This is the calm place that doesn't change but just sways lightly in the current; growing scales, barnacles, pearls... transforming shipwrecks into coral. Making a bit of a whale sound, but whooshier.
“That is just what life is when it is beautiful and happy – a game! Naturally, one can also do all kinds of other things with it, make a duty, or a battleground, or a prison of it, but that does not make it any prettier.” Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East
This could sum up the tune in my head these days very well.
"Lately - and I think this is a cultural observation - I've replaced the post-romantic metaphor with one of a knot. I see individuals now as knots, in say, the piece of lace that one of Vermeer's lacemakers is making. Things go through us - the genetic code, the history of the nation, the language or languages we speak ... the constraints that are put upon us, the people who are around us. And if we are an individual, it's because these threads are knotted together in this particular place, and they hold. I also have no metaphysical sense of the self, and I see this knot as vulnerable; you could cut one or two threads of it... or you can, of course, get an unwieldy know where somebody has had so much put in that the knot becomes a large and curious, and ugly object. We are connected and we also are a connection which is a separate and unrepeated object." -- A. S. Byatt (1987; 26)
Last week we had our first taste of actively doing some performance art together for class:
There were other things done too - that black circle of tubing was filled with hundreds of downy pillow feathers that we sent cascading through the big glass sleekness of the new art building. Multiple times. I don't think the janitors were even chagrined! We also carried a couch into the big maintenance elevator and had a little hoedown in there, hoping that this time maybe we would get more random people to join us... and of course Kathy Kennedy (sound artist/professor extraordinaire) shows up with her sound class along with some guy eating takeout noodles and the place goes wild! The video's too long and unedited to show right now, but I may later when I get the final piece.
In other news I AM SICK. Oh woe, to have a head so full of gak! I'm probably not communicating very well if blog-land is anything like real-land, but you're bearing with me if you've gotten this far and that makes me happy enough to keep going.
Notably at the end of that class some of us got randomly invited behind the glass gallery of the FOFA to take part in a real (that is, meaningful) performance piece - Angela Silver's Accrétion where she takes outmoded pieces of writing equipment and gives them new life in contemporary ways. In this case, basically, she was wacking a wall full of carbon paper with a typewriter ball over and over, making strange partial constellations of letters and signs all over the wall. You also had to walk through Amelie Brisson-Darveau's jungle of knotted-up crimson fabrics to get to the action. (I think that also had to do with re-purposing objects - turning old clothing into measuring tools, borders, social nets, et al)
It was fairly neat, and a good denouement on feeling healthy I think. 30 minutes after this I was horking and trembling like a big 'ol microbe, but up until then... art. As it should be. :)
The next assignment for Perf. Art is to take on a different persona for a whole day... I was just thinking of switching gender, but now I think I might go a little wilder in concept. Any ideas? Mythical beasts, muses, barons and superheroes are kinda the wildness I'm aiming for. Moustache wearing is a highly amusing plus!
"All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110 everything -- every dot, every dash -- will live." - Hokusai
I've been feeling inevitable lately. Full of piss, vinegar, and only slightly sick from the intense effort of living to the fullest. I even managed to sleep last night! Finished 10 watercolours for draw studio, which I'll post later for sure. My performance art class is also looking to be that class that actually teaches something about art (there's always one, if you're lucky). I skipped ahead in the online syllabus and found some links to Miranda July on Youtube, which made me squee, because gosh darnit I think she's adorable. Yeah, I know, whatever, she's a privileged art-heiress, but I think her work is actually really sweet, and anyone with eyes so freaky crystal blue just has to be good, right? Of course.
Keep watch for some performance art going down over here, too... I've got ideas up the wazoo, which actually surprised me but I think I might take to this like a fly to jelly, so to speak. It's just too ripe for, well, anything. I will not mail you real spam in the mail, though, I promises. :)
