Duarte Bénard da Costa

(Versão em Português / Portuguese translation)

This volume on signatures of Bloomsbury’s collection Object Lessons springs from the research that Hunter Dukes, lecturer of English Literature at Tampere University, Finland, weaved during his years as a research fellow at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. Something of cinematic mixes with something of academic in his journey throughout signatures. Short narratives merge with profoundly intellectual and cultural analyses which approach varying subjects, from the Lascaux caves to Zadie Smith, from John Donne and Oscar Wilde to U.S. President J. F. Kennedy and Orson Welles.

This work begins by describing a situation where a pub waiter mistrusts the author’s signature for an American bank payment. As in all narrative parts of Hunter Dukes’ signature, this first situation cunningly makes some impression upon the reader: it gives the reader space to allow for doubts to arise about signatures. For one does not usually perceive one’s signature—it’s mechanic. A disruption of his autograph took Dukes to overcome that mechanical aspect of signature. In these one hundred and sixty-eight pages, the author attempts to develop and bring forward questions such as ‘how can signatures inspire both reverence and antipathy? Where does an autograph store value? Is there merit in leaving something unsigned?’ This has to do not only with the process of signing oneself onto a surface but also with artistic originality, power dynamics, and organic development.

Orson Welles’s F for Fake (1973) is a constant reference in this work: first, it provides Hunter Dukes with the context to analyse fakeness and forgery in art, taking Elmyr de Hory as an example. Signatures here are the fake names which de Hory appended on the canvas and the fake artists’ autograph upon the painting—their style, their ‘painterly detail’, for which the signature at the bottom is a metonym (2021: 18). Signatures, thus, are not reliable.

Thinking about signatures prompts Hunter Dukes to look closely at the communion between humans and their environment. One of Dukes’ main ideas is that signature ‘is a place where humans, other animals, and the inorganic mix and remix’ (2021: 60). It is unclear whether this idea is prior or posterior to Dukes’ book; that is, if it serves as a guiding premise or if it is a conclusion derived from research. Perhaps a bit of both. Anyhow, the idea of signature recalls us to concepts other than signatures, such as marks and traces—indeed, the author confounds them when claiming that signature is not necessarily an act of will. Rather like the trace of a fossil or the scent mark of a feline left upon a tree. Signatures, therefore, may be no more than traces we leave behind.

There are power dynamics associated with the imposition of marks on certain surfaces. Hunter Dukes mentions James Baldwin’s claim about the branding of slaves in slave trade—stressing both how their bodies were permanently marked and how, in the US for example, their genealogical story meets a dead end on the seller’s signature upon the ticket of their sale. In a finely wrought chapter, Dukes considers the signing of the body within these dynamics of power: his analysis of slavery and violation topoi is complexified with a parallel reading of one biographical situation (a wedding Dukes attended), two songs by Drake, and a poem by John Donne. In the former situation, names were inscribed on the bride’s gown as a kind of witness signing, confirming their presence, and recognizing the marriage contract which was written out on the gown itself. In the latter works, Drake and Donne employ signatures/autograph tattoos/name inscriptions onto surfaces which guarantee the existence of the subject whose name was inscribed. Again, signature is a metonymy for presence—it brings forth a subjective reality. Similarly, a presence was put forward in the markings of slaves (their ownership, the man who owned them was brought to presence, if not physically, then at least juridically), and in the writing over raped bodies, whose assailant was brought yet again to their reality by that writing (claiming ownership, perhaps).

Signing bodies without their consent is ‘a horrific act of disempowerment’ (2021: 86). But naming them may also have the same effect. Thus, a pervading idea in this work is taken from Hegel: in naming animals and plants, Adam was ‘nullifying them as being in their own account’ (2021: 62). Signatures, traces, marks, brands, names imply a presence of the subject over the object: it extends the self of those who inscribe themselves, those who mark/brand/name something or someone. Perchance this implies in parallel the lessening or the disappearance of the object which is signed—condemned to an existence in reference to that sign. Even tattoos sometimes bear these consequences: in Drake’s song he wants his lover to inscribe his name on her body, no vice-versa. Dukes claims this fantasy transpires ‘erotic control crossed with a desire for reputation’ and quotes the rapper Big Pun: ‘I never call you slut… that’s why my initials is [sic] on your butt’ (2021: 88).

This pocket-size history of signatures draws back from cave paintings and James Joyce’s graffiti to medieval seals and epigenetic signing in a continuous questioning of various disciplines and cultural references. Hunter Dukes is especially critical of the anthropocentrism usually associated with signature acts: quoting artist Peggy Weil quoting glaciologist Henri Bader, ‘snowflakes fall to earth and leave a message’ (2021: 141). An ingenious mix of filmic narrative, academic analysis, and captivating images make signature a most pleasurable reading. While Dukes gives us a glimpse of the complexity of signature theories, his work tackles each subject with apparent simplicity and transparency, inviting further research on the many intellectual branches of signature.

REFERÊNCIA:

Dukes, Hunter. signature. Londres: Bloomsbury Object Lessons, 2021.