questions I will be looking at moving forward in the project.

Foucault’s kernel philosophy is history is at the core of this. In other texts, he talks of how the present can be mobilised by the past (all of this needs refs). That is, things are the way they are now because of how things have been. In examining the past, freedom is given to the present. This is because we can see the ‘fragility’ of historical cause and affect - this loosens the illusion of determinism and ‘mobilises’ the present. Using his example of sexuality, for instance, Foucault tells of how the Victorian era’s discourse around sex effects the present day approaches to sex (as a huge simplification).

Collecting Initial Research Findings and Anglo Saxon Exhibit Influence 

Initially, I used the '’map’’ format previously alluded to, inspired by A3 Publishing. I liked how neat and easy this was to just print and fold, since I was just playing with the idea of having it collected physically rather than using it for display. However, since I was printing in A4 rather than A3, I found it ultimately too small for the amount of infomation. Because it was entirely functional, I put very little design effort into the layout. It was extremely ugly but seeing this in its physical form made me think a lot about the connotations of the image, font and layout choice. One example of this was the incorrect aspect ratio in a couple of the images. Some feedback I received about this was that it looked like a ‘’90s church handout’’ that felt ‘’designed by the vicar’s wife’’. I really loved this idea of using these specific design elements to present my research as if it was something else. The religious connotations were relevant to the project specifically, too. This idea is partially what inspired the final layout I chose. 

The same week, I happened to visit Anglo-Saxon Kingdom’s exhibit at the British Library for my personal interest in the Lindisfarne Gospels, which are the first English translations of any biblical texts from the 6th and 7th centuries. The exhibit also featured relics from across the whole of the Anglo Saxon period, mostly religious writings, books and other physical texts. This was beneficial to my project for a couple of reasons. The first was consolidating my existing knowledge of early religious history in Europe, even though it was before the period of history my research into ancient confession. The second was the inspiration it gave me to change the layout of my printed research findings. I liked the idea of mimicking the aesthetic conventions of the ancient texts, especially as it relates to my project concept of parallels between the ancient and contemporary. 

Penance manuals actually did not exist during the Anglo Saxon period, nor was penance even a sacrament before the Lateran Council, so the reference is not exact historically or thematically pure. However what was important to me was the semiotic value, solely in people’s connotations with premodern texts. 

I used digital printing for ease but used handmade lightweight paper, making it very delicate. I also hand-bound the pages which took a little research, although it was something I had done before. I combined saddle stitch and kettle stitch binding methods because I only had a few pages and the way it printed limited me a little bit. However I really valued this time to practice a physical craft. 

With the new developments in my proposal, I have been working on making my sprawling conceptual research more concise. It is currently very broad and dense in its ideologies. I was inspired by a small printing press, A3 Review, to make a small ‘’fold out map’’ of my current proposal (https://www.writingmaps.com/collections/the-a3-review) . 

This would both physical and visual, allowing me to consider the presentation of my research properly for the first time and to take a small break from academic reading. It also tested and strengthened my ability to narrate my findings clearly and effectively in a quick form. In doing this, it brought to light some holes in my research and some questions regarding the semiotic value of publication. 

As outlined in my original proposal, the preliminary premises of this research where as follows:

The vulnerability attained through admission/externalisation of negative emotions (shame, guilt etc.) has extreme value for both for the individual and for society. We can call this the ‘’confessional mechanism’’. 

This was known and formally integrated in premodern societies. For it’s wide recognition, confession in catholicism will be the predominant area explored. 

.The movements of confession in art which already exist are a way in which the confessional mechanism was partly reestablished in post-modernist society. This is exemplified firstly by the Confessional Poets in the 60s/70s and then by the Confessional Artists in the 80s/90s. 

However, after the first readings I’ve come to understand that there is an additional premise and that has slightly complicated my research. This complication, though, has opened up potential outcomes and really channeled my area of interest and inspired a couple of preliminary creative output ideas.

As planned, I began the research with Foucault’s text ‘’The Will To Knowledge’’, the first book in his History of Sexuality series. It’s primarily about the discourse surrounding sex. He rejects the concept that sexuality is repressed. Rather, he claims the secrecy surrounding sex is an integral and necessary. Within this are complex ideas of truth and power, which can be demonstrated in the ritual of confession. He uses the case in point of confession in Medieval Catholicism.

In the Lateran Council’s decision to make confession mandatory across Catholic Europe in the 13th century “helped to give the confession a central role in the order of civil and religious powers.’’ The Lateran Council prescribed confession and outlined methods of appropriate confession. A large part of this was confession of sexual sins. This mandatory confessional element of society was absorbed into the basis of Western culture and is present even today.

This was interesting to me because my premises for this project function around the idea that confessionalism is not currently an integral part of society. Foucault holds the contrary position that

‘’the confession became one of the West’s most highly valued techniques for producing truth. We have singularly become a confessing society. The confession has spread its effects far and wide. It plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relationships, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites; one confesses ones crimes, one’s sins one’s thoughts and desires, ones illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with the greatest precision, whatever is most difficult to tell. One confesses in public and in private, to one’s parents, one’s educators, one’s doctor, to those one loves; one admits to oneself in pleasure and in pain, things it would be impossible to tell to anyone else, the things people write books about. When it is not spontaneous or dictated by some internal imperative, the confession is wrung from a person by violence or threat…Western man has become a confessing animal’’.

My initial response to this was of disappointment, as if this was detrimental to the basis of my project. But I no longer feel this way after more contemplation of the ideas.

Foucault claims that Western society is a confessional society, where I had assumed that it was not. I am accepting of the idea that confessionalism is a weaved into Western society via the catholic history.

However, in becoming more secular (ignoring complexities of church reformation etc. and focusing mostly on the 20th century shift and modernism as outlined in my original proposal) what now seems to be missing is the structure provided in ritualism of confession. My initial concept of reintegrating confession was to use art as a replacement for this ritualism, specifically is the production of art has the explicit intention of confessionalism. This of course links to my idea of manifestos. The intentionality of manifestos and their dogmatism is something that has been appealing to post-modern artists. Linking this to confessionalism feels like a natural progression for this porject.

From here I’d like to research more into the exact benefit of confession to establish my concept of the ‘’confessional mechanism’’.

I would also like to limit my research into existing confessional art (in poetry and fine art) by focusing mostly on digital and internet art spheres. This seems like untracked territory in terms of the academic interest in confession, truth, etc. However this is only a presumption. I will continue research into this over the next couple of weeks.

I’d also like to come to a more solid understanding of what is meant in the term ‘’confession’’ in a premodern and postmodern context. I am aware that this meaning has shifted along with the concept, inside and outside of the Catholic church. A concept I currently have, which is naive I am aware, is that I could create a manifesto of digital confessional art, which would mimic the Lateran Council’s reform of confession in the 13th century but within the contemporary digital sphere. This would use a new set of premises:  


confessionalism is a fundamental use of the internet (how exactly can be explored later) but this is mostly unstructured, 

confessionalism was a fundamental part of Catholicism in 13th century Europe but was mostly unstructured. 

The political reformation was a positive way in which confession was structured and made efficient for society and the individual

the same explicit and dogmatic reformation can be mimicked in a contemporary digital context

This would be via an artistic manifesto? 

In looking at more confessional artists, these are some which I noted down as early examples to return to. What’s interesting to me again is how female (or gender-nonconforming) these artists are. This is something which I cannot ignore in the following research but am concerned about sidetracking into gender theory which I don’t have intention of doing.

Hannah Black - The Neek (film) Caspar Heinemann - Angry Contingent Gender Poem (film) Derek Jarman - Blue (film) Louise Bourgeois  - mother Nan Goldin - One Month After Being Battered

I want to return to Confessional Art which is the functional basis of this project’s research. 

Confessional art is a form of contemporary art that focuses on an intentional revelation of the private self. Confessional art encourages an intimate analysis of the artist’s, artist’s subjects’, or spectators confidential, and often controversial, experiences and emotions. Confessional art emerged in the late 20th century, especially in Great Britain, and is closely associated with autobiographical visual arts and literature.