Nathan Sharratt: Young Machete

Sometime around 8:00PM, after two hours of sarcastic live-tweeting, aimless-drifting, and general time-wasting amongst the hit-or-miss art installed on the mall at Underground Atlanta, I finally found a map for the events and artworks sponsored by Elevate, Art Above Atlanta.  Of course, I had seen most of them in my modern version of a dérive, but had not yet ventured out to the corner of Peachtree and Decatur Street, for what would be the highlight of my night, Nathan Sharratt’s interactive performance/installation Be My Blood Brother. (Note: the Elevate map is slightly off - Blood Brother is not on Edgewood and Peachtree.)

This was Sharratt’s third run at Blood Brother.  He first performed it for a Sculpture class at SCAD, then publicly in March 2011, at The Granite Room in Castleberry Hill.  Although, I did briefly see the performance in Castleberry, the Elevate opening was my first real interaction.

I walked into the small storefront to find it transformed into what may be best described as a slightly futuristic mash-up of a doctor’s office, DMV, and shaman’s lair.  In the center, Sharratt, looking more like a serial killer than a doctor, was seated on a small white stool, facing a small white table, wearing all white coveralls stained with fake-blood.  Opposite the artist sat an identical stool, empty and inviting.  On the table between the two were various syringes, jars, and beakers flanking the main props for the interaction: a small puddle of fake crimson-colored blood, a butter spreader, a rubber stamp, and a stack of card-sized certificates.  In the otherwise sparsely decorated red, grey and white room, Sharratt’s assistants guided viewers to their appropriate tasks.

Sharratt performing Be My Blood Brother (photo by Mona Collentine) ©2011 Nathan Sharratt

First, I sat down with the artist, who welcomed me with a deadpan, “Would you like to be my blood brother?”  Upon accepting, I was asked for my name, which he wrote on the certificate that he would also stamp with a serial number.  After this, he did not speak.  Sharratt proceeded to mix the ‘blood’ on the table with the completely blunt butter spreader, followed by pretending to cut the flesh of his hand, leaving the red residue in his palm.  Then, with an obvious gesture of sharing, offered me the knife.  As silly as this felt, I played along, repeating his actions with my own body.  We then justified our actions by clasping our ‘bloody’ hands.  This is where it became real…

Sharratt took a firm grasp of my hand and began to peer deeply and purposefully into my eyes.  Maybe it was a minute or two, but it felt much longer.  I felt helpless.  I did not attempt to release my grip, but was fully and overwhelmingly embarrassed.  Something metaphysical changed.  Through the artist’s gaze, I had been ‘subjectified’.

Sharratt performing Be My Blood Brother (photo by Mona Collentine) ©2011 Nathan Sharratt 

With ‘artist’s gaze’, I mean to arouse Jacques Lacan’s idea of the almost benevolent gaze that art allows, as found in Of the Gaze as Objet Petit A.  Generally for Lacan, the gaze is a property of inter-subjectivity where, when one perceives that he/she is being viewed by another, one is objectified by the other. A latent result of the psychic break that occurs in the Mirror Phase, to experience the gaze is to be reminded that one does not exist in the Real, but instead in a Symbolic realm as a sign (which actually has less of an existence than an object.)  This can be extended to include subject/object interaction, where observing an object reminds one that he/she is an object.  The gaze (as objet petit a) is a reminder of our inherent lack, the source of desire.    In good art, according to Lacan, the artist puts his desires into the work, laying down his gaze by revealing to the viewer that the other also has desire.  We are presented with an image, but an image that reveals itself as such.  In understanding that the image is a veil to be looked beyond, we are relieved, feeling that we have seen something more real.  We, in turn, also feel more real.  In Be My Blood Brother, this scenario plays out perfectly. 

In an interview on Google+, Sharratt shared with me the way that his  adopted father is thought of as his real father; so much so that his mother sometimes forgets, worrying that he will develop similar genetic traits.  The extended coexistence that formed the meaningful bond between  adopted son and  adopted father is translated in Be My Blood Brother via the sharing of fake blood.  In what Christians may read as an analogy to the Eucharist joining the Church family, Sharratt sees  his “bonding with a new Brother” as a way to form a constructed bond that is as real as possible.  The artist describes it as “try[ing] to be a mirror through which [the participant] can see themselves.”  Taking it a step further, Sharratt provides a digital forum (http://www.wearebloodbrothers.com/) for initiated Blood Brothers to share their stories.  Here, he gives an arena for what was once a group of strangers, a collections of others, to lay down their gazes and acknowledge each other’s subjectivity.

Maybe I have romanticized Be My Blood Brother by giving it the qualities that so many people who claim to be interested in “Relational Aesthetics” or interactive art usually espouse, but what I do know for sure is that for at least the rest of the night after I became a Blood Brother, I felt very Real.