Sandrine’s Slum Naturalism
Julie Van der Wielen
Striking in Sandrine Morgante’s work, is the predominance of text, of (hand)written or oral language. Her works are remarkably vocal: they first and foremost present the viewer with a linguistic element, be it a real-life dialogue, a literary text, a testimonial, or the ponderings of a sleepless mind. The way in which the linguistic element is presented draws in the viewer, and by the same token a raw, psycho-social, or socio-cultural reality emerges in all its singularity.
For example, in a series of video’s (Homme à problèmes 2015-2019, Avec Kevin 2015-2019 and Bouche Bottom 2016-2020), Sandrine renders conversations that she had with men who tried to seduce her on a train in Wallonia and at a concert in Brussels. She presents the dialogues through her own voice, playing both herself and her interlocutors, accompanied only by the English translation of the conversation in white letters on a completely black background. This minimal approach enhances the feeling of intimacy and draws attention to the affects present in the different characters’ utterings and their way of speaking.
In another, very prolific series of works, a literary text takes central stage: David Foster Wallace’s encyclopaedic novel[1] Infinite Jest (1997). Two of the works from this series, You know what I’m saying and Wardine say momma beat (2016-2017), project digital animations on a drawing, to render the complaint of an alcoholic father who is struggling to obtain the custody of his child, and the confidence of a little girl about a certain Wardine, who is being beaten by her mom.[2] In these animations, a mechanical voice articulates fragments, while the typed text appears. Key words appear in colour and are linked to drawings of those words in the background, generating an increasing number of coloured lines, which move to the rhythm of the voice, bringing to mind the movement of the speech organs. The repetition of the key words and the increasing speed of the voice evoke emotions of torment, fear, and frustration, and suggest that these confessions originate from a single, undivided cry.
The more recent Mélatonine (2020) and Taalbarrière (2020-ongoing) feature drawings and handwritten text on a series of black and white photocopies. In Mélatonine, expressive handwriting transcribes recordings of nightly confessions and ruminations, which Sandrine has recorded over the years when she was unable to sleep. These ponderings appear on top of a series of prints in different sizes, which reproduce packages of sleeping medication. The size and the format of this work draw in the viewer, who reads the different texts, moving between the restless handwritten ruminations and the soothing slogans on the pharmaceutical packaging, which promise a calm and peaceful sleep. In this way, the viewer takes part in the singular experience of the insomniac and catches a glimpse of its significance as a complex, heterogenous phenomenon, with psychological, social, and economic aspects.
As Jean-Philippe Convert remarks in a conversation with Sandrine,[3] the messages on the boxes of pharmaceuticals take the form of a paradoxical injunction, a communication strategy typical for advertisement and propaganda.[4] This type of message sends out two contradictory commands, in this case: you have to let go, to be calm and to relax – this is an order! The injunction to relax is contradicted by it being a command and thus forced. It is a command because our society is centred around economic productivity. By guaranteeing efficiency the next day and by instrumentalizing insomnia for profit, the sleeping medication underwrites the pressure to be productive, which may be that which lies at the root of insomnia.
In the face of a paradoxical injunction, the individual is powerless and tends to react emotionally. The handwritten text renders this reaction, which is inadequate in relation to the expectations of society, and contradictory to the advertisement on the boxes. It thus puts into question both the efficacy of the pills and the demands of our capitalist society.
Despite its undertones of distress, Mélatonine has a comical effect. The handwritten text, which is the product of nocturnal activity, stands out against the printed boxes. In this way, it ridicules the irony of the ‘soothing’ slogans, as well as the ordinary, conformist idea that we have of the relation between day and night, according to which the night should be nothing more than a moment of rest meant to guarantee productivity the next day.
Taalbarrière produces a similar effect. This time, black and white copies from schoolbooks for courses of French and Dutch as a foreign language provide the background for colourful drawings and handwritten text. The text renders the testimonials of Belgian secondary school pupils from both sides of the Belgian language border. Sandrine interviewed pupils from the Flemish linguistic community in the context of their French class, and vice versa. These testimonials present different, sometimes contradictory points of view about Belgium and its two main linguistic communities. Even though we can see some curiosity and benevolence towards the cultural and linguistic other on each side, the testimonials are full of (pejorative) stereotypes and presuppositions, both with regard to the other as well as with regard to the own community.[5] Through these testimonials, the complex socio-cultural landscape of a divided Belgium comes to light, and we catch a glimpse of the political and economic discrepancies between different regions of the country.
The hand drawn text and illustrations look like drawings by bored pupils. They seem to laugh off the boring instructions in the background, in a similar way as the handwritten text makes fun of the soothing slogans in Mélatonine.
The comical component of Sandrine’s works reminds us of the kind of humour that Mikhail Bakhtin ascribes to the Menippean satire.[6] According to Bakhtin, this kind of humour is grounded in a ‘carnivalization’ and in a clash between the authority or the ideal norm with what he calls a ‘slum naturalism’.
For Bakhtin, carnivalization is a transposition of the elements of carnival to literature; Sandrine can be said to operate this in her visual art. Carnival is an unrestrained exploration of relations and associations in a half-real and half-play-acted realm. It frees behaviours, gestures and discourses from the norms and restrictions of ordinary life, thereby allowing that which is usually deemed inappropriate and eccentric to come to light. As a result, it undermines or even overturns ordinary values, ideals, and hierarchies.
Slum naturalism embraces vulgarity, rudeness, and foolishness, and thus depicts the unrefined profanities and shortcomings of worldly life, which Bakhtin associates with themes such as drunkenness and child beatings. Sandrine’s works are permeated with a kind of slum naturalism, which in Mélatonine and Taalbarrière collides with a representation of the norm.
This results in a type of satire opposed to irony. It does not judge reality in favour of a normative ideal but does the reverse: the high ground is ridiculed in favour of a worldly, irreverent reality. Rather than looking up to an ideal, in relation to which something earthly is judged inadequate and ridiculed, this satire brings us down to earth, and into the profundities of a concrete, sensuous and affective reality, thus humouring the ideal. Deleuze notes that this type of humour reveals the concrete reality that lies at the origin of language and sense,[7] thereby bringing to life other possibilities of thinking or speaking. In Sandrine’s works a plurality of voices comes to life, unrestrained by the norm or the ideal that would dismiss them as errors or inadequacies, as Deleuze describes with regard to the dogmatic or normative ‘Image of Thought’.[8]
In Taalbarrière cultural, psychological, socio-economic, and geographic determinations of the linguistic communities come to light, at the same time as errors, hesitations, fillers, accents, and loanwords make the Dutch and the French languages come to life. Both appear as charming and familiar, and the idea of a ‘correct’ Dutch or a ‘correct’ French, as well as of a purely Flemish and purely Walloon identity, is questioned. By ridiculing the schoolbook, and by putting together voices and accents from both parts of Belgium, Taalbarrière suggests that we should embrace the Belgian accents and hybridizations, such as the beautiful Brusseleir, rather than aspire to purity.
This is why the title ‘Taalbarrière’ was aptly chosen: it renders the ‘language barrier’, which divides people linguistically, and in Belgium also geographically, economically, and politically, but it is nothing else than an amalgam, a hybrid, a contraction of a Dutch (taal) and a French (barrière) word.
[1] This was theorized by Edward Mendelson in "Encyclopedic Narrative" and "Gravity's Encyclopedia" (1976). The encyclopaedic novel is a long, complex work of fiction that attempts to render the knowledge, beliefs and ideology of a certain culture.
[2] See ‘Life is like tennis those who serve best usually win’ and ‘Year of the trial-size dove bar’ in Infinite Jest.
[3] See the podcast by Wiels:”Regenerate – Conversation entre Sandrine Morgante et Jean-Philippe Convert (https://soundcloud.com/wiels_brussels/regenerate-conversation-entre-sandrine-morgante-jean-philippe-convert-fr).
[4] ‘Paradoxical communication’ in Helmick Watzlawick and Jackson Beavin’s Pragmatics of human communication. A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes (1967).
[5] For example, the Flemish are hardworking and rich but arrogant, whereas the Walloons are lazy and poor but humble and hospitable; the Flemish speak French better than the Walloons do Dutch, and they even have to take French at school, while this is optional in Wallonia, which is unfair and slightly offensive; and French is more beautiful than Dutch, and it works better for music.
[6] ‘Characteristics of Genre and Plot Composition in Dostoevsky’s Works’ in Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics(translation from 1984, originally published in 1929). The Menippean satire is an erudite literary parody that humours vulgar and grotesque mental attitudes. Some examples of Menippean satires are Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly (1509), Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel (1564), Swift’s Gulliver Travels (1726), and Voltaire’s Candide (1759). Infinite Jest can be considered as a Menippean satire.
[7] ‘Nineteenth Series of Humor’ in Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense (1990, originally published 1969).
[8] ‘The Image of Thought’ in Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (1994, originally published 1968).