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   The performance artist Kembra Pfahler taught me that you can change the meaning of an object simply by changing its colour.  She said that if America really wanted to change its politics, it should start by painting the White House black. 

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   The White House that is the political authority of a country run by white supremacy is clearly not a whiteness we can take for granted. Not only is it symbolic of its own history, but it displays the way in which the color white -as well as generalised whiteness, is taken for granted as (false) neutral. Similarly,  in the essay ‘Inside the White Cube: Ideology of the Gallery Space, Brain O'Doherty explains that this apparent blankness of ‘the white cube’ gallery is not just an empty space with which to fill with art, as it is already inevitably loaded - filled to the brim with its own political history as a symptom of post-war modernism.  

 

   This makes think of all the books I have read, and how pretty much all of them were printed with black ink on white paper (except of course, for all the zines i've read, cut and paste photocopied on flyer paper). Why do our textbooks have to be white? Why can't they be pink? Why is white paper seen as ‘the blank slate’? The blank slate is hardly blank when we consider that bleaching paper is an active process, one that requires laborious effort and expensive technologies.  

 

   In the movie Legally Blonde, the protagonist Elle Woods hands out a copy of her CV on ‘pink watermelon-scented’ paper and her supervisor scoffs at her, dumbfounded. This comedic moment illustrates a very real dynamic at play in wider society, in which a sense of ‘seriousness’ is established by favouring the masculine, which is falsely presented as neutral, while rejecting the colorful, the feminine and the sensual as so-called ‘decorative’ aesthetics. 

 

   In the book Chromophobia, David Bachelor considers this issue in detail. The central argument of the book is that a societal fear of corruption or contamination through color permeates Western culture. Batchelor uses examples from literature and art to explain the ways in which color is both feared and trivialised at the same time: 

 

 “Color is made out to be the property of some sort of forgein body - the feminine, the oriental, the primitive, the infantile, the vulgar,the queer or pathological. Or else color is relegated to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential or the cosmetic. Color is dangerous, or trivial, or it is both. Either way, color is routinely excluded from the higher concerns of the mind. It is regarded as other to the higher values of Western culture.”

 

   Perhaps this notion stems from the legacy and process of creating representational art, which inbedds the idea that form comes first, and colour is just ‘something to fill it in.’  In any case, the presumed non-essentiality of color, or ‘secondary experience’ as Bachelor describes it, means that we do not take colorful things as seriously.  In fact, someone once told me that they loved the first issue of Serious Fun, except for the ‘crazy colorful aesthetics, which distract the reader from the gravitas of the content.’

 

   But for me, color is not distracting, it's invigorating. When I was diagnosed with dyslexia, I learned that some dyslexic students are encouraged to use colored ‘overlays’ when reading text. Experts claim that colored overlays ‘reduce the symptoms of visual stress and increase reading fluency’ but interestingly, there is no concrete evidence as to how this actually works. Could it be that the colored overlays simply make the sometimes laborious act of reading more attractive, more exciting , dare I say, more fun? 

 

   In the case of studying or reading, the notion of ‘fun’ might seem a little out of place, because it implies that you are not being serious about whatever it is you are putting your effort into studying. However, there is a huge difference between ‘being serious’ and ‘seriousness.’ Being serious means being authentically committed and invested in something, (defined by Irit Rogoff as as; ‘actively inhabiting something and then living out its parameters and its consequences’)  whereas the value of ‘seriousness’ is something far more sticky, and inevitably bound to class, history, aesthetics, and gender.

 

   In Legally Blonde, ‘seriousness’ is as Gavin Butt describes it : a value, one that is demonstrated through the language or attitude particular to a social or professional class.’  

 

   Elle Woods long-term boyfriend won't marry her because, in his words, he ‘needs someone serious,’  so she decides to become a law student in a eureka moment where she proclaims ‘THIS is what i need to be serious!” (even though she's got a 4.0 GPA so is clearly academically serious and is also seriously committed to being president and leader of her sorority.) Then, when she finally makes it to Harvard law school, that same boyfriend undermines her achievement, telling her she needs to ‘be serious’ about her expectations at the school and, contradicting himself to say she could do something ‘more valuable’ with her time. In these three instances, seriousness  is used firstly as a social value, then as an aspiration, and finally, to suggest a sober recognition of limiting beliefs. The fact  Elle Woods works hard to get accepted into this prestigious school, only to arrive and find out that no one there will take her seriously, portrays the difference between ‘being serious’ about something, and ‘seriousness’ as an attitude, value or aesthetic. 

 

   In part this is due the perceived theatricality of her pink car and blonde curls. At the heart of theatricality is performance, and therefore by its own nature it cannot be taken seriously because it is identified with unreality. Like color it is inessential, or additional to ‘real life’. However, it is revealed throughout the film that seriousness itself is an equally transparent  performance. 

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   Maybe I'm overlooking the fact that Elle woods cant be taken seriously because Elle Woods is camp as fuck. Elle Woods is, in Sontag’s words,  ‘serious about the frivolous’ (expert knowledge on chihuahuas, soap operas and hair care) and frivolous about the serious (applying to law school on a heartbroken whim), but in the final courtroom scene, it is exactly those ‘frivolous’ interests that end up being crucial to the operation of successful criminal justice. 

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   The success of Elle’s defense goes to show that real seriousness is not high-mindedness, snobbery, and sobriety. It’s dedication, its rigour, its authenticity, its sincerity. But then of course, if fun is an antonym of seriousness, is fun always counter to these values?

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   In the case of Legally Blonde, Elle Woods says that her pink watermelon scented paper  adds something ‘extra’ to her CV’. But everything about Elle Woods is extra. She's an excessive, hyper-aestheticized fun-loving  person, and because of that, Elle wood simply isn't taken seriously (that is until she proves everyone who has underestimated her wrong). In a world where appearances often denote how seriously the world takes you, Seriousness, or rather who and what gets taken ‘seriously’  easily morphs into  a ‘small p’ political issue.  

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 The question of excess seems especially pertinent at a time when the UK government’s negotiation of the essential and non-essential has revealed a deep-rooted bias.

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   When the UK went into ‘lock down’ the government-regulated worlds of finance and healthcare are protected without question. Suddenly there was a drawing up and dividing of what was considered ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ services. DIY stores like B&Q, takeaways and laundromats could stay open while libraries, skateparks and night clubs would be immediately suspended. (I am not contesting the need for such measures at the time, I am more interested in the ideology embedded within them) The idea of ‘essential’ services implies that there is an essential type of person. A baseline, neutral type of person, and this undoubtedly reflects hetronormative/sensible/serious ideas of what ‘excess’ is. 

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   After looking at the recently published government report on obesity and corona, there is undoubtedly a moral agenda behind all this. One that suggests that  ‘excessive’ people (which could extend to the potential victims of both chromophobia and essentialism:  black people, fat people, femme people, queer people) are seen to threaten the idea of the ‘essential’ world they are trying to promote. 

 

  Is art making an ‘essential’? I have returned to this question many times, and continue to interrogate it in the context of the pandemic. 

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   What is truly ‘essential’ depends on the individual. In a meaningless world, it's essential we continue to construct our own meanings. When lockdown started my ex-boyfriend's art agent said it was immoral for him to go to his studio alone to create work and that he was being selfish to make the journey there and risk spreading the virus.  This opened up an whole argument about how ‘essential’ creative life is to the artist as well as their audiences. Beyond it being a form of income, it may be essential to their well-being, and the well-being of others. 

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   If art is non-essential, am I (as an artist and art teacher) a non-essential person?  A recent survey circulated on Facebook asked participants to rank jobs in order of necessity. Artists were ranked the least essential profession in the world. While many agreed art and creativity may be valuable - in the context of the Pandemic the population at large did not regard art as "essential" to daily life. 

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   From a utilitarian perspective, It's might be easy to make the case that art is non essential, just as it is deceptively easy to presume the false neutrality of the white cube. However, this implies a very bleak image of what it means to be human. As if identity was just a blank slate to be filled in. As if our bodies simply need to be fed, maintained, and then sustained by only the ‘essential’ forms of media and culture: bbc, amazon, and netflix. As if existence is merely survival. 

 

   In a pre-corona world, there was always an argument held against art for being merely another facet of the inflated luxury market, and in reaction to that it seems, a lot of the discourse on contemporary art revolves around seeking its own approval. For the average person however, art making can be incredibly empowering, if not continually delayed. Art becomes something to explore once you've taken care of ‘business’ and fulfilled your role as a productive member of society, aka made enough money to make enough time to be ‘creative.’ 

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   A ridiculous assumption, especially when we consider the fact, the more ‘essential’ aspects of society (science, religion, law, health) were forged in the furnace of human creativity itself. These things weren't always there. They were first imagined, designed, dreamed and then created. 

 

Like Blake said, ‘What is now proved was once only imagined.’ (Duh.) 

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These are the essential elements of my life that would be considered ‘excessive’ or non essential:  art making, vivid colour, public dancing, casual sex, mosh pits and loud live music, false nails. fun. 

 

   I could construct an argument explaining the personal, social, spiritual and political importance of all of them, but today I think it might be easier to make one simple point: These are my essential ‘excesses.’  Mine, yours and countless other excesses paint a picture of what it means to be human. 

 

  On this premise, I propose the essential nature of excess: ‘Excessentialism’ 

 

   Having fun is the first tenet of Excesstentialism.  In Serious Fun 1, we proposed that fun was something to be taken seriously. The notion of taking fun ‘seriously’ is of course, a contradiction, because seriousness is the antonym of fun.  However, during a crisis in which many of us are deprived of the usual activities that shape our lives, we are forced to find new ways to amuse and invigorate ourselves, it has become clear just how integral ‘fun’ is to establishing a meaningful life. Thus, fun is a paradox - a meaningless activity that gives our lives meaning. 

 

   I realise that Excesstenialism, like the seriousness of having fun, might be dismissed on the basis of contradiction. However,  I recently learned about Dialetheism - an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to the notion that there are some contradictions that are true. 

 

   For example, there are certain paradoxes that have consistently troubled truth-seeking philosophers, such as ‘The Liar’s Paradox.’ Imagine a person proclaiming ‘everything I say is a lie!’ Trying to assign a truth value to this to this statement leads to a contradiction. If the statement is true, then it is false, but the sentence states that it is false, and if it is false, then it must be true, and so on.

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   The liar's paradox is, arguably, embodied by artwork ‘Fountain.’ which was one of Marcel Duchamp’s most shocking read made’ artworks, and possibly the most important work of art of the 20th century.( In fact this work was not made by Duchamp, but my the radical female artist Baroness Elsa Von Fretag Loringhoven, but that's another story for another time) 

The fountain was, of course, a porcelain urinal, which represented the antithesis of art at the time - it is an object of low aesthetic value,  a mass produced object of utility. Duchamp did not alter this object. his only contribution was to sign it, and exhibit it as a work of art. 

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   The philosopher Damon Young has suggested that Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ is not just a radical kind of art. It’s a philosophical dialetheia: a contradiction that is true. In other words, Fountain is a work of art that isn't a work of art. It's an everyday object, that isn't an everyday object. Just like the liar, It is a work of art that screams ‘I am not art,’ from a top plinth. But it had to be exhibited by Duchamp in order to make this statement about itself - in order to propose and embody a contradiction that is true. 

 

 However…

 

 Most people are suspicious, if not scared, of paradoxes. 

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   Western philosophy, and its many forms of ‘truth’-seeking analysis, rest on the principle of noncontradiction. Non-contradiction implies that we can only understand one thing by it being distinct from another. For example, to understand what water is we need to identify the difference between liquid and solid. Water is a liquid yes, but it's also a form of food, of which there can be many solid examples. Thus we have established that water is liquid but food can be both liquid and solid...See how tedious this is getting already…

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   It seems like this would only be interesting to logicians who want to think themselves out of reality and go to bed at night cuddling their theory books as if they were little babies. But in reality, this framework is the dominant order. It's how we, as human beings in the 21st century perceive and navigate our daily existence. And so of course it would seem almost natural to be suspicious of paradoxes, because they simply don't make sense to us. From an early age, we are taught to fear, fight or reject the illogical and the unreasonable. But it is the very principle of noncontradiction, left over from the strong-hold legacy of racist sexist bigots like Aristotle and Immaunel Kant, that has led us into this big fat mess. 

 

Furthermore, our suspicion of paradoxes is linked to the capitalist colonial mindset:

 

‘There cannot be TWO winners. In order for one to succeed, the other must fail…’

 

Histories of colonialism have ingrained the idea that to you having power means someone else will not.

 

Which is also why day cannot be night. Masculine cannot be feminine and the excessive cannot be essential. 

 

If we live in a world built upon binary opposites, contradictions simply cannot be accepted. 

 

   The Dialethiast philosopher Graham Priest has suggested that, after millenia of contemplating ‘the liar's paradox’ and being no further to a logical answer, the only logical answer is to begin to contemplate the existence of true contradictions. I think that, if we as human beings do not have the linguistic or intellectual capacity to fully conceive and accept that contradictions can be true, we can, at the very least, consider it. Contemplating it works towards building up a  tolerance for it. And in a world where immeasurable suffering has been enacted out binary thinking, perhaps it's time we started getting more comfortable with contradictions. 

 

   On the other hand, one widely-held criticism of dialetheism is that it refuses to recognize the consequences of itself. If the seriousness of having fun exists as a legitimately ‘true’ contradiction, does that mean that all contradictions instantly become true? Considering this for only a moment makes the world seem just as incomprehensible as it truly is. Indeed, some might say there is a grave danger in embracing contradictions right now. If we accept contradictions should we therefore accept the way in which politicians lie to us? The way in which they instantly reverse policies or deny what is on public record? 

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   In answer to this, I would say that there needs to be  recognition of the difference between hypocrisy and contradiction. A contradiction might be described as a ‘logical error.’ Hypocrisy, on the other hand, is the refusal to address — or sometimes even to acknowledge — a logical or philosophical contradiction. Crucially, the hypocrite denies their contradictions, while the excessentialist revels in them. The hypocrite lies to themselves as well as others, attempting (but failing) to reinstate the principle of non-contradiction.

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   Ultimately fun is about possibility, and so is excess. Can we learn to live our lives in the context of infinite possibility? Excess is queer in its very essesence, and to many that means excess is also essential.  But it is the very fact of exccesstentialism - the fact that there IS an essential, ever-present and ever growing excess to our lives- that throws us easily into the perils of an excessstenial crisis. This is a crisis rooted in being unable to accept and reconcile this excess, no matter how hard we may have tried. For now, essential excess is perhaps, incompatible with capitalism, under which we can only ever conceive things in terms of finite amounts and within the mindset of scarcity. However, I dearly hope that one day this way of thinking will change, and that this zine, along with the ideas contained within it, will give momentum to the necessary corrupting of the binaries of high/low essential/excessive self/other most importantly, seriousness and fun. 

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