Well, there are not so many things to say today, other than yesterday I took all morning and afternoon off to relax and get a small distance from the material. I felt overtired and so I needed a break. Then in the evening I went back to the studio and worked on repeating and repeating and repeating in order to perform better. I think repetition is an inherent process to performance.
Here are some rules I made up for myself when singing.And these are some photos I took in order to make more performative the idea of repeating a rehearsal. Hope you like them. Just click on them. Warhol revisited :)
Aaron, who applied for a dramaturg and choreographer in my project, made me realize that the words that I am using are really important and so I decided I should work on what I am saying. And what I am saying should be in close connection to the War Photography issue so as to be a performing element of the "old" choreography I have made as a "famous" choreographer. So, being almost in the end of my lecture where I am talking that photos echo photos and that we only remember photos and not real incidents, I wanted to make a small conclusion of the whole lecture. So I ended up with this text:
For me, this is what the photo would say to us if it could speak.
Controling the masturbation- Performing the masturbation
Well, I have decided that I have used "masturbation" as a creative process and in a sense it is, if we see it as an expression of solipsism, it is the common element of the performance lecture mode. But I have decided I should keep a distance from the character who is masturbating. I should be able to control it and master it. The performance should be a self-indulgent performance to fit in the format of performance lecture, but I should be able to make a comment on this self-indulgence instead of allowing it to overcome me. And to make a comment for me can only happen if I master it. That's why I have thought of working today on another studio, and in fact on a studio where everyone can see me. Can I keep myself inside me? Can I be so internal forgetting the others?
The whole Laban could look at me. I was in this fish-bowl room where performing is like being inside a window shop, being looked at by possible buyers. I couldn't allow myself to be in a trance. I could perform trance if I wanted (and I clearly knew how to do it) but I wanted to check out if I could refrain from it. In fact, I did. I also managed not to be "over" self conscious of the people looking at me. And that really worked fine. Here is what I managed to do.
Spiritual Guide
Today, I took a private class on voice mastering with Fabio Culora. Amazing guy. After some basic exercises on breathing he introduced me to voice as a movement not as a sound.
We did some exercises on posture, diaphragm but mainly we realized that there are two things that are important for me: (a) do less and (b) know my intentions. Do less because sometimes I think that the voice is more than what I can whereas when I release my effort the voice just comes out on its own. I need to feel my base, my knees soft, release my belly and allow the sound to go out only to come back to me. I need to feel the rebound or the reverbaration in me. When I knew my intention, my voice was clear and my breath more than enough to control the voice. It's all about presence Fabio explained me and we worked on me feeling comfortable with myself. More than that, he made me understand more precisely what my intentions on the text are and to express those through my movement-voice. I need to know what to emphasize. I also need to make the sound syncopated and clean.
By the end of the class, I was feeling I had made a big difference in the way I was approaching my breath, voice, presence and strength. Fabio is a great guy to encourage you to discover unhidden paths in you and to feel comfortable with yourself. I have thus asked him if he would be interested in being my spiritual guide for this piece and he has agreed. He will thus help me warming up, feeling comfortable with my body, relaxing and releasing and connecting me to my presence and intentions before the performance. I feel much stronger knowing that I have someone who can prepare me for this lonely journey I am taking. I am very grateful to my guide and I feel like a hobbit who found his young Gandalf.
For the next rehearsals, I know what I need to work on to make my voice and presence stronger. I will do my best Fabio.
Cleaning I am realizing that maybe for the next days, I won't have a lot of things to say on creative process, since I only working on cleaning and correcting some bits and pieces. However, this process helps me to identify clearly some elements of the performance that I hadn't really thought about. I don't know what I should be writing these days. Maybe I just give you some idea of what I am cleaning and then you can tell me what I might have forgotten or haven't thought at all about cleaning or methods of cleaning to make my work easier.
A man cleaning up after the Israeli helicopter bombings in the Gaza Strip. His house in the Northern Gaza Strip was shelled.
Interesting choreographers and dramaturgs of any age/experience/gender/sexuality are needed for a project through internet. Reward guaranteed. Here is the task:
I want to approach singing as a choreographer, not as a musician (I am not a musician either way)
a choreographer makes a wooden sculpture. Is is really a sculpture or maybe a choreography?
a sculptor makes a choreography. Is it realy a choreography or is it maybe a statue?
So, what I need to work on now is
what kind of "steps" (= words) do I use
dynamics of each "step" (singing, screaming, hissing, whispering, breathing etc),
dynamics of the overall composition (immediate accumulation, how fast, how slow etc)
presence on stage (do I allow myself to dance, to be mesmerised, am I standing, do I go to the floor, am I on my world, do I look at the audience, do I reply to the song as if I have a dialogue?)
How synchronized with the music I should make it (do I try to say things rythmically or not?)
emotions?
overall duration ? (3 mins, 6 minutes, 1 minute?)
put it live? just record it and let it play as a video ?
I really want to take some decisions on these issues (and many more) but I don't know when it looks interesting to decide accordingly. Since I haven't received any replies on that, I kindly ask you again to
HELP ME !
I am not going to go on begging for your help, but here you are you have every chance to practice your choreographic and dramaturgic skills through an innovative medium (=internet blogging). Take your chances. I therefore have uploaded two different (I believe) versions of m rehearsals and of my experimentations (I am trying out everything). Can you pick up 2-3 things you like and suggest them? Or if you are kind enough can you tell me how you would "choreograph" the song?
Solipsism When I started reading about self-pleasure, self-indulgence, masturbation, I realized that everything has to do with solipsism and I was really fascinated by the fact that I now return back to the sub-title I had arbitrarily given to my blog. At last I am going to address that issue, I thought. But isn't it expected and predictable even that when someone is working for so many hours on his/her own to start having moments where he is starting to get lost in himself? In Greece we have a funny proverd that says "A lot of taka-taka and the kid becomes a wanker". Maybe it it is right for me too...
Focus on the pink for long time. Now, the image looks like the colours are correct.
The political correctness of self indulgence: Am I allowed a moment of masturbation during a performance? When ?
Now, once thing that I have realized whilst doing this exercise it that after some time, my eyes close, I feel sleepy. I don't know what is happening to me. I enter in a trance, in another world. I lose contact with this world. That's why I call it mental masturbation.
What happens to the political dimensions of a work of art when the artist shows signs of becoming lost, or of being lost, in the pleasures of creation?
Geoffrey Sanborn, writing about Sandra Cisneros' novel The Mango House (the most widely read and taught novel by US Latino author) says the following:
"She does it because she likes it, and she likes it because it transports her experience into another space, a space that is intimate, private, and under her control. She associates the sensation of belonging to spaces with the sensation of being possessed by a ghost, an internal alien entity; she associates the sensation of not belonging to those spaces with a feeling of freedom and relief from pain. "
Relief from pain, relief from pain, relief from pain, relief from pain...
Geoffrey Sanborn believes that these are moments of self- indulgence and solipsism. But he goes on explaining that the book is dedicated to
"the women in the community who cannot, as yet, make themselves the subjects and objects of their own enjoyment. [...] The spectacle of her enjoyment is offered [...]as an object of identification. Under these conditions of representation, the break introduced by solitary pleasure heralds not the end of interpersonal commitments and socially transformative acts but the beginning of alliances on new grounds. [...] Cisneros treats the narcissistic selfregard of these women not as the death knell of political consciousness but as the way in which they keep from being framed as spectacles, captured by the gaze of others. The effect is to encourage our identification "not with the ideal imago which the women [. . .] so dramatically fail to approximate, but rather with the women themselves."
In my own words, such an act where I am lost in my own world could be useful for two reasons: - it is the narcissistic moment of the "choreographer" (I am performing a famous choreographer who has just made a piece) who enjoys TOO much his piece and is lost in it. - But, a bit like Cindy Sherman and Cisneros, I hope to provide for a new approach to the way of looking at photos and being looked at when looking at photos. The whole lecture is about the non-sanctity of war photography and so a return to real subject of the gaze is the best means for me to have a political stance on the issue. But to be able to do this , I think I need to be a master of my own self-hallunication, I need to be able to control it. Therefore many times, I say to myself, "get off the ground", open your eyes, wake up... You can show mesmerized but be sure you can control it. Just like Sherman. Difficult task.
On repetition: psychoanalyzing the spectator, the choreographer and me Repetitive music has often been linked with Freudian Thanatos. According to Freud, humans have a life instinct - which he named 'Eros' - and a death drive, which is commonly called (though not by Freud himself) 'Thanatos'. Death drive is "an urge inherent in all organic life to restore an earlier state of things". Freud begins the work considering the experience of trauma and traumatic events (particularly the trauma experienced by soldiers returning from WWI). The most curious feature of highly unpleasant experiences for Freud was that subjects often tended to repeat or re-enact them. This postulated death drive allegedly compels humans to engage in risky and self-destructive acts that could lead to their own death. Behaviors such as thrill seeking, aggression, and risk taking are viewed as actions which stem from this Thanatos instinct. I approach repetition on three distinct actions: - people wanting to see over and over again (the same) photos of people suffering in wars. There is thus a repetition compulsion by the spectator of war photography and it is exactly that what I am trying to pass through the texts of Susan Sontag and Caroline Brothers and that is what the choreographer is claiming to do (=I, the choreographer, show you the death drive of the spectator of war photography) - the "famous choreographer" repeating over and over again myself as a moment of reliving and hallucinating the trauma of his not so socially accepted, controversial choreography (I, Pavlos, show you the death drive of a choreographer) - Pavlos, who repeats his own voice, in order to make the rehearsal and the performance a more social event than a solipsistic moment. It is a death drive though because it refers to the repetition of a trauma, that of loneliness. I relive over and over my own loneliness and solipsism.
The image below is very beautiful... It is made out of four angles of the same element and then stitched together. Somehow resembling the 3 actions mentioned above. Click on it to see large scale.
Feeling Comfortable (leaving the pictures out for a moment)
I went to the studio and started working again on the text. I wanted to make sure that I feel comfortable wit it. That I know what I am talking about. I did not use any photos. It was just the text. I learned big parts of the text by heart. Indeed, you can see in this fast forward, my attitude towards the speech is much more lose and open. By the end I start getting worried about my notes etc but it's because I hadn't learned anything by heart on this. I still follow the lecturing map I had drawn three days ago. It has a nice logic I think. Once I learn how to deliver the text without breaks, I will re-introduce the photos and play with them. I think this is the best way now for going further.
DEVISING A PLAN (I am also the performer, remember?)
On Friday I was having a presentation and for me it did not go so well. I think because I was feeling very stressed (there were many technical problems and the presentation was constantly delayed) and because I had not rehearsed a lot the presentation. After falling amazingly sad about it, I realized some things about my Solo Project (they do not necessarily apply to all works as for example to the the presentation because it's too late now and because the purpose of the presentation were different). What I need to start doing now is to really spend time in rehearsing over and over some things. Cleaning... I hate the word cleaning. It gives such connotation about dirt and bad. Anyway, I need to do that so that I acquire a trust to myself and a comfortableness. Also to really make sure I know what is going on. It is not so much about showing my ideas, but abou how i show these ideas now. As a choreographer, I did not care so much about cleaning. I think it's the dancers' responsibility to clean and be good in what they perform. As a choreographer I need to make sure that the idea and its composition is what I want it to be. I don't know how right or wrong that is. I think it's about being able to split the work and being very very very responsible. In any case, now I am on my own. I need to do both. I am not just a choreographer. I am also a performer. Therefore I sat down today and tried to think what are the things I still need to do and I devised a plan until the 27th of June. I will of course have the possibility to change this plan but for the time being I will try to stick to it as much as possible. Moreover, for every little block I will write what my specific objective is and what I need to do. Therefore I will know precisely what I have to work with. It sounds like criteria, but I will allow for other things to happen to and influence my work. Furthermore, I plan to show my work next Friday to people to receive some more feedback. Below is my time plan. Please click on it and tell me what you think. Have I forgotten anything???
Performing the Text
In my last blog, I wrote down that I need to make the text also performative. There is a lot of visual performativity of this idea of documentation and memory but none in the sound. Furthermore, as I have mentioned, I would really like to work on this idea of delay, of live documentation or supplement to use Deleuzian terms. Once again my stimulus came from studying the work of Elena Cologni and the discussion I had with her. Only I, instead of visual documentation through video in delay, I want to do audio documentation through voice. So, I bought a small loop machine that people usually use for their electric guitars and instead of plugging it to a guitar, I plugged it to a microphone. The machine is looping things I have already said. I can accumulate text this way. While doing this, I have realized that although the machine is supposed to just repeat and not change anything, in fact the sound slowly slowly is changing. Ok let me give you an example. I record a phrase A that lasts 2,7 second over an already existing phrase of 2,6 seconds (which makes up of 6 other phrases of 2,3 seconds, 3 seconds, 1 second, 1,7 second, 8 second and so on). If I allow the song to play without accumulating any new voice, I can see that there are waves in each repetition and that happens because the time of the new sentence is smaller or bigger than the preexisting one. So in a sense it meets certain phrases each time to create a rythm that is slowly slowly slowly slowly changing (without being very clear when this change occurs). Too complicated? Listen to the end of the video...
A small anecdote: while rehearsing, a lady from an office below my studio, she came and asked me to turn the volume down A LOT. :) :) :) Look the last 20 secs of the video. That's the reason why I have decided to work on singin only in the evenings so that I don't disturb many people.
Masturbation I am not happy about it though. I don't like the beginning with saying numbers because it sounds too much like a music class. But that was the way for me to learn how to use the machine properly. I am thinking I should use parts of the text. Or maybe Virginia Woolf's description. And somewhere in the middle start adding up cities/countries/seas of war. I am not so sure. I don't really know what I can do. Certainly I want to go to a crescento. Why ? Well, maybe I have to tell you something. while doing this repetitive singing, you start feeling you are masturbating. You can either mesmerise in it or go for ejaculation. Ejaculation is screaming. You can feel the pain in your voice. It's quite hard to overdube a new voice over something that is really loud. But it gives you a very strong feeling. I also feel there is something very self-indulgent in creating this music. As if I don't care about the audience. Is that bad? I need to research on masturbation. I am sure that there must have been something written on repetition, masturbation, self-indulgence, creation. Anybody knows anything?
How do I link it? How is the song linked to the lecture and the how to the "old" performance? I think it's quite complicated in my head. I am not very sure yet, especially since I haven't found exactly what I want the song to be about or how to be about. For the time being, my idea is that this singing is part of the "real" "old" perfomance and it was the soundtrack of the performance. It was built according to the idea that "photos echo photos, echo photos, echo photos" and that we only remember through photos. In the "old" performance, you could only listen to the end product of the music (the most blurred of all). Without being able to clearly listen to the different stages. In the lecture, I will demonstrate the procedure. How about that???? What do you think? and maybe i first sing, and then explain ???? or first explain and then sing??? what do you think ??? I also have a wild idea, that I arrive at the end of the lecture (I don't announce that to the audience) with this singing and when it's the pick of the song, the most blurred part and noisy one, I start really masturbating on the photos that are on the floor. Showing the self-indulgence we have when we look at pictures instead of reality (very Lacanian I know) and at the same time my insolence to the photos. I want to shock exactly like the photos do. But I am not sure, I need to study about masturbation in front of the audience. Any help ? Martin or Tony or Mariella? or anyone out there?
Delay (from Chance Practice to Deleuze, through Cologni)
Today I decided to upload some video extract from the discussion with Elena Cologni, as I have already mentioned to you. While capturing the video from my camera to the computer, I realized that after the 1st minute you can no longer see Elena's face because Nic has accidentaly moved in the frame and is covering the whole of Elena. In that case I said to myself, I should only upload sound and no image. While working on it, the word "Delay" striked back to me. You know me, I love technology so I thought let's do an experiment and let's put some delay in the sound. After some efforts here is what I have up with (sounds like Reich, maybe I need to check out minimalist music and repetition, delay etc)
(the quality is quite bad because I had to compress it, but maybe you can get the idea)
I know that Elena Cologni has been working a lot on Deleuzian concepts of time, and so I decided that I should do some research on Deleuze. In Search of Lost Time in Proust and Signs Deleuze believes that what constitutes the unity of Time is not memory.. The ‘search’ is not steered by the effort of recall or the exploration of memory, but by the desire for truth (which, following Nietzsche, we can say is always ‘hard’). In that sense my theatrical documentation (that Elena Cologni calls theatrical supplement) is not so much working on the idea of memory but on the desire for truth, desire to learn the reality. Moreover, war photography itself works with the establishment of memory as a means of making something (=war) real. As you can see there are many connections of my work to Deleuze and I still need to work harder on Deleuze (because he is very difficult to read). But as far as delay is concerned Deleuze in fact speaks of delay in the last chapter. Deleuze seeks to show that there are several 'orders of truth' and no simple or single truth. The third order is the order of universal alteration of death, including the Idea of death and the production of catastrophe (the other two being reminiscences and essences). All that exists is corroded and distorted by time. Time gives life and time gives death. What is the specific effect of time that produces the idea of death? Deleuze argues as follows. With two given states of the same person - the earlier that we remember, the present that we experience - the impression of ageing from one to the other has the effect of pushing the earlier moment into a remote, improbable past. The movement of time from past to present is 'doubled by a forced movement of greater amplitude’ that sweeps away the two moments, stresses the gap between them, and pushes the past far back in time. Very interesting for me to work with delay now. I will try to steal some more time to dedicate to Deleuze and maybe trying out new things on delay. Especially this idea of 'forced movement of greater amplitude' sounds very inspiring. I think I want to work further with sound also. I believe that there is a lot of visual memorization and archiving going on but not any in the sound/text. And I think that the main problem now of my research is the fact that my text does not have a performative element. I will try to see what I could do with that. One last thing about Deleuze. I think Deleuze has also another relation to Time that he is not mentioning in his book. He is what I would scientifically call TIME CONSUMING... It takes me hours to really understand what he means. It's worth in the end, but that is the reason why today's blog is going to be so small.
Concentration Before all these great notions came to my mind (in fact they only came now in the night), I spent my whole day in the studio rehearsing. I worked on this very general structure I had made and I tried to make it work. Indeed, I am becoming more and more comfortable with the text, I am improvising and because I am distancing myself from the script, I have more freedom to realize other things that I might at the same time be doing (like I was speaking and I was dropping the pictures on the floor... that was very indecent of mine especially when I had a picture of a Nazi concentration camp).I think I should go on playing with this structure. Now my problem has to do with concentration (AGAIN). I just couldn't concentrate to give a whole lecture without every 2-3 mins getting distracted and doing somehting else. I think I need to push myself. What would happen if I had an audience? Would I be dstracted? probably not... If only I could invite people... I just can't... Maybe instead I could use a camera. I'll try that out. And if I get distracted, maybe then you can scold me when you watch the video. Why is it that we only learn and become better when we know that someone is going to scold us? Where is the self-motivation? Are we all servant students? Do we like masochism in education?
After a week and half, I am back to writing this blog. Thank you all very much for pushing me or encouraging me to go back to writing.
4 Reasons why not writing your blog (my own story) During this time, I had to think hard what the reasons were for pausing writing. I had to be hard with myself and here is what I came after: 1) I was overwhelmed by the amount of feedback and I needed some time to digest. I am not quite sure if "digest" is the correct word (everybody uses it when we talk about feedback, it's the fashion), but indeed I feel more comfortable with the feedback. Selective memory I would call my case: my memory decided to keep only certain elements and to strike some others out as "not so important". Here is what my memory reminds me today: "I need to work on the text and on the timing of showing the photos". Documentation can tell me the rest (so I am not worried), but I should only approach my documentation once I have solved these two issues. Quite obvious I know... but it's also a matter of a panic because of being overwhelmed and I needed some time to calm down.
2) Another reason was that I was having this anarchic idea of not being a god, a leader, a teacher, an educator (and therefore I did not want to show anything). I still believe that this is right. But with Martin (who loves psychoanalysis, Lacan and male hysteria) we have identified that a deeper reason for this aphorism is my fear. (Check out number 4 below)
3) I needed to do another work (quite creative and self-reflecting again), and I could not split my mind into two things. I am not so multi-tasky after all...How do you become multi-tasky? Is there a school or a module for multitaskiness? Even now talking, I still have a presentation on Friday and my mind can't just invest on both ideas at the same time. Because for me, going to the toilet, cooking some dinner, walking in the street, brushing my hair, drinking water, are all moments of great enlightment and I am constantly thinking of the piece in these little trivial everyday incidents. How many glasses of water do I need to drink to think of these two projects? And how about the toilet??? Do I need to piss long time or should I try to piss in two periods? Or maybe I should split my piss in two directions just like my thought... Is that possible???
4) I was afraid of Laban's disturbingly arid criteria. Hell yeah I am... I am not afraid to say that... I mean two great works of mine (that have been embraced by renowned artists and scholars) have already been thrown to the bin because they just don't meet Laban’s criteria. I hate criteria, I already did before, but now it’s soooo obvious. I don't know how many times I should say that... Criteria are about things people have already thought and they want to see again. Not meeting criteria, but meeting the general guidelines of a module/application, means sometimes that you have managed to do something beyond these criteria. Isn't that what Deleuze thinks of art in comparison to craftsmanship? I am sorry to say that to the teachers of Laban but you produce bad imitations of your thoughts. Bad because they will never arrive at your thoughts. Imitations because of your thoughts. Thoughts because of you. You because of you. You and you and you and you. Anyway, I guess people have heard these things before. I am not the only one shaking this old building dressed in new clothes. My students might also be reading this blog today… Guys, I am not saying that criteria should be abolished. I use them quite often because sometimes they help me to arrange my thoughts. But theyare only a guideline and should remain a guideline. Each student/ applicant should be treated individually and beyond my own perceptions. That’s why I like teaching you composition. Coz you do things I would have never thought. Keep on working. What is important is that after a supportive (I like calling it "spiritual) talk with Martin (yes we managed to have one, he doesnt hate me that much), I understood that I should not feel intimidated or feared by Laban. My work has a substance, and certainly it still needs some work but it is presentable. Furthermore, I have understood, that Laban in not going to change, to accept my anarchic ideas. If they can’t change, I need to take that into consideration and move on. Move on I think that’s what I am learning here. It’s a barrier. Just move on. It’s ok… Move on.
TOPIC OF THE LECTURE So, although I was not writing the blog, that does not mean that I didn't work on my solo every now and then. So, what I have thought is that I need to understand what it is exactly that fascinates me with war photography so that my lecture and my performance is all about that. Loosing many hours rereading Susan Sontag, my notes, Caroline Brother's amazing book "War and Photography: a cultural history", I have finally managed to come out to this very open structure:
My thought is to leave the structure space. So that means that I will not write down a speech. But, I need to learn some things by heart. I guess tomorrow, that's what I will be doing. As you can see the main idea is about Reality- Captions- Captions echoing Captions echoing captions echong chaptions econg captns acng cpts cn tns cntnsg...- Reality. And where is Virginia Woolf ??? I have decided on this main idea because my work is a lot about representation of reality and live documentation. So what I wanted to do is to reflect Sontag's ideas in my meta-perfomance. As I have already, I want the ideas of Sontag to gain a performative element beyond what I am saying as a lecturer. That's how the laser pointer came in.
VideoPreview I have also done a smal small work on a small videopreview I want to be shown in the Plasma screens of Laban where they usually show performances that are going to take place in Bonnie Bird. The idea is to make a small video like a teaser, only that it is going to be much more naturalistic than a seductive teaser (naturalistic does not mean realistic though).
(the video keeps on stopping at 00:25. If it does, just move the cursor to 00:27 and it's ok)
Here is what I have made so far... But I realy want to hear your opinion. Yes the video is without sound. I don't want to make the violence be appealing. Yes the caption are randomly put out of order. Yes the red dot is a laser dot, I am sure that in a bigger screen it will look better.
What do I want to do with this video ? I want first of all to see the public's reactions. Especially (a) whether they are shocked by the pictures, by the playmobils or whether it manages to pass unnoticed, and (b) how does a teaser or an advertisement of vast public dissemination might create an audiencship. I mean, would the people be interested to come and see the piece just because of all this advertisement? "renowned choreographer" ? how do they react on that?after all my piece is about this ficticious or maybe real character who makes this fictitious or maybe real choreography and discusses about it or maybe about something else.
Documentation On one of my first entries, I was discussing about Mariella's suggestion whether this work is about documentation. I had very passionately, at that time, replied that no, this work is not about documentation, I don't want to make it easy for me, I should really try to make a piece. The last week though I was constantly thinking of it (maybe becoz of my fears). After lots of thoughts, I think that my work is about documentation and has always been in my mind that it is so. But what I mean by the word documentation is very different to what some of you might think. The action of archiving time (with the red tags), the laser pointer showing a time path, the live feed that comes in delay, the live feed of a photo that is a document of a document (like photos echoing photos echoing photos), all that is documentation...The lecture is about reality of documentation and captions. And so the whole performative event should be about documentation and captions. In this realization, Dr Elena Cologni, an Italian artist living and working in London, has been a very big influence. I will soon be uploading an enlightening discussion I had with her. For the time being here is a very inspiring piece of hers.
"MNEMONIC PRESENT, UN-FOLDING #3 involves the action of folding a long stripe of paper extending beyond the internal square of teh museum, this is recorded and projected back onto three screens, each with an 8 second delay – the exact time during which each of us is aware of the present events – in relation to the original action so that spectators perceive the event itself both live and deferred. This manipulation of the documentation of the live event is an attempt to generate a sort of memory of the present memoria or mnemonic present to question notions of memory, present and past."
There are many similarities to my work especially the delay of the live feed that she calls a "supplement" (according to Derrida's notion). Here is what she says about the delay:
"The use of the live recording (or manipulation) projection in my Performative Video Live Installations enables me to investigate this time gap in the audience’s perception of the event. In my recent pieces defined as 'Video Live Installation' (VLI), the 'live-recording' and 'pre-recording' projected during the performative event has opened up questions regarding the involvement of the audience and their perception of what is present and represented. VLI, including its own simultaneous documentation can be regarded itself as a form of 'present memory' of the event, as perceived by the audience. In the new work I create a 'real time distancing' from the event as part of its delivery at the time of its perception, to draw a parallel between the production of the performance's documentation and methods of memory archiving. The implicit continuous temporal and spatial shift of the event's meaning is thus created together with the temporary presentation and representation of the performer's self in relationship to the spectators - participating in the creative process through the interchange that takes place during its production." (Elena Cologni, ‘PRESENT-MEMORY: LIVENESS VERSUS DOCUMENTATION AND THE AUDIENCE’S MEMORY ARCHIVE IN PERFORMANCE ART’, psi conference 2005)
The delayed video works in order to create a live memory, a document that is live and interchanges between the past and the present, being a trace but never leaving a trace. A document that is not really documenting anything from the past, but performs the present through the past. Exactly what Susan Sontag means when saying that a photo says more about the now than about the war.
The Return should not be lonesome
Please do not forget to reply to me, even if you can't read all of this automatic writing... I know sometimes it's too much, sometimes it doesnt make sense. Just whatever you read (a line, a paragraph, the whole text, a picture, a video, please send me your comments). It's too difficult being that lonely
Improvisational Technologies a No, it's not about Forsythe. It's about how to make an improvisation with 121 photos and a text that has no logical structure.
Setting up I accidentaly found two large white tables in my room. In the beginning I put them aside, but when I saw the amount of all my pictures, I thought, hey this is a nice lab table. I spread them all on the white table. I didn't know which one to pick up. I couldn't pick any. I was just left numb staring at them. Then it came to my mind the work of Ibon Aranberri called Politica Hidraulica.
The work features 46 framed aerial photographs, which Aranberri had commissioned. The photographs are printed in various sizes and framed in different colours and forms. The frames and the prints both have a certain retro character. They are then loosely placed on the floor, overlapping one another as if in temporary storage. Aranberri refers to this installation as something that creates a “claustrophobic atmosphere”, and does not try to “rescue memory”. With this form of presentation, he wants to suggest a backstage situation, comparing it with “the storage of an energy company”. It is not the single picture that interests him but rather the large number and exemplary character of the constructions, as well as the accumulation. He is attracted by both their particular “sense of beauty” and the totalitarian idea to shape a “generic landscape”.
I was wondering whether I should just exhibit the picture like that... It is about the amount of the photos. But it is also about the single photo that is able to work in order to shape the ideas grouping these photos, namely caption, interpretation, reality, violence, suffering, spectatorship, revenge, peace, ambivalence, power etc... I can't take a decision now. The thing is that part of my research is discover the photos that Susan Sontag is talking about. Here they are. My work as an artist now is how to present them. And I think that this would be a great way to present them. Food for thought for the future. That was just a small hint.
Understanding my weaknesses Well, you can't improvise without having a vocabulary of movements. And of course everyone can argue in favour or against that, with a plentiful of arguments. But what I want to say is, that trying to improvise on pictures that I don't really know what they are is almost bound to fail to grasp the level of a specialized lecture on war photography. Improvisation is a step that will come later. For the time being I need to find another strategy.
So I tried to identify what are the ways/strategies to start working on the text deeper. I made a map of two possible ways and then tried to see their pros/cons. Here is what I wrote/thought (but it's great if you click on the image also) Method 1 (the playful way)
Write next to each picture all the elements of it, such as photographer, time, place, caption, Sontag's analysis, other information I find on google.
Do that for all pictures.
Learn everyday 10 pictures by heart.
Everyday make a revision of all pictures studied until that day.
Go back to the table and pick up one picture. Any picture.
Say some of its characteristics. Any characteristic (not all).
Link another picture with this picture because they share characteristics.
Try to identify the pathway I have chosen. Do I link them in certain thematics?
Pick up 2-3 thematics and work harder on them
Revise the steps when you have already done them, I can't predict now what will happen ...
Advantages
learning process will be like a quiz game
free floating lecture
focused on photos content rather than a certain theory
Disadvantages
need to learn things by heart
very fragmented lecture without a thread of thought/focus
demands time in "choreographing" the results of the improvisation
Method 2 (the academic way) 1. Read many articles on war photography 2. Try to identify what the main issues are 3. Write my own article discussing about these issues 4. Try to link photos to each word/paragraph/chapter 5. Read the article. 6. Althought its mine, really try to make it even more mine
Advantages
focuses on theory (--> explains the content of my 'old' performance.
has a clear beginning/middle/end
Disadvantages
needs a lot of reading/time
will make the lecture more rigid
fear that photos might not be mentioned and that lecture becomes boring
Decision I don't know which method to follow. Yesterday my Athens Log in reached its deadline. Which means I have no access to academic articles anymore. This is a big tragedy for me... I guess method 2 is a bit more difficult now. But I don't want to exclude it just for that reason. I want the piece to decide on its own what the most appropriate methodology is. I wonder whether that article (of method 2) could be of any use elsewhere... What should I do ???? FUCK
An arts philosophical (idiot but important for me ) question Kate Elswit, lecturer at Laban, some weeks ago had said that my article on nudity/nakedness was a very egoistic one. She could clearly see the amount of research I had done but I never explained anything to my readers. I guess I am in this situation now. I am right now doing a research. But I don't want to cluster it in 10 mins and present it. I don't understand why I have to present it. The research is for me. I do it for my own sake. I don't care about audiences. I am not doing a research on how to approach audience. Who the f*ck has linked arts with audience? Why do we have to show our work? Why is art a communication? Isn't it creative to work on your own, to find your own paths, to discover new worlds? For me that is creation that is art. Expressing this knowledge is a show off. Is an assumption that you, or I, are great and can educate the others. Don't give me that shit that you are not interested in educating the other. Once you show something to the other (that has research behind it), you educate him on your research. I am not an educator, instructor, teacher, professor, lecturer, priest, leader, head of state or god. Now it may sound contradictory that I am putting everyday online this work. And I would agree with you on one hand. Yes, I am showing my work and yes I try to make it interesting for you. But maybe I do that because that's how I was educated by my culture. OR, (and this is what I want to stress) I do it because I am still researching, I am researching with you, I am making no statement about good or bad. You are here to give me feedback, not to learn from me. I learn from you. My Yes and No Manifesto (inspired by Yvonne Rainer and Mette Ingvartsen) No to teaching/ instructing/ educating/ leading/ forming No to dissemination of results No to results No to reducing your research to 5 pages No to imposing a certain interpretation of your research
Yes to allowing your research have multiple strands and interpretation Yes to egoism Yes, to accumlating knowledge together with other people Yes, to asking opinions as a means of research
No to spectacle No to finishing a research No to encapsulation
Yes to non-sense/illogic Yes to organizing principles rather than fixed logic systems
No to expression Yes to methodology and procedures
P.S. This needs redefinition. Anyone wants to help to make it better?
(still waiting for your corrections on how I read your feedback) Not working (for the piece)*** It's true. I haven't done any work today. I went to the studio only late in the evening. The space was different. People had moved the furniture. It seemed very tidy and clean. Nothing to do with me. It seemed fiendish welcoming. I wanted to leave. I convinced myself to stay at least 1 hour in side the studio. I did. I thought that my laziness would chill out and I would start being creative with it. It didnt happen. I took some pictures of the space. I didn't want to work. I knew what I had to do. I just didn't want to do it. I saw the boxes with all my material inside. I opened them to check out if everything is inside. Everything ok. I didnt work today. My spirit needs to calm down from the feedback. Although I know where I have to head to, I am not sure whether I really do know the importance of it. I give to myself the excuse that I need to digest. Well, of course I do. It's not an excuse.
I can't work. I feel that the things I need to do now are small and tedious. I don't feel ready yet. I need some time away. I don't have the time. Where do I find the time? How do I manage it? There must be a good strategy for people in my situation and I am sure some of you must have felt like that before. So... what should I do???? How can I put myself back to work ? Here is what I've thought
Solution No. 1 I can cry and cry all day. Thinking I can't Solution No. 2 Whenever I feel I can't work, I should watch a video of a performance lecture and keep notes. Solution No. 3 Read again the feedback notes. Try to find steps on how to solve the problems. Solution No. 4 Skip the work and go for a drink. Solution No. 5 Something else you can suggest me ????
*** I was working though in the library for another module I have in shitty Laban called Creative Strategies, and I think this will take lots of my concentration this week. This is not necessarily bad because I am doing work and I am creative, but, still, I can't focus on the "pain of others" and it makes me angry. Here is a pic i took in the library while studying:
Pic. 1 The raw material
Experimenting with photographic Composition While taking this first picture, I realized it needed a bit of composition to make it look more beautiful. And thinking of my lecture when I discuss about such photographers as Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan who would drag the dead soldiers bodies to certain places so that their pictures look more interesting, I decided to experiment on what composition really means. How does it function? Just an empirical approach from an amateur, nothing academic. Here are some of the results.
Pic 2. Changing the perspective
Pic 3. Changing the objects
Pic 4. Chaning the perspective again
Results of my little experimentation: Photographic composition is really fascinating. It has many similarities with dance composition but since it's a new field to me it feels amazing. The results are strong. I should experiment more on that.
Still Processing
(still waiting for your corrections on how i read your feedback) Aaron has seen the videos of the presentation day and he sent me a very sharp (sometimes pleasurably painful) email. What I will do again is split it up in thematics and then asnwer my four question. So here I go:
1. Regarding the text
What did I do? How did it function?
I show as if I have no ownership, I dont show confident so that the audience can believe in me. When I read text he thinks I am an academic lecturer.
What should I do?
I should detach myself from the original text of Sontag. Some questions to consider: where do you pause? for how long? What word do you hit? What is a question? I need to own the text and the language. He suggests that I should study more books on the topic to widen my knowledge and strengthen my base and confidence.
How am I thinking of going further?
Well as I have already said, yes the text was crap. I need to work on it. Probably through the means of improvisation. I am also going study a bit more two more articles I have on war photography. Keeping some quotations from people is not a bad suggestion, I could have them next to me and read them aloud if it comes on the course of my improvisation. After getting comfortable with the improvisation of the text, and slowly slowly building up a certain structure, coming up from the repetition of certain pathways, I should consider questions of emphasis and pause (but I should wait a bit on that... it sounds TOO advanced for now).
2. Regarding the self reflective convention of a performance lecture
How does it function?
He thinks that I haven't been clear enough when separating the lecture with the solo performance that has happened some time in the past. He thinks that the excerpts I am showing from the solo during the lecture were not enough.
What should I do ?
I should not use future tense as a means of talking about the past because it is confusing. I could ask the audience if they have seen my solo. He would like to see more excerpts from the solo performance that has "happened". He wants to know clearly his position/function in the setup.
How am I thinking of going further?
The distortion of the position of the audience is something that really interests me. I am pretty happy Aaron is upset with that. I am questioning now whether there lies something in there that I should try to pick up and that is helpful to make my point clearer. I think yes. That is the correct use of grammar (I am sorry my english that day was very very very bad, probably bcause of the intrusion). And I should state maybe more often my position in this lecture. I am a choreographer that has made something in the past and here is my thoughts/theories behind it.
3. Sound
How did it function?
He found the music modulation in the pigheaded image very strong (unsure why). He got less interested though when he saw me changing the programs of the apparatus during the showing of photos, because he understood all the magic.
What should I do?
I should change the programs of the FX before people can hear them, so that they are less obvious.
How am I thinking of going futher?
Well my idea is to link each photo with a specific noise. Either the war alarm or the wind etc. I need to rehearse more. I should definitely be faster in changing the program. I should never change a program when sound is produced. Only when no sound is produced I can change the program.
4. Nudity
How did it function?
He is questioning whether nudity is a part of my aesthetic, he was not convinced about its usage.
What should I do ?
No suggestion, but I think he wants me to think more whether I need to be nude or not.
How am I thinking of going further?
I am quite sure that I want to deliver the work nude. It's not an aesthetic choice so much as a part of (a) revealing the truth, (b) blurring the boundaries between the "previous performance" and the today's lecture, and (c) referring to other performance lectures (Schneemann). If these points are not clear enough, maybe I should make them clear to the audience. On the other hand, I am not sure I want to explain everything to the audience. Maybe that's what Aaron means, find the boundaries between explaining my intentions or nor explaining at all.
What did Aaron actually say?
Initally I had thought of putting all Aaron's email but it's 2 pages and it was too big. If someone wants the original though I can certainly send it back to you guyz. For reasons of brievity (does that exist???). Not censorship. He is indeed very strict, and sometimes painful, but... it's the pain of the others, not mine. :) Thanx Aaron
Kate Bush Fan Club in Laban Anita and I are thinking of opening a Kate Bush Fan Club in Laban. All current or ex students, teachers, visitors, haters or admirers of Laban School you are free to join us. For our opening ceremony I suggest we all dance "Wuthering Heights" in group formations. Waiting for your membership. It's free and fun :)
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.
And these are some photos I took in order to make more performative the idea of repeating a rehearsal. Hope you like them. Just click on them. Warhol revisited :)
And these are some photos I took in order to make more performative the idea of repeating a rehearsal. Hope you like them. Just click on them. Warhol revisited :)
