I have not really textually explored the changing the course of nature process/performance series. At the Balance/UnBalance 2015 conference in Scottsdale, I presented it in a brief talk, and I have a power-point from that talk that I will upload here eventually. But a deeper contextualization is in order.
Change: Circumscribed by the traditional I Ching system that engages in a fundamental mapping/reduction of the widest possible set of phenomena indicative of change. Metrics of change. What’s that? Difference as calculated by repeated observation and memory-based feedback. Comparison. All this activity embedded in a flow of change itself.
Imposing change on life: is it imposition or is it simply willful flow along a trajectory that is laid out before us? Passive versus active — I recall being a bit insulted and confused when I was being introduced by Hans Werner Berretz at a gallery opening of my work in Aachen. He labelled me (in German) as a Pazifist, but I piped up, no, no, I’m an Activist!, folks in the gallery laughed a bit… I was clueless as to the German distinctions surrounding that dialectic.
While this performative project, ‘changing the course of nature’ is an intentional, almost self-conscious pathway, is there any substantive distinction to be made between that process and the constant, ongoing flow that is life/living?
“I feel I have been searching you a lot. … That may sound odd, but it is the phrase that comes to mind.” she said
“I read, consider your words. and try to hear your breath in the rhythm of the words, but I can’t because I’ve not heard, or felt your breath much.” he said
The course of Nature is changed.