Tabula Rasa
Witchcraft as an image | Jesse Jones' 2017 Tremble Tremble a review
April 19 | Written by Molly Lynch
​
Through time, the conversation has shifted and the primary contributors to the discourse of this topic have significantly less testosterone. Approaches within feminism have taken the figure of the witch and attempted to transform it. As the socio-political landscape becomes less subservient, both women and men, co- operatively, are discussing the issues that arise in the portrayal of powerful women, and how the frequency of imagery contributes towards this in the digital age.
​
Rebellious intellectuals, Christina Larner, Hélène Cixous, Lyndal Roper, Dianne Purkiss, Margaret Murray, Luce Irigaray and Mary Daly all looked at the subject of witchcraft from a psychoanalytical point of view, engaging with gender studies and examining trial confessions and depositions to focus on why the women of that time period were so susceptible to accusation. Some of the scholarly studies of these women did not make any significant academic contributions, they did however, impact the popular understanding of how people perceived women as witches. Their work, promoted feminists contentions that witch-hunts were in- fact women-hunts. Cixous details in her book The Laugh of the Medusa 1975 the idea of the ‘universal woman’ she is someone who “Brings women to their senses and their meaning in history” - Cixous, 1975.
​
In her book Witch Cult in Western Europe 1912, Margaret Murray outlines the ‘witch-hunt hypothesis’ a theory which details the witch trials of the Early Modern period as an attempt to “suppress pre-christian pagan religions” - Murray, 1912. Even though she had contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, her studies were discredited at the time. Popular in some areas of academia and in the general public in the early to mid twentieth century, but never approved by specialists of the Early Modern witch trials. Perhaps, her work was too progressive. Murray was closely involved in the first-wave feminist movements and influenced the founding motivations behind Wicca, a contemporary Pagan religious movement developed in England during the early twentieth century by Gerald Gardener. Murray herself has been dubbed the ‘Grandmother of Wicca’.
​
Murray’s work was supported greatly by Mary Daly, a radical feminist and author of Gyn/Ecology 1978. Daly aimed to expose the misogyny in patriarchy, reclaiming labels such as “hag” and “witch”. Believing that “The intent [of European witch-hunts] was to breakdown and destroy strong women, to dismember and kill the goddess, the divine spark or the being in women in order to purify society of the existence and potential existence of such women” and that Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a “witch- burning society, in which the massacre of women was deemed not only normal but also normative” - Daly, 1978. She was one of the first to refer to the witch-hunts as the ‘Woman’s Holocaust’ and coined the phrase ‘Gynocide’.
​
‘Are you a good witch? Or are you a bad witch?’ Remarked self-proclaimed good witch Glinda in Victor Flemings The Wizard of Oz 1939. The Good Witch of the North is a character created by L. Frank Baum, first appearing in his book The Wonderful Wizard of OZ 1900. The Good Witch is one of the first notable portrayals of witchcraft as positive, kind and attractive. Her character is presented as a gentle body standing against the oppression and subjectification of her people, and her sister The Wicked Witch of the East.
Society eventually moved past ostracising women for brewing and nursing. Until 1951 practicing witchcraft was against the law in Britain, but was repealed under the Fraudulent Mediums Act. In Bewitched 1964 Samantha tried to comply with her new husband’s wishes to suppress her witchy urges and conform to a suburban lifestyle, unsuccessfully. And in 1957 Frank Sinatra proclaimed “There’s no nicer witch than you”. The hands keeping magic from rising to the forefront of pop culture, like Samantha’s nose, began twitching.
​
As the 1970s seeped in, mysticism became a viable alternative for the changing faces of the modern witch, in a so called ‘occult explosion’. Stylistically, witchcraft has been associated with various subcultures which present similar aesthetics, such as goth and grunge. Dark lipsticks and a rebellious disposition were adopted by the teen witch generation when fake tan and new romanticism fell out of fashion.
​
In 1972, TIME magazine ran a cover story declaring ‘Satan Returns’, diabolism was in. Hammer Film productions and cult films such as The Wicker Man 1973 and Blood on Satan’s Claw 1971 polarised the dark eccentricities taking over western popular culture. Figures of witchcraft found their way into facets of the everyday life, even into daytime TV. The teachings of Thelema - a religion founded by English occultist Aleister Crowley 1875-1947 were referenced in the music of artists such as Black Sabbath, endorsing the uniqueness of each person’s will and individuality. Stevie Nicks spearheaded the attractiveness of magic sparking multiple trends in fashion, coming of age women everywhere draped velvet shawls over their shoulders and twirled around their bedrooms to the tune of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” 1976 a song in which Nicks laments the tale of the “old welsh witch” of the same name. Plagued with the question of whether Nicks herself identifies as a witch, she states “dark eccentric clothes do not define her as a witch” and that her home “does not have owls in the corner or cauldrons in the fire place” - Nicks, 1987.
​
The purpose of pop culture is to be easily digestible. For a long time it was easy to play upon stereotypes, however there is a tabula rasa arising in the depictions of witchcraft. There aren't a set of specific standards that make up conventional monsters. Fast and readily available online publications such as Sabat Magazine, merge witchcraft and feminism, ancients archetypes and instant art. The Guardian also frequently publishes articles discussing the role of witches and witchcraft, one of the only major publications to invest so heavily on the matter.
​
Artists such as myself, Fraser Carr Miles and Annie Mackin cite The Malleus Maleficarum as a primary contributor in motivating their work. In conversation with Elisabeth Krohn for Sabat Magazine in October 2018, Miles said that reading the text inspired him to make work around the idea of witchcraft. In the same piece, The Witches You Failed To Burn 2018, Mackin regarded “feminism and witchcraft are innately linked” saying also that the text opened her eyes to the “horrors women faced in the name of Witchcraft” - Mackin, 2018. Both artists collaborate to create portraits of women, photographs which are manipulated and burnt. Miles notes the piece’s ability to “Force the viewer to imitate the actions of our country’s ancestors by attempting to set fire to a witch” - Miles, 2018. The evocative imagery of the witch as a symbol of power in her victimisation is used as a pillar in Miles and Mackin’s collaboration. The Witches You Failed To Burn attempts to acknowledge and break out of the societal stigmas of witchcraft.
​
Sonja Baksa a primary writer for Sabat Magazine frequently discusses the image of the witch and its transcendent nature into arts, fashion and cinema. As noted in a Sabat article The Witches Next Door on December 6, 2018, Baksa regards the fresh new take on the figure of the witch in cinema in the late 1980’s and the early 90’s. She describes an “electrifying, creative exuberance of the era” and its “kitschy glory and larger-than-life fashion” altering the way we perceive the image “subverting the inherent horror of the myth through playful and empowering portrayals ” - Baksa, 2018.
The Witches You Failed To Burn - Miles, F. Mackin, A. 2018
Something Wicca this way comes; the image of witches in the modern era depicted in popular film and television are somewhat normalised. Rather than a blatant symbol of evil and fear, the witch became a totem of empowerment. During the 1990’s, there was a subversion of the physical attributes that had once made up the image of the witch, instead, used more frequently as a metaphor. In conversation with Anne T. Donahue for The Guardian article How witches went from evil outcasts to feminist heroes on August the 28th 2015, Fariha Roisin writes about the distinctions between the ways in which movies and TV depict witchcraft and what it is actually about. The Craft’s 1996 “we are the weirdos” became a “mantra for a decade of alternativeness and individuality” - Roisin, 2015 — in turn becoming a film about harnessing your power. The witch became an accessible figure, a heroine shedding the illusion of fear, the witch looked like your neighbour, your daughter, even you. Still female, however, this new take on witchcraft meant that women felt more comfortable with this association. Sabrina the Teenage Witch 1996-2003 followed a teen navigating her life through high school whilst learning to manage her powers. The three sisters of Charmed 1998-2006 presented the idea of unity and sisterhood, a story that placed the witches as the good ones. The witch was beautiful, powerful and popular, “Instead of an old woman living next door practising some underground religion, witches were younger and hip” - Parsons, 2016. Donna Read’s documentary The Burning Times 1990 surveyed the happenings of the Early Modern European witchcraft trials, doing so from a feminist point of view. In the film, Read interviews a number of Neo-pagans. Neo-pagans are people who practice a contemporary form of paganism, such as Wicca. One interviewee, Just as Daly did in 1978, likens that period in history with the events of the Second World War calling it a “Women’s Holocaust” - Jensen, 1990.
In 2017, BBC Radio 1 investigated the ever growing popularity of witchcraft in Britain’s Young Witches. Alice Levine interviewed a series of young people who identify with witchcraft, specifically those who have capitalised on the trend, offering training courses and starting youtube series. Clark and Levack predicted this in their studies. It is a signifier of the times that whilst definitive decade defining styles have diminished, the younger generation continuously migrate through trends and fads, and for now witchcraft is in vogue. Anne Donahue summarises this perfectly when she acknowledges “They may be trendy, but at least we’ve broken from the lore that dictates witches are ugly and evil”. - Donahue, 2015.
​
In the article Ectoplasm Selfies 2016 artist and self-identifying witch Maria Molteni whilst being interviewed by Elisabeth Krohn for Sabat Magazine on November 16, 2016 expressed “the witch is a point of reference for many kinds of people, particularly those in marginalised positions or whose spiritual practices do not look like the mainstream” and “as with any artwork, we use materials in conceptual, metaphysical and poetic ways that reflect the time we’re living in while connecting to a historical context” - Molteni, 2016. In the same article, fellow witch and feminist Lacey Pripic Hedtke explains future witch spaces in the age of social mediums with Molteni. Hedtke believes that a witch is “someone who is living outside traditional religious beliefs or systems, who follows the old ways of healing and divination” - Hedtke, 2016. Divination is defined as the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means. Hedtke expresses that today, a witch is a person trying to influence their own future, bodies and circumstances. Practicing contemporary witchcraft also involves working towards social justice “dismantling the patriarchy and white supremacy” in order to “work on ourselves, by spending the same amount of time showing up for our communities, cities and each other” Hedtke, 2016.
Tremble Tremble by Jesse Jones at the Venice Biennale 2017 - Review
​
As we become more conscientious, there is a clearer dichotomy between the image and the meaning, the image of the crone with long warted nose and a hunger for the flesh of children has become archaic. Artist Jesse Jones demonstrates this in her piece Tremble Tremble 2017 commissioned for the 57th Venice biennale. Tremble Tremble is a large scale film installation intertwining sculpture, film and theatre representing a sustained engagement with the history of witchcraft in Ireland. The piece threads together historic texts such as The Malleus Maleficarum and contemporary political activism, specifically Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion. The sole performer in the film represents the hag or the crone (seen in fig). However she is in-fact playing a motherly figure. She reads verses of text through the piece, some of which is spoken backwards, a method that attempts to retract and reverse language. In this case it is done so as to undo this moment in particular moment in law (Irelands ban on abortion) with a magical spell. The spoken text also includes verses taken from The Malleus Maleficarum itself “Whoever believes that any creature can be changed for the better or the worse, or transformed into another kind or likeness, except by the Creator of all things, is worse than a pagan and a heretic.” - Kramer, 1487.
The rest of the spoken text is written and developed by Jones in attempt to “ Merge the world of the cerebral and the intellectual and what we feel in the moment, at a time when people are very confused with the break in truth and language” making art “not as a way of displaying things but as a way of arranging objects almost like ruins and exploring the ways in which they work together in the setting” - Jones, 2017. This relationship creates an alchemy of religious ephemera, used to repeal the Irish eighth amendment acting as a forced energy placed into the installation.
​
The mother is used as a site of potent cognitive power. Thomas de Quincey’s Suspiria de Profundis 1845 a latin name meaning ‘Sighs from the Depths’ inspired the idea of the The Three Mothers, a trilogy of supernatural horror films from director Dario Argento. The piece proposes that just as there are Three Fates (as seen in The Three Fates by Hans Baldung Grien and Macbeth), there are also Three Sorrows. The Sorrows all go by the title Mater, each of which having their own dominion (tears, sighs, shadows/darkness) the triumvirate of evil witches use their powers to manipulate world events. Mater is the Latin word for ‘Mother’.
​
In Tremble Tremble, images and choreography are used to trigger a cognitive spell in the viewers brain, a sensation of remembrance. The viewer takes on a Lilliputian role in relationship to the female body. In an interview at the Venice Biennale opening, Jones acknowledged a child's reaction to the piece as being very conformable with the space and the positioning of the mother. She believes that the child would immediately recognise the normality of this stature compared to their own and have a feeling of comfortability approaching it because they are closer to a “memory of the female body in that position” (Jones, 2017), wheres an adult may not be. From this observation, it is made clear that aversion and hatred towards this figure is learned, it is not an innate nor is it hereditary, a society informed by texts such as The Malleus Maleficarum taught children from a young age to fear women in this position. This piece is a feat in the artists capability in magical thinking, reaching peaks of imagination towards a relevant topic that documentary cannot.
In a very different way, the term witch-hunt has gained new meaning in recent years. Men who feel singled out by mass groups, most often feminists, seek justice by declaring that they themselves are the victim of a witch-hunt, for example Donald Trump has repeatedly used this phrase. Women in powerful positions, such as politicians, are still burdened with archaic stigmas. In the midst of the 45th presidential elections in America, in an article for WND magazine, Larry Klayman referred to Trumps opposition, Hilary Clinton as a “swamp creature”. When regarding her speeches he details how she “foams and cackles from her radical feminist mouth” - Klayman, 2016. Lindy West encapsulates my exact feelings towards this within the title of a New York Times article, Yes, This is a Witch Hunt. I’m a Witch and I’m Hunting You - West, 2017.
​
Delving into the psyche that constructed the image of the witch, examining the ideals of Catholicism that indoctrinated the thought process of Western Europe and untangling the patriarchal macrocosm with the voices of several audacious women. I have attempted to discuss how and why such an anachronistic image has persisted for so long within our visual rhetoric, as seen in the Witches and Wicked Bodies exhibition. Evidentially, The Malleus Maleficarum’s profound impact aided the dialogue substantially, most or all of my visual figures have direct associations with the text. As well as a boom in printing press, feminising the witch played a considerable role in the success of Kramer’s text, localised fears, religious rule and popular belief also facilitated the progressive rate of the texts influence.
​
Stuart Clark’s idea of Confessionalization supported this, stating that there are no singular reasons as to why the trials happened, they were a result of the mentality and social order of Early Modern Europe - even the etymologies of linguistics served against women, ‘hyster’ from hysteric translates to ‘womb’ in Latin. If I were to expand my study into this topic, I would further pursue the anthropological route, investigating how and why people complied with such blatant mistreatments. The bible fed society the seeds of suppression, and Kramer neatly and craftily sowed them to bloom in the gardens of those who he deemed evil, women, constructing gynocentric societal boundaries. As a result of this men battled with a schizophrenic relationship with the witch, similar to the illogical misogyny it originated from, she was either a beautiful seductress or an evil hag, this sexual unreliability only amplified mans fear of powerful women. Even in our somewhat democratic society, women are still unclamping their cultural chastity belts today.
​
Herstory, a history written from a feminist perspective, presents a utopian projection of female power. Where the witch is a metaphor central to the processes of cultural inquisition in order to break out of historical and mythological representations of gender — alleviating female alterity in a phallocentric system. Witches in popular culture now depict a much deeper sense of isolation and confusion — a feeling that resonates even more so if you're a woman. The confusion around how we now depict the witch is emblematic of the struggles we have in our society when representing women. At the Women Deliver Global Conference in 2016 runner and activist Kiran Gandhi spoke about her choice not to wear sanitary protection when running a marathon “Stigma is one of the most effective forms of oppression, because it denies us the vocabulary to talk comfortably and confidently about our own bodies” (Gandhi, 2016). The witch remains entrapped with the predicament of cultural negotiation. Engaging with this topic, my already cemented opinions have been profoundly concreted. The generation I was birthed into, and the one I was birthed from had already witnessed Feminist new age thinking on the matter humanising the witch as a victim. We've witnessed protest, we’ve even marched on behalf of our fallen sisters and remarkably we’ve been heard.
​
Knowing the history of womankind’s fight for autonomy resulted in an age of self awareness “The witch strategically represents a historical abject figure who both desires and articulates a dual transformation. The feminist witch succeeds in subverting her own (abject) identity by converting it into a political tendency” (Purkiss, 1996). We still have a way to go, rather than believing that a woman’s propensity to witchcraft lay in their inclination to deception, dissipation, superstition and conceit — woman’s right to witchcraft is completely their own. Embracing every epithet ever associated with witchcraft, both bad and good, there’s something quite powerful about being a woman to be afraid of in this day and age. In 1977 Luce Irigaray declared “A woman does not yet exist, whose advent could shake the foundations of patriarchy” (Irigaray, 1977) I proudly decline this, I personally know a plethora of powerhouse women who rock the patriarchal boat daily, and they do it well.
​
Mary Daly had once said “The witch is a signifier for physically abused and culturally neglected women” (Daly, 1978). Once upon a time this was true, however, I believe we are working towards re- contextualising the witch by normalising the figure of the ‘powerful woman’. With great virtuosity, artist Jesse Jones is at the forefront of this endeavour. We’re imperfect, we are ever evolving and we can only do our best. Our bodies are now our own, our names are given to us but they do not define us. The word ‘witch’ is becoming less of a name given to us out of hatred, but a name we adopt ourselves as an act of spiritualism. After all, There’s a little witch in all of us.