Stacy Elaine Dacheux

Marcel and Duchamp

Duchamp liked to call himself a nominalist—one who believes that abstract concepts do not really exist apart from the names we give them. Words were suspect, he felt, because they tended to take on a life of their own. This made them relatively useless for communicating thoughts or ideas, but it did not prevent them from functioning as keys to the meta-rational world of the imagination that finds its true voice in poetry.
-- Calvin Tomkins

Terms:
The time in which anything lasts; that by which a thought is expressed;
Mutual relationship between persons; quantity of a fraction or ratio

After reading The Age of Wire and String, one might classify Ben Marcus in the same category as Marcel Duchamp—a pure nominalist. Marcus is a writer who displaces proper nouns in a pool of water and watches them change color. He allows the abstract to congeal and the concrete to liquefy. Likewise, Duchamp changes the rules of the game— thus making it his game. We become active participants in literature, while Marcus provides us with the tools to crack open the bed-sheets, and discover a world of language that has been caught masquerading in other people’s silly costumes. By stripping words bare of their prior meaning, Marcus re-defines how words relate with one another and also how they relate to himself.

X = Wire:
A thread of metal; finish line of a race; telegraph

Y = String:
A stretched piece of catgut, silk, wire, or other material in a musical
Instrument

The age of X + Y =

The age of a metal thread and a stretched piece of catgut. The age of a finish line and stretched silk. The age of telegraph and stretched wire. The age of wire and any other material in a musical instrument.

Semantics:
Pertaining to meaning, esp. of words. The study of the development of the meaning of words.

Similar to mathematical equations, sentences follow various forms and contain multiple variables. The insertion of one definition for another. The insertion of one proper noun for a common noun. These substitutes alter content and bend meaning. For example, Marcus uses a proper noun, CARL, as a common noun defined as “food built from textiles, sticks, and rags” (41). He also uses another proper noun, ALBERT, even more abstractly as a “nightly killer of light, applied to systems or bodies, which alter postures under various stages of darkness. Flattened versions exist only in the water or grass. They may not rise until light is poured upon them” (13). By designating these concepts with a proper noun, Marcus attributes non-human characteristics to a name, redefining what a name is capable of standing for in a larger context, one that remains faceless. As we observe each word’s transformation from solid to liquid and back again, we notice language’s ability to lie to and deceive us. Although initially, we long to hang onto specifics, we welcome the awakening, and, like a good optical illusion, enjoy the lies – for the pure mystery of aesthetics.

Marcus’ language revolt against traditional usage is comparable to Duchamp’s “assisted readymade” entitled L. H. O. O. Q. This piece consists of a black-penciled mustache scribbled on a postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Calvin Tomkins surmises, language is “meaningless in themselves, but, the letters, when read aloud in French, make the sound of “elle a chaud au cul” or “she has a hot ass” (221). The title here, introduces a hidden language, that alters meaning when examined phonetically. Like Marcus, Duchamp shifts content and allows the abstract to solidify into another entity altogether. While Duchamp scribbles over Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece and traditional art, Marcus paints over Webster’s Dictionary and traditional semantics.

The titles in The Age of Wire and String almost immediately resonate with Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, in which a robotic looking figure is painted in a series of postures that gives the viewer a feeling of movement or abstract sense of velocity. Nude Descending, could, controversially enough, be considered a mesh between Futurism and Cubism. The title when juxtaposed with the image abruptly shifts the content of the painting. The Cubists felt that it was “too much of a literary title, in a bad sense—in a caricatural way” (Tomkins 83).

Comparatively, Marcus executes such brilliant juxtapositions, altering not only language but also content, painting another idea altogether on top of a collection of words. For example, “The Golden Monica,” alters not only the usage of the pronoun, but also the content of the picture as a whole. At first glance, the title resonates with a feeling of humor, keeping in mind the proper noun MONICA. Initially, we imagine a golden colored girl named Monica, straight out of a James Bond film like Gold Finger. But, like Nude Descending a Staircase, as we investigate further into the content and story, we discover a stronger more serious image juxtaposed against the title. For example, “The act is called a monica because suicide is forced into the purview of an audience of hostages” (Marcus 48). The proper noun becomes an act and not an individual, likewise, the nude becomes unrecognizable as a woman through her movement. The result is tragic, humorous, and beautiful.

Overall, Duchamp and Marcus are captivating in regards to all the definitions they have built for themselves. Their imaginative alterations of normality reach all of us who are willing to observe and participate. By turning what is proper into what is common and then into something uniquely one’s own, Marcus displays an enormous talent to transform or convert language. Substituting variables for other variables, mathematically results in a linguistic syllogism that is always arguable, and always right, depending on the audience and the view of the linguist.