Tend Towards

[W] Self Portrait in the Colours of Chaos #56

The prophetic philosophy - no, science: beating wings build hurricanes.

Words are wingéd things, and lips construct them carefully. Considerately. Attentive and gentle in the treatment of infantile thoughts left to float into the wind.

Words are wingéd creatures which break from the shells of confined emotions. They stretch, eager to fly, and the hurricanes follow.

I can see the two-tone contrast: navy red and crimson blue in splatter patterns on flurried chitin wings - batting at the breeze and trailing dust of blood and bruises into the world around.

What does a butterfly do, but kiss the wounds on haggard remnants to make penance for typhoons? 

Constructivism is an art, and so is destruction. 

***

Surreal, or Absurd?

This is an attempt to introduce surrealism and constructivism art into my writing, but I'm not very certain that it's going too well just yet. Gimme a hot minute to practice. 

[Edit to Add]

Okay, look, forreal. I swear this made sense at some point. Here, take a learning journey with me:

"Like metaphors, the works are unstable, caught mid-way between different categories, rather than markers on an unproblematic track towards art in 'production'. Because metaphors are linguistic tropes, their application to visual art must itself be metaphorical. As such, metaphor is used here to bring out the uneasy nature of the relationship of art and language, of art theory and language theory - and not simply as a means of mapping a linguistic system of explanation onto art." - Briony Fer, Metaphor and Modernity: Russian Constructivism.

Constructivism is inherently a visual artistic movement. It is geometric functionality reflecting circumstances in a world which birthed it without relying on vague similarity or metaphorical representation - recognition isn't the goal, but an incidental occurence.

Constructivism is an abstract art which bears some similarities to surrealism (but not overtly so, they are distinct in principle and culture). This provides only a narrow area in which we can overlap the two, but not in literature.

Contructivism is not a literary device or structure. The most we can do is approximate translation and emulate theory, and at best, the two are incompatible. A pre-requisite for geometric abstraction is the belief in the resistance of art to narrative, literature and figurative realism - a similar (though not identical) belief to one held in the school of absurdity. 

What then does literary constructivism mean?

I don't know. I honestly think it means nothing. It is nonsensical garbage. But, we can approximate. 'Constructivism' implies a sense of 'structuralism'. (It's a real leap, to be honest, but I do what I can to get results). 

Structuralism is a philosophy that applies to literature. It upholds that all arts must exist in a contextual sea, signified by itself and the significant of the context in which it's born (Sounds familiar, yes? Awful lot like Constructivism to me.)

Another point it upholds is that signs are arbitrary - many things signify similar concepts, so there's no natural reason that any specific signifier must exist. Finally, signs gain meaning from the relationship and placement in proximity to other signs.

If one cannot describe Constructivism like that, then my theory is flawed and I'll take a nap.

So, how does 'Self Portrait in the Colours of Chaos' fit into all this nonsense? 

My attempt was focused on presenting the core concepts, and constructing contrasting conceptual imageries in a surrealist style that does not violate the core principle of constructivism. 

Moreso, however, this was an investigation into considering if the core concepts of constructivism even could translate into literature - something that is very difficult to do when there isn't a defined criteria for comparison.

I'm learning, I'm exploring, I'm testing bounds. Also, I wrote a story in the process, so nobody got hurt, right?

IF you have any insight, yeet it at me, thank you.