I didn't realize that I hadn't posted in so long, this is such a helpful place to put things, and so much has happened in a month, and this hasn't been updated in four months, and well, well, well, I am sorry I have been out of touch here. Not for lack of things to talk about, perhaps it was because there was too much happening, too much to talk about; there were performances going on all over and some of them relating to my thesis, and then there was the getting ready for the residency, and then there was the after, and it's too much to talk about all of it, so this will just be the most recent important things with hopes that the blanks will be easy enough to fill in.
First off, I couldn't be in better company, advisors and colleagues and inspirational teachers and collaborators, and I feel tremendously supported in this. It's the beginning of the final stretch, and the final stretch is really not a short stretch at all but rather a marathon, or even series of marathons. In a year's time I plan to defend at the Viva, and that means writing two and a half chapters, and the revisions, and creating the artworks that will come from the research (and demonstrate the research, or perform the research, or some combination of verbs and prepositions that have the nouns 'art' and 'research'), etc. So. At this moment, post-residency, I am focused on these two things, writing the thesis and beginning the art works, and the residency helped me to focus on these two things in rather splendid ways.
I want to mention here that in the past month, there have also been some rather intense ceremonies, that that is certainly informing my current frame of mind; there is a kind of dreaminess which is pleasant, along with some exhaustion, which is not very pleasant, but necessarily a part of the working in the spirit world. In New York City, I spent a few days with my musician friend, god brother, soul brother, interviewing him for my thesis, and gathering things for a certain Kongo spell, and this meant going all over the city, from the site belonging to the indigenous peoples who sold Manhattan to the pilgrims (up past 200th street) down to New York Harbour, a very intense and sometimes spooky couple of days. And last week my godfather was here, to do the thesis interviews, and also to do the Eleke ceremony for my new goddaughter, and that was another three days of intensive ceremonial work, and at the end of all of that, my fingers hurt from making beaded necklaces, and I am very glad I am vegetarian and so sorry about what happens to chickens.
Now. Onto more specific thesis-related things. Yesterday I had a Skype session with Laura and Debbie, and it was heartening, and made me feel very relieved (not quite the right word, but the feeling of meeting old friends and having a great meal, it was like that).
I understand that there will come a point where I am bored to death with myself and the subject of this work, but at the moment I am as excited as ever. Here's what we discussed in random notes that you will not understand until you have been initiated into these mysteries (but right now reading this will speak to your secret soul and bring you seven years of remarkably varied luck):
Shamanic work, like psychoanalytic, has the same issues of Transference.
NY residency, two competing voices, the Director and the Rehearsal Director. I need to theoretically position my position, and, it seems, with Jake directing the 5th Monsters of the Sea (called Kiki, a gay farce, at Arizona State), I am giving over directorship, almost entirely, really, and this suggests that for the Viva, the performance/presentation, I would focus on my role as Rehearsal Director.
The presentations are provocative (that word comes up a lot), and would be more provocative, and fulfilling (as presentations, as research, as art works) if I answer questions.
There's a skill to answering questions, and I need the training, so, consider summer residency in Berlin a rehearsal public Viva.
15-20" presentation - make it tight.
To give me more control, learn to answer within the parameters of my research.
also, set the groundwork (for summer and in final) so that all the chaos is intentional.
Marcus Coates - look at his chaos, and also questions of authenticity, along with that thing, that thing he does where the completely lunatic merges with a kind of aesthetic finesse, and something very elemental and true starts to emerge....
1 page aide-mémoire - like a recipe, for Jake
Look at theoretical fiction, as a frame for methodology chapter - Borges and Jodorowsky, yes, but also, Chris Kraus - Aliens and Anorexia, I love dick (on order from my library), Kathy Acker, Masha Tupitsyn (I just looked at her tumblr, http://mashatupitsyn.tumblr.com, and this is oh this, this is something, I was just thinking of doing something very much like this, really something very like this yes this yes yes yes)
Marquis de Sade - Philosophy of the Boudoir, there is a tradition for treatises buried in fiction
Debbie, talked of this Puncturing of Otherness
Trance and every day life
where I don't valorize notion of trance
a strategy that seeks to allow the 'other' to emerge and transmit, but not framed in 'otherness'
lacan & lukumí - emerge as coexisting
'How do we find the language for these practices?'
(visual and written)
a central question
--side note, already this is emerging here, since the residency, conversations with debbie and then with monika, i am not sure why exactly but i am becoming really rather obsessed with text, taking tutorials and buying books on typography, also bought motion software for final cut pro and am taking tutorials on how to make text move, and all of this seems very important for what i want the final work to be. i know the final work will be much like the videos i've shown, but bringing back the multiple personas, and also making the text that is there much more essential to the experience of watching these videos. like, if i am going to be live, speaking my narrative dog stories over an actor on video, where their face is covered with moving text, everything needs to connect--my words need to interrupt at the right exact time, and their words need to play with the text that scrolls or moves, etc....so i am looking at artists who work with text, like jenny holzer and alejandro cesarco, and start to see what it is i am trying to do here...i know this is somehow connected to an idea i have, where i want to make art about making performances, and that is either intimately connected to all of this or entirely a tangent....but, before i close the side note, a question: why does it seem to me like hit steyerl and pipilotti rist are playing with image the way the text based artists are playing with text, and why does it feel like it comes from the same artistic mud bog?
next: in 2 weeks, send next draft of methodologies chapter, but give yourself a few extra days to also send a revised structure of the work (i think this will also have to include a structure for the work on the video pieces i am wanting to construct, so i can have the map laid out very very clearly for my self) - so that deadline will be march 1st
--and after submitting that, immediately start to draft the next chapter
start to draft a rationale for why the viva performance needs to be in a basement (if that is indeed what is finally decided)
and don't forget to start to unpack some of the metaphorical juice of the basement (underground, subterranean, hidden, ignored, etc.) - from psychoanalysis, especially....
There is more to say, of course, but not enough hours in the day to say it all.
It is nice to be writing here again, and nice to see you here again.
C
First off, I couldn't be in better company, advisors and colleagues and inspirational teachers and collaborators, and I feel tremendously supported in this. It's the beginning of the final stretch, and the final stretch is really not a short stretch at all but rather a marathon, or even series of marathons. In a year's time I plan to defend at the Viva, and that means writing two and a half chapters, and the revisions, and creating the artworks that will come from the research (and demonstrate the research, or perform the research, or some combination of verbs and prepositions that have the nouns 'art' and 'research'), etc. So. At this moment, post-residency, I am focused on these two things, writing the thesis and beginning the art works, and the residency helped me to focus on these two things in rather splendid ways.
I want to mention here that in the past month, there have also been some rather intense ceremonies, that that is certainly informing my current frame of mind; there is a kind of dreaminess which is pleasant, along with some exhaustion, which is not very pleasant, but necessarily a part of the working in the spirit world. In New York City, I spent a few days with my musician friend, god brother, soul brother, interviewing him for my thesis, and gathering things for a certain Kongo spell, and this meant going all over the city, from the site belonging to the indigenous peoples who sold Manhattan to the pilgrims (up past 200th street) down to New York Harbour, a very intense and sometimes spooky couple of days. And last week my godfather was here, to do the thesis interviews, and also to do the Eleke ceremony for my new goddaughter, and that was another three days of intensive ceremonial work, and at the end of all of that, my fingers hurt from making beaded necklaces, and I am very glad I am vegetarian and so sorry about what happens to chickens.
Now. Onto more specific thesis-related things. Yesterday I had a Skype session with Laura and Debbie, and it was heartening, and made me feel very relieved (not quite the right word, but the feeling of meeting old friends and having a great meal, it was like that).
I understand that there will come a point where I am bored to death with myself and the subject of this work, but at the moment I am as excited as ever. Here's what we discussed in random notes that you will not understand until you have been initiated into these mysteries (but right now reading this will speak to your secret soul and bring you seven years of remarkably varied luck):
Shamanic work, like psychoanalytic, has the same issues of Transference.
NY residency, two competing voices, the Director and the Rehearsal Director. I need to theoretically position my position, and, it seems, with Jake directing the 5th Monsters of the Sea (called Kiki, a gay farce, at Arizona State), I am giving over directorship, almost entirely, really, and this suggests that for the Viva, the performance/presentation, I would focus on my role as Rehearsal Director.
The presentations are provocative (that word comes up a lot), and would be more provocative, and fulfilling (as presentations, as research, as art works) if I answer questions.
There's a skill to answering questions, and I need the training, so, consider summer residency in Berlin a rehearsal public Viva.
15-20" presentation - make it tight.
To give me more control, learn to answer within the parameters of my research.
also, set the groundwork (for summer and in final) so that all the chaos is intentional.
Marcus Coates - look at his chaos, and also questions of authenticity, along with that thing, that thing he does where the completely lunatic merges with a kind of aesthetic finesse, and something very elemental and true starts to emerge....
1 page aide-mémoire - like a recipe, for Jake
Look at theoretical fiction, as a frame for methodology chapter - Borges and Jodorowsky, yes, but also, Chris Kraus - Aliens and Anorexia, I love dick (on order from my library), Kathy Acker, Masha Tupitsyn (I just looked at her tumblr, http://mashatupitsyn.tumblr.com, and this is oh this, this is something, I was just thinking of doing something very much like this, really something very like this yes this yes yes yes)
Marquis de Sade - Philosophy of the Boudoir, there is a tradition for treatises buried in fiction
Debbie, talked of this Puncturing of Otherness
Trance and every day life
where I don't valorize notion of trance
a strategy that seeks to allow the 'other' to emerge and transmit, but not framed in 'otherness'
lacan & lukumí - emerge as coexisting
'How do we find the language for these practices?'
(visual and written)
a central question
--side note, already this is emerging here, since the residency, conversations with debbie and then with monika, i am not sure why exactly but i am becoming really rather obsessed with text, taking tutorials and buying books on typography, also bought motion software for final cut pro and am taking tutorials on how to make text move, and all of this seems very important for what i want the final work to be. i know the final work will be much like the videos i've shown, but bringing back the multiple personas, and also making the text that is there much more essential to the experience of watching these videos. like, if i am going to be live, speaking my narrative dog stories over an actor on video, where their face is covered with moving text, everything needs to connect--my words need to interrupt at the right exact time, and their words need to play with the text that scrolls or moves, etc....so i am looking at artists who work with text, like jenny holzer and alejandro cesarco, and start to see what it is i am trying to do here...i know this is somehow connected to an idea i have, where i want to make art about making performances, and that is either intimately connected to all of this or entirely a tangent....but, before i close the side note, a question: why does it seem to me like hit steyerl and pipilotti rist are playing with image the way the text based artists are playing with text, and why does it feel like it comes from the same artistic mud bog?
next: in 2 weeks, send next draft of methodologies chapter, but give yourself a few extra days to also send a revised structure of the work (i think this will also have to include a structure for the work on the video pieces i am wanting to construct, so i can have the map laid out very very clearly for my self) - so that deadline will be march 1st
--and after submitting that, immediately start to draft the next chapter
start to draft a rationale for why the viva performance needs to be in a basement (if that is indeed what is finally decided)
and don't forget to start to unpack some of the metaphorical juice of the basement (underground, subterranean, hidden, ignored, etc.) - from psychoanalysis, especially....
There is more to say, of course, but not enough hours in the day to say it all.
It is nice to be writing here again, and nice to see you here again.
C
No comments:
Post a Comment