Field Notes
WHITE [hope]
The first thing I want to say is ‘thank you’ to all the people–artists, non-artists, poz and negative folks–who took part in Luv ’til it Hurts for the past two-plus-years. While I’m still putting final touches on both RED & BLACK, I would like the last words on the site (and perhaps the first to…
RED [luv]
In WHITE I exclaimed how nice it was nice to put the final touches on the LUV archive in December only 6 months after the ‘official’ closing in July 2020, but three months have now passed and this one particular RED piece resists being finished … perhaps because it’s the only outstanding element on the entire RED…
BLACK [strength]
“Initiated by Lanchonete.org and ArtsEverywhere/Musagetes, the Cidade Queer program was a broad collective inquiry into how can we understand the contemporary city through a queer, intersectional, non-normative lens. The program included a series of encounters, dinners, residencies, and performances, and “Cidade Queer, uma Leitora” reconfigures these moments into a new form, extending the inquiry trans-nationally.”…
LUV, a timeline
Image by Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria In January 2018 and speaking on freeDimensional, I was invited to give a co-keynote address on day two of the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Centre for Applied Human Rights @ York University [see download]. And while I now realize the ‘second day’ programme (of thinkers from the art camp vs. the…
If I had a bit more time…
Image by Todd Lanier Lester In Why Make an ‘Open Work’? I begin to discuss DURATION, and why a project like LUV would have an initial, formal (albeit arbitrary) two-year timeframe. Lately, I’ve been sifting through scraps of paper, contacts and ideas for articles. Luv ’til it Hurts is in the process of transforming itself into a new…
Biography – Leaves
Eric RheinFrank the Visionkeeper (Frank Moore 1956-2002)(from Leaves, an AIDS Memorial)2013, wire and paper, 16”x13”x2” 1. There are more than 300 individuals represented in Leaves. I say more than 300 because I know that there are more than 300, but it’s challenging for me to keep track. When I started the project in 1996 I set…
Biography – Hummingbirds
Eric RheinHummingbirds – Installation of Six2016, wire and paper, (each one is 16”x13”x2”) For Eric Rhein there is a metaphysical aspect to creating his wire drawings of hummingbirds and having them go out into the world. “The Aztecs believed that hummingbirds were the reincarnation of warriors, and that their presence had the ability to transform…
One luv ends and another begins; HIV2020; etc.
Originally HIV2020 was to be held in Mexico City as an alternate meeting to AIDS2020 that was to be held in San Francisco. The biennial AIDS conference is a big show, and cities compete to host it for its business. There’s a tenet of the meeting that it alternates between ‘north’ and ‘south’ countries. AIDS2018…
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Codename: Exquisite Corpse
[*When the project began, I wrote a piece entitled Why Make an Open Work? where I used some borrowed ‘game storming’ graphics to show the chaos needed within a project before it comes to a point. This logic showed up again when Adham Bakry made LUV’s first design elements (see image). While I don’t imagine…
Game of Swarms descends upon LUV
Game of Swarms will be thus a communication device as well as a register of the artistic research upon how dynamics of networks in nature can be used as a tool to understand new ways of relationality among humans and non-humans—based on the distribution of agency, rather than the centralisation of powers. *** Collaboration is…
More instructions for afterlife (next-LUV) designer
[*In February and back before Covid19 suspended travel (and life as we knew it) a group of LUV peeps met in NYC to work on the ‘next-LUV’ or an afterlife for Luv ’til it Hurts, a project that I originally charted for only two years. Those two years are almost up. We received some instruction/planning questions…
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A preamble for shifting gears
[*After some meetings in NYC in February (2020), the LUV team set about a visioning process that should yield the project’s next phase–with a new level of clarity–by the middle of the year. We asked Brad Walrond to help us come up with a new introductory text (something like an artist statement), and we are…
A pre-Covid 19 estimation of LUV
Brainstorming in New York at the Goethe Institut [*From February 9-11, 2020, Luv ’til it Hurts was busy in NYC. LUV participated in Love Positive Women (a project by Jessica Lynn Whitbread) with a poetry and food-inspired event ‘LUV YEMANJÁ’. Food and a series of handmade porcelain candles were offered by artist Thiago Gonçalves and…
I wanted to elaborate more on the concept of ‘transcendence’
Image: ‘Hummingbirds’ (Installation of 6), 2016, by artist Eric Rhein I wanted to elaborate more on the concept of ’transcendence’, mostly because I have some reservations about it. BUT, the fact that HIV is a disease that you live with took me to the place of transcendence. I departed from Eric’s work and paid especial attention to it. The aesthetics…
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ART, POLICY, AND WELLNESS (1 of 2)
[*A few years back, I created a meeting concept called Artist Roundtable (or A.RT) … I want to resuscitate this particular discussion on health and wellness in order to share a unique policy paper that came thereafter as byproduct. This article was originally published by the World Policy Journal on June 9th, 2015. xo Todd]…
Steal This Game
‘Stealing’ the LUV Game is a bit easier than Hoffman’s book. It is free to begin with. I tell the story of how the LUV Game came about first as an idea from a young Egyptian designer in a description of ACT I, considering how one might discuss (or signal a safe discussion on) HIV in a place like…
artHIVism, Condom Art & a lifetime of caring
[*A longer EN language interview is available below for download; Todd Lanier Lester interviews Adriana Bertini for LUV.]TLL: We met first in Barcelona at the 14th International AIDS Conference in 2002. I don’t remember too much about the trip, except that I was presenting a poster with a colleague on community sensitization work on HIV/AIDS we’d done…
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Relatoría última sesión Luciérnagas – Last Luciérnagas Session Report
Image taken at Oct 25 (2019) Luciérnagas performance Before the presentation we did some in situ rehearsals, although they were never enough, we did them. The Botanical Garden is a very bureaucratic institution and it was difficult to manage the space for more preparations. For these last sessions we got together Eudes Toncel, a Guajiro Colombian…
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Certain Things between stigma and love #LPW2020
About fifteen years ago, my friend Dani called me to help her with the costume for a short film. She asked me for red clothes and accessories—specifically, an old brooch of fake ruby she knew I had. “Why red?” I asked. “Because this is a story about HIV,” she justified and quickly briefed me about…
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What I’m learning about participatory art; #LPW2020, pre-B & Elpenor method, #2
This year Love Positive Women is so big for us it constitutes an ACT … Act 1.5 to be exact. The acts are dramaturgically useful for steering Luv ’til it Hurts toward its endpoint in mid-2020, and in that way reveal various ‘assemblages’ (or intense clusters) along the two-year course. While the ‘business plan’ of ACT II is…
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Please, touch me (PT/EN)
[*Alberto Pereira Jr. first made ‘Please, touch me’ for a 2019 workshop in São Paulo. His production notes are the third in a series that also includes a project abstract #movingtarget and creative writing, ELE. xo, Todd] PT Instigado por um workshop realizado no instituto Itaú Cultural, sobre estigma e produção artística contemporânea em relação…
Instructions from next-LUV designer for NYC mtg
[*Polish artist and architect, Jakub Szczęsny is helping to lead ACT III. LUV’s denouement is gonna be a blast! Stay tuned!!]
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considering attach-ability (#2)
hi guys,So, I’ve had an idea for you both for around 6 months now and have regrettably failed to share it in a robust form. I would like to do so now. We may thank Brad Walrond for texting with me overnight (why he was awake, I do not know:). Jonathan, Brad archives Pony’s work and/or…
hiv / art / establishment (#1)
[*The pink elephant image is borrowed from a Facebook intervention made by Niki Singleton and Todd Lanier Lester several years ago called Coming out of the Web 2.0 Closet.] There is definitely an HIV art establishment. I have met it in a few forms over the first 3/4 of Luv ’til it Hurts, a two-year…
Some tenets of Elpenor thought (part 2)
[* For the LUV site, this is part two of a set. Let’s call it the Elpenor Set. See part one, here.] 1) It never ceases to baffle and amaze me whenever an association between Elpenor – a decidedly minor character in Homer’s Odyssey – and an idea of methodology crops up in my presence.…
How LUV is research, in part (part 1)
[* For the LUV site, this is part one of a set. Let’s call it the Elpenor Set. See part two, here.] The purpose of this ‘entry’ is to introduce Ismar Tirelli Neto. I’m writing a book right now. It’s called Variations in Worldmaking. I can’t wait until it’s finished because it might be driving me…
Using one ‘project’ to see another
This article is a field [luv] note to Luciérnagas and friends in Bogotá. I was there for a project by Daniel Santiago Salguero and his HIV+ peers. Fireflies, this is the word in Spanish for fireflies. Speaking of fireflies, I met some luminary folk while in Bogotá Like Jackie … as far as I know she is the only woman in Luciérnagas,…
notes on starfucking (v.1, not to be confused with ‘resource fucking’)
I do luv this term: starfucking …. star (*) fucking. While it is not used (as such) it is something that is present in the Sontag biography I read. Like people considered whether she liked to know famous people. I was once at a church party with Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams, and to explain…
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Relatoría Sesión #7 – Cuerpos Fluidos
Laboratorio LuciérnagasRelatoría 7 septiembresesión #7cuerpos fluidosartista invitado: Juan Manuel Mosqueralugar: Jardín Botánico de Bogotá TallerExploración de las posibilidades expresivas del cuerpo a partir de un reconocimiento y una apertura del espacio sensible. ActividadesReconocer y explorar las tres llaves del espacio sensible: el peso del cuerpo, sentir y hacer consciente la respiración y permitir la consciencia…
Relatoría Sesión #6 – Disidencia Sonora
Laboratorio Luciérnagas Relatoría 24 Agosto sesión #6 disidencia sonora artista invitado: Mauricio Rivera Henao lugar: Adorno – Liberia Relatoría: 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…
Character Development à la Proust
[*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…
Relatoría Sesión #4 – Arte / Fronteras
Laboratorio Luciérnagas Relatoría 27 Julio sesión #4 Arte y fronteras políticas Invitadas: Melissa Guevara Artista Laura Echeverri Abogada derechos humanos Relatoría: 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…
Relatoría Sesión #3 – Arte / VIH
Laboratorio Luciérnagas Relatoría 13 Julio sesión #3 Arte / VIH Invitados: Fernando Arias José Fernando Serrano Juan Betancurth Relatoría: Fernando habló de su proyecto de residencias Más arte más acción. Dice que para el arte debe accionar. También habló de la importancia de la crítica En diálogo con José Fernando se tocaron los siguientes temas:…
Relatoría Sesión #1 – Contexto del cuerpo en las Artes
Laboratorio LuciérnagasRelatoría 15 junio 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…
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Some remarks before I make the video
Hi Deza, 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…
1st ‘About’ page: A discussion to be accountable to
A discussion to be accountable to … Luv ’til it Hurts is about HIV and stigma. Discussion, campaign, mechanism, agency. All of these words describe the vision for Luv ‘til it Hurts. Yet, if it becomes nothing more than a discussion to be accountable to, then it has succeeded. It should have this accountability first…
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Thank you to Lois Weaver (ample version)
Conceived by Luv ’til it Hurts participants during a design workshop in Port Said, Egypt, the LUV_GAME is inspired by The Long Table, a performance process by Lois Weaver. The game is designed for art world and non-art world venues … public, private and super private spaces. At the same time it may be available…
Fault Lines
Luv ’til it Hurts is the third in a series of durational, multi-stakeholder, rights-focused art works: freeDimensional (2003-12), Lanchonete.org (2013-17), and LUV (2018-20). In Why Make an ‘Open Work’? I discuss some of the logic around stakeholder recruitment. Between the first and second, the first and third, and the second and third projects, I have invited cross-over stakeholders. For example, Adham…
Why Make an ‘Open Work’?
I launched Luv ’til it Hurts, a long-considered project on HIV and stigma in July 2018. The project goes through the middle of 2020 officially, and yet I’m also quite interested in the afterlife of projects. DURATION is important to me for reasons I’ll explain later, and based on specific methods drawn from the community…
