Mauricio Rivera es artista sonoro, también trabaja con video e instalaciones. Tiene una pregunta constante por el territorio.
Disidencia = contra hegemónico
Obra: un diálogo con el lago Titicaca
Paisaje sonoro: retratar los paisajes en término sonoros. Volver plástica la materia sonora. Habla de tener conversaciones con insectos o minerales como gesto contra hegemónico ( disidente ).
Se cree que el sonido es virtual porque no es tangible, pero los sonidos son tangibles y sus ondas también son imágenes.
Trabajó con sabedores tradicionales.
Sus piezas están grabadas en frecuencias específicas con las que resuena el cuerpo físico y los animales. Las frecuencias de onda viajan por la humedad. La información de ondas se guarda en piedras que están hechas en gran parte de agua. Son como discos duros.
¿Cómo escuchar? Mauricio nos dice: mi experiencia viene de mi educación y vida crecí viendo MTV, escuchando música andando en bus, taxi, por la ciudad.
El sonido es muy subjetivo.
La imagen es dada, el sonido en cambio se imagina.
Trabajó con cantos de Babalús Cubanos y con cantos guturales canadienses, hubo resonancia entre ellos y su obra.
Jose Manuel Berenguer, artista sonoro español Instalación sonora con luciérnagas (revisar)
Momentos de Climax, como concepto. Lo latente, (latir). Una pieza con Carlos Gómez Caballero en Barcelona.
Tienen la Orquesta del Caos. Proyecto Sonidos en Causa.
Idea: trabajar con el sonido real del agua, ¿tecnologías? Sonido cuerpos, instrumentos…
Conceptos: transmisión y retransmisión de radio. ¿Cual es la duración?
Pregunta: ¿cómo subvertir?
Sonido – Sanar como técnica Tibetana. Investiga en el cuerpo donde no se detiene la onda. Como los Taitas con sus cantos. Sonidos que estimulan la glándula pituitaria. Resonar.
Cómo el mensaje que queremos transmitir esté latente.
Sonido disidente, curador
Cuestiones para la presentación: ¿Cuál puede ser el pico “climax” en el performance?.
Estado de sensibilidad, línea delgada, quien es portador, quien desarrolla el síndrome.
En la película “Nuestra Película” de Luis Ospina sobre Lorenzo Jaramillo se ve la pérdida de sentidos.
¿Cómo fluye la sangre? Otra densidad.
Estimular los minerales que hay en la sangre, como el hierro.
Visitamos la exposición En Aguante, que incluye videos, fotografías y material de archivo de Hija de Perra (artista y activista trans, chilena, 1980 – 2014) bajo la curaduría de Julia Eilers Smith. La exposición incluía también obras de la artista brasilera Jota Mombaça y el artista mexicano ektor garcia.
Hicimos lectura del texto de Hija de Perra.
Ideas: Locura urbana en contra del fluir anárquico. Azote visual y auditivo.
Forma extraterrestre, disidente. La disidencia surge de la rabia.
Concepto: Aguantar (desde el aguante).
Los géneros como institucionalizaciones.
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Luciérnagas Lab
August 24th Report
session #6
sound dissidence
place: Adorno – Liberia
invited artist: Mauricio Rivera Henao
Report:
Mauricio Rivera is a sound artist, who also travels with video and installations. He is in a constant questioning of the territory.
Dissidence = against hegemony
Work: A dialogue with the lake Titicaca
Sound landscape: To portray landscapes as sounds. To turn sound matter into plastic. He talks about having conversations with insects or minerals as a gesture against hegemony ( dissident ).
It is believed that sound is virtual because it is not tangible, but non-tangible sounds and their waves are also images.
Worked with traditional knowledges.
His pieces are recorded in specific frequencies with those that resonate the physical body and the animals. The wave frequencies travel through humidity. The information of the waves is kept in stones that are largely made of water. They are like hard disks.
How can we listen? Mauricio tells us: my experience comes from my education and life, I grew up watching MTV, listening to music, taking the bus, the taxi, throughout the city.
Sound is very subjective.
Images are given, but sounds are imagined.
Worked with songs of the Cuban Babalús and with guttural Canadian chants, he felt resonance between them and his work.
Jose Manuel Berenguer, Spanish sound artist sound installation with luciérnagas (revise)
Climax moments, as a concept. The latent, (bark). A piece with Carlos Game Caballero in Barcelona.
They have the Chaos Orchestra. Sonidos en Causa Project.
Idea: to work with the real sound of water. Technologies? Sound bodies, instruments…
Concepts: radio transmission and retransmission. What is the duration?
Question: How to survive?
Sound — To heal with the Tibetan technique. Investigates the body in which the wave is not detained. Like the Taitas with their chants. Sounds that stimulate the pituitary gland. Resonate.
As if the message that we want to transmit was latent.
Dissident sound, curing.
Matters for the presentation: What can be the “climas” peak of the performance?
State of sensibility, thin line, who is the bearer, who develops the syndrome.
In the movie “Nuestra Película” by Luis Ospina about Lorenzo Jaramillo you can see the loss of senses.
How does blood flow? Another density.
Stimulate the minerals that there are in blood, like iron.
We visit the exhibition En Aguante, which includes videos, photographs and archival material of Hija de Perra (trans artist and activist, Chilean, 1980 — 2014), curated by Julia Eliers Smith. The exhibition also included works by the Brazilian artist Jota Mombaça and the Mexican artist Ektor Garcia.
We read Hija de Perra’s text.
Ideas: Urban insanity against the anarchic flow. Visual and auditive nitrogen.
Extraterrestrial form, dissident. Dissidence arrises from anger.
[*I totally misunderstood what you wanted me to do with the ‘Proust Questionnaire’ and just answered the original. I get it now … you’re gonna ask me these questions in a new fresh way. Is that it? Go ahead, and we’ll link my new fresh answers here!]
hey ego sum frank (aka Dr. Prof. ego sum frank),
I want to commend you on your new pursuit. While I’ve not yet visited the offices of MetaMorphineMachineFuriosaXXX, I imagine it to be a hybrid pharmacy and yarn shop. I even heard you all make quilts there. But before I would normally digress, let me answer these 35 questions that Proust used to ‘size up’ a character. I would like to assume the character of the difficult artist. I suppose this is somehow the real me; I’ve been called it with great regularity since I began the Luv ’til it Hurts project just over a year ago. I am starting to believe it, and therefore I’m ready to answer this particular MMMFXXX inquest.
Proust doesn’t really float my boat, but I would like to consider his answer to the first question (in both 1890 and 1896) as I begin:
What is your idea of perfect happiness? Equilibrium. Not explaining to capital ‘C’ curators what broad small ‘c’ curatorship can be. The phrase ‘curatorial futures’ just happened, but I’m pretty sure it was an early morning coffee fart.
What is your greatest fear? That I’ll never get a chance to tell you what I’m working on. That perhaps I’m wrong about what art is and I’ve fooled myself, but not you. You have stopped listening and I don’t know it yet. Abandonment.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? This rambling. The voices that all want to be heard at once or with slight hierarchy. I take some drugs to correct it though, don’t worry.
What is the trait you most deplore in others? Their piss poor attention spans.
Which living person do you most admire? I think Robert Wilson, but only if he responds to my request in the way I want him to. My mother and father both trump Bob, but I struggle to find ways to show this admiration to them, and suppose perhaps that it is a different emotion. The name of which will come to me when I learn how to communicate better.
What is your greatest extravagance? Living between NYC and São Paulo. The things I get to do having a generation of middle class-ness behind me.
What is your current state of mind? I have a drug-addled mind. I take two pills a day for HIV and another for chronic depression. However I have proof (oral history) of my difficultness pre-dating my drug dependencies.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Straightforwardness.
On what occasion do you lie? I omit lots of information. Since people usually like it when I stop talking, this is just like quietening one or two voices down to a level that you are speaking with a two-dimensional me. I omit the details of having my iPhone stolen when my mom sees that I ordered a new one on our family plan’s insurance. But then when she masks her care for me with an ostensible concern over the phone hardware, I embellish the muggings to show her a glint of danger and work her ‘guilt bone’ for mis-applying her sympathies (to my phone instead of me) in the first place. I think on average I lie slightly more than the national index suggests. But I do not consider myself an outlier.
What do you most dislike about your appearance? I wish I could get a tan just once in my life.
Which living person do you most despise? Heidegger has come back to prove a point with Trump and Bolsonaro. I want him to die again. I want Hannah Arendt and Marielle Franco to come back to life in his place.
What is the quality you most like in a man? Most male qualities repulse me (even in myself); I’ve known that I’m a lesbian for much longer than I’ve been arguing with them.
What is the quality you most like in a woman? Tina Turner is from West Tennessee and Dolly Parton is from East Tennessee. I am from middle Tennessee. Motherhood. I like my mom too too much! I have a joke sometimes I set up by asking her if she knows how I became gay. I’ve already told you the punchline earlier in my answer.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I want.
What or who is the greatest love of your life? I will not answer this question. It is a trap. Fuck you, Marcel Proust.
When and where were you happiest? I imagine myself to have been an avid lap swimmer in the womb. Yesterday at a poetry reading. That’s my answer. Brooklyn. Now.
Which talent would you most like to have? I would love to have extreme right-hand dexterity on an old fashioned desk calculator. I would love to have races and finish my taxes. I would use this dexterity for many more things.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I have this wart on my hand that no treatment seems to move. Take it away now, please.
What do you consider your greatest achievement? Survival.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I would want to be Bruno Latour’s sense of humor. Full stop.
Where would you most like to live? São Paulo and NYC, with frequent trips to Cairo and Nashville.
What is your most treasured possession? My wedding ring (the first one). I also like a horseshoe ring my dad wears, but I don’t want to inherit it ever.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Abandonment…
What is your favorite occupation? Making things. Luv and otherwise:)
What is your most marked characteristic? A subtle potbelly that situates me somewhere between bear and cub. Bruce Willis told me how sexy it was in Pulp Fiction.
What do you most value in your friends? Loyalty and long-term loyalty.
Who are your favorite writers? Kafka, Lispector, Kadare, Soyinka, Winterson, Farah. Gonna read Ocean Vuong now that he’s a MacArthur genius.
Who is your hero of fiction? Elpenor, full stop. I’m still learning the why for. I need more tutelage, Ismar Tirelli Neto.
Which historical figure do you most identify with? Howard Zinn.
Who are your heroes in real life? I respect Glenn Greenwald’s work, but he is not my hero. The last Berlin Biennale, Zé Celso’s Roda Viva, and various other contemporary loudspeakers repeat the Tina Turner line and suggest ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’ … I don’t not find an easy answer here. But because the theme is also HIV somehow, I’m gonna say South African Justice Edwin Cameron. I have some friends in Egypt who I also feel ‘hero-y’ about but whom I won’t name.
What are your favorite names? Lanier. I share middle names with Tennessee Williams. I dig it righteously.
What is it that you most dislike? Giving up.
What is your greatest regret? Not being in conversation with my former wife.
How would you like to die? I would like to know my assassin, and get to advise him/her/they on how to do it.
What is your motto? Encouraging the unadvisable since 1973.
HIV2020: Community Reclaiming the Global Response Mexico City, July 6-8, 2020 www.hiv2020.org
—Background—
Human rights conditions in the United States of America (U.S.) have worsened, since the presidential election of Donald Trump. This is especially true for immigrants from Muslim, African, Caribbean and Latin American countries, as well as for people of color, people who use drugs, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and sex workers. Legal travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. on sex workers and people who use drugs, will make it very difficult for our communities to enter the country.
Against the recommendations of community advocates worldwide, including the national networks of people living with HIV in the U.S., the International AIDS Society (IAS) chose the U.S. as the site for its next International AIDS Conference in 2020. Their decision creates a dilemma for many in the global HIV movement and reveals a willingness by mainstream HIV actors to tolerate the discrimination of people from Muslim, African, Caribbean and Latin American countries, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people in U.S. immigration and travel policies. The decision also resurfaces questions about the importance and community-relevance of large, multi-million-dollar conferences in the face of shrinking investment in the global HIV response. The costs of medicines and other barriers to HIV prevention, care, and treatment services like stigma, discrimination, violence, and criminalization, continue to plague the HIV response worldwide.
—Response—
An alliance of global key population-led networks, networks of people living with HIV, treatment activists, and our supporters, has formed to organize an alternative international community-led event. Titled, HIV2020: Community Reclaiming the Global Response, the event is scheduled to take place in Mexico City, July 6-8, 2020, and will run concurrently with the first half of the international AIDS conference. The HIV2020 alliance has decided to organize the community-led event to provide a safe alternative for individuals who cannot or will not enter the U.S. in 2020 or who cannot afford to attend AIDS2020. It will also offer new opportunities to reaffirm the leading role communities play in the global HIV response.
HIV2020 will be key population-led, inter-disciplinary, sex positive, and will focus on the following topics: community-led responses to HIV; funding and service disparities; sexual and reproductive health and rights; universal health coverage; decriminalization of HIV transmission, exposure, and non-disclosure, drug use, homosexuality, and sex work; gender equity and trans inclusion; economic and racial justice; eliminating homophobia, transphobia, and whorephobia; ending violence against cis and transgender women, gay men, sex workers, and people who use drugs; and coalition work. Specifically, HIV2020 aims to:
1. Build safe and friendly space for the equitable exchange of information, knowledge, experiences and expertise by ensuring diverse voices are heard and reflected; 2. Promote community-led solutions and good practice in sexual health and human rights; 3. Amplify community voices in calling out the inequities experienced across key populations and specific legal restrictions on some key populations’ right to freedom of movement; 4. Demonstrate the importance of meaningful involvement of communities in health and human rights responses; 5. Reaffirm community commitments and priorities to global health and human rights responses (inclusive of HIV); 6. Model an innovative approach for deliberating new research, tools, and strategies and their real-life implications, with communities as equal partners.
—Call to Action—
We are calling for advocates, community-based organizations, healthcare and services providers, researchers, public health officials, and funders to stand in solidarity with HIV2020. Collectively, we must insist on the meaningful engagement of people living with and disproportionately affected by HIV in the global response. And we must stand together against the discrimination of people from Muslim, African, Caribbean and Latin American countries, people who use drugs, sex workers, and transgender people.
—Become an Endorser—
We are seeking organizations to sign onto the above statement, as well as to issue their own statements of solidarity and to commit to disseminating information about HIV2020 as it becomes available.
Individuals are invited to participate with conversations online with the hashtag #ReclaimTheResponse
Melisa Guevara es artista Salvadoreña. Habló del libro “Luciérnagas en el Mozote” que contiene narraciones y testimonios sobre la masacre (1981) mas grande que ha sucedió en américa latina, 900 muertos perpetrados por el ejercito.
También nos habla del proyecto 24 Horas de fronteras abiertas, realizado por el colectivo del que hace parte, comprendido por dos colombianos, dos salvadoreños y un salvadoreño en NY. El proyecto se trata de grabar 24 capítulos relacionados cada uno a diferentes perspectivas sobre fronteras y migración, visto desde el punto de vista académico, artístico y de los inmigrantes mismos.
Como parte de este proyecto los miembros del grupo viajaron a la frontera con Venezuela y rehicieron el camino que recorren los inmigrantes camino al interior del país, atravesando inclusive un frío páramo, una caminada inimaginablemente difícil. Nos contaron como en muchos puntos los caminantes son maltratados o ignorados producto de la xenofobia.
Nos cuenta que en el Salvador también hay bastante desplazamiento interno. El problema grabe ahora son las pandillas. Nos cuenta que hay muchos imaginarios fantasmas sobre el país, lo que se cree, se imagina, se ha oído, lejanos a la realidad.
Se dice que debería existir un manual para migrar, si no estoy mal se habla de esto como posible proyecto artístico utópico.
Poniéndonos en contexto en centro américa nos cuenta que en Costa Rica no hay ejercito.
Alguien dice: lo que tenemos los artistas es tiempo para pensar, para apoyar y dar opiniones. Ayudamos a pensar de una forma diferente.
El migrante no tiene opciones. En los ochentas en la guerra de El Salvador se da una ola de migración hacia USA. Nacen los Maras Salvatruchos entre pandillas de otros países en USA.
Melisa y sus compañeros tienen un espacio de trabajo colaborativo. Son dos historiadores y dos artistas visuales.
Se comentan trabajos:
Manifiestos de la reimaginación (imaginarios regionales)
Territorios conceptuales: ecología de las interfaces, matemáticas, para crear manifiestos. teniendo en cuenta el texto Capitalismo y Esquizofrenia de Deleuze y Guattari.
Generan imágenes desde la poética, el sexo, la violencia, desde términos como orgía o pogo.
Se conocieron como equipo de investigación. Melisa también pertenece a otro colectivo: The Fire Theory.
Se promedia que hay 3´400.000 de venezolanos en Colombia.
Se promedia que ante las circunstancias, 300.000 personas que anteriormente habían emigrado desde Colombia a Venezuela han regresado ante la crisis.
Históricamente las políticas migratorias en Colombia han sido cerradas.
Todos los venezolanos sueñan con volver a su país.
Se comenta al película estadounidense “un día sin mexicanos”.
Laura Echeverri, abogada experta en derechos humanos nos aclara:
Migrante es cualquier persona que vive fuera de su país de origen.
Refugiado es quien sale por emergencia.
Existen casos de
Migración interna (caso urgente en Colombia)
Desplazamiento forzado, que es una condición.
Desplazamiento interurbano.
Los colombianos hemos sido refugiados en otros países en las olas de violencia y crisis económicas de los años noventas y dosmiles.
A los venezolanos se les está dando un permiso provisional de permanencia por dos años. Se llama el PEP. Les permite trabajar. Lo dan solo a personas con pasaporte y domicilio fijo, lo cual es una grande imposibilidad para ellos pues mucho carecen de esas condiciones. Los pasaportes para venezolanos están alrededor de us$300, en Venezuela mientras el salario mínimo es de US$4.00
FUPAD es una organización que trabaja por el desarrollo socioeconómico de las comunidades y le apuesta a la reconstrucción del territorio colombiano.
Laura trabaja en ACNUR la agencia de la ONU para los refugiados.
Nos contextualiza en la historia política reciente de Venezuela.
En 1998 fue la elección de Hugo Chaves, militar, que había participado en una revolución que se dio en 1992. Fue reelegido presidente en el 2000, 2006 y 2012. A partir de 2013 entra Nicolás Maduro al poder.
Venezuela sale de la convención Americana y deja de contribuir de la Convención Interamericana.
Agosto 2015 declaración de emergencia.
Mayo 2016 El departamento de atención de desastres de Colombia es el encargado de recibir la ola de migración.
Hay varios grupos armados y formas de violencia en Venezuela: Garimbas, Redadas, Colectivos armados, Tupamaros, Megabandas desde las cárceles, guerrillas, militares, el ELN también está en Venezuela.
Venezuela tiene una de las tazas de homicidio más altas del mundo. El 82% vive en pobreza extrema.
En 2018 solo el 13% de la población con VIH en Venezuela recibe medicina.
La condición de refugiados nace en la convención de 1951 como respuesta a la segunda guerra mundial.
Declaración de Cartagena. Respuesta a conflictos de Centro América.
Camilo, que trabaja con las madres comunitarias de Bosa en Bogota dice:
“Siempre quieres irte para Barranquilla, pero si te vas extrañas tu silla”
comparte ideas:
La frontera como límite nos limita.
¿Qué se siente perder el lugar de uno?
El pensamiento como frontera.
Miedo a la usurpación del territorio.
Algunos artistas referentes para el tema
Enrique Ramírez (Chile)
Cruzar un Muro (Crossing a Wall) es una película, inspirada en el artículo 13 de la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos, en la que afirma que “Toda persona tiene derecho a abandonar cualquier país, incluido el suyo, y regresar a su país”. . En esta película, una sala de espera, una oficina pública de asuntos de inmigración, ubicada en «algún lugar», es el escenario que converge todas las aspiraciones humanas de nuestro tiempo … La espera, la convicción, el anhelo y el derecho de todos a soñar. , viajar, cruzar, a la libertad de movimiento y residencia dentro de las fronteras de cada estado o al derecho de retorno a su país de origen … Todo esto se representa metafóricamente en este escenario de ficción y realidad.
Olu Oguibe (Nigeria)
“Monument to Strangers and Refugees”
Santiago Sierra (España)
“Los penetrados” estuvo dividido en ocho actos de sexo en vivo, cada uno tenía una combinación de género y etnia distinta. La idea era crear un mundo artificial que simulara las comunidades donde han ocurrido procesos de mestizaje.
Artur Żmijewski (Polonia)
Liliana Porter (Argentina)
Hasan Sharif (Dubai)
Sandalias y cable, 2009
Teresa Margolles (México),
La artista mexicana Teresa Margolles propone una profunda reflexión sobre el drama de la violencia machista, con la vista puesta en Bolivia y México, con la exposición “Sobre la sangre”.
Mario Opazo (Colombia)
MAPA MUDO | 2016 | INTERVENCIÓN ESCULTÓRICA
Daniel Santiago Salguero (Colombia)
Convención de territorios y desplazamientos. 2012
De la mano de una abogada experta en derechos humanos redactamos un texto jurídico ficcional dónde se declara que en el año 2046 todos los habitantes de la tierra pueden desplazarse libremente por el territorio terrestre y asumir como lugar de residencia el lugar de su elección sin necesidad de visas ni permisos. El texto fue impreso en una placa y emplazado en el espacio público en Bogotá. Aquí acudo a las ficciones y a los juegos con el tiempo para darle la posibilidad de ser a algo que desde nuestro tiempo parece absolutamente ridículo. Este proyecto responde al sentimiento de impotencia de millones de personas a quienes les es negada la movilidad entre países.
____________________________________________
Luciérnagas
July 17th Report
session #4
Art and political borders
Invitees:
Melissa Guevara
Artist
Laura Echeverri
Human Rights Lawyer
Report:
Melisa Guevara is a Salvadoran artist. She spoke of the book “Liciérnagas in Mozote,” which contains narrations and testimonies of the largest massacre (1981) that has occurred in Latin America, 900 people killed by the army.
She also speaks to us about the 24 hours of open borders project, realized by the collective that she is part of, made up of two Colombians, two Salvadorans and one Salvadoran in NY. The project seeks to record 24 chapters, each one related to different perspectives on borders and migration, seen from an academic and artistic point of view, as well as from the immigrants themselves.
As part of this project, the members of the group traveled to the border with Venezuela and retraced the path that immigrants make into the country, also going across cold moors, a walk that is unimaginably difficult. They told us about how at many points the walkers were mistreated or ignored as a result of xenophobia.
She tells us that in El Salvador there is also a lot of internal displacement. The serious problem now are the gangs. She tells us that there are many imaginary ghosts about the country, what is believed, imagined, heard, far from reality.
She says that there should exist a migration manual, it is spoken of as a possible utopic artistic project.
As she brings us into the context of Central America, she tells us that Costa Rica does not have an army.
Someone says: what we have as artists is time to think, support, and give our opinions. We help to think in a different way.
The migrant does not have options. In the eighties during the war in El Salvador there is a wave of migration to the USA. the Maras Salvatruchos are born among the gangs and in other countries and the USA.
Melisa and her partners have a space for collaborative work. They are two historians and two visual artists.
Works are commented on:
Manifestos of the reimagination (regional imaginaries)
Conceptual territories: the ecology of interfaces, math, to create manifestos. having in mind the text Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Deleuze and Guattari.
They generate images ranging from poetics, sex, violence, to terms such as orgies and pogo.
They met each other as a research team. Melisa is also part of another collective: The Fire Theory.
It was estimated that there are about 3,400,000 Venezuelans in Colombia.
It was estimated that due to the circumstances, 300,000 people who had emigrated from Colombia to Venezuela have returned because of the crisis.
Historically, the immigration policies in Colombia have been enclosed.
All Venezuelans dream of returning to their country.
Someone comments on the USA film “un día sin mexicanos”
Laura Echeverri, lawyer expert in human rights clarifies to us:
Migrant is any person who lives outside of their country of origin.
Refugee is who must leave due to an emergency
There are cases of
Internal migration (urgent case in Colombia)
Forced displacement, which is a condition.
Interurban displacement.
Colombians have been refugees in other countries during the waves of violence and economic crises of the 90s and 2000s.
Venezuelans are receiving a provisional permit to stay for two years. It is called the PEP. It allows them to work. It is only given to people with a passport and fixed residency, which makes it less possible for them as many do not meet these conditions. Venezuelan passports cost around US$300 in Venezuela, while the minimum wage is of US$4,00.
FUPAD is an organization that works for the socioeconomic development of communities and aims at the reconstruction of the Colombian territory.
She contextualizes us in the recent political history of Venezuela.
In 1998 there was Huge Chaves’ election, a military man, who had participated in a revolution that took place in 1992. He was reelected as president in 2000, 2006 and 2012. From 2013 on, Nicolás Maduro is in power.
Venezuela leaves the American convention and ceases to contribute to to the Interamerican Convention.
August 2015 declaration of emergency.
May 2016 the Department of attention to disasters in Colombia is in charge of receiving the wave of migration.
There are many armed groups and types of violence in Venezuela: Garimbas, Redadas, armed Collectives, Tupamaros, Megabandas from jails, guerrillas, military people, the ELN is also in Venezuela.
Venezuela has one of the highest homocide rates in the world. 82% of the country lives in extreme poverty.
In 2018, only 13% of the population with HIV received medicine.
The condition of the refugees is born in the convention of 1951, as a response to the second world war.
Declaration of Cartagena. Response to conflicts in Central America.
More than 20,000 children born in Colombia from Venezuelan parents do not have the nationality, since the Venezuelan consulates have been closed indefinitely. This fact changed recently.
Camilo, who works with the community mothers from Bosa in Bogotá, says:
“You always want to go to Barranquilla, but once you go you start missing your seat”
shares ideas:
The border as a limit limits us.
What does it feel like to lose one’s place?
The thought as border.
Fear of territory usurpation.
Some artist references in the theme
Enrique Ramírez (Chile)
Crossing a Wall is a movie, inspired by article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that “All people have the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.” In this movie, a waiting room, a public workshop on migration issues, located “somewhere,” are scenarios that converge all human aspirations of our time… The waiting, the conviction, the desire and the right that everyone has to dream. , traveling, crossing, the liberty of movement and of residency at the border of each state, or the right to return to their country of origin … All of this is represented metaphorically in a scenario of fiction and reality.
Olu Oguibe (Nigeria)
“Monument to Strangers and Refugees”
Santiago Sierra (Spain)
“Los penetrados” was divided into eight acts of live sex, each one with a different combination of genders and ethnicities. The idea was to create an artificial world that simulated communities in which processes of mixing have occurred.
Artur Zmijewski (Poland)
Liliana Porter (Argentina)
Hasan Sharif (Dubai)
Sandalias y cable, 2009
Teresa Margolles (Mexico),
The Mexican artist Teresa Margolles proposes a profound reflection on the drama of macho violence, looking at Bolivia and Mexico, with the exhibition “Sobre la sangre.”
Mario Opazo (Colombia)
MAPA MUNDO | 2016 | SCULPTURAL INTERVENTION
Daniel Santiago Salguero (Colombia)
Convention of territories and displacements. 2012
At the hands of a human rights lawyer, we wrote out a fictitious text in which it is declared that in the year of 2046 all of the inhabitants of earth will be able to move freely through terrestrial territory and assume, as a place of residency, the place of his/her choice, without the necessity of visas or permits. The text was printed out on a board and placed in Bogotá’s public space. Here I turn to fictions and to time games in order to give it the possibility of being something that, during our current time, appears absolutely ridiculous. This project responds to the feeling of impotence of millions of people to whom mobility between countries is denied.
You’ve all heard about the gay content shows being cancelled or censored all over Brasil. Maybe you heard of the Sexualities show at MASP a couple years back as well. MASP is a big institution. It gets big-named curators. And a lot of attention.
I came up with the Queer City (or Cidade Queer) a project within Lanchonete.org as a response to contracting HIV in São Paulo a few years before. I am happy with how Cidade Queer performed as a project. During its span in 2015/16, research would have been done for the forthcoming Sexualities show at MASP. In 2017 we were still making programming with a strong Canadian partner. I had a part-time job with that organization, resulting from a ten-year grant-receiving relationship during which I also served as creative director to some major foundation programs. I deployed a 20-year global cultural network to each program I took on for the Canadian organization. I forgot my HIV meds on one of my many international trips in 2017 working for the foundation. I asked for a ‘cost of living allowance’ /COLA-related increase on my next contract near the end of 2017. It was related to the cost of international travel insurance that would cover medication replacement. I was pouting about this once over dinner with a friend, an HIV+ medical doctor. He responded that he’d lost his medical post the week after he presented ideas on a panel at the Queer City finale, an international ball and awareness-raising day on a range of ‘queer’ issues. In that I understood that I was not alone. I recently got to go to Egypt and on way back met an exiled Egyptian activist living with his partner in Paris. He raised his voice about the government stalling his HIV meds, and he was beaten up one night in his apartment. Other serious danger signals happened: threats. They left to Paris and began advocacy work on the situation in Egypt and Middle East. I spoke to a Mexican artist who moved to Berlin after falling blind due to lack of access to HIV meds. These stories pile up as I survey my peers on their regions and conditions in preparation for Luv ’til it Hurts.
Back around the end of Queer City and its ATAQUE ball in September 2016, I gave an interview to Brazilian Elle on the São Paulo Ballroom and Voguing scene. I specifically asked them to mention my HIV status. I specifically asked the journalist to state that I contracted HIV in São Paulo. And, this was the catalyst for creating and producing the programme. When I read the article this detail had been excluded. Then sometime in the same 2017 period was the Sexualities show at MASP until early 2018. I asked a Mexican magazine if it wanted a review, given that the show had a Mexican curator. The resulting review (after my two visits to the show) was declined. I pitched again to a Polish, US and another thematic ‘art leaks’ online journal. There was something I was doing in my rejected article akin to concrete poetry. I stated over and over throughout the article that I contracted HIV in São Paulo in the previous few years. I talked about gay white male privilege. I asked the publication curator why our research output, Queer City: A Reader made with Publication Studio São Paulo) hadn’t been considered for the publication table. The one that secures publications with fishing line. I asked in my article why the word or acronym HIV did not appear much (or at all, I think). A Colombian artist asked me in NYC how the show was, and I told him I hated it. Or rather that I had a beef with it I explained in a journal article. He told me the curator wouldn’t like that. I think he meant the Mexican one.
In the article I attempt to share some of the early signs of Brazil’s cultural revolution. I share the article (see below) with you today in protest of the theatre piece’s censorship. Caixa Cultural, you have a responsibility to help a closing society stay open at the cultural bridge-points, these ‘cultural’ spaces that you fund through public (Lei Rouanet and other channels) tax-relief incentivized funds. Please do your part to keep HIV in an open conversation. Some of the anecdotes I speak of in this crônica are related to stigma. Something that is often invisible, dormant, and awaiting ‘fresh air’ to displace and evolve society’s sensibilities. One of the ways to offer that fresh air to HIV-related stigma is an open conversation. I contracted HIV in São Paulo just a few years ago, and I am your public.
As a reaction and way-to-process my own feelings about HIV, I created the Luv ’til it Hurts project. the very first event was an organic public event in Philadelphia with Amber Art & Design, a public art and social justice-focused collective. In fact Amber Art visited São Paulo as residents to Lanchonete.org, during which time the project gained a ‘Neighborhood Museum’ concept and space (an apartment above the lunch counter) for the next year of programming. On May 24, 2018 Luv ’til it Hurts was supposed to have its open meeting / planning discussion at beginning of two-year process) at the Strawberry Mansion, a community space for which Amber Art & Design was commissioned to make programming. As the date for the event approached an Amber member told me that there was some opposition to an HIV-themed event at the Strawberry Mansion site. That we would like have the event at Amber’s studio instead. It was a beautiful community meal with people traveling from NYC. Some of us gathered at an Amber member’s house the night before, and a leader from the HIV activism world in NYC cooked food for both dinner and the next day’s community lunch. Others came down the morning of. From memory there was a range of folks from Philly, a member of a NYC-based architectural / public space collective, a medical doctor/professor visiting the NYC AIDS Institute from the University of São Paulo, Taiwanese artist Kairon Liu, Sebastien the co-founder of Residency Unlimited and now RiVET, an independent journalist and others. At the end of the day we have some ice cream and beer on porch of the Strawberry Mansion.
While we had not had the whole day event there, there was some triumph in spending the last hours there before some of us took the bus back to NYC. Later, on August 20th we had another community meeting on the occasion of Black Pride and visiting members of House of Zion Brazil and Coletivo Amem (São Paulo) hosted by Residency Unlimited. Something I want to remember for a future crônica.
I contracted HIV in São Paulo just a few years ago, and I am your public.
Juan Betancurth: El problema es falta de información
SILENCIO como problema
Los mata mas la familia y la sociedad que la misma enfermedad
El terrorismo a la enfermedad. (Pensar en “Metáforas del Sida” de Susan Sontag.
ARTE: poder testimonial (memoria) poder de exteriorizar
Artista: Cómo en cada colectivo exploran el arte. Experiencias, experimentación, difundir, guardar memoria
Qué es el PrEP y como se usa: Colectivo LOVE lazers.
Información es poder: 21% de mujeres trans en Colombia tiene VIH
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Luciérnagas Lab June 13th report
session #3 Arte / HIV
Invitees:
Fernando Arias José Fernando Serrano Juan Betancurth
Report:
Fernando spoke of his residency project. More art more action. He said that for art it is necessary to activate.He also spoke of the importance of criticism.
In dialogue with José Fernando the following subjects were touched on:
Activism / Violence / LGBTI / peace process / LGBTI activism in Colombia / LGBTI with peace (here the subject of Venezuela was worked on)
The history and histories of HIV in general, in relation to migration
HIV and AIDS was initially called the three “h’s” (Haitians, Homosexuals, Heroin-addicts).
Concepts: MIGRATION — INVASION (Africa: in South Africa people came from Mozambique)
Parallel to the African idea of invasion.
Activism — HIV The idea the Queerness was born out of HIV activism
Tatcher — Reagan : ignore the disease
the performance — the action — the body
memorize the process and the forgetting (the conscious desire to forget) (maybe we do not want to remember)
The disease — death relationship (it’s been 30 years, now?)
We think of how much it’s changed (in terms of disease, in terms of social perception), the relationship with HIV and the 80s and today
Idea: Terror as a choreographic concept. In times of terrorism (social cleaning)
Kevin: HIV as a religions punishment (people popularly believe)
Defense of health rights
FORGETTING AND EMERGENCY
Legal memories, personal memories, social memories
Of what is spoken, of what is not spoken
Perhaps medicine has advanced but not the medical labor
Juan Betancurth: The problem is the lack of information
SILENCE as a problem
Family and society kill more than the disease
Terrorism to the disease (Think of “AIDS and Its Metaphors,” by Susan Sontag)
ART: testimonial power (memory) externalizing power
ArtistL How art is explored in each collective. Experiences, experiments, diffuse, keep the memory
What is PrEP and how it is used: LOVE lasers collective.
A guy from Mexico contracted HIV. We had condomless sex. I remember this well. Some four years after our hook-up he contacted me because of Luv ’til it Hurts. He wanted to catch up. He wanted to know when I contracted HIV. He needed to dispel an idea that maybe he had carried HIV since the night of our lovemaking. I needed to react with annoyance. I did not. I needed to allow this. Also. It seemed. I had allowed it before in fact. This inquisition into memory and desire and night and sex and lovemaking. It was in a graveyard, a detail I should probably leave out.
My longtime partner in NYC is a black man. He contracted HIV since we broke up. I think I have to register this.
I contracted HIV in São Paulo, therefore I could not have passed it to the Mexican guy … on a timeline this does not add up. My former partner told me of his status because of Luv and seeing it online.
When I first contracted HIV I was with someone living with HIV. I needed to blame many things including the world itself. I blamed him. I tried to do it gently. I blamed him and he let me. Maybe he felt he needed to do that just as I needed to hear my Mexican friend in his quest for understanding. Maybe we do this. Maybe we torture ourselves, but maybe we won’t have to do that for much longer.
Maybe I can say I’m sorry for blaming in a different way. Maybe I can try to understand something new that says thank you. Maybe that will hurt and seem unassociated. Maybe it has to. Maybe that’s lovemaking.
sesión #1 Contexto del cuerpo en las Artes (para artistas y no artistas)
Escuchamos la pieza sonora de John Cage “canción para Marcel Duchamp”.
Hicimos cuadernos de notas para tomar anotaciones.
¿Por qué del laboratorio? Lineamientos.
Cada uno habló de cómo se relaciona con los contenidos del laboratorio
Contexto del cuerpo en las artes:
Body art, Arte Conceptual, Performance, Danza, otros. El cuerpo como material.
Bruce Nauman (USA, 1941) es artista multimedia estadounidense,
Yves Klein (1928 – 1962) fue un artista francés considerado como una importante figura dentro del movimiento neodadaísta.
Fluxus es un movimiento artístico de las artes visuales en especial, pero también de la música, la literatura y la danza. Tuvo su momento más activo entre la década de los 60 y los 70 del siglo XX.
Estos fueron algunos de los miembros más importantes de Fluxus: George Maciunas, John Cage, Arman, Alan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Charlotte Moorman, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Daniel Spoerri, Wolf Vostell y Robert Watts, entre otros.
Como Dada, FLUXUS escapó de toda definición y categorización.
Robert Filliou dice de FLUXUS: es un estado del espíritu, un modo de vida con soberbia libertad de pensar, expresar, elegir.
FLUXUS disuelve el arte en lo cotidiano.
John Cage (Los Ángeles, 1912 – Nueva York, 1992) fue un compositor, instrumentista, filósofo, teórico musical, poeta, artista, pintor, aficionado a la micología y recolector de setas estadounidense. Pionero de la música aleatoria, de la música electrónica y del uso no estándar de instrumentos musicales, Cage fue una de las figuras principales del avant garde de posguerra.
Merce Cunninham & John Cage
Merce Cunningham (Centralia, 1919 – Nueva York, 2009) fue un bailarín y coreógrafo estadounidense.
Marina Abramović artista serbia del performance que empezó su carrera a comienzos de los años 1970. Activa durante más de tres décadas, recientemente se ha descrito a sí misma como la “Madrina del arte de la performance”.
Martha Graham (Pittsburgh, 1894 — Nueva York, 1991) fue una bailarina y coreógrafa estadounidense de danza moderna.
Pina Bausch (Solingen 1940-Wuppertal, 30 de junio de 2009), fue una bailarina, coreógrafa y directora alemana pionera en la danza contemporánea.
Cindy Sherman ( EUA, de 1954) es una fotógrafa y directora de cine estadounidense.
Pipilotti Rist (1962, Suiza) es una reconocida videoartista.
Sophie Calle (París, 1953) es una escritora, fotógrafa, directora y artista conceptual francesa. El principal objeto de su obra es la intimidad y de modo particular la suya propia. Para ello utiliza gran diversidad de medios de registro como libros, fotografías, vídeos, películas o performances.
Contexto cuerpo artes Latinoamérica:
Pedro Lemebel (Santiago, 1952- ibídem, 23 de enero de 2015) fue un escritor, cronista y artista plástico chileno.
Hélio Oiticica (Río de Janeiro, 1937 – 1980) fue uno de los artistas plásticos brasileños más innovadores del siglo XX y actualmente es reconocido como una figura clave en el desarrollo del arte contemporáneo..
Lygia Clark (Belo Horizonte 1920 – Río de Janeiro 1988) fue una artista brasileña, co-fundadora del Movimiento Neoconcreto, comprometida con redefinir la relación entre el arte y el ser humano a nivel conceptual y sensorial. Realizó pinturas, esculturas y acciones sensoriales vinculadas al arte y a la psicoterapia.
María Teresa Hincapié (Armenia, Colombia, 1956 – Bogotá, Colombia, 2008) fue una artista de expresión de danza corporal y performance colombiana.
María Evelia Marmolejo Cali 1958. Es una artista feminista colombiana radical, más tarde con sede en Madrid y la ciudad de Nueva York. Se le atribuye la primera obra escénica de performance feminista en Colombia, en 1981
Helena producciones: www.helenaproducciones.org
María José Arjona (Colombia, 1973) María José Arjona es considerada la artísta performática más importante de Colombia. Ha llevado su trabajo a Italia, Alemania, Austria, entre otros países.
“El arte debe volver a darle valor al cuerpo femenino”
Regina José Galindo (Ciudad de Guatemala, 1974) es una artista visual, performer y poeta guatemalteca especializada en body-art. Su obra se caracteriza por su explícito contenido político, reconociéndose a sí misma como feminista.
Ana Mendieta (La Habana1948 – Nueva York1985) fue una artista conceptual, escultora, pintora y videoartista nacida en Cuba y criada en Estados Unidos. Es especialmente reconocida por sus obras de arte y performances en el marco del land art (arte terrestre).
Francis Alÿs es un artista multidisciplinario nacido en Amberes, Bélgica en 1959. Vive y trabaja en la Ciudad de México desde 1986.
José Esteban Muñoz (1967 – 2013) fue un académico norteamericano de nacionalidad cubana en los campos de estudios de rendimiento, cultura visual, teoría queer, estudios culturales, y teoría crítica. Su primer libro, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999) examina la performatividad, activismo, y supervivencia de las personas queer y minorías étnicas a través de la óptica de estudios de performatividad.
Rafa Esparza (born in 1981)
Rafa Esparza es una artista de performance estadounidense que vive en Los Ángeles. Su trabajo a menudo toma la forma de actuaciones físicamente exhaustivas e instalaciones construidas con ladrillos de adobe.
Los siguientes nombres y conceptos fueron sugeridos por los participantes del laboratorio:
Astrid Hadad (n. Chetumal, 26 de febrero de 1957) es una actriz, cabaretera, y cantautora mexicana de ascendencia mayalibanesa. Es creadora del heavy nopal o neo ranchero, un estilo de performance musical de fusión que caracteriza sus presentaciones
Sergio Zevallos: 1962 en Lima, Perú. Reside en Berlin, Alemania. Pertenecía al grupo Chaclayo.
Jesusa Rodríguez Ramírez (Ciudad de México, 1955) es una directora de teatro, actriz, artista de performance y actualmente Senadora de la República Mexicana por el partido Morena.
Mapa Teatro. compañía de teatro contemporáneo y artes visuales, Bogotá.
Nadia Granados 1978 Bogotá. Artista de performance colombiana que usa su cuerpo en combinación con tecnologías multimedia para explorar las relaciones entre la representación de la violencia estatal.
• Las notas, fechas e informaciones de los artistas fueron obtenidas de google y Wikipedia en su mayoría.
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Luciérnagas Lab June 15th report
session #1 The context of the body in the arts (for artists and non-artists)
We listened to John Cage’s sound piece “Music for Marcel Duchamp”
We made notebooks to take notes on.
Why the lab? Guidelines.
Each one spoke of how he/she relates to the contents of the lab.
The context of the body in the arts:
Body art, Conceptual art, Performance, Dance, others. The body as material.
Bruce Nauman (USA, 1941) is a multimedia artist from the United States.
Yvez Klein (1928 – 1962) was a French artist, considered an important figure in the neodadaist movement.
Fluxus is an artistic movement in the visual arts in particular, but also of in music, literature, and dance. It had its most active moment between the decade of the 60s and 70s of the 20th century.
These were some of the most important Fluxus members : George Maciunas, John Cage, Arman, Alan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Charlotte Moorman, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Daniel Spoerri, Wolf Vostell and Robert Watts, among others.
Like Dada, FLUXUS escaped from all definition and categorization.
Robert Filliou says about FLUXUS: a spiritual state, a way of life with superb freedom of thought, expression, and election.
FLUXUS dissolves art into the everyday.
John Cage (Los Angeles, 1912 – New York, 1992) was a composer, instrumentalist, philosopher, music theorist, poet, artist, painter, mycology enthusiast, and collector of mushrooms from the United States. Pioneer of aleatoric music, electronic music, and non-standard uses of musical instruments, Cafe was one of the main figures of the post-war avant-garde. J
Merce Cunninham & John Cage
Merce Cunningham (Centralia, 1919 – New York, 2009) was a dancer and choreographer from the United States.
Marina Abramovic is a Serbian performance artist who started her career in the beginning of the 1970s. Active for more than three decades, she has recently described herself as the “Godmother of performance art.”
Martha Graham (Pittsburgh, 1894 — New York, 1991) was a modern dance dancer and choreographer from the United States.
Pina Bausch (Solingen 1940-Wuppertal, June 30th 2009), was a dancer, choreographer and German director pioneer in contemporary dance.
Cindy Sherman (USA, 1954) is a photographer and movie director from the United States.
Pipilotti Rist (1962, Switzerland) is a recognized video artist.
Sophie Calle (Paris, 1953) is a French writer, photographer, director and conceptual artist. The main subject of her works is intimacy and, in particular, her own. She makes use of a great diversity of mediums for recording, such as books, photography, videos, movies, or performances.
Latin America body arts context:
Pedro Lemebel (Santiago, 1952 – Ibídem, January 23 of 2015) was a Chilean writer, chronicler and artist.
Hélio Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, 1937 – 1980) was one of the most innovating Brazilian artists of the 20th century, and is currently recognized as a key figure in the development of contemporary art..
Lygia Clark (Belo Horizonte 1920 – Rio de Janeiro 1988) was a Brazilian artist, co-founder of the Neoconcrete Movement, committed to redefining the relationship between art and human beings, in a conceptual and sensorial level. She realized a lot of paintings, sculptures, and sensorial actions related to art and psychotherapy.
María Teresa Hincapié (Armenia, Colombia, 1956 – Bogotá, Colombia, 2008) was a Colombian artist of body dancing expression and performance.
María Evelia Marmolejo Cali 1958. Is a radical Colombian feminist artist, later based in Madrid and New York City. The first scenic work of feminist performance in Colombia is attributed to her, in 1981
Helena producciones: www.helenaproducciones.org
María José Arjona (Colombia, 1973)
María José Arjona is considered the most important performance artist in Colombia. She has taken her work to Italy, Germany, Austria, among other countries.
“ art must go back to giving value to the female body”
Regina José Galindo (Guatemala City, 1974) is a Guatemalan visual artist, performer, and poet, specialized in body-art. Her work is characterized by its explicit political content, recognizing herself as a feminist.
Ana Mendieta (La Habana, 1948 — New York 1985) was a conceptual artist, sculptor, painter and video artist born in Cuba and raised in the United States. She is especially recognized for her works of art and performances within the context of land art.
Francis Alys is a multidisciplinary artist born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1959. He lives and works in Mexico City since 1986.
José Esteban Muñoz (1967 — 2013) was a North American academic of Cuban nationality in the fields of performance, visual culture, queer theory, cultural studies, and critical theory. His first book, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999) examines performativity, activism, and survival of queer people and ethnic minorities, through the optics of performance studies.
Rafa Esparza (born in 1981)
Rafa Esparza is a performance artist from the United States who lives in Los Angeles. His work often takes the shape of physically exhausting actions and installations built with adobe tiles.
The following names and concepts were suggested by the lab’s participants:
Astrid Haddad (b. Chetumal, February 26th of 1957) is a Mexican actress, cabaret dancer, and singer-songwriter of Mayan-Lebanese descent. She is the creator of heavy nopal or neo ranchero, a style of fusion musical performance that characterizes her presentations.
Sergio Zevallos: 1962 in Lima, Peru. He lives in Berlin, Germany. He belonged to the Chaclayo group.
Jesus Rodriguez Ramírez (Mexico City, 1955) is a theater director, actress, performance artist and currently Senator of the Mexican Republic for the Morena party.
Mapa Teatro. contemporary theatre company and visual arts, Bogotá.
Nadia Granados 1978 Bogotá. Colombian performance artist who uses her body in combination with multimedia technologies to explore the relationships between the representation of state violence.
• The majority of the artists’ notes and informations were obtained from google and Wikipedia.
I’ve been thinking about something and I’d like to share it. Perhaps these are thoughts that go into the production of a short video clip. While I don’t pretend to know how to edit such a thing, and barely know how to turn my camera on (something I don’t often do for skypes). I don’t like to give away my ‘eye power’ so much.
I wanted to start with something I recently read. In Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Art, one of his citations suggest that an artist will often attract attention to her/his/their self in order to then re-direct it somewhere else. Without re-reading or reading into the statement too much, I get it. Given my interest in art history, it is quite easy to think up of various incidences and artists to which this idea pertains.
At times I jokingly refer to myself as crazy. I do this because I realize that some people I encounter find me that way. I do this with humor to ‘put it aside’ .. to confirm my hunch that they think so, and move on.
I like crazy ideas, and so I don’t dismiss crazy or wild approaches in general. One sometimes needs a touch skin for them. Like what I mean here is that I don’t personally avoid people who I find difficult. I avoid them if I don’t like them, but not due to difficulty. I must have some magnet in my heart. I return to them. I often want to understand what is being communicated by a stance, style, approach, attitude, bombast and/or provocation.
What I don’t do is to completely ‘overlap’ or conflate the notion of being crazy with the ‘rule book’ of crazy. I suffer from depression and some manic rebounds. I’ve been steadily medicated for this for some time. I have seen these things in my father. My brother and I are the next versions of our dad. This has always needed tending too. This chain of depression that seems genetically coded into our existence did not just come up in my dad’s generation. His uncle shot himself in the barn in the head. His father and my grandfather had other ways of expressing some sort of dark and difficult tendency. He died fairly young too.
After contracting HIV, there were general stigmas that I faced, but too I needed to figure out the next wave of family engagement, and what this new development might mean. Needless to say, it gets a slightly different reception than my brother’s Type-2 Diabetes or the onset of Multiple Sclerosis in another close family member.
I am not so naive to have imagined that chronic diseases would not be weighted for family (and religious) relations. Did I mention I’m from a cattle, horse and crop farm in a part of the South (US) referred to as the ‘bible belt’.
So with the added ‘stress’ of HIV, I have decided to share some thoughts on the collision of two things considered ‘chronic’ in me: HIV and severe depression.
I recently watched the David Letterman special with Kanye West. West was talking about having ‘bipolar disorder’ and got right up to the point (in discussion with Dave) of considering his own creativity in relation to his mental ‘standing’. Sometime this year I saw the last Daniel Day-Lewis film, Phantom Thread. He played a perfectionist tailor. Around that time he said he would not star in more films, explaining that lately he has a hard time coming out of role. He alluded to artistic process and mental state.
Just this past week, I received some feedback that I’d ‘come on too strong with someone’. And the reason I have to pay attention to this is because ‘coming on too strong’ is not necessarily about disagreeing. What I realize in making art is that this very ‘energy’ I refer to is a part of the things I make and sometimes why they don’t get made.
So, learning how to ‘deploy’ the energy / enthusiasm to the right target is something I work on. And, too, I don’t always try to control myself.
Deza, when we first talked about your CHAOS project, I remember you mentioning some statistics you had that showed how people who have a lot of energy (or an extraordinary style) are avoided in social settings.
Ha, I think I’ve experienced that a few dozen times:)
And, while I’m just me (experiencing me), I wanted to suggest that we are aware of these avoidances. That sometimes there is a comfort in being oneself regardless of the reaction.
And, speaking as an artist, there are sometimes when we draw inspiration from or action by this special energy.
What I needed to learn from my family (before or during learning how to be an artist) is that talking is better than not talking. Bottling things up is somehow deadly in my experience.
By the way, I believe everything I’m saying to you … as much as I do the fact that I take a pharmacological solution pill each day to help manage … energy.
xo
todd
PS, I’ll have a version of the LUV game in French by October 25th for an Ankh Association event. I hope you will find a way to use it too for CHAOS!!