Working from home

Next picture is dedicated to all you (intruders, emailers, phoners and haters)

Today, alhough my day off, I still worked in trying to digest the feedback that I received. And I guess I will still be doing that for the next week. I dont' think I am ready to go back to the studio and work. So I stayed at home and did work from here.

Here at bed working

Yes the thank you card lies on top of my head.

Shaving as a marking of a new beginning

One thing I did today is re-read sections of the book of Mary Douglas "Purity and Danger: an analysis of concept of pollution and taboo". The book has been really inspiring to me in other times.

This time I was again fascinated by the idea that dirt is something we are afraid of, trying to avoid it and that cleaneliness is the sacred. Anyway, she gives her personal experience on that saying that she says that she needs to clean up her space, room or house before she begins on a new work. I decided to shave my beard.

Here is the hideous result. OMG... I understood how much fat I have gained, I understood that my skin has dried out, I reallly dont like it...But it's okay since it symbolizes for me all that which I couldnt see before and now my eyes are open.

"There is nothing fearful or unreasoning in our dirt avoidance: it is a creative movement, an attempt to relate form to function, to make unity of experience " (Mary Douglas)

On the mess of my space

In that book also I discovered some things about my messiness:

“Purity and danger presupposed that everyone universally finds dirt offensive, which I still stand by. But what counts as dirt? It depends on the classifications in use. Basil Bernstein made a cogent criticism: some areas of one’s life are kept clan and tidy, but, in others, a lot of mess is happily tolerated. Some people live in a highly classified way all the time. Should I not allow for the obsessional artist whose tolerance of disorder is practically complete? His studio is chaotic, he sleeps there, eats there, urinates in the hand basin or out of the window when his passion for his work gives him no time to go to the w.c. Everything looks wildly disorderd, except on his canvas: there alone do calm and order reign. For him the canvas is the only sacred space, where repletness is compulsory and where the least sign of disorder would send him into fits of anxiety. (Douglas, second publication 2002).

I think the fact that my space seems so messy is a great thing for me as it works in a way that is shocking the audience, it puts them in a discomfortable place of something that they don't like (=dirt) but they have to watch it now whether they like it or not.

Some ideas that are really outsiders on the presentational mode of the work (still on my head though)

• Maybe I just present this blog and that's all. It speaks for itself. And I never present the performance lecture live
  
• Maybe I get interested from now in writing the blog as if this performance has already been asked by different cities and I present it there. It's like building up a certain mythology around my name. This way I could work more on the blurring of the boundaries of reality. But the lies would be so well done or so small that noone would tell what is true.
  
• Maybe I change space. I might need a bigger one. I am not sure why though.

I was also watching Miguel's video again. During the performance at a point of time the song of Kate Bush "Wuthering Heights" is featuring while he is standing over a candle and burning himself. Anyway, I loved the song, so I went to Youtube to see the videoclip. I got very excited with the artist and her dance/choreographic abilities. So I decided to check even more on her. Here is what I discovered that is really interesting on my research:

The song is talking about the BFPO (British Forces Posted Overseas). The song was written in 1980 and speaks about death of young soldiers (maybe in the Vietnam war? I don't know). Seminal importance is given to the role of photography in the video. Everything comes from the eyes of Kate Bush who act as a photographic camera. More than that, remember that Vietnam war is the first war ever to be witnessed/covered by tv 24/7 and so the war really became a living room experience. Look at the movement of the camera especially during the bombing session. It has nothing to do with the experienced hands of a Holywoodian cameraman. It has the touch of raw material. Also attention to the movement of her eyes on the sound of a photocamera shot.Very interesting. A friend told me that the sound of a photocamera is very similar to when you arm your gun.
Hope you like it too.