god sees everything image and video documentation
Friday, December 20, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Thoughts and writing on God Sees Everything
I need to write more
I spoke with Ben about Sunday. About how it worked and didn't work. About how I need to get clear on the content of the work.
I find a lot of people, colleagues, friends have strong opinions about psychedelic drugs. Some of them are affirming their power and importance, others are questioning and casting doubt about the need for them. But they do exist. In nature. In labs. And they do things to people that change them irrevocably.
One of the things I thought about on Sunday but also before Sunday is how if you see someone on say psilocybin for example, they don't appear enlightened or alive and awake to the universe and connected to all. Sometimes they feel gone, unavailable, dumb, out of it, confusing, weird, boring. But their experience is one of connection and awareness and lightness and aliveness. So what is the disconnect there about? Why is that the case? How is that experience so "real" and yet so isolated within the self and/or only with others on drugs? And I also think that when people are on psychedelic drugs they might find sober people to be closed, unaware, different, scary, intimidating but maybe also beautiful, perfect, and lovely. There is this clear separation. Within such a mind-blowing spiritual experience such as psychedelic drugs, what is that fragmentation about?
Another thought: People keep talking about how drugs stories are like dreams, no one fucking cares except the person telling the story because the essence is so non-transmittable within the context of conversation/words. Hmmm... maybe this dance project is to represent and transmit every lost drug story, every disregarded or misunderstood dream.
The more and more I think about Sunday, the more I value it. The more real and alive and intimate I realize it was. I wrote a lot of memories about it the other day. I thought about posting them here... not sure if I will yet.
I spoke with Ben about Sunday. About how it worked and didn't work. About how I need to get clear on the content of the work.
- On WHY I am doing this project. I am doing this project to come to terms with the vastness of the universe and how we all know that to be true but the ways in which we socially and culturally deal with that can be dangerous, unclear, and misleading. I am trying work within that space between what we know to be deeply mystifying god-like universal spirituality and the most corrupt realities of our society. And I investigating the space via psychedelic drugs because psychedelics so clearly straddle those two worlds.
- psychedelics relate to trash, to nazi germany, to capitalism, to privilege, to experiences of freedom, to corruption, to lies and story-telling, to manipulation, to California idealism, to hypocritical hippy cultures, to opportunities, to cultures of art and music and parties and raves and aesthetic and whiteness, to white culture, to to the belief systems of whites as more evolved, more enlightened. To mythos of white people coming from stars, to the commodification of spiritual experiences, to drug policy, drug wars, to organized religion
- psychedlics relate to oneness, collectivity, vastness, light, god, the universe, dimensions of time and space, to patterns and geometric shapes, to transformation, to healing, to PTSD, to mental illnesses, to growing and forgiving and seeing things differently, to letting go, to surrendering to a drug, to leaving reality as we most often experience it.
- On what I am saying. I am saying, "Hey, these worlds are related and unhealed. You can acknowledge it all at the same time."
- On what the purpose of this work is. To work within the relationship between disparity and oneness. To the desperately intimate proximity of wholeness and fragmentation through the topic of psychedelic drugs.
- What Am I trying to say? That is the only place that God lives and it is not easy, it is not integrated, or comfortable, but it is what we have and I can only consider both the light and the dark in order to make work worth making.
- There is this interest in GOD. In religion. In the spiritual.
- I want to know how do we cope with that elusive intimate proximal mind-bending unknown-yet-unquestionably-sensed truth (aka God).
- How psychedelic drugs bring us closer to that? And how is that crazy thing I am referring to as God so implicitly tied to politics, to society, to privilege, to race, to history, to capitalism, to body politics. How does one reconcile that?
- Is this project my attempt to reconcile that? I don't think so. I mean, I don't have any plans for reconciling, just acknowledging, seeing, noting, listening, being aware of that implicit relationship. And I am trying to understand that often unconscious and complex and tricky relationship between God and body politics.
I find a lot of people, colleagues, friends have strong opinions about psychedelic drugs. Some of them are affirming their power and importance, others are questioning and casting doubt about the need for them. But they do exist. In nature. In labs. And they do things to people that change them irrevocably.
One of the things I thought about on Sunday but also before Sunday is how if you see someone on say psilocybin for example, they don't appear enlightened or alive and awake to the universe and connected to all. Sometimes they feel gone, unavailable, dumb, out of it, confusing, weird, boring. But their experience is one of connection and awareness and lightness and aliveness. So what is the disconnect there about? Why is that the case? How is that experience so "real" and yet so isolated within the self and/or only with others on drugs? And I also think that when people are on psychedelic drugs they might find sober people to be closed, unaware, different, scary, intimidating but maybe also beautiful, perfect, and lovely. There is this clear separation. Within such a mind-blowing spiritual experience such as psychedelic drugs, what is that fragmentation about?
Another thought: People keep talking about how drugs stories are like dreams, no one fucking cares except the person telling the story because the essence is so non-transmittable within the context of conversation/words. Hmmm... maybe this dance project is to represent and transmit every lost drug story, every disregarded or misunderstood dream.
The more and more I think about Sunday, the more I value it. The more real and alive and intimate I realize it was. I wrote a lot of memories about it the other day. I thought about posting them here... not sure if I will yet.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
God Sees Everything: L.A. and S.F.
homeLA, November 2013
The News, SOMArts, San Francisco, December 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
thanks to keith hennessy and laura arrington
for posting these two videos on fb this morning:
from K.H.:
from L.A.
And while we are at it, did you read this yet?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/cosmic-census-finds-billions-of-planets-that-could-be-like-earth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
from K.H.:
from L.A.
And while we are at it, did you read this yet?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/cosmic-census-finds-billions-of-planets-that-could-be-like-earth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Friday, October 18, 2013
Anne Bogart and Judith Butler ideas that I am relating to collective TRANSFORMATION
In A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre by Anne Bogart, on pages 61-63 in the essay on eroticism she talks about static art. about static inspiration. something that stops you in your tracks:
What Bogart fails to do is discuss or note the death, the loss, the mourning, the second phase of change that is possible once that attachment/relationship is made. She clarifies that there is an initial change and/or one that is drawn out over the relationship ("extended intercourse") through the avenues of vulnerability involved in our "socially constituted bodies". But what happens when that relationship is over or lost? This risk/experience/possibility is not covered by Bogart, but I found Judith Butler discusses this phase in Precarious Life on page 20:
Loss and vulnerability seems to follow from our being socially constituted bodies, attached to others, at risk of losing those attachments, exposed to others, at risk of violence by virtue of that exposure...
she the continues on page 21:
...Perhaps, rather, one mourns when one accepts that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly for ever. Perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps one should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance.
So is there a #8 and #9 to Bogart's list? and could it be something like,
8. There is an end to that intercourse. A loss.
9. Following that loss, is a mourning that is ultimately, if successful, transformational. There is a second irrevocable change that is just as unplanned and uncharted as the initial erotic arrest.
-----------------------------------------******-------------__________________-------------------------------
So god sees everything. Because we are inextricably tied to one another. Because when we have transformations within our own autonomous bodies and selves which happen to also be unavoidably social, relating, connected, we are participating in a larger collective transformation. And it is clear to me that not only do people take psychedelic drugs to induce such transformations, and that many claim to experience them during their trips, but that one common experience of these drug induced states is a deepened and clear understanding and knowing of that connectivity, collectivity, oneness within the experience of love and understanding.
why is this project called god sees everything? because there are two realities being straddled here: there is the one in which I am fascinated by the collective oneness of the universe- this sacred universality that is often brought into awareness through the use of psychedelics. And secondly, simultaneously, I am aware of the "political god" in it all. I am aware of the fractured, institutionalized, privileged, surfaced, hypocrisy that is entrenched in the world of drugs- be it pharmaceuticals, or drug wars, or drug politics, or ritualized or appropriated and/or de-ritualized inductions that wreak violence and further fragment the oneness that is ultimately undeniably true.
What Bogart fails to do is discuss or note the death, the loss, the mourning, the second phase of change that is possible once that attachment/relationship is made. She clarifies that there is an initial change and/or one that is drawn out over the relationship ("extended intercourse") through the avenues of vulnerability involved in our "socially constituted bodies". But what happens when that relationship is over or lost? This risk/experience/possibility is not covered by Bogart, but I found Judith Butler discusses this phase in Precarious Life on page 20:
Loss and vulnerability seems to follow from our being socially constituted bodies, attached to others, at risk of losing those attachments, exposed to others, at risk of violence by virtue of that exposure...
she the continues on page 21:
...Perhaps, rather, one mourns when one accepts that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly for ever. Perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps one should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance.
So is there a #8 and #9 to Bogart's list? and could it be something like,
8. There is an end to that intercourse. A loss.
9. Following that loss, is a mourning that is ultimately, if successful, transformational. There is a second irrevocable change that is just as unplanned and uncharted as the initial erotic arrest.
-----------------------------------------******-------------__________________-------------------------------
So god sees everything. Because we are inextricably tied to one another. Because when we have transformations within our own autonomous bodies and selves which happen to also be unavoidably social, relating, connected, we are participating in a larger collective transformation. And it is clear to me that not only do people take psychedelic drugs to induce such transformations, and that many claim to experience them during their trips, but that one common experience of these drug induced states is a deepened and clear understanding and knowing of that connectivity, collectivity, oneness within the experience of love and understanding.
why is this project called god sees everything? because there are two realities being straddled here: there is the one in which I am fascinated by the collective oneness of the universe- this sacred universality that is often brought into awareness through the use of psychedelics. And secondly, simultaneously, I am aware of the "political god" in it all. I am aware of the fractured, institutionalized, privileged, surfaced, hypocrisy that is entrenched in the world of drugs- be it pharmaceuticals, or drug wars, or drug politics, or ritualized or appropriated and/or de-ritualized inductions that wreak violence and further fragment the oneness that is ultimately undeniably true.
Monday, October 14, 2013
watch time pass/see space change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ew3SQiFGR0
painter for the future.
secrets. being held in the hues of paints in circles and symmetry. Being a woman as being a secret for the future because being a woman in the present is always casted out by bigness of our male counterparts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPAat-T1uhE
I am struggling to interview people. To talk to them. I feel like I need to go drink beer at Telegraph with a sign that says I am interviewing people about their stories of psychedelics.
I feel behind in my project. I miss the studio. I miss space with other movers. I made some of the biggest mistakes of my life in the last few months.
I feel very isolated as an artist right now and I would say most of it is self-imposed.
painter for the future.
secrets. being held in the hues of paints in circles and symmetry. Being a woman as being a secret for the future because being a woman in the present is always casted out by bigness of our male counterparts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPAat-T1uhE
I am struggling to interview people. To talk to them. I feel like I need to go drink beer at Telegraph with a sign that says I am interviewing people about their stories of psychedelics.
I feel behind in my project. I miss the studio. I miss space with other movers. I made some of the biggest mistakes of my life in the last few months.
I feel very isolated as an artist right now and I would say most of it is self-imposed.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
2 DOTS AND A LINE
I figured out a title for my current proj: God Sees Everything
this is thanks to United Airlines playing Great Gatsby on the plane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTruPQDa_vc
also, look at this:
http://ceruleanorange.tumblr.com/post/38984081707/feministrepublican-white-privilege-is-being
some of my recent research/work/stuff for GSE
“The key, I think, is to acknowledge that we are part of the physical causal fabric of the world, but to also recognize that we are the part capable of acting with malicious intent. That’s the hook of praise and blame.” -Manuel Vargas
this is thanks to United Airlines playing Great Gatsby on the plane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTruPQDa_vc
also, look at this:
http://ceruleanorange.tumblr.com/post/38984081707/feministrepublican-white-privilege-is-being
some of my recent research/work/stuff for GSE
“The key, I think, is to acknowledge that we are part of the physical causal fabric of the world, but to also recognize that we are the part capable of acting with malicious intent. That’s the hook of praise and blame.” -Manuel Vargas
2 DOTS AND A LINE
“Ambiguity is important not just for design or science. it’s also central to art.” -tversky
“ambiguity is a source of ideas and pleasure.” -tversky
gestures can show action effectively.
16/9/13
...FOUND ME
YOU FOUND ME.
NONOS FOUND ME
KOOTIE FOUND ME
THE COYOTE FOUND ME
ARTISTS FOUND ME
BARRYS FOUND ME
ANNA AND HENRY FOUND ME
OBEA FOUND ME
KRISTINE FOUND ME
THE ROOST FOUND ME
ONA FOUND ME
THE BEACH FOUND ME
TREES FOUND ME
THE SUNLIGHT FOUND ME
SCIENCE FOUND ME
DANCE FOUND ME
BACKWARDS FOUND ME
PHOTOS AND LIGHT FOUND ME
SLEEP FOUND ME
PILLS FOUND ME
CHOCOLATE FOUND ME
FAKE GRASS FOUND ME
AGE FOUND ME
TIME FOUND ME
DEATH FOUND ME
PAIN FOUND ME
ABUSE FOUND ME
FRIENDS FOUND ME
MIRAGE FOUND ME- HEAT FOUND ME
NUDITY FOUND ME
SPARKLERS FOUND ME
PAIN FOUND ME
RED CAFETERIA CUPS FOUND ME
BAD ART FOUND ME
ARISTOCRACY FOUND ME
POVERTY FOUND ME
DEBT FOUND ME
EDUCATION FOUND ME
ICE FOUND ME
RAPE FOUND ME
EXIT FOUND ME
RUNNING FOUND ME
I FOUND ME
LOVE FOUND ME
FAILURE FOUND ME
Sunday, May 26, 2013
work: activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.
I think the ways in which life works on us is one of the most sacred ways in which beauty is instilled in our bones. Life has this way of acting on our bodies. Life has control we don't have. It does things to us. Recently, I have been rubbing almond oil all over my skin when I get out of the shower. Skin- that outermost layer of the body, the largest organ, the entrance. Skin is the part of the body we have most accessible to look at, study, feel, touch. There are so many other changes going on that we are not visually aware of. When I sit there in a towel and my underwear and massage my skin, I notice the markings of life like small bruises and ingrown hairs, the shifting and coming and going of weight and fat and muscle, the paleness of winter months and the sun kissed color of summer, the softness and roughness, wrinkles, thinness/thickness of skin, pronouncing veins on my hands, the cellulite on my thighs, the freckles along my arms, the size of my bones and my organs having grown from when I was a child, watching my breasts grown down, surrendering to the pull from the center of the Earth. It is endless and I am always so inspired by all that is happening in and on my body at any moment. It informs me. It is my teacher.
My hair is darker. When I was a child it was white. I hope one day I come full circle.
I am listening to Patti Smith. She is someone who seems to have embraced the life's doing to her. She just let it all happen to her and it is from there that she made work. It's possibly why we all love her work so much. So much of society these days is about fighting life's doing, about taking that control back in an obsessive way-
God forbid we are strong AND weak. God forbid we are fortified by the strength of our own beings and our own power and simultaneously softened and humbled by all the shit that is thrown at us within a life time.
And if god forbid it, then call me a sinner because I want it. I want to be strong and healthy and vibrant and powerful. I also want to experience weakness, failure, pain, scars, and the ever-increasing proximity to death. Because, to me, that is as beautiful as I can possibly be. And ya'll know I LOVE BEAUTY.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
transformation
I have been thinking a lot about transformation within performance art. How it matters to me. I have been thinking about work that involves discomfort; work that induces a shifting of the viewer's internal constitution has the immense power to be quite a transformative experience. This in many ways is optimal as far as my work is concerned.
Just a couple of days ago I took part in an audition. Within this context, another participant and I had to create a small duet. In short, we chose to leave the end of our duet to be in the hands of everyone else in the room, knowing that there was a time limit within the audition and eventually they would need to stop our performance.
It was successful and impactful, at least for myself. I began to think about responsibility of transformation. It truly is divine when the universe almost knows more of what one needs than that person themselves. What I mean to be saying is, sometimes, god bless, life just takes your hand and guides you through something that irrevocably changes you for the better in ways you could never have instigated nor understood yourself. But so often, life just does Part I: life hands your lemons. And it is you that must make lemonade. It is you that steps over the line from crisis to catharsis. From plight to peace. These self actualized maturations build character and layer strands onto the rope of wisdom that becomes one's backbone. And so, who am I to take the hand of my viewers through to the other side? Who am I to even know how that is done. Who am I to reinforce the constructs of passivity of the viewer?
Maybe what is more useful is to offer space and time to that transformation. To say, if I hand you lemons and nothing else, will you, in your dedication to life, make the most refreshing lemonade? Will you go home with curiosity and power? Will you respond to what is happening in the room with you? Will you find those limits in yourself and then take the appropriate action as an equal, as a participant?
So... I don't think in all this reflecting that I should now go on to make work that generates crisis and not offer suggestions of transformation, but I do want to invite you (whomever you ever are who witnesses my work) to engage and respond and to be equally curious as I in the work and how it relates to you and to this world.
Just a couple of days ago I took part in an audition. Within this context, another participant and I had to create a small duet. In short, we chose to leave the end of our duet to be in the hands of everyone else in the room, knowing that there was a time limit within the audition and eventually they would need to stop our performance.
It was successful and impactful, at least for myself. I began to think about responsibility of transformation. It truly is divine when the universe almost knows more of what one needs than that person themselves. What I mean to be saying is, sometimes, god bless, life just takes your hand and guides you through something that irrevocably changes you for the better in ways you could never have instigated nor understood yourself. But so often, life just does Part I: life hands your lemons. And it is you that must make lemonade. It is you that steps over the line from crisis to catharsis. From plight to peace. These self actualized maturations build character and layer strands onto the rope of wisdom that becomes one's backbone. And so, who am I to take the hand of my viewers through to the other side? Who am I to even know how that is done. Who am I to reinforce the constructs of passivity of the viewer?
Maybe what is more useful is to offer space and time to that transformation. To say, if I hand you lemons and nothing else, will you, in your dedication to life, make the most refreshing lemonade? Will you go home with curiosity and power? Will you respond to what is happening in the room with you? Will you find those limits in yourself and then take the appropriate action as an equal, as a participant?
So... I don't think in all this reflecting that I should now go on to make work that generates crisis and not offer suggestions of transformation, but I do want to invite you (whomever you ever are who witnesses my work) to engage and respond and to be equally curious as I in the work and how it relates to you and to this world.
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