Beyond Reason: Ordure
Stuart Brisley (2003)
‘Dirt is universal, a-historical even. Homogeneity at ground level, mediated by the universal glue of sputum and excreta. Differentiated at the surface by the droppings of local and global consumption, the deposits of fast food, broken furniture, news media debris, plastic bags, condoms, sanitary towels, cigarette butts, betting slips, syringes etc.’ − Stuart Brisley
This is a book about ordure in all its manifestations − shit, dirt, trash, waste, pus, pollution and dogma. The fictional Collection of Ordure is the central object, its curator, collector and artist the main characters. Why amass a collection of objects that defy rationality and economic worth? At the very nub of global capitalism, a nebulous but omnipresent stench that pervades everything, ordure is the final commodity. Influential performance artist, Stuart Brisley, has constructed a perverse narrative that takes us through the silt of commonly recognised social order. We discover a world inhabited by Louise Bourgeois’ leg, Stakhanov’s finger, an albino snake, and the Berlin Wall. Language rots, reason implodes, time stutters and people burst into song in this exploration of the competing ideologies of West and East. A fused novel, Beyond Reason: Ordure is a book of scattered imagery, obsessive motifs, and the griminess of reality.
