BEING CONTEMPORARY

"A person's identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor - important though this is - in the reactions of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going."
-Anthony Giddens

My narrative identity is constantly fractured, broken, abandoned, and sabatoged. I feel most comfortable playing the role of the 'newcomer'. I move at least once a year. I am attracted to creative communities in which I am unknown or invisible. I investigate 'who I am' by browsing my web presence. If 24 hours pass without new search results for 'blaise larmee' I feel no time has passed. If 7 days pass without new search results for 'blaise larmee' I feel compelled to radically alter/reconsider my character. I feel alienated from personal and creative events of 6 months ago. I often identify more with the narratives of others than I do with my own. I feel most connected to my comics in their ethereal state and least connected in their completed state.

"i've been thinking about what you said about the narrative of life and how it's a kind of arbitrary structure. lately life feels less narrative and more like "it always was and always will be" the same. in a good way, kind of. i can deal with the past by experiencing it in the present. and the idea of a "career" and "life goals" seem so stupid in the context of death. so i try not to chart them on a timeline. i don't want to reach a peak because then it will be a decline. i would like to be a little more secure, but i'm not striving for that "security"."
-sent email, 2009



It is comforting to distance oneself from a narrative of one's creation, to be able to abandon a narrative at any moment. As creator I am invisible and corporeal. Into this space I extend my body and mind.

When I contemplate past, present, and future I feel anxiety and confusion. Comics conflate these subjective categories into an objective block of time.

The act of drawing - how quickly and spontaneously it occurs! The drawing occurs in a liquid moment. Comics freezes these moments, labels and indexes them. Crystalized liquid time.

Comics provide a safe space in which one can investigate and explore narrative. Like the architectural plan, comics are a fictive space, a proposed space, an ideal space. I prefer the there and then to the here and now. With each panel the there and then is extended. The comics creator creates and maintains an environment and experiences power in their ability to control and order their environment. I find comfort in the spatial logic with which time is represented in comics. There is a clear sense of connectedness, of sequence, of continuity.


"The best way to analyse self-identity in the generality of instances is by contrast with individuals whose sense of self is fractured or disabled. [...] She may lack a consistent feeling of biographical continuity. An individual may fail to achieve an enduring conception of her aliveness. [...] Discontinuity in temporal experience is often a basic feature of such a sentiment. Time may be comprehended as a series of discrete moments, each of which severs prior experiences from subsequent ones in such a way that no continuous 'narrative' can be sustained."
-Anthony Giddens