I have previously said and I will continue to reiterate that Douglas Darden was likely more influenced by Georges Bataille than the Marquis de Sade or any other author of transgressive literature.
In my first post on Darden ever, I discussed in some measure the guillotine and decapitation in the self-portrait of Darden in Condemned Building. I would explore the guillotine further in my post on the title image of same treatise (Darden calls his Condemned Building a treatise in in 1995 resume).
To recap, there is some machination above Darden's head, accompanied by ropes and pulleys that imply that this device is a guillotine. This is reinforced in the title image, which indeed is a guillotine. The broken concrete foundation at the base of the guillotine has a curvature that is appropriate to lay a neck upon and a metal bowl on the other side to catch the decapitated head. Along the side of the guillotine's frame are the words from Moby-Dick: "How many think ye have fallen into Plato's honey head and sweetly perished [t]here?" (Neveu believes Darden has deliberately covered the "t" in "there" with a shadow to render it as "here," and I personally like this interpretation). This is in reference to the sperm whale that is decapitated in Moby-Dick, which Ishmael calls Plato, and the right whale head on the other side of the ship he names "Aristotle." We see at the top of the guillotine an object that looks like a beehive sitting upon a branch, but it also looks a bit like a whale head, with the blow-hole appearing quite like a vulva.
Returning to the self-portrait, in a way, Darden has decapitated LeQueu's nun and recapitulated her body with his own head. I am inclined to challenge my previous interpretation that Darden is exploring transgenderism, that he is part woman or becoming female, that he has tits. Rather, we should probably see it, not as Darden having breasts, but rather Darden has placed his head on a decapitated woman. This is obviously very different than exploring gender, and rather is exploring violence. (I will still stand by my statement that Darden was indeed exploring transgenderism, as that should be obvious, but also because I was recently looking at some materials that indicate Darden was absolutely fascinated with Joel-Peter Witkin, who explores transgenderality in his photography).
We know Darden was influenced by Bataille, and in fact he cites Eroticism: Death and Sensuality in his essay "The Architecture of Exhaustion." How much Bataille truly influenced Darden is speculative. Obviously he had an early introduction to Bataille, but how much of it stuck is uncertain. Darden could have read Story of the Eye and then said, "Hmmm... what a depraved fuck. I would rather read the Divine Marquis." True, the Marquis de Sade and Georges Bataille wrote smut, but they also wrote philosophy. Sure, you have to wade through endless and tedious paragraphs of pornography to get to the philosophy, but it is there.
Regardless, it is worth exploring a little further the nature of decapitation in Darden's work as it pertains to Bataille. Namely, let us look at Acéphale, the five issues of a periodical produced by Bataille, as well as a secret society formed by Bataille. It was largely created to explore Nietzsche and transgression in society and religion. Bataille was fascinated by sacrifice, such as in The Accursed Share, in which he explores how society is founded upon excess that must be sacrificed. If Freud thought society was inherently neurotic, then he would have had a field day with Bataille. Bataille was also fascinated by human sacrifice, and even offered himself as a sacrifice for his secret society, going so far as to write a legal document protecting anyone willing to be his executioner. Many of his followers wanted to be the sacrifice, but none wanted to be the executioner.
Hence, acéphale, from the Greek ακέφαλος akephalos or "headless." Bataille's fascination with headlessness likely has several sources of inspiration and point to several things. Firstly, there is human sacrifice. Next, one is reminded of the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution and the extensive use of the guillotine. But then there is one other thing: the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM).
Of particular interest in the PGM is the so-called Headless Rite (PGM V.96-172 "The Stele of Jeu"), as well as several mentionings of the "headless god" or "headless one." This is a god that is peculiar to Egypt, though there are examples of headless gods in other texts and other regions. Plutarch tells us of a headless "Molos" in Crete, and Pausanias tells of a headless "Triton" at the Temple of Dionysus at Tanagra. It should not be surprising that PGM III was acquired by the Bibliotheque Nationale in the 19th century, and it is exactly here at this library that Bataille worked in the medallions collection. It is possible Bataille had seen the peculiar image of a headless entity in PGM III.170. I have personally asked a few other occult scholars, and several have stated that in looking at the imago magica below and the Acéphale image by Masson, that they believe there must be some connection; too many similarities in ideas and adjacencies in chronology make it unlikely that someone like Bataille would not have glanced at PGM III in the BNF archive.
One should not be remissed either in noting the similarity of ke-phalos (head) and phallos (penis). Perhaps this is why Masson illustrates the Acéphale Man (modeled on da Vinci's Vitruviuan Man) without a penis, but instead has a face or skull on his privy parts. One will note that the Headless One in the PGM is likewise depicted without a penis, and in fact its crotch is entirely absent, there being a whole gap in the linework between the legs.
Let us explore these concepts further. The act of decapitation is an act of dismembering. Darden plays with the Latin membrum ("limb") in his lectures as well as the production of Temple Forgetful. Remus was murdered by his brother Romulus, and Romulus is memorialized in Rome while Remus is forgotten. Darden frequently uses terms like "re-membering" to describe Temple Forgetful in some of his talks. It is curious that to recall a memory we remember, but to forget something we do not call it dismembering. Etymologically, when we remember, we are reforming a dismembered body of thought. Memories are limbs, and the act of reassembling these limbs we are remembering. So the concepts and ideas behind forgetting and re-membering/dis-membering is equally a part of Darden's body of work as the decapitation of LeQueu's nun and the image of the guillotine.
Furthermore, there is an element of ritualization in these concepts of decapitation, human sacrifice, Temple Forgetful, the Headless One, magic, Acéphale, LeQueu, et al.
The Headless Rite (or Stele of Jeu) is a magical ritual, and one that is quite popular to perform among many ceremonial magicians looking to get into working from the PGM, at least what I have observed. This rite in particular was first popularized by Aliester Crowley when he published a translation of it as the "Bornless Rite." Nearly all the magical operations in the PGM are rituals, and those that are not specified as having a ritual component likely still have some element of ritualization.
The acts of decapitation and human sacrifice oftentimes invoke images of ritual. Temple Forgetful, where we re-member a dismembered corpse, has an element of ritual to it, and furthermore when we think of temples we think of rituals. And to bring this back to ritual magic, Darden bases the layout of the sunken theater upon the Memory Theater by Giulio Camillo, which was a form of magic. It is likely he got this image from Francis Yates's The Art of Memory, and Yates was a very influential occult scholar and writer. Before the concept of the memory palace there was memory magic, particularly in grimoires like the Ars Notoria, which is an extensive ritual unto itself. Even the PGM has magical rituals for re-membering dream prognostications or just better memory in general.
Next, there is the fact that Bataille had created a secret society he called Acéphale, Headless, in which he sought to be sacrificed. Secret societies do not inherently have to have ritual components, such as the Freemasons or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or whatever, but they frequently do. Depending on what definitions and criteria you follow for what can be called a "secret society," anything from realtors associations to universities can be secret societies. That being acknowledge, Bataille wanted to create a secret society and so he called Acéphale a secret society.
The impacts secret societies and rituals had on Darden may be considerable, albeit it is doubtful he ever joined a secret society (I certainly have never found his name in the registers of the Grand Lodge of Colorado, and I actually looked for his name in Masonic rolls). I think when we look at Darden's work, the movement through the buildings are ritualized. Night School and Clinic for Sleep Disorders probably have the strongest ritual procession.
One image that influential to Darden was a rendering by LeQueu called "Gothic House." This image is a cross-section through a temple space, and follows a ritual procession (from left the right) through the elements of earth (descending down the well), fire (smoking furnace chamber), water (descending into waters past a water deity statue), and air (dangling above a pit) before being admitted into the Temple of Isis and drinking of the waters Lethe and Mnemosyne. This entire image is a sort of "fan art" for Abbé Terrasson's The Life of Sethos. This was a popular novel at its time and was influential to Mozart's Magic Flute and this image by LeQueu.
Terrasson's novel was of course fiction, but conspiracy theorists and Freemasons and "scholars" of religion have taken this novel as source material for what went on in the actual Cult of Isis. Of course, we have no idea what went on in the Cult of Isis, as it is a mystery religion, and it is therefore a mystery. Unlike the cults of Mithras, that of Isis is a big question mark. We have artifacts, but what rituals and venerations were conducted is unknown. Yet somehow Terrasson's novel became taken seriously and taken as fact by many who want this fictional ritual to be real (usually Freemasons). Take for instance, the trials by the elements, which likely comes from Apuleius's Golden Ass, 11.23, in which Lucius says "per omnia vectus elementa" ("I was ravished throughout all the elements" — Addington translates it as ravished, and Hanson translates it as travelled, and various spurious websites may translate it as purified). This ritual trial by the elements has been adopted, based on Terrasson's inspiration from Apuleius, among Freemasons. I remember getting the rare opportunity to observe a Red Lodge (Scottish Rite Lodge) from Louisiana perform the Entered Apprentice Degree, and even got to assist with the earth, water, and air (not the fire) in the portion of the ritual for the trial by the elements. This is, of course, totally spurious and a late introduction into Freemasonry, but nonetheless, is a curious item in ritual. I digress.
I do know that Anthony Vidler's The Writing of the Walls was influential to Darden, and in that work is, not only explorations of Sade and Bataille, but also ritual architecture and Freemasonry. I do not agree with Vidler's explorations of Freemasonry — I think he relies too heavily on Abbé Larudan's exposé, so much so that I deliberately included a portion of Vidler's analysis on Larudan in my Wikipedia entry on Larudan, just to illustrate that Vidler is not always relying on best information. Regardless, Darden was familiar with Vidler and through Vidler had a basic introduction to Freemasonry and ritual in architecture. I digress again.
LeQueu has effectively rendered the entire initiation of Prince Sethos into the Cult of Isis into this image.
This image was highly influential to Darden. It illustrates not only narrative in architecture, but is one of very few examples of visionary architecture that is in-formed by literature. In fact, as far as I am aware, this drawing by LeQueu and Terragni's Danteum are the only two examples of architecture in-formed by literature (with the exception of Darden's work).
There we have it. A schizoanalysis of Darden's fascination with decapitation, dismemberment, re-membering, ritual, secret societies, the occult, and transgression through the lens of Bataille, the PGM, memory magic, LeQueu, Terrason, &c.
Is any of this out of line? Perhaps, but then again so was Duboy's comparison on LeQueu's work with Duchamp's work. There is absolutely no evidence that Duchamp was familiar with LeQueu whatsoever, and yet, many scholars and theorists in architecture, including Darden, buy into Duboy's analysis. Furthermore, who care? If we truly are embracing Deleuze and Guattari's concept of schizoanalysis, then such comparisons of Darden with Bataille and Acéphale and the PGM and the Headless One ought to be welcomed.
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