He Sees You When You're Sleeping

I thank Waldemar Januszczak for introducing me to the conspiracy theory (first expressed in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel From Hell) that Nicholas Hawksmoor's churches in London are layed out so as to sketch an enormous 'eye of Horus' symbol (or "Wedjet") across a map of the capital. Though the symbol originally - that is, in Ancient Egyptian theology - symbolised divine protection; Januszczak equates it with the sinister, almost phantasmagoric, atmosphere that is the defining feature of Hawksmoor's architecture. At some point in history the symbol of the 'All-Seeing eye' or the 'Eye of Providence', of which the "Wedjet" is but an early example, turned from being a symbol of reassurance and consolidation - God is watching us - to a symbol of obscurity and paranoia - "we're being watched! And they know something that we don't."

The sea change probably happened sometime during the life span of the symbol's most recent typology: the 'eye-with-radiating-striae', which is occasionally also surrounded by clouds. A famous example is the one which appears on the back of a U.S. Dollar bill. This eye appears above a incomplete pyramid, with 13 steps representing the 13 established states contemporary with the image's first use (1782). The implication is that God will oversee America's progress from these foundations towards some peak of perfection. The striae indicate the dynamism - and thus the phenomenal power - of His sight. The markedly similar eye which appears in stone on the facade of Edinburgh's Oddfellows' Hall radiates a slightly less utopian vision, but still implicates God as a mighty overseer of the Hall's credibly ambitious project: to provide a guild for workers of all trades in a society that had not yet benefitted from the introduction of the Welfare State.





Perhaps it was the influence of the Eye that allowed for the completion of the building of America, and that ushered in the British Welfare State. Perhaps not. But it is in the wake of these advances that the eye's use as a symbol of reassurance has waned. In 2000, the first traditionally-manufactured Absinthe to be distilled in France since the drink's prohibition in 1915 was produced by La Fée. As their logo, they chose...the Eye of Providence. By the turn of the millennium, Absinthe had acquired a reputation as an edgy, bohemian drink which could induce hallucinogenic effects. It was associated with the decadent Fin-de-Siècle visions of Wilde, Beardsley, Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec. In short, it was known to flirt with the phantasmagoric. And so La Fée chose a symbol that summed all this up in a neat and sexy fashion: the Eye.

How did this happen exactly? How did a symbol for divine intervention become a shorthand for bohemian experimentalism? Well, I suppose that divine intervention, in our increasingly secular society, is seen as something simultaneously wacky and oppressive (the same could be said for the experience of drinking Absinthe). And there is admittedly something inherently trippy about the symbol: a single eye is a disruption, and ripe for exploitation as something fantastical. Just look at Redon's bizarre 1882 lithograph, "The Eye, Like a Strange Balloon, Moves Towards Infinity", which the artist dedicated to Edgar Allen Poe:


Of course, the symbol's most notable current use is as a logo for one of the most most wacky and oppressive of all contemporary phenomena: Big Brother. Our post-19th Century disillusion with the Eye of Providence has moved on: we now take up the role ourselves and twist it towards voyeuristic schadenfreude. We relish the obscurity and the paranoia. They're being watched! And we know something that they don't.

Wild Thing

A recent exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art that involved the laying of turf on a gallery floor brought about a realization: that the encroachment of plants or animals onto the workplace or domestic space is a trope that has appeared a great deal recently; particularly in advertising, but also in wider culture in general. What's interesting is the duality within this trope - it seems that the image can be used either to suggest a nightmare vision in which the human is no longer in control; or a dream vision in which humankind has finally learned to live with nature. The latter connotation tends to be the preserve of advertising - think of Tropicana's 'Trees' ad from a couple of years back (most memorable perhaps for its use of Nouvelle Vague's cover of Depeche Mode's song 'Just Can't Get Enough') , in which a city abounded with beautiful, life-giving fruit trees, accessible to all. Or the similarly dated spot for (if I remember correctly) a Channel 4 food programme; which made keeping pigs in an office look not only viable but downright pleasant.




Film, on the other hand, tends to utilize the trope's potential for suggesting the apocalyptic. Channel 4 recently screened a documentary entitled Life after Humans, which revealed the extent to which our cities will be swallowed by wilderness once we are gone. Joe Johnston's 1995 film Jumanji had the forces of the jungle tearing suburbia to shreds. Both resonate with a significant fixture of the contemporary imagination: the knowledge that, 13 years after the disaster, plant- and animal-life is flourishing in the wastelands of Chernobyl.

Ecological control or ecological chaos? Agrarian utopia or post-apocalyptic anarchy? It is rare that a single image should stand so strongly for such opposite notions. A compromise is perhaps made by an advert currently running for some sort of over-the-counter medicine. A bear is seen wreaking havoc in an office, but is eventually placated by said medicine, and transmogrified into an ordinary office worker. The Wild Thing In The Workplace is tamed and mastered.