Wednesday, October 22, 2008

untitled

This is a piece that's meant to be projected onto a body wrapped in a white sheet.  You have to see it, really, this is just what goes onto the sheet.  You need to see it on a real body.  It doesn't work without the body.  Nothing really works without the body, nothing is working when the body is missing, and the body is missing.  This is a piece for a body that's meant to be seen on a body around the time of the election in the U.S. part of the Americas, meant to be seen in a country that is or is not in the U.S. part of the Americas on a body that is.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Nothing to see here

So Monday was interesting, this would be Monday the what is it, 6th of October, for a number of reasons, all of which have something to do with my larger projects (oh, I should mention, the larger projects here all have to do with Narcissus and Echo, so being in that realm, it's all about them, which is to say, me, and often, you, yes you).  Sunday night, I am putting together final touches in Final Cut Pro
(and while I write, my thumb my thumb, it's started up again, hurting like hell, this is a revolution of mirrors, this year...)
on a project for Monday, which I want to post here, but think there might be restrictions on nudity, even though it's kind of artistic nudity, you could still hit the pause thing and see all sorts of obscenity which will bring our puritanical world to its, um, knees, change subject please...
thank you.
project for Monday, and wondering, hm, some of these shots are making me uneasy, and more than anything, exhibitionistic, which might be true, but even so, you have to pretend you are not, even if it's like a date, which this is not.
the performance was not a date, and neither is this blog.
So I asked my ex if she would look at this, and let me know if it crossed lines or whatever--not to speak against crossing lines, just wanting to get a tone right for the piece--she said sure, so I took my computer to her house, and put together an Ikea chair, but that's another story, and another story about my daughter dancing around like a water faerie, which is one of the funniest goddam things I've ever seen, but another story is the one I can't tell right now but am trying--
She (ex) looked at video (me, her ex), and the bits I felt uneasy about read like that to her too, but even more so, and she pointed out parts that were homoerotic (I don't want to not be homoerotic, but apparently wearing a fishing net has enormous metaphorical value to me, but reads more like something in a biker bar to other parts of the world, complicated this is complicated...), and parts where I looked like a naked balding Harpo coming on to a hooker, which, all these are good, Harpos and hookers and bikers and nets, but not the tone for this piece, so...I was editing these parts and it's coming together, and a friend of ours stops by, and my Ex asks her, Do you want to see Chris naked?
and Friend says, No!
and Ex says, It's on video.
and Friend says, Sure!
but it's not ready yet, and it's rendering, and besides, now it's been through a curatorial process and is now ready to be a piece of art (and not exhibitionist, but still, would be lovely to catch the attention of some witchy woman with an interesting nose and glassy eyes, and it did, but she left before we could talk, and my heart breaks for another unpossible muse...another story...)--
But I'm interested in this for many reasons--
the next day, a class project idea which has a nude art model, and I think it's great, only, hm, it might be a Really Big Deal to our puritanical world, because we seem to be in another swing toward covering the bared ankles again...and nuff said on that, but yes, trouble, but really only because of the live, and on video, not such a big deal at all.
so I wonder why the live body is more threatening than the video body, which is inviting...
and wonder about the gender thing here--the shots that were suggestive were all ones which broke the frame, where the figure stepped toward the camera, like a lover like a lover oh like a lover, only like Harpo stepping like a lover like a...
and my Ex theorizes that the woman nude is always presented as a present or a sexual gift, but a man only if he moves in the direction of the desiring gaze...it's more complicated, but seems yes, in this direction, I would like to know more...
my project, though, which I will figure out how to show somewhere on the web so it can be referred to, is about European bodies, ancestors that lived near the Danube, and then these inscribed on a series of nude bodies, which are all mine as a stand-in for my family's ghosts, and then this is all projected on my live body which is covered with white cloth.
and there are of course, in all this, issues of my year as a Yawo, where I have to be extremely careful about images of me, and wear cloth, and be dressed like a monk, and live like a monk, which I have, against my will and desires, but why the hell should I complain about that, it's been interesting, and I love and adore you, I do, enough...
so my project here was playing with the male nude in video on a live male body covered head to toe, and the face not clear anywhere, but you know it's me, because of my strangely shaped ears, and missing 1/4 inch of thumbness on my left hand...but I have questions about how this reads, and would like to hear any answers, especially from the witchy woman with the interesting nose (you know who you are, you sat behind me and complained that your finger smelled like rubber...it happens, oh it happens...)--
and I assure you and I adore you--
Krzysztof

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