In the spirit of my last post, I am opening the literal pages of my notebook as a record of sitting, listening, thinking. Instead of forcing a cohesion of my experiences, I have kept them true to their form and fragmented as an experiment. The notes always seem to suggest that I have more to say, that the readings and performances and studio practice are affecting a profound response, but that it falls just short of articulation. There is never enough time in the moment, and even when I revisit an experience, there might not be enough time to reflect. This record does, however, show that I am constantly living in relation to a constellation of artists and scholars who appear in and disappear from the physical world, but whose impact reappears in my thinking, or somewhere in my body-mind that writing might not be able to access.
The following notes were written right before leaving places like the Poetry Project or my rehearsal space in Long Island City, or on an L or J train back to Brooklyn late at night. At that point, usually everyone is drunk, wandering into the car. I might or might not be. I take out my notebook and attempt to hover over it without anyone shoving themselves into me, or falling over my lap. I write somewhat legibly, I don’t care if people can read it over my shoulder, or while looking down on it from the railing. Nothing is more private than being surrounded by people who don’t give a shit what you’re doing. Sometimes this is magic, and sometimes someone does fall on me, or some guy squeezes in next to me and spreads his knees out so my notebook is jammed between his knee and my lap, and then it’s just not worth it. Unless I wrote in it on his knee, or on his lap, but at that point I want to get the hell away from that guy. Phenomena like the belligerent-asshole-leg-spread happen to everyone on the train, but not everyone is trying to write something important at a time like that like I am. Then a stranger not giving a shit about you becomes violating. Then I have to stop writing and pray that there will be a time when I get back to that thought. But many times I can’t go back to it. Various abridged notes from 2.5.14 to 3.31.14
Installation view 945 Madison Avenue, 2014, lens and darkened room by Zoe Leonard. Whitney Biennial 2014, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 7- May 25 2014. Photograph by Bill Orcutt. http://artbooks.yupnet.org
2.5.14Gregg Bordowitz reading at Poetry Proj
“inviolate”
Zoe Leonard - to possess solitude: the fullness of a building
‘cairn’
“the forest is a hospital”
“magicked”
“how through patience we become a patient”
“a pronoun blossoming into fragrant dissipation”
2.7.14
I feel like I need to write about Maggie Nelson’s reading.
Was sent into trance.
Changed everything.
2.8.14
I never got to write about Maggie yesterday. My hip was swollen again.
money.
e-mail. narrative bio. eat.
so much death this month, I can’t believe it.
it was José Muñoz’s memorial this morning. Swelling turned into the familiar hip pain.
...I couldn’t take mourning...
It crept up on me last night and I felt like I needed to hold on
2.21.14
rehearsal day 1:
being alone moving through oppressive scenes
then moving through pastoral scenes
maybe I need to be the voice of the father?
being able to be in a state while eating or taking the train
a mask of hands
pubic bone-chest-head [that is a score for a piece of choreography that I don’t remember]
2.26.14
iele:
13 is Venus’ #
lines of Venus create a pentagram
fire and empathic company reduces earth and metal
don’t be wary of dependency it’s ok
2.28.14
rehearsal:
*manatee move on the floor*
room was dissolving and everything was the seabed
3.5.14
Thomas McEvilley Memorial at Poetry Proj.
“performance art began with the cynic”
“a mark is made and its meaning is discussed for 50,000 years”
T. M. walked the Great Wall with Marina and Ulay
Marina’s 21 grams: he must have been storing and expired much more than 21 grams of energy because he was limitless
“every self is an other to every other self”
Sunny in the Furnace by Aki Sasamoto. March 6 - 8, 2014 at The Kitchen. Photography by Julieta Cervantes. http://cargocollective.com/akisasamoto
3.8.14
Art O.D. (Armory) but redeemed by Aki Sasamoto’s show at the Kitchen!
I need to write more.
I need to make some more stacked pieces.
pearlescent
opalescent
yellow? resin?
pink? pastels?
Make tasks.
Sections I know |________________________| my original story
the overlap narrative parts
3.12.14
Thinking about Jamie with me in the studio. I never wrote about it before.
How can he be set into motion?
And the poem and me?
Me ~ uncontrolled ~ catalyst
how to sit inside something;
sit inside a poem?
or how can J sit inside a dance?
Or how can we sit inside each other’s forms?
((yellow socks)) shapes of light
My Barbarian performing The Mother and Other Plays, an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Mother. http://whitneymuseum.tumblr.com
3.20.14
My Barbarian - “The Mother” Whitney Bi
Radical negativity ~ estranged subjectivity
votes
-teachers
-babies
((((alienation)))
as the nexus
marxism v. modernism
musical |_____________________| class struggle
dirty materialism
(Malik Gaines’ voice breaks my heart to bits)
audience member waves flag
we are all the mother
3.23.14
Using my Body!!!!!
3.25 - 3.28.14
[Lists of books for a freelance research project. Some are just authors, some are catalog numbers for NYPL]
Huey Copeland
Huey Copeland references
Schneider
Phelan
Fusco
Tavia Nyong’o
Jones
Issues in curating cont art perf
JQZ-12-1388 use in lib
rm 300
no more drama - [what? this is an actual book about theater]
in lib use
Phelan
Phelan
To Do:
yo yo labs drunken boat
danspace project margit galanter
Mucus Factory by Martin O’Brien http://www.londonsartistquarter.org
3.29.14
Acess All Areas: Live Art and Disability at Abrons
Martin O’Brien
chest glitter and red
small vials of mucus
silver trampoline
10-12 vials
chest beaten to the ribs and the shape of his lungs
strands of mucus from vials across his body through his hair
ventilator up the ass for a very long time
3.30.14
I need to talk about the event at Abrons yesterday and how it affected me.
I need to process the intimacy and the language.
I learned something that I desperately needed, but how do I apply it to my life?
3.31.14
Amanda Cachia, “performing crip time”
reorienting time - queer temporality and crip time renders time queer
body out of joint ~ dislocation ~ creates new definition of time where
liminal positions give an advantage
One Morning in May by Noemi Lakmaier. Photography by Hadar Dawachi. ttps://www.artsadmin.co.uk
“taboo choreography”
“Bedding In Bedding Out” by Liz Crowe
crip aesthetics transform space to fit the body
Carrie Sandahl, “Too Much Information” lecture
passing the word as form of culture
needs as world shaping
Laura Hershey, “we teach each other how to live”
Mat Fraser - create a picture of disability that is not painted by mainstream media
to make an archive so younger artists will exceed him - where is the next generation? - MARISSA PEREL Marissa Perel is a Brooklyn based artist and writer. Her working method is interdisciplinary and includes performance, installation, video, text, collaboration and curating. Her work has been widely shown in New York and abroad, and her criticism has been published on many on-line platforms. She originated the column, Gimme Shelter: Performance Now on the Art21 blog, and was an editor of Critical Correspondence, the on-line dance and performance journal of Movement Research. She has contributed to the Performance Club, Bomblog, Bad At Sports, and Tarpaulin Sky, among others. www.marissaperel.com