Theresa Duncan/Jeremy Blake and the Allure of the Tortured Artist
Let me preface this by saying I think there is a great tendency to mythologize a person’s words/experiences after their life ends tragically, especially if the subject happens to be an artist, writer, eccentric, or other person of a creative disposition - and to, perhaps mistakenly, see cryptic clues and somber ironies within their personal narrative. There is a certain Shakespearian romance to viewing a life-story through a lens of impending doom, however sad or perverse that romance might be.
For instance, I predict that audiences of the forthcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight, will see eerie parallels in Heath Ledger’s role as the psychologically-tortured Joker, backlit by the scant details of his recent death; admittedly, I will likely be one of these people, even against better intentions. If I’m a moth, then tragedy is my bare light-bulb. I hungrily devour sad information. I empathize. Sometimes, I can’t help but be drawn in - not that I’m proud of it, just ever intrigued, at times against my will.
With that said … I stumbled across this eight-page Vanity Fair article about a week ago and haven’t been able to get it out of my head. I feel haunted by it. I don’t know if anybody else has been following this story, but it details the downward spiral of Theresa Duncan - a relatively unknown (outside her circle, at least) game designer, aspiring film-maker, blogger, etc. - who, after being consumed by fear, conspiracy theories, and paranoid delusions (most likely), committed suicide in July 2007. Her long-time boyfriend, avant-garde artist Jeremy Blake, soon followed suit by walking naked into New York's Rockaway Beach, leaving behind the note “I am going to join the lovely Theresa.”
I hate to give such a brief synopsis, but you’ll have to read the article for a bigger picture (link at bottom of page), which is inevitably still a very small picture to those who actually knew them. Judging from, admittedly, a very small window into their lives, they seem to have shared a love that is extremely rare. Maybe that adds to the whole mystique/ air of tragic romance surrounding their descent into shared madness, at least to those looking from the outside in.
Apparently, following a few articles about the couple’s double-suicide, Theresa Duncan’s blog, The Wit of the Staircase (link at bottom of page), started receiving considerable traffic. This was due in part to a couple strange coincidences - notably, Theresa had post-marked two blogs to automatically appear on certain dates, which gave the notion that she was posting “from the grave.” One of the blogs was an anecdote about ghosts, and the other, appearing on New Year’s Eve, was a T.S. Eliot quote about the fallibility of trying to express language, truth, and new ideas in writing.
During my idle time, I’ve been combing through the archives, beginning in 2005, and it’s actually a really really interesting blog, erm, as far as blogs go, even if you could completely separate it from the morbid curiosity factor that brings most people there. Many of the posts are comprised solely of external quotes. She seemed to have a great love for antiquity and obscure details, which I can relate to on a certain level. I tend to skim over the posts about high fashion or Kate Moss (who, apparently, she had a weird fascination with), but I do think the sensory detail she goes into when describing perfume is pretty cool. There’s a lot of great semi-obscure historical anecdotes, photographs, philosophical ruminations, etc.
Rousseau's Evening Carnival
Freud's Personal Psychoanalysis Couch
Some of the posts, in context, are heartbreaking … this one, for instance:
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Another Damn Song
The artist Dario Robleto visited us here in Los Angeles last week. He has been collecting 50 pairs of lovers' heartbeats for a while now. He took this photo of me and my boyfriend of ten years, artist Jeremy Blake, recording each others' hearts in our Venice pad.
Hearing Jeremy's heart like this was amazing, like staring through a telescope at a vast and previously undiscovered world. The beats sounded so powerful, and yet so temporary. We are just another damn song....
The funny thing is … Theresa Duncan would have most likely turned up her nose at the attention her death is receiving. I came across this post earlier today, from August 2005, which appeared underneath a picture of Ian Curtis from Joy Division, who also took his own life:
Young, Sexy And Dead
The Times of London gives a superficial examination of the culture's fascination with young, good looking talents who died prematurely. To me the trend is troublingly exploitive--sacrifice technology disguised as art.
According to the article, a crop of new films is set to widen an already disturbing trend of discounting and using young people and artists. These films are thanato-porn for the aging and the existentially evasive.
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Links
Vanity Fair Article: The Golden Suicides
Theresa Duncan's blog: The Wit of the Staircase