NARRATIVES: IDEATION GENERATED FOR A TROUBLED ERA
Stephen Saracino, Professor of Metalsmithing Design at SUNY Buffalo State, was invited by View Center for Arts and Culture to give this lecture via Zoom on March 6th, 2021.
View the entire lecture HERE
Metals/Jewelry Program at SUNY Buffalo State
Artist’s Statement:
I am a studio artist/educator with a MA in Art Education, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Metalsmithing trained in both jewelry design and larger scaled metal fabrication. I have been teaching at the collegiate level at SUNY Buffalo State for just over 40 years. My work embraces a wide range of subject matter that is narrative in character using ideation that tends to break down into four categories: Objects created from using my own social conscience/political viewpoint; historic subject matter relating to cultural iconography from the countries where I have lived while pursuing my career; humorous renditions of cultural events both historic and pop-oriented; and the making of larger objects dealing with non-objective volumetric form.
I have endeavored to keep a jewelry or metalsmithing idiom as a root for the objects I build, but the jewelry scaled work has evolved to owning only a vestige utilitarian function and the larger hollow formed objects (like the one in the exhibit) have followed in the same vein retaining only a suggestion of having once been useable. Bracelets or rings designed never to be worn have become platforms to initiate any manner of narrative, and the vessels have noticeable spouts but with no way for them to be filled or emptied. With this said it is often amusing to remind myself that my initial training in metal followed a strict traditionalist voice with one ring to each finger, all bracelets and pins made in a suitable scale for body adornment and hollow formed vessels serving utilitarian goals all fashioned in the pursuit of achieving the highest degree of aesthetics. Instead, I decided very early on to desert these traditional roots and I never looked back. I chose to create objects that challenge the viewers to resolve an ever-present dichotomy between the narrative and the vestige idioms within which the compositions rest to provoke a different, perhaps higher level of thinking. Not only are the viewers challenged to fathom the narrative’s hypothesis but also to confront and consent to the environ within which the storyline has been placed. It became my hook. If only one finger was needed for the suitable territory for a narrative, then it would follow that two, three, or even four fingers could now be utilized as fair game to resolve the idea mix. Bracelets could then be utilized for “weightier” ideation where the narrative demanded broader surface territory for clarification. It made perfect sense to me.
What I am not in the truest sense a prototypical scholar on the topic of violence or Terror. Other than frequently published editorial comments in newspapers I have never submitted a scholarly article for publication relating to this subject nor have I ever investigated or developed a formal thesis relating to specific motivations of why people who become terrorists or why a State might sponsor it. I am also not a psychiatrist or for that matter a politician trying to sell you a point of view to get reelected. So, this discussion will instead reflect on how and why I approach the subject of violence and terror and how that mind-set lead to creating the objects you will see today.
Perhaps then these objects can help to give insight to the effect that terrorism has on our societies while offering viewers a safe place to have thoughtful dialog on not only the act and its consequences but also helping one to process a clearer pathway to envision why violence became the means to resolve the issue at hand. Lastly, through the creation of these objects, I leave a permanent reminder, a marker if you will, to keep the event squarely in the consciousness of humanity.
ter·ror
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French terrour, from Latin terrēre to frighten; akin to Greek trein to be afraid, flee, tremein to tremble
1: a state of intense fear
2: a : one that inspires fear
b : a frightening aspect <the terrors of invasion>
c : a cause of anxiety
d : an appalling person or thing
3: violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by
groups in order to intimidate a population or
This 10-minute introduction can only fleetingly skim the history and psychology of terror/violence. I’ll begin with the example some scholars believe represents a recorded strategy used long ago to instill terror on a targeted audience. During the Roman occupation of Judea, a segment of the Jewish population called the Sicarli (dagger men), were a group of Jewish Zealots hell bent on encouraging the Romans to leave Judea. They developed terror tactics to instill fear onto the occupying forces. The Sicarli carried out their objectives at public gatherings thereby creating the basic nature of terrorism. The strategies they developed have evolved to become what we now generally agree to be the modus operandi for non-State planned terrorism.
Keep in mind that mass communication was nonexistent then, so the degree of success of the Sicarli tactics on the Romans was unfortunately woefully overshadowed by the terror of mass killings perpetrated by the Romans on the Jews in Judea.
We need to fast forward in time to the French revolution and Maximilien Robespierre, in the 18th century, to see where historians begin to suggest the beginnings of modern-day terrorism originated. Robespierre and his followers killed non-believers in droves to create a dictatorship to ensure social order that ultimately led to a democratic France. He used violence to effect this change that may very well have become what we now think of when we image today’s terrorism. However, one must speculate on the irony of using dictatorial tactics to ultimately achieve a democracy. Apparently, bad news traveled faster in the 18th century as this form of terrorism worked well in helping Robespierre attain his objectives.
Still forward we find more of non-State sponsored terrorism in the middle of the 20th century where localized ethnic groups began using terror to enact political change without codified State support. The Irish Republican Army, the Kurdistan Worker’s party, the Basque Separatists, or the Weathermen in the USA to name a few, come to mind. These organizations were unaligned to an organized State to effect change via bombings, hostage taking, and mayhem to keep people in fear for their lives so political or religious agendas could be advanced. However, these terror groups didn’t need to massacre thousands to get their point across; they had the radio and TV to broadcast their agenda, perhaps unintentionally, helping them to advance their stated objectives. A few media-announced grizzly deaths would be sufficient. Mongol Hordes needn’t apply! This outcome wasn’t missed on rouge States who were studying these groups and how mass media would willingly transmit their agendas and deeds 24/7. CNN anyone?
Initially such terrorist groups were more-or-less regional as were their agendas. It wasn’t until the fiasco over Lockerbie, Scotland did the whole world (and me as well) begin to realize the awful potential such acts could bring to the terror genre if some rogue State decided to become involved in the act. Soon small groups of disenfranchised individuals could not only successfully achieve their agenda unencumbered by funding worries but could also create massive worldwide panic into a broader arena never considered by receiving support from a stable government. This terror milestone established the standard as some States began to increasingly exploit these localized groups to enact their own agendas while deflecting culpability with plausible denial. This breakthrough accelerated the reality as to what now would be forever lost for our species: Peace of mind. Terror had now become easier to commit, become constant, and borderless.
Perhaps the Lockerbie incident became the watershed event that effectively blurred the boundaries between State and non-State sponsored terrorism. Where did the funding and logistics originate to carry out the event? Our corrosive practice during the second Golf war involving sweeping people from foreign streets using extraordinary rendition surely didn’t rely on unpaid volunteers devising plans to carry out these atrocities. Terror groups don’t print their own money and neither did the people responsible for the bomb placement on that Lockerbie plane or for the flight training for the ones that carried-out the Trade Center attack. 9/11 certainly set the bar quite high for future terror activities that, perhaps even ending up at our Capital March 6th with our own version of home-grown terrorism. That recent fiasco came to within minutes of a much more horrific outcome and does not bode well for this country’s immediate future.
I’m convinced that there is an unholy triad of requisites that form the basis for all terrorist acts. I have come to the stark realization that this triad of political, religious, and monetary fundamentals are deeply concealed into layers that are neither linear nor relegated to just one political philosophy or a singular country or to an easily delineated funding source.
So, before I head us all too far into the weeds, I think you have an idea of what draws me to this subject matter and to why I feel it’s important to leave markers defining specific acts for assessment. I’ll downshift here, and segue into a discussion of my work...
The BEATLE, George Harrison once explained that; “Mainly the object has been to get something out of my system as opposed to, ‘being a songwriter’”. This is the dictum that I have strived to follow throughout my career regarding the edgier work, and to some extent the occasional humorous pieces. Trying to determine the complex issue of who, what, why, and how, has finally become for me less important than finding a manner for me to psychologically survive these events. To get the absurdity of it all out of me. It’s that simple. I comment on the tragedy by building a piece of art and putting it out there to be viewed, examined, and hopefully discussed to afford folks an opportunity to address the issues surrounding the incident. When the event takes place, I feel a need to confront the specifics of its irrationality and then design a way to record the event, in precious metal, within a narrative suitable to the deed to get it out of MY system. So, for example, placing a surface-to-air missile onto a three-fingered ring readied for use by civilians in the Third World, works for me on several levels.
-Stephen Saracino
