That thing we feel as our own\u2014and that we therefore dread all the more\u2014, is very \u00adprecisely fear. It is of our fear that we are afraid, of the possibility that this fear is ours, that it is in our very selves that we are \u00adfearful.<\/p>Roberto Esposito1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - Roberto Esposito, Communitas. Origine et destin de la communaut\u00e9<\/em> (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, Coll\u00e8ge International de Philosophie, 2000), 36.<\/span> <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n For a while now, the phenomenon of fear has mainly been dealt with from a political perspective. As an exploitable human emotion, fear is then associated with issues of power. In the name of security, what Amnesty International calls \u201cthe politics of fear\u201d becomes a strategy to justify \u00adcontrols that can lead to abuse. Understandably then, as political \u00adscientist Robin Corey argues in a recent book,2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - Robin Corey, Fear: The History of a Political Idea<\/em> (New York & London: Oxford University Press, 2006).<\/span> one must combat fear. As a major instrument of domination, Corey says, fear is a purely negative emotion that paralyses our capacity for judgement. Certainly, from a political point of view, fear can prompt negative reactions or tear at the social fabric in a community. Also, not only can it lead to the \u00adsubjugation of an individual, but, under a terror regime, it can become a \u00adcollective frame of mind.3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - In Peur, dit le spectre<\/em> (http:\/\/multitudes.samizdat.net\/spip.php?article2241), \u00adpublished online on February 10, 2007, Brian Massumi examines the \u201cpoliticization of fear\u201d orchestrated by the Bush Administration after September 11, 2001.<\/span> Notwithstanding these considerations, however \u00adeffectively the psychological interpretation may explain the effects of fear on a targeted population, one cannot reduce the sense of fear, as Corey does, to a \u201cpolitical idea.\u201d Like boredom, sadness, or joy, fear is first an emotion, thoroughly grounded in human subjectivity, a basic manifestation of our emotional connection to the world. It allows us to see and to feel, unthinkingly and for a moment, the formidable, menacing, even terrifying fact of the world. That is why, as an emotion that affects our way of being, fear becomes worthy material for many authors who attempt to render it in words. Since the advent of cinema, fear is also felt vicariously through image and sound in narrative sequences composed to produce an atmosphere of dread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what of the visual arts? Are we limited to representation, as in sculpture and painting? In the latter case, Edvard Munch\u2019s The Scream<\/em> is probably one of the more effective renditions of fear on a horrified human face; but one could also look to fantastic painting, some works of which suggest the idea of a death that we must dread.4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - One might think of Johann Heinrich F\u00fcssli\u2019s The Nightmare<\/em>, or of the works of Gustave Dor\u00e9, The Enigma<\/em> in particular. Also, in view of later considerations, one should point out that Dor\u00e9 illustrated many children\u2019s tales, including The Little Red Riding Hood<\/em>.<\/span> Yet, when one tries to offer spectators devices other than representation for interrogating the real, rendering the phenomenon of fear is no simple matter. Of course, one might wish to attempt a critique of \u201cthe politics of fear\u201d by various means, as some artists successfully do;5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - A group exhibition with the theme La culture de la peur \/ The Culture of Fear<\/em> that took place in Leipzig, Germany, in summer 2006, at the Federkiel Foundation, indeed presented works dealing with the perception of fear in our societies. Among the artists were Mandy Gehrt, Maria Friberg, and the Yes Men collective.<\/span> in an entirely different vein, one might also want to approach fear exclusively as affect. But then one must be wary of how one aestheticizes the emotion. On an aesthetic level, the mood emanating from this fear must avoid maudlin sentiment and rather strive for a particular \u201ctone\u201d\u2014a Stimmung<\/em> Heidegger might have said\u2014from which a relationship with the ambient world might be felt. Concerned with the social dimension of fear, S\u00e9bastien Cliche, in his multidisciplinary work, attempts to create revelatory moods that disclose various reactions to it. While referring to certain literary texts, I propose to examine what Cliche\u2019s work has to tell us of the phenomenon of fear, especially when that phenomenon is closely connected to our shared sense of existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n the world that helps instantly transform our apprehension of things and of others. As a wholly gripping experience, the affect of fear is then an integral part of what it means to be alive, to exist. Fear, then, is hardly an accident that we can be rid of. Before being a \u201cthinking thing,\u201d as Descartes says, man is an emotional being. And to believe Joseph Conrad, in his Heart of Darkness<\/em>, as an emotion, fear would seem to have priority. One may always deny love, faith, hate, and even doubt, but as long a human being wishes to remain alive, fear will not be denied. Fear and life are forever entwined. At the very end of Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/em>, for instance, when her husband poses the question inscribed in the title, and Martha replies, \u201cI am . . . George . . . I am,\u201d it is because this fear confirms the realization of the couple\u2019s powerlessness to create anything together.6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 6 <\/a> - Written by Edward Albee, Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/em> appeared in 1962. The play was adapted to the screen by Mike Nichols (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1966, 131 min).<\/span> For, despite the explicit allusion, the title refers less to the famous English writer than it does to a children\u2019s song about the big bad wolf. But in this story of a raging argument between spouses, what feeds the fear isn\u2019t the danger of a ferocious beast so much as the distress of one who, faced with life, feels utterly at a loss. The same troubling mood haunts the main character in Rainer Werner Fassbinder\u2019s film Fear of Fear<\/em>. Expectant with a second child, Margot Staudte also comes to experience a strange and mysterious situation in which she feels suddenly \u201cout of tune\u201d with the things and people close to her.7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 7 <\/a> - This film was produced for television by WDR (1975, 88 min).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, fear cannot be dislodged, unless one accepts to forgo life, like the Kamikazes who, on ideological grounds, conquered the ultimate fear, that of dying. Otherwise, death menaces the living being with its annihilation. Existentialist phenomenology, as we know, has made this its leitmotif. According to Heidegger, being-for-death is life\u2019s very concern. Fear becomes our anguish for the sake of the life that is given us. Besides, fear of death distinguishes us from animals. While the animal lives only in the present, man can foresee the threat, the danger, can imagine his own disappearance. In short, human beings have the capacity for frightening themselves. Sensory human existence isn\u2019t just physical, it is also part imagination. In other words, the emotion is also self-emotive. Indeed, man has the ability to be stirred by his own devices\u2014de s\u2019\u00e9mouvoir<\/em>\u2014, which, on an aesthetic level, can also afford pleasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cliche stages our fear of death, fuelled by its anticipation, in an installation titled DisastAir<\/em>.8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - DisastAir<\/em> was presented in two parts, first in 1998, at Galerie Verticale, Laval, then in 1999, at Espace Vid\u00e9ographe, Montreal. All the works discussed in this article are presented on the artist\u2019s Web site, available at www.aplacewhereyoufeelsafe.com.<\/span> In the form of a parody, it reminds spectators of the horror of experiencing a plane crash. What can one do then, if not give up and let the irremediable take its course? Relying on drawings inspired by survival guides, a video, and texts that somewhat humorously remind us to let go, the installation shows how little control we have over the course of events in such fateful circumstances. We can no longer control anything but our attitude toward ourselves. Fear, though, is often connected to the unknown. Fear is fear of oneself before that which one does not understand. In the borderline area between that which we fear and anguish before the void, is the feeling of being isolated from the world of others. Yet, even in these circumstances, the \u201cI\u201d is never totally alone. The fear \u201cthat we feel as ourselves\u201d is also foreign to us. It is, as Roberto Esposito points out, \u201cour \u2018other,\u2019 which constitutes us as a subject infinitely separated from ourselves.\u201d9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 9 <\/a> - Esposito, 39.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Several of Cliche\u2019s works also explore the difficulties of life in society. In an exhibition cycle presented in 2002-3 with the general title \u201cL\u2019Existence simplifi\u00e9e\u201d, and made up of three installations\u2014Vivre bless\u00e9<\/em> [\u201cliving wounded\u201d], La R\u00e9serve \/ Utility Room<\/em>, and Accidents de la vie courante \/ A Place Where You Feel Safe<\/em>\u2014the artist emphasizes the need for security generated by our anxiety in the face of fear. Using mainly text and images, he examines our \u201cdesire to live without accidents.\u201d Even within the banality of everyday life, fears of all kinds can develop into various pathologies. In an obviously ironic treatment based on the image of home, Cliche disrupts the border line that is supposed to separate the outside from the inside, the private from the public, the inner from the outer. In its modern context, the home is thought of as \u201ca place where you feel safe.\u201d In these exhibitions, however, it comes to signify a malaise. The ambient space of the household absorbs our obsessions with security. Especially when we are obsessed with perfectly controlling our everyday surroundings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n et, this desire for overprotection, spurred on by consumer society, renders us still more fragile. Fear will not be forgotten. Like any truth that wants to hide, it remains present. In these three installations, it shows up in several figures\u2014male and female\u2014wearing balaclavas, or hoods. Where, in Vanitas<\/em>, the human skull represents our mortal being, here the masked figures symbolize the visceral fear that we project on each other. The other is an alter ego who threatens my peace of mind, making me fear the worst, destroying sought-for harmony in the community. Is man, Thomas Hobbes asks, not a wolf to his fellow man?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The series of photographs presented in 2006 and titled \u201cRefuges\u201d also concerns the desire for security prompted by fear. The photographs are imbued with a strange visual atmosphere. One sees a cabin, for instance, made of planks and covered with a tarp, facing a cliff on the edge of a forest; there\u2019s also a night scene within a forest, and a kind of shelter set in the woods where one might think an individual lives in seclusion. The forest, when apparently wild, can elicit fear. It is the natural habitat of animals, some of them fierce. In our imagination, the forest lies on the frontier of the domestic and the fantastic; between plant and animal life and the rather artificial domain of human beings. Already, in a previous exhibition, \u201cLa vie en for\u00eat\u201d, Cliche had drawn attention to the fear of finding oneself in this unfamiliar world, alone with a survival kit. In \u201cRefuges\u201d, though, the forest is mainly considered a source of comfort. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, the refuge is one possible response to a world from which we wish to escape.10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 10 <\/a> - Jean-Paul Sartre, Esquisse d\u2019une th\u00e9orie des \u00e9motions<\/em> (Paris: Hermann, 1975), 45-47.<\/span> Taking shelter is then one of the reactions we develop in the face of fear. The titles accompanying the works could not be clearer in this respect: We derive greater satisfaction from suffering our defeats alone<\/em>, Mistrust is all that you need to maintain good human relationships<\/em>, and In solitude there is no betrayal<\/em>. But this refuge in willing solitude is obviously also an evasion. It is a type of behaviour that gives us a temporary sense of security. In other words, this evasion issues from a consciousness that fervently wishes that solitude may allay one\u2019s fear. The statements forming the titles in the \u201cRefuges\u201d photographs suggest a solipsist vision of our rapport with others. But do they really lead to no other conclusion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, one should know that the aphorisms serving as titles to these photographs are derived from work developed during a residency at Chambre Blanche (Quebec City), which resulted in an on-line virtual book titled Principes de <\/em>gravit\u00e9<\/em>.11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 11 <\/a> - This work was presented in winter 2007, at Galerie de l\u2019UQAM, as part of the group exhibition titled \u201cBasculer\u201d, curated by Julie B\u00e9lisle, M\u00e9lanie Boucher, and Audrey Genois. The work may be viewed online at: www.gravityprinciples.ca.<\/span> In the table of contents, reader-\u00adspectators find six chapters. One of these, the last, is \u201cVie en soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\u201d To read this chapter, we must make choices. In the preface, we were already warned that the founding principle of the book is that the upshot of making choices was to accept \u201closing something\u201d\u2014another aphoristic piece of advice. As in most of Cliche\u2019s work where text is as significant as visual presentation, such aphorisms express precepts that urge us to confront life. But one must add that these lessons tend to come with paradoxes. With respect to the theme of fear and to the \u00adresulting mistrust or desire for solitude, this chapter also warns us that \u201cthe group is a necessary evil,\u201d or that \u201cfailing within a group is reassuring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, \u201cVie en soci\u00e9t\u00e9\u201d proposes a kind of redemptive mistrust vis-\u00e0-vis the other. However one might withdraw into magical attitudes, fear of the other is here to stay. Consequently, we had better practice the courage of being afraid or, as the title of Fassbinder\u2019s play reminds us, the fear within will devour the soul.12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 12 <\/a> - Rainer Werner Fassbinder, La peur d\u00e9vore l\u2019\u00e2me<\/em> (Paris: L\u2019Arche, 1992); the film\u2019s original title, Angst essen Seele auf<\/em>, translated in English as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul<\/em>.<\/span> Indeed, fear only destroys us if we react negatively through flight and consequently attempt to \u00adconstruct an identity based on exclusion. We cannot vanquish fear through \u00adexclusion. One can only wish to flee or forget it, which does not prevent it from existing. When night falls, in Bernard-Marie Kolt\u00e8s\u2019 wonderful text, Dans la solitude des champs de coton<\/em>, two characters\u2014the dealer and the \u00adclient\u2014begin a riveting dialogue on the rapport two people can have when it takes shape between desire and the fear of knowing what the other, as stranger, may bring to us.13<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 13 <\/a> - Bernard-Marie Kolt\u00e8s, Dans la solitude des champs de coton <\/em>(Paris: Minuit, 1986).<\/span> Each is then confronted with their own fear, with their own desire for the unknown, especially when aware that each of us is capable of extinguishing the other\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was Hobbes\u2019 great insight to place fear at the heart of human \u00adsociability. Like the fact of living, fear is what we have in common. One may want to exploit it politically, or to supplant it, as the philosopher urges, with voluntary submission to the Monarch and life under stringent laws; but as affect, one can not completely master it. That is why fear has been such an inspiration to artists: it explains so many things about the \u00adfragile beings that we are. The work of S\u00e9bastien Cliche is an example. In his various installations, he shows the effects of fear in our modern societies, and their penchant for security; he recalls the painful relationships that fear engenders within communities. But, at the same time, from a strictly aesthetic point of view, he wishes to place the spectator in an ambiguous situation. For instance, the photographs in \u201cRefuges\u201d might well convey a \u201cheavy emotional charge,\u201d but the artist also points out that they cultivate \u201cambiguity before an unresolved situation,\u201d as if it were better to ask spectators to do more than simply to be moved. Just the advice one might take if one wished to practice the courage of being afraid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Translated from the French by Ron Ross]<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/62_DO02_Pare_Cliche_Refuges-scaled.jpg\")
photos\u202f: \u00a9 S\u00e9bastien Cliche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/62_DO02_Pare_Cliche_Principe-de-gravite-scaled.jpg\")
photos\u202f: \u00a9 S\u00e9bastien Cliche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/62_DO02_Pare_Cliche_Principe-de-gravite-2-scaled.jpg\")
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photos\u202f: \u00a9 S\u00e9bastien Cliche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n