Artist statement

My work combines live performance art with media technologies (video, sound, projected text) to make for a combination that is deeply layered. I like complexity, and find that in live performance, complexity can serve to make multiple meanings. The body is a culture, and the computer is a culture, and together they make up a hybrid space for the viewer to reflect (and possibly to see themselves somewhere in the reflection). My latest works investigate the way that video and live performance overlap, in the way that photography and video overlaps, and speak to each other. I am interested in exploring these junctures. I am also very interested in the way time operates in these forms, and this seems to be the next direction in my work.

In my last cycle of works, the xo_ series, I was interested in exploring how Echo works as a mediated presence in a discipline that seems to privilege Narcissus, the act of gazing, and the male gaze itself. Unintentionally finding a philosophical home in Echo's realm, I found a place to iterate and reiterate. It was my first cycle of mediated performance works. One of the primary concerns was, and is, the line between performance and ritual. Coming out of my initiatory year as a priest in the Afro-Cuban Lucumi tradition, I am very curious to explore the notions of secrecy and openness. Politically driven toward an ideology of openness, and spiritually toward secrecy, I am interested in seeing how these speak to each other in performance, and what might escape hiddenness.

In the next phase of my work, I would like to explore time and space more explicitly, and outline a poetics of mediated sacred time. Drawing on the ideas of Maya Deren, Robert Farris Thompson, Lydia Cabrera, and David Byrne, I would like to explore a post-modern aesthetics of ritual time.


SYNOPSIS
This project is to make a trilogy of loosely connected films for performance (live performance, body art, with media), all loosely based on the Narcissus and Echo myth. In each of these, there will be various methodologies of performing subjectivity (and loss of subjectivity in the search for self and other), using different technologies and media. Each film is contained, and can be seen separately, but there are links between them that would make knowledge of each work beneficial for the pleasure of the performance text. The films are, in chronological order: xo_tact (using the myth of Echoing in terms of contemporary border issues between US-Mexico), xo_xx (searching for aspects of the muse in parallel archetypical patterns in Santeria Orisha), xo_xy (search for other through tarot, film, and culture).

3 completed videos (each about one hour long), which can stand by themselves, but much better if they are seen in conjunction with live performance (and here there are also three live performances).


I think the artworks were good and bad; there were some decisions that had to be made in each, that were very hasty. In xo_tact, I decided to throw out the idea of a film on the border and instead shot footage of myself as a narrator promising a film that never surfaces. In xo_xx, instead of mastering vocal recordings, I inserted live vocals where my modulated live voice spoke in place of the female deities. In xo_xy, the footage from the film in Mexico City was not ready so instead I had to use deteriorated and degraded footage from the shoot. In all cases, the accidents tied thematically in with the work, so I would say it was unintentionally successful.
For the research project, I enjoyed going into the works of Lacan and Deleuze to find theoretical frameworks for these artworks. I am not sure if I was successful in writing a coherent academic paper, or a Deluezian stream-of-consciousness work based on connections, so it ended up being somewhere between form and function and not quite either. But useful for future work, when I think I would like to use less European theories to look at my own work.

Excerpted interview

Interview excerpt:

I: Can you please tell us about the trilogy, particularly xo_xx & xo_xy?

CD: Yes, why, yes, that’s such a good question, I would like to answer, but first I would like to take in the question in all its weight, for it bears the weight of history. (Pause while CD takes in the weight of history, and from the way his breathing suddenly changes to the rhythm of one who must bear enormous grief, it is apparent that he has done this so many times before.)

I: Can I please go get some water while you are doing whatever it is that you are doing, I have not had anything to drink all day and I am feeling like I might be getting severely light-headed.

CD: No, now let me just speak a bit on xo_xx; this last piece, the one before the current piece, xo_xy. There is a table. There is a microphone. He speaks into the microphone and an electronically-manipulated voice, like that which would suggest the voice of a woman, comes out of the speaker. We see images of longing and desire, and occasionally, a woman’s face, who will speak to represent the Orishas (see footnote, not included in this document), and when she speaks, he is speaking for her. He speaks, but it looks like she talks. So funny.

I: That is actually very disturbing, because it almost suggests that even in this political economy, where there is some awareness of post-feminisms, the male speaker still speaks in place of her, so that he is still the one who speaks her echoes in a way, and she is erased in a way.

CD: Yes, very uncomfortable. Isn’t it?

I: I don’t think I want to listen to anything else because I am not sure I even trust that you’re who you say you are.

CD: I am not. And I am not Echo, but sure, that's me.

I: Good, interesting. Interesting to me because it's about me. I was going through a period where I was echoing all the time, because I was, you know, uncomfortable, sure, that's me. Now. xo_xy. Is there nudity?

CD: Yes.

I: Good, and tell me the reasons for this, is it to turn the table on the gaze, the Lacan thing, like you’ve done before, almost ad nauseum, is it that?

CD: Yes, it’s that kind of repetition, but a liberatory repetition. And yet. And yet. And still. I have been working out a lot, and working as an artist’s model, to make extra money since they cut all faculty associate positions at the university where I taught unflinchingly and unrealistically compensatedly for so many years (note: I blame myself), and so. I think it would be good to be naked in my living room in a way that other people might witness it, so they can see that when I am naked in my living room, I am also very much in shape, and most important, they know this one simple truth: I do not condone weapons and I do not drink, but when I go somewhere, I am always bringing my guns and a six-pack.

(They laugh and they laugh and they laugh, and she looks at him like she might want to make out with him on the porch, but she does not because suddenly she decides that she will use him to make her boyfriend jealous at a later date.)

(They don’t move.)

phoenix

This is going to sound worse or better than I mean it to, because of the strange sense that Mercury is working on things and either paying too much attention or not enough, to how words mean, and there's a lot of things that could happen when Mercury reads post-structuralism, and I hear he is (she is), and so and so and so, with that in mind, not enough to go on like this, even writing or talking, but listen, this is for me:
I have a love for Phoenix, it's a love for the girl you always felt something for. Not you, by you, I mean me. Phoenix is the girl I always felt something for. It's like that.
And it gets more complicated. On this past Art Detour, when thousands and thousands gather to support local art, and become one with the cultural mess that is this city, the mess I love, I love the mess, when thousands gather upon this downtown and just melt into the galleries and hang out for days and everyone loves everyone, and people drink beer and smoke hash and share hookahs, and people fall in love, and kids make fingerpaintings in the style of Witkiewicz and Giacometti, and everyone releases balloons at the same time, the art detour weekend in my dreams where it's all everyone all doing everything with everyone, and art it's art it's about art it's art; this art detour, I was so ready to open my doors to my house/gallery, and see who might want to wander off grand and follow the map to my place, to see the installations of the brilliant paintings by Tiffinie Greer, check out the carefully laid exhibition of past TIMB production ephemera, see Elli's art on the walls (including one of her recent works where she writes 10 times, "I'm sorry I poked you in the face," which is part of a longer narrative), watch old video work from past productions, see Rebecca Martos' cool video samples, and generally get the vibe or the groove or the atmosphere of who we are: a mystical arts laboratory whose secrets can't be revealed (honestly), and whose work is transgressive and transcultural, and generally thinky and interesting and visceral. You can come and draw chalk on naked bellies during performances where text overwhelms image, and the images are surreal mindscapes that are erotic or disturbing or generally just fuckin funny. I could not wait to see who would wander in, with low expectations.
Phoenix is strange. Is for me that girl in Las Vegas who might have worked out, but I never called her (oh but there's no regret there, really, the things that worked out there were lovely, and I'm only talking about that longing feeling that starts with a "what-if," but really doesn't hit the back of the heart...)..
But somewhere in my heart, the part that has low expectations, holds out a small hope that suddenly suddenly, and the room will spin and she is there, Phoenix, she's come into the room, and she wants to see everything, and know everything, and she wants to see all the dvds, and draw on everyone's belly, and then she wants to ask questions, and ask more questions, and my questions make her swoony, and she has more questions about my questions, and a long night is ahead. It's the hope. But Phoenix always says she's on the way, but never makes it.
She is nearly there, but will get stopped for a drug charge after they check her tags, and suddenly, she's gone for another 3 months, but she's coming back, and she wants to see me when she's back.
It's always like that, except when it's different, and when it's different, it's stranger. Because even like this weekend, where it's obviously time to move to Berlin, where there is no fake glamour, and some of the artists are smart, Phoenix comes in, and she's got a new look, and she's been reading the Situationists, and it's kind of hot.
But then the night begins, and it's always the same, it's so pleasant to talk to her, she's so elusive, but there's a point in the evening, after she starts to get drunk, and it's past midnight, where her make-up starts to fade, and I see something underneath, something much younger than she looked before, something much more innocent and scared, and something much more needy, and I'm being asked for something unclear, and none of the things I can offer seem to make her calm down. And then, when this game starts to feel ok, and we have roles, and places, and moves, and it's working, she starts to talk about her theories of everything, and it's almost interesting, but somehow goes back to why she likes Barry Goldwater.
And I shake my head at Phoenix, and look at the living ghosts and the dead identities of the locals who have been here for generations and don't get shown in galleries, and it's a longing for an elsewhere that's hard to place.
Phoenix can't come back for a month.
I can't open the door for her.
And then another day opens another revelation, in the form and content of an Afro-Cuban deity whose name is Yeggua; she's the beautiful young virgin in the cosmology, who was living in paradise, then was violated, and relegated to the bottom of the grave, where she eats the flesh of the dead. This is a serious and harsh punishment, and lately I am forced to contend with her image and energy, and I wonder, I wonder, if she's the girl on the porch who talks about Barry Goldwater, and wonder if she's got something much deeper, and much more powerful to reveal, and I think that's probably right, it's probably exactly right, Phoenix has more, and it might be endless, like the virgin girl who loves the edge of the beach, it might be elusive, and attractive, and endless, and might open up here, (D.F. is another story, my heart is already there, this time not as a metaphor) or might open up in Berlin, I don't know, but I am chasing rabbits, this is what I do.
xo
CD

some news

this is a loose weave of new information, this is informative information that is meant for informative purposes only, and will only help to make a contribution to the kafka information files...

thumb

here's a return:
after they shaved off more bone on all sides, to make the end of my thumb-tip-bone a tower with a point rather than a saddle with a hump, it started to heal, and ebbs and flows is how it heals, messy business with blood and bone; my concentration is good, but when it starts to hurt i am prone to go in multiple directions, and when it's working like a line of flight, it's good, and when it's upset thoughts that go toward random associations, it's still a line of flight...

but lately...on february 10th it was swelling and hurting badly (it hasn't stopped hurting yet, with the exception of a few good days, which actually get longer, it is healing, but...), and i went to the surgeon, and the assistant thought it was odd and should be something to look at, and he said it was not odd at all and everything was fine, but ordered an mri...they never made the order, tho, so i am still waiting, and meanwhile, the physical therapy, where they have me play with clay, has caused pressure on the parts that are healing, and now it's swollen again...so, it hurts like it did in november, and i think about medical systems here, and i'm luckier than most...but insurance runs out in may when my job at asu ends...everyone is working less and everything is more expensive...

i complain too much...



home

this, the weirdest part of the year so far, after finishing my yawo year and wearing clothes like people do, and starting to work with spirits, it's a lot of new open doors, and a firework world, entering into the forest and talking and working works, and the forest is thorny and brambly, and there is no love without brambles...

i am smoking a cigar on my porch at 11 at night, and i am struck by how interesting it is to be suddenly talking to a man with a rifle pointed at me, and wondering to him out loud how he would get something from me when i don't have much, which makes him not very happy, and so he wants to see the inside of my house, and of course with the rifle he is allowed in, and i have some money stashed away, and he sees an ipod and takes that too, and when he leaves he wants me to run down the street so he can run in the other direction, and i don't really run, it's more like a fake little jog, but i'm tired, and don't think hes going to shoot me now, not after all we've been through together with the tour of my house and everything, and i'm right on that, not much else, but i remember the number for 911 so get to talk to the police, who pick up someone who's wearing the same clothes as the robber, but it's not him...case unresolved...

and two weeks later i come home after tutoring (for extra money and i hope an extra source of income after the teaching ends, and also working as an artist model too lately, it pays well, and i like being still and the smell of artist studios and the way teachers talk about shapes and colors), and my backyard barricade is broken up and my little girl's pogo stick (it was mine when i was her age, so it's old school rusty and nasty looking, but bouncy and she's good) is sticking out of the gate; my neighbor who is this mystic woman who grows hundreds of prickly pear cactus in her year tells me she saw him in my yard and yelled and the police came and he had my other neighbor's bike, but they couldn't prove it so he left...and two days later i talked with the police and called for extra patrolling in the neighborhood...

and meanwhile my bike is starting to have more problems, like losing juice on the freeway, which is hard to live with comfortably, so it's being discusses while we speak so it might be fixed, and i'm on foot and buses and the rail here, which is lovely, really, and when i get home one day (yesterday), i take a nap but hear a sound, and look out my window and there's a junkie in my yard holding my old brooms, and he explains that he is just stealing them so he can sell them; it's not a big score, and not worth going to jail for, but the police think it's enough, and worth the trouble, and they're right, so i get to meet more police and watch them decide to change a nickname they had for one officer from 'cabbage patch' to 'rain man,' and rain man looks happier with the change...the junkie tho looks unhappy, but he wasn't happy to be in my yard either, he does not look happy being a junkie...and that's a third robbery, so i consider it sealed and maybe done...?

xo_xx (and then xo_xy

i like the way xo_xx is working (it's on youtube, look under xo_xx), and things are occurring to me in performing it that make it more interesting to me...in this, where the icons and images are all female, female people or female orishas, i am speaking in an electronically altered voice that is female, and added an anthropologist named susan blackwoth smith-reynolds as a character to explain santeria, and also i take polls of the audience while it goes on, to mark their level of pain on a scale of 0-10, 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain imaginable, and am happy about the quantitative results; but am also pleased with the way gender and the sacred work in this, and how this film for performance is becoming more intimate and more seductive, and looking forward to developing this more while also moving into the creation and continuing collaboration with iris méxico, and got a grant to work with her next month in d.f. and all the rabbits that whispered last year are speaking now, under the surface of the earth, i hear them especially at night, and they sound like the secrets of the depths of the ocean, which of course is true, and the rest of what i know is only accessible through walking, and so, i find myself walking in an enchanted forest just like everybody else.

love,
cd

xo_xxPOST(post)

post post
this isn't done
xo_xx
there will be more, another version, something in the basement, something longer,
o i would like to post the video here, but there is this brief nudity thing and i don't want them to take this down...what can you post that wouldn't offend their nudity regulations (and what's a way to make a public statement about it?) ((because it's sort of like, it is, or sort of like, obscenity laws, it's a new kind of censorship where the nude is no longer allowed in public discourse unless it's explicitly pornographic...))
(((um, there's more to look at on that)))

ok, this is a de-briefing,
from the weekend, the first incarnation of the new piece, xo_xx,
my mentor, violeta luna, came from sf to see it, and conversations with her, and then with her and michele ceballos, and it was lovely and i do not want to forget:


this piece, intention was to make this the second, the in between between xo_tact and xo_xy, and the last would be more with vocal and sound and using sound technologies, but this one, xo_xx, this one suddenly seems suited for that...more than any other...and i want to play with it...
the idea of a male body iterating female deities played/projected by female human beings (performance artists, artists), in context of performing narcissist looking for echo
(here echo is x, is iris meXico) ((repeated)) (((three times)))
and then presenting the findings of the "research" as a visual documentation/tone poem...
and comments to:
inhabit the body while performing (used in performance, useful), and be the male body performing the not performing, performing the body in front of the screen that does not move, and is in front of a microphone, which is not used for the first 6 or 7 minutes...useful...and then only performing speech, literal performance of a speech act...female voice...and then the orishas and world of the orishas--
on that, how much context do they need?
it's a refusal of meaning or explanation, is nice, works, but this is going to be longer, and maybe maybe
perform other voices...
a persona who is an anthropologist,
describe the deities
and get the information all wrong
but obviously wrong
inside and outsider,
and also
with this
perform the body
this orisha is working on this part of the body,
the head,
the eye,
the heart,
the stomach,
the sex,
and draw signs on the body and reveal the body and draw the signs in the color
so there is action on the body and the body is speaking female voices but also drawn on and inscribed on...
and have public draw on the body,
not the usual,
the one most uncomfortable with drawing, the one i'm most uncomfortable with drawing on me...
and so on...
and more on film as script...
keep as idea that this is independent,
and continue to conceive as independent,
and continue with the poetry of the images...
and more,
i will remember more,
but such lovely and perfect collaborators, and am grateful and this is for you...
xoxox

news/noticas echo & narcissus

Film Pulgar
Chris Danowski (translation by Iris Mexico)

Bien, aquí estoy a las seis de la tarde en la noche del miércoles, el miércoles antes del día de gracias y no sé exactamente que quiero hacer aquí… Creo que me gustaría decir que si observas cerca del ojo, si observas muy muy cerca el ojo de alguien, tú ves las partes del ojo (del uno que observa). Y ahí están, las partes del ojo que conozco serían: la retina, la pupila, y está la parte alrededor de la pupila que rodea el centro donde puedes ver dentro del alma, la parte alrededor de la pupila creo se llama iris, si lo recuerdo correctamente –ah!-
Y esta es la parte que da al mmm, al ojo el destello y el color y ayuda a guiar la vista. Y si tu vivieras en este ojo supongo que sabrías todas las direcciones a las que necesites ir y de repente te encontrarías una mañana en el centro de la rueda de la fortuna, y desde esa rueda podrías ser capaz de tomar cualquier decisión y cualquier giro y caminar en cualquier sendero que desees.

Ok, wow, estoy grabando mucho hoy, pero está bien (suspiro) quizá hice una cosa estúpida, no estoy realmente seguro pero… el doctor dijo que podría quitar la venda y mirar si quería, entonces lo hice, y, aquí esta. Esta es la nueva versión. Esta es la versión 3.0 de mi pulgar.

Y como cabellos salvajes que vienen a tu puerta y te conducen a cualquiera otra puertas que alguna vez imaginaste.

El sendero del camino que te conduce a desde la civilización hacia la naturaleza y este camino, ah, es el camino a mi propia naturaleza carnal…

Y te encontré. Y cuando te encontré, te encontré mirándome. Y no sé a veces si estoy hablándote a ti o estoy hablándole a una musa y justo ahora no estoy seguro si te estoy hablando a ti, o a una musa o le estoy hablando a una cámara que me mira… es necesariamente “yo” observándome a mi mismo, y no sé si yo te observo podría estar viéndote o podría estar viéndome porque no estoy terminado y no puedo completar la historia sin ti… Hay un terminación en el camino que podría finalizar con la segunda parte de la oración o esa parte de la pregunta que es su opuesto.

Creo que luce como el viejo excepto que un poco más corto.

El opuesto también contiene el espejo de su inicio.

La verdad es que ahora mismo saboreo la sangre en mi boca, y la verdad es que ahora hay cosas recorriendo mis venas que están haciendo el mundo muy ah… un lugar muy extraño.

Acabo de ver El Libro de Cabecera, mmm… mientras lo veía en esta clase de estado del delirio, continuaba mmm teniendo otras imágenes que empezaron a mezclarse dentro de la película, mmm, o el filme, debería decir, más un filme que una película, mmm, y me gusto mucho, mucho mucho, ah, me gusta… muchísima escritura en el filme, de cualquier forma, estaba muy bien, om, de cualquier forma, sigo entrando y saliendo, y las entradas y salidas, mm, ahí hubieron imágenes de alucinaciones, o cosas aquí, como en la casa pero cosas que… ah, bueno cosas como; afuera ha estado lloviendo toda la mañana y afuera en el teléfono por la casa hay maceteros que se inundaron y… ah, estaban muy mojados, las flores estaban bien, pero las flores se habían inundado, y entonces cuando en cierta forma yo regrese a través de eso que me di cuenta que no tengo maceteros aquí, entonces fueron un montón de sueños acerca de cosas que… ah, que no estaban realmente aquí… oh, sueños acerca de cosas que ah, que yo me había olvidado, pero que no eran cosas que ah… ¿cuál es la palabra? Había más aquí, habían cosas escondidas que estaban haciéndose visibles o cosas que no había notado antes…

Cuando esta herida se abrió… esta ocasión en octubre, alguien más vino a tocar en mi imagen y preguntando por qué me gusta ver el mundo de cabeza. Un hombre colgado, bien colgado... desde este espacio, no puedo ni hacer una pregunta o dar una respuesta, ah, este espacio de sueño donde todas nuestras preguntas y todas las respuestas son sospechosas.

¡Ah! Realmente, ah, no lo mires demasiado.

Y entonces planeo encontrarme a menudo comiendo carnívoro y peligroso por el filo de una cueva enterrada en medio de la naturaleza, y con esto…
Envío un beso.

Beso y soplo…

para
…
Yo soy
;-p


C 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9xNOcKv0GI&feature=channel_page


Love Lovely
de Iris Mexico (traducion de Chris Danowski)
To integrate loving blessings between volatile desires
Why every moment transformations are different, and we wish to integrate what minutes ago, minutes more, hours less we wanted to disintegrate and vice versa?... Is it that every day you wake up with my name on your lips, wishing to integrate yourself with me, or is it that there are times when you do not know me or times when you really want to dissolve our bonds? Can we believe that every morning is a repetition, can we confirm that every day is different, repetitions flow in spirals, circles, zigzags, straight lines… and there are those who say that they bring hidden blessings… How then, with so many uncertainties related to the volatile thing of our desires and of the repetition, could we have a certainty to integrate ourselves in love?
To integrate loving blessings between volatile desires…

To integrate strawberry butterflies’ moments
Today, I had strawberries with natural yogurt and bee honey for breakfast… and I thought about you… after that, I took the morning sun on the terrace, and you came back to my memory… later I saw that you thanked me for the pictures of the dinner that I sent you, I was wearing a long draper dress, with pierreries in the décolleté, colored pignon, the silk emphasized my bronzed skin, and my make up in Mexican pink and golden tones… You wrote me that the woman in the picture is like a dream, I wonder if love is like a dream, a blessing to which we wish to integrate ourselves, and nevertheless she is as fragile as the butterflies that greet us in the garden. Then I recognized myself as the instant… and that wonders are not less by being ephemeral…
To integrate strawberry butterflies’ moments…

To integrate ourselves or to remember ourselves in timeless portraits
It was nine o’clock when I saw you, do you remember? And that was the instant which, for some strange surprise, destiny kept for us, and even though you were accompanied by a very pretty girl, we were ready to decide us for us, and we began to talk about twins, pretense, representation, presentation and the multiple forms of portraying reality… They say that the worst of all the steps is the first, perhaps it was singularly simple for us to overcome the inertia of having ignored us in the past, probably we remembered us from past millennia, distant seas and exotic landscapes… and we concentrate the force of solitudes and yearnings to impregnate each other with letters, dreams and actions…
To integrate ourselves or to remember ourselves in timeless portraits…

To integrate the lemniscata glance with rose petals
Do you want to believe that we are going to see this New Year as if it were the first time that days will pass in our heart, because of the fact that we are sharing the view? And so it is that you have begun to observe the world through my eyes, and I recognize myself inhabited in your maps… And you are, and I am, when the pupils wake up every day decorated by the Iris, under sandalwood perfume and skins made humid by the sea… When I read your plays, I recognize my portrait behind my confessions, and I know that when you listen to my voice, you recognize what you wanted to say to yourself… In a lemniscata kiss, we cross borders and we seed roses…
To integrate the lemniscata glance with rose petals…

To integrate in our skin the stars, science, the heart, worlds and fetish
Oh, and I sigh, countless sighs in your name… And my grandfather keeps watching soccer every afternoon, I suppose that his vital energy is nourished by the sexual metaphor of a ball of semen untiringly looking for the ovule goal… ah, did I tell you that he is over eighty years old and he asked to me to buy him a sexual stimulant? Even though I am his most faithful pornography distributer, I am taking some time in order to fulfill his request this time, because I have to consult with a doctor to see which is better, Viagra or vitamins?… they warn that even some vitamins should not be ingested by people under 18, so I wonder about over 80… Have you used sexual stimulants?, I wonder if you would need them with me?, could we integrate our erotic desire only illuminated by the sun, or would we find light from adults’ toys and provocative substances?, and so it is that when fusing ourselves we keep on being present in this world of families, sports, medicines and the fetish, and we add this to ourselves as well… oh, but I still have curiosity, I know that it will be months before we begin to add the world in our skin, although we begin to experiment in sharing this in the epistles of now…
To integrate in our skin the stars, science, the heart, worlds and fetish…

To integrate childhood and magic in a smiling kiss
Yes, corazón, I recognize the caution, I understand that you don’t talk about your childhood on the first date, and that you have not yet cried on my lap… ay! Women are quicker to tears and drama, maybe even though I don’t watch soap operas, and don’t read pink novels, they are part of my genes… and do you still have patience for my restless nights and infantile confession? I can’t help it, it’s just that some days I wake up fragile, like regressing to that girl who has lost something and still does not know what it is… as if you could help me find it… and then you send me a gift, maybe that’s what I lost, and that will help me to complete me, nevertheless the government postal service on the border of River Piedra is so slow… and I have been waiting for centuries… I sigh again, you call me and you swear to me that this time the postman will ring my door… and I don’t know, maybe it is not necessary anymore, there is something magic that I could receive in my dreams or in your kisses.
To integrate childhood and magic in a smiling kiss…

To integrate the shared truth
It’s nine minutes after nineteen hours… and I still don’t choose the truth with which I will go to bed tonight… I wait… You will come at nine under the moon, and maybe then we can choose a shared truth… if you want… You like my cut crystal glasses, and I love to see how the pink cider plays and is reflected between transparent forms under candlelight… Sometimes you do not see the glasses, neither do you see my dress, nor my hands, nor my lips, nor your hands, nor my eyes, nor the emptiness… sometimes I know that you are observing my soul, and that I do not have anything to lose, and that I can trust your glance…
To integrate the shared truth…

To integrate the courage in the middle of fragility
Ah! That is what my vanity whispered to me on the boulevard, when I was with my mother, who asked me where I came from.
- From Palais-Royal.
- And I from the Opera –she said to me-; I thought I would see you there.
- Why?
- Because the duke was there.
- Ah, he was there?
- Yes.
- Alone?
- No, with one of his girlfriends.
- That was it?
- The count went for a moment to his theater box; and then she left with the duke C. I kept thinking I would see you. There was a seat next to me that was empty all evening, and I was convinced that it was for you.
- But why am I going to go where the duke goes?
- Because he is your lover.
This ridiculous parody reminded me of the fragility of my susceptibilities, the vulnerability of my shame, if I had found him on the eve of his wedding and he had talk to me honestly, of course I would not have been so stupid. I was on the verge of going to see him, but I feared that revenge covered us with its mantle…
The most horrifying part of my situation is that even “The Lady of the Camellias” damaged me… love forces us to put our dreams in the hands of someone who can destroy them, and that is inevitable… I suppose that the only way I can accept that trip to Paris you want us to take together is by being brave… and do you think it is worth it, do you think that I am strong by being able to show you my fragility? Oh! If we know well that we are all still more fragile than butterflies. You have already have confessed it to me, in many of your deeper pains, you knew that there is pain in the world, you knew the relation between desires, consequences and causes, and even still you thought that it would not happen to you… Yes, I feel the same…
To integrate the courage in the middle of fragility…

To integrate intuition and life
I was seduced by your story of walking on a road with a heart, I found me in your words about how you intuited that to be together is a life way… It enamors me that you pronounce my name with untiring pulsing, and that, flexible to the life current, you receive my force… I like you when you dance between rhythms, sheets and verses… I kiss you, then, in the soul…
Sugar Bloom Iris
I am
http://www.5celula.org/selai2008/irism.htm

Thumbtock

There are three things to discuss:

thumb

santeria/ this yaworaje

the third is just a matter of discretion but it's the only thing on my mind (well the other two also...but the third, oh the third...)

there needs to be a way to make hyperlinks for all of these (i know the way is called hyperlink, but that's not quite it...)

so i will just talk about all of them in one single breath--

i have been a Yawo for 11 months 2 weeks and 1 day now, and am looking forward to the anniversary of my crowning (jan. 5th) and the week after that where everything goes back to normal (jan 12 only not so normal, as if it were ever so ever so as if it were ever so...). i have less thumb, less money (in graduate school, not teaching as much, and after next semester not at all, so, ha...interesting to see how this will turn out...new adventures in the wings...), a lot of work, a lot of new work, a lot of strange experience, and more strange experience, and suddenly, strange experience...

I want to talk about the thumb.

Here's why they say you should not divine for someone you are attracted to: she was looking at the cards and I saw the two of hearts, and two choices for her: the world, or the fool, and I thought the cards said she should pursue the new relationship that was forming in front of her (which was us) and the world would come to her, or she was a fucking idiot and would fall of the edge of the world. I don't remember what I told her, not that, not what I thought, which turned out to be true in all respects, in every respect, um, but this is why...

***tho not exactly true because later in another part of the world i read for someone i thought was kinda hot, and it turned out to be right, and there was nothing like the choice between being in love or being an idiot, not for her, but oh this got confusing and I shouldn't talk about this here...

I am discrete

there's a lot more to this but right now i have to play a board game with bored Elli...i have no sustained concentration this year...

but I love that child, so what can I do?

I will post pictures of my thumb soon, but not of my face, not until next month...only the beloved ones get images and that's not here, and not her, the her that is beloved is one and she is there so very much there, and so much not here...

Um, new font for a new president. While I was self-absorbed, there was an event, an event that happened, events happening all the time, that's what events do, but this one, this event.

Was not about the thumb, and for now, here's how things worked out with the thumb>>>

On May 6th, 2007, one week after my head was marked for Obatala (I have a feeling not everyone will know what that means-- THIS IS THE SPACE WHICH I WILL FILL IN ), I was wondering about some things that were up for discretion and not discussion and wondering wondering, and although I had been marked, and with the idea that I am of that part of the clan where we need to pay more attention because we are prone to accidents, I was witness to an act whereupon a chain of a running motorcycle, being cleaned by the party of the first part (I or me), not turning it off before cleaning it but rather running it intentionally and running the chain through my thumb and index finger of the left hand, with a sock on said hand, sawed the thumb get caught up in things (as I tend to do) and went far far away from the end of my hand and to parts unknown. The two guys who lived in my apartment complex (both named John, as I recall), told me later they found the tip of this thumb but in too many diverse geographical locations to be something worth collecting, which means in Mayan cosmology I would have this as a sick part of my soul needing to be collected on the hour of my death (and I am not Mayan, but then again this is probably radically inaccurate). And so, this is how I came to lose that part.

And it took a long time to heal, and in fact took so long that the surgeon sent me to a pain doctor, who prescribed mild painkillers until it was decided (by him) that I was no longer in pain. It was less, for sure, but not gone. This would have been March or April of this year. So, well into my Yaworaje. And in March or was it April (section deleted for continuity)...and yes for the rest of my life, but who knows why things happen the way they do, and especially why twice (except for the blood).

And then in October it would be, October 8th from my medical records, I was learning how to pluck with my left hand, and suddenly felt the pain return like it had before, like it had from May-March approximately, won't you come see me queen jane)...and I saw my doctor, who told me it was nerve pain, and it continued to hurt but only exactly like before only much much worse, and I saw her again, and she was actually angry that I was bothering her, and said, we've already talked about this, what's the problem, and I said, it's pain it's continuing pain what the hell do you want me to say it's pain, give me darvocet,

And she did and she thought it a good idea to go back to the surgeon, and she was still angry at me, for reasons i do not understand, but think perhaps switching doctors is not unreasonable, or moving to Europe where there is medical care, um...

This is longer than I intended, and impossible to complete, but this is the start of something longer, I guess.

The short version now is: shorter thumb, the surgeon amputated more bone, and it's skinnier at the tip, and I think a little more elegant, a little more sleek, and the new pain doctor, when I asked her about the results of the addiction screening where I spoke with a psychologist who looked like a cross between John Cage and George Bush (the younger, the shoeheaded dethroned fucktack), asked me , why, are you concerned? are you doing anything weird? you're not poppin 8 of em at a time are ya? Which i take as a clean bill of mental health, at least as far as wondering if I were in fact creating this pain in my mind. Glad to know I am not. But tonight, tonight, tonight I really wanted to talk about something else, but this will have to live under my tongue, it's double-tongued, and watches, and I think this would be lovely already if it were not so lovely, and this is the truest part of this part which is one part of a longer part, but the longer part also has her written in its sleeve and that's also true...

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.

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

Letter wherein Narcissus calls Echo a Bighead

E--

Your head is too large for your body.

--N

space

These fotos are from the performance space on Fillmore in downtown Phoenix, just so you can see what it looks like in here...