posted
  • place: Akureyri, Iceland

solstice-to-solstice

A short note about the installation that I just opened yesterday as part of the Akureyri ListaSumar 1997 (Summer Arts Festival). It is an extension of the performance series solstice-to-solstice: a naming of the Light of Being [it takes a few seconds for the java slide-show to cue up—there are a total of 225 images].

and the intro on the wall reads something like this:

This installation is a visual exploration of a life-path—a braided passage that is both material and spiritual. As Light forms, informs, and sustains Life, its influence on the large and small is whole and complete. The eye absorbs this energy and that inspiration becomes material essence for Being. These images are a meditation, a reviving of memory, a remembering, a potential source for the imagination and, most of all, a visual naming in the fundamental sense. Naming is a basic creative process that brings the material world into being, it forms a matrix, an armature, upon which this personal visual history and memory is built. These images span a Cartesian time from 21 June 1995 to 21 June 1996, they span a wide Cartesian space. Outside of the Cartesian, they span steps of eye and heart that leave the Cartesian behind, and are suspended in a new construct of community, network, and being.

Probably a measure of bullshit, but the 40-meter long strip of images that span the space impressed the hell out of my back, leaving me crippled and craving more of the pain-killers that the Doc prescribed. One step forward, two steps back. A photographer from the national paper came in to do a portrait for upcoming coverage of the town’s summer art festival, and during the opening, the most retro and pin-headed critic (no, I can’t honestly call him a critic—should simply say guy-who-fills-columns-with-pointless-drivel) employed by the newspaper ran through the installation. The poor old fellow knows little about art, and nothing about photography. I recall the review he wrote for an exhibition I did some years back which was of as much critical value as an equal quantity of paper pulp destined to clean a baby’s arse. Some people don’t know when to quit. The only positive point is that a bad review from him pretty much confirms that an exhibition is at least interesting.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

Hallo Friends in the Near and Far of Northern Europe!

I invite you to a performance that I am doing at:

GALLERIA JANGVA
Mannerheimintie 13 A
Helsinki, Finland

on Friday, MAY 30th, at 20:00

“Solstice to Solstice: a naming of the Light of Being”

The performance is a visual and spoken exploration of a life-path — a braided passage that is both material and spiritual. As Light forms, informs, and sustains Life, its influence on the large and small is whole and complete. The eye absorbs this energy and the inspiration becomes material for Being. This performance is a meditation, a reviving of memory, a remembering, and, most of all, a naming in the fundamental sense. Naming, a basic creative process that brings the material world into being, forms a matrix upon which this personal visual history is built.

The performance lasts approximately 90 minutes.

See you there?

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

afterwards

Morning. I take it slow. After the performance I went out with a small group of students and Jim and Kaisu. The two of them left early, and I ended up with the students until 2330. I then went back to MUUMediaBase to try and get some work done. Got back to Tapio’s around 0130 — totally exhausted. The performance went well, although there were a number of problems — like, no data projector was available, and nothing was ready, so I was happy to have arrived two hours early. Oliver helped set things right, though. There were about 15 people there.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

time and space

Spending the day preparing psychically for the first of two performances in the next week. Tonight will be at the Time and Space (tila aika) Department of the National Academy of Fine Art here in Helsinki. I am unsure of the content, and how that content will develop and manifest itself from my memory. Formally, the performance is rather similar to what I did in Köln last May, but there is the change of fluid memory, and I am also adding images which may either corrupt the spoken word or be a positive contribution to the piece. My rough mental references are documented on the Blast website as part of the blast 5 drama project.

The title of the performance is Solstice to Solstice: a naming. It exist as a cycle, a continuation, a movement in Time and Space, so it will be perfectly appropriate to the location. The moon is full tonight, I think. Life is too short to be apprehensive, so I enjoy the anticipation of it all. Moments ticking by. Approaching the moment when I walk out the door. That is the critical moment, the initial going, overcoming of the static inertia, the friction of immobility. And the going is an endless thing. It can be on a continuous journey that moves the body across the various incarnations of the physical world, that is what any leaving of home is. Each and every movement from the home is a journey, and one becomes a traveler once outside the door. The door that guards the hearth from danger and the excessive wildness of the world. I have had many homes in the last months. Safe havens. With friends new and old. But none of them are mine. Does one need a home? Is not this existence a wandering in many forms? Can the sense of home take other forms than the floor-walls-ceiling-and-door?

At the door of the house, who will come knocking?
An open door, we enter
A closed door, a den
The pulse of the world beats beyond my door.
— Pierre Birot

And on the theme of networking, Tapio asked me to write a brief article for ValoKUVA, the Finnish Photography magazine. I titled it Manifestations of Networking — it explores some personal roots in my usage of the internet. It will appear in Finnish, so I wanted to post it here in the original.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

blast

Adrianne Wortzel, my EDITOR at BLAST, invited me to contribute to the blast5drama vehicle project — you can find solstice to solstice and breaking bread and naming at the blast5drama site.

posted
  • place: Rösrath Germany

ultimate performance

Up at 0800. I wake even earlier, but stay in bed relishing the lack of movement and the quiet. Volker comes back for breakfast, and begins to make some calls to see what is to be recovered for the evening performance/lecture. It is possible that there may be some few people there, so I will do what I have to do. Which is, let’s see. We stop by at the beautiful restored farmhouse of Rolf Hinterecker (the Director of the Ultimate Akademie) for a chat and then head back home where I simply collected my concentration for the performance.

Performance/Lecture at the Ultimate Akademie Köln: This event was a challenge for me from the moment I scheduled it when passing through Köln back in early April 1996. Normally I would rather do a formal and structured lecture at the schools I visit. I knew this would not be the way to go at the Ultimate — with its close association with the Fluxus movement — I knew that it was an opportunity to try something that would possibly be scandalous at a ‘normal’ school … I knew, for myself, it was a challenge, it had to be a challenge. The primary problem internally was to completely remove myself from any pre-tension that might arise by attempting a performance that did not emanate direct from my internal energies. Pretension is a form of energy that, for me, has a significant negative resonance. I think it is one reason I have never enjoyed theater very much with the enormous pretension within the actors who have to Act. I would like to do three or four things this evening. 1) Cut and eat an apple 2) Name the Places I have been since leaving Iceland on the 22nd of June, 1995, the Summer Solstice, and name the people whom I have been with 3) As I am a traveler, I am a carrier of information and stories from place to place, I would like to find out about you, hear your stories that I might carry them on the the next destination. To name some of the attendees: Pietro, Hans-Jürg Tauchert, “couple of names of couples for a couple of talking travelers relaxing,” Detlef Brezel, Mimi Flick, Skulli, Rolf Hinterecker, Volker Hamann, Paul Virilio, in kind …

Volker and I laugh that in the middle of the performance, Rolf, in an increasingly agitated state suddenly asks “when are we?” as I am reciting three hours of people and places in order of the year’s movement. Without breaking my stride, I say “October,” and continue on for a couple more hours as the space darkens in the twiLight.