For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say "Farewell". Is a new world coming? We welcome it - and we will bend it to the hopes of man. Lyndon B. Johnson.
Sunday 31 October 2010
Lyndon B. Johnson
Saturday 30 October 2010
Civic Humanism
1. A Variant of Republicanism
"Civic humanism is generally taken as an equivalent or as a particular variant of republicanism, meaning a conception of politics in which government is in principle the common business of the citizens..."
i.e. UCF's attempt to "run DCA like a business". Their New World authority lies in our complicity and constant gratitude, Us, constantly refilling their coffee cup in the diner they own, but which we lease-hold, rent, daily, hourly, indebted to their overflowing generocity, to follow their orders, to heel at their feet, to drool at their bells, to snap to their fingers, the peanut shells crushed to pieces.
But how far is it 'out duty', to the Old Ways of the H(e)artland, to fight in resistance? Perhaps I misapprehend, you misunderstand- Our desire for separatism is of correlative interdependance rather than outright sanctions on both sides- that would do neither of us any favours. Please follow us, take your seats, as We, the hushed ushering serfs of Our own serfdom, show you to your ticketed destination in the theatre of Your hyperreal fortress.
The "city" provides the environment — a public space — for human fulfillment. If, on the one hand, the republic is contrasted to personal or authoritarian government it also differs from the liberal model, which sees society as a collection of atomistic individuals held together by common rules designed to allow them maximum freedom to follow their particular and varied values and interests.
[a shared emphasis[?] mine and theirs = Ours[?]]
...UCF in its own [pea]nut shell... or not! 'Maximum' freedom? we'll DCeeAbout that...
As numerous republican theorists, notably Montesquieu, have emphasized, the republic requires widespread civic virtue, i.e.,the active participation of citizens united by a concern for the common good. The virtues of citizenship are in turn developed and enhanced by being exercised in upholding republican political and legal institutions and making them work by being involved in their operation. Republican life is then thought to be formative of the public spirit on which it rests. Republican freedom depends on constant civic activity. The polity is taken to cohere by means of the common acceptance of standards of justice that are more than procedural rules. The purpose of the commonwealth is not so much peace and ensuring the rights of individuals, as the realization of human potentiality, encouraging the flowering of all forms of creativity and inegenuity insofar as they contribute to public welfare. The republic is the necessary medium of self-realization, not merely the condition of possibility of private endeavors. Indeed, a certain amount of conflict, properly contained, adds to the liveliness and vigor of the republic. There is a link furthermore between the freedom of the citizen and the independence of the republic. Citizen armies and the right to bear arms are therefore common postulates of republican theory.
Civic humanism is linked in principle to a classical educational program that goes beyond the formative capacity of participatory citizenship itself and involves the conscious revival of ancient ideals. Republican candor, simplicity of manner, opposition to ostentation, luxury and lucre, are common, though not universal republican themes. Some theorists also dwell on the millenarian aspirations associated with republican ideals responding to the fragility of the republic and the need to provide against its corruption and decay with the passage of time.
Extracted from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humanism-civic/.
Dynamic Semantics & Context
Dynamic Semantics
First published Mon Aug 23, 2010
Dynamic semantics is a perspective on natural language semantics that emphasises the growth of information in time. It is an approach to meaning representation where pieces of text or discourse are viewed as instructions to update an existing context with new information, with an updated context as result. In a slogan: meaning is context change potential.
Context plays a role in two distinct oppositions. The first opposition is the duality between context and that which modifies the context. Here the context is the information state, or, say, a suitable abstraction from the information state (compare the entry on semantic conceptions of information). The context modifier is the information received. The information cannot be received without the correct kind of presupposed information state. The proper analogues in predicate logic (compare the entries on classical logic and first-order model theory) are as follows. The information state is an assignment (environment) or a set of assignments. The information received is a set of assignments. The second opposition is the duality of context and content. Here the context is something like the storage capacity of the receiver. The content is the information stored. Thus, e.g., the context in this sense could be a set of discourse referents or files. The content would then be some set of assignments or, perhaps, world/assignment pairs on these referents.
Context plays a role in two distinct oppositions. The first opposition is the duality between context and that which modifies the context. Here the context is the information state, or, say, a suitable abstraction from the information state (compare the entry on semantic conceptions of information). The context modifier is the information received. The information cannot be received without the correct kind of presupposed information state. The proper analogues in predicate logic (compare the entries on classical logic and first-order model theory) are as follows. The information state is an assignment (environment) or a set of assignments. The information received is a set of assignments. The second opposition is the duality of context and content. Here the context is something like the storage capacity of the receiver. The content is the information stored. Thus, e.g., the context in this sense could be a set of discourse referents or files. The content would then be some set of assignments or, perhaps, world/assignment pairs on these referents.
3. Interpretation as a Process
Interpretation of declarative sentences can be viewed as a product or as a process. In the product perspective, one focusses on the notion of truth in a given situation. In the process perspective, interpretation of a proposition is viewed as an information updating step that allows us to replace a given state of knowledge by a new, more accurate knowledge state. Dynamic semantics focuses on interpretation as a process.
[Extracted from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dynamic-semantics/]Baudrillard arrives in NYC, declares heir to Hellenism
"You discover a feeling of glory in New York, in the sense that you feel wreathed in the general energy of the place - what you are part of here is not the lugubrious spectacle of change, as you find it in Europe, but the aesthetic form of a mutation".mutatis mutandis
(J. Baudrillard [trans. C. Turner], 2000, America. Verso ltd.)
1498, "with the necessary changes," from L., lit. "things being changed that have to be changed," from the abl. pl. respectively of the pp. and gerundive of mutare "to change" (see mutable).
Reminders to the initial and the final proposal attached to 'mutate'- need to re-member my enquiries into this mutation and these mutations.
Feeling that the mutuality of the PC being-as-it-is, must change.
The changes to be done, and being done, are necessary, have to be necessary though all the while, in their becoming necessary they will be changed. Rewrit as We see fit. Change, don't keep it.
Further research "from the aphorism to the soundbite- via the throw away comment; an anti-history of saying what you want to say in as few words as possible, in succint, but often opaque manner."
About time I moved my research and reading into the contextual specific work of America, further biting for the chew into the text of Monsieur Baudrillard. Should further compare and cross-reference bis texts and lexical flagposts e.g. horison, end, hyperreality across his works.
Again, how 'new' is postmodernism? If the cultural and contextual melting pot has been cooking since before that great landmark/flagstone of Our Lord, why such arousal in the critics of postmodernism?
The period of Hellenism as is known now emerged out of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the world's first great colonialist, it has been argued. However, for my research purposes, it is this cultural, increasingly urban 'side-effect'/consequences of his colonialism that interest me most with regards to my contextual enquiries into mutliculturalism, neo/new cultures, languages, 'ways':
What is also comparatively of interest to me along the threads of English becoming a Global Language (but in tern, being changes, adapted, assimilated and mutated by the other language communities that it attempts to impose itself upon; the premises I believe in), so Alexander's attempt to spread the
And now to weave D&G., left impatient at the back of the line awaiting their arrival, back into the 'line' of enquiry- above you read further theoretical~critical evidence of how NYC is a 'city without a language', without a culture, under its own self-imposed inquisition of unweaving all its citizens contextual backgrounds , but rather than replace them with the factitious seals of American approval, the city mixes/mezclaytes its citizens 'anew' from their constant attempt to understand each other and their selves being sew into the selvages of an urban past being perpetuated in an endless present...
Reminders to the initial and the final proposal attached to 'mutate'- need to re-member my enquiries into this mutation and these mutations.
Feeling that the mutuality of the PC being-as-it-is, must change.
The changes to be done, and being done, are necessary, have to be necessary though all the while, in their becoming necessary they will be changed. Rewrit as We see fit. Change, don't keep it.
Further research "from the aphorism to the soundbite- via the throw away comment; an anti-history of saying what you want to say in as few words as possible, in succint, but often opaque manner."
About time I moved my research and reading into the contextual specific work of America, further biting for the chew into the text of Monsieur Baudrillard. Should further compare and cross-reference bis texts and lexical flagposts e.g. horison, end, hyperreality across his works.
"...tomorrow I shall be carried directly by plane... -to the city that is heir to all cities at once. Heir to Athen, Alexandria, Persepolis; New York."Baudrillard arrives and leaves us with the comparative urban contexts of the ancients with the present. Athens, Alexandria and Persepolis in recent historical retrospect are now thought to be the first 'cosmopolitan' cities: "The word ‘cosmopolitan’, which derives from the Greek word kosmopolitês (‘citizen of the world’), has been used to describe a wide variety of important views in moral and socio-political philosophy."
(ibid.)
Again, how 'new' is postmodernism? If the cultural and contextual melting pot has been cooking since before that great landmark/flagstone of Our Lord, why such arousal in the critics of postmodernism?
The period of Hellenism as is known now emerged out of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the world's first great colonialist, it has been argued. However, for my research purposes, it is this cultural, increasingly urban 'side-effect'/consequences of his colonialism that interest me most with regards to my contextual enquiries into mutliculturalism, neo/new cultures, languages, 'ways':
"Alexander the Great's conquests and the subsequent division of his empire into successor kingdoms sapped local cities of much of their traditional authority and fostered increased contacts between cities, and later, the rise of the Roman Empire united the whole of the Mediterranean under one political power. But it is wrong to say what has frequently been said, that cosmopolitanism arose as a response to the fall of the polis or to the rise of the Roman empire. First, the polis' fall has been greatly exaggerated. Under the successor kingdoms and even — though to a lesser degree — under Rome, there remained substantial room for important political engagement locally. Second, and more decisively, the cosmopolitanism that was so persuasive during the so-called Hellenistic Age and under the Roman Empire was in fact rooted in intellectual developments that predate Alexander's conquests."
(extracted from Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/)
"Greek dedications, statues, architecture and inscriptions have all been found. However, local cultures were not replaced, and often mixed to create a new culture." (Wikpedia, Hellenistic Civilization).It was from this pan-european&asian colonisation that the mutation of languages began, according to historical linguists. [more research to prove requiered]
What is also comparatively of interest to me along the threads of English becoming a Global Language (but in tern, being changes, adapted, assimilated and mutated by the other language communities that it attempts to impose itself upon; the premises I believe in), so Alexander's attempt to spread the
Note also that de Gruyter discusses further this koiné "a de Atticized Attic : It was based on the dialect of Athens, a city which had become one of the most important state in Greece ..." and beyond, undoubtedly. See how a dialect nurtured and raised in an urban context soon became an ancient global language?
"... Hellenistic Koiné (writ large), the koine glóssa 'common language' of the Greece of Alexander the Great and subsequent times. This language transcended the local languages (or rather, dialects) of the various Greek city states and confederations of such states, with their previously jealously guarded separate political, cultural and linguistic identities..."
(Walter de Gruyter, 1991, Principles of Historical Linguistics, published first in Issue 34 of Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs)
And now to weave D&G., left impatient at the back of the line awaiting their arrival, back into the 'line' of enquiry- above you read further theoretical~critical evidence of how NYC is a 'city without a language', without a culture, under its own self-imposed inquisition of unweaving all its citizens contextual backgrounds , but rather than replace them with the factitious seals of American approval, the city mixes/mezclaytes its citizens 'anew' from their constant attempt to understand each other and their selves being sew into the selvages of an urban past being perpetuated in an endless present...
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Fire Escape Prfmnc Rsrch UPDATE
Spent a few hours being 'in-the-space', or the site rather, experimenting with the few wool/thread/string materials I have/had brought with me to NYC on the CEP.
Began writing material shopping lists, some other snippets, bare threads of text for the performance, scheduled for mid-November.
The texts will be and are being written on Duplicate Sales Receipts- thereby continuing my usage and reserach into Derrida and the Mystic Writing Pad, postmodern notions of the 'origin' and the 'copy'.
This time, borne out of my mistake to use a soft ball pen insteda of a pencil, when first writing on the duplicate receipts, that the audience should re-write over the text I write, thereby placing both my handwritten text 'under erasure' but also allowing for their text to be impressed firmer onto the duplicates beneath. A double gesture still nacent but could prove fruitful as a means of re-defining the notion of 're-writing'- not as a deliberate, readable change to the a work from the text [remember Barthes] but rather how repetition can be deconstructive and subervsive to its apparent, illusiory intentionality through erasure...
My biggest convern so far is the 'clothes-shelter' I envisage constructing. Need to figure out exactly how it will be supported about how much 'washing line' I will need.
The texts will be and are being written on Duplicate Sales Receipts- thereby continuing my usage and reserach into Derrida and the Mystic Writing Pad, postmodern notions of the 'origin' and the 'copy'.
This time, borne out of my mistake to use a soft ball pen insteda of a pencil, when first writing on the duplicate receipts, that the audience should re-write over the text I write, thereby placing both my handwritten text 'under erasure' but also allowing for their text to be impressed firmer onto the duplicates beneath. A double gesture still nacent but could prove fruitful as a means of re-defining the notion of 're-writing'- not as a deliberate, readable change to the a work from the text [remember Barthes] but rather how repetition can be deconstructive and subervsive to its apparent, illusiory intentionality through erasure...
My biggest convern so far is the 'clothes-shelter' I envisage constructing. Need to figure out exactly how it will be supported about how much 'washing line' I will need.
Tuesday 26 October 2010
WNYC: "Global English"
Been listening fastidiously to last week's The Brian Lehrer Show
On WNYC, the Radio 4 of the east coast by comparison, and his show "Global English"
Leslie Dunton-Downer, author of The English is Coming!: How One Language is Sweeping the World, explores some of the words and phrases from other languages picked up by the world's current lingua franca.
Discussed in the first episode is the word 'hellow', which I thought was a primarily English world, dtaing back to before the Victorian times- however, it appears, it has 'roots' in the American mishearing and mutation. And not just that, but also via the medium or remidiation of technology- as a result of technological progress and invention. Language being invented as a consequence of othe rinvention.
hello
Much of all this research befits my current theories and thesis into the parallels and comparisonsof the Twin Towers and NYC as the new city and tower of Babel- and the resulting consequence of 9/11 mirroring that of the fall of Babel and the division of tongues and the beginning fo new languages. However, in the late 20th Century this division was subject to a remediation and mutation through the use of telephone communication via the production and widespread use of mobile phones for both those in the towers, in the planes and on the ground to communicate through. The problem was not one of evberyone spekaing a new language or a different tongue, but rather that the single medium of communication at the time, the mobile one, crashed collapsed and became overload as soon as everyone attempted to use it at the same time to speak all their varfious languages. New York City is a city built post-Babel, where the myriad of languages prevail influencing the mutation tranformation and translation of English into it's eventual Otherness, it's future 'new' existence.
How apt it is then that the very beginning of a conversation, a word shared by millions aroudn the world helping to spread the rise of this so-called 'One World Language' as a globalized totalitarian language, was the byproduct almost, of a mishearing through the technology that also seeks to dominate, mobile telecommunication.
On WNYC, the Radio 4 of the east coast by comparison, and his show "Global English"
Leslie Dunton-Downer, author of The English is Coming!: How One Language is Sweeping the World, explores some of the words and phrases from other languages picked up by the world's current lingua franca.
Discussed in the first episode is the word 'hellow', which I thought was a primarily English world, dtaing back to before the Victorian times- however, it appears, it has 'roots' in the American mishearing and mutation. And not just that, but also via the medium or remidiation of technology- as a result of technological progress and invention. Language being invented as a consequence of othe rinvention.
Word Origin & History
hello
1883, alt. of hallo (1840), itself an alt. of holla, hollo, a shout to attract attention, first recorded 1588. Perhaps from holla! "stop, cease." Popularity as a greeting coincides with use of the telephone, where it won out over Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion, ahoy. Central telephone exchange operators were known as hello-girls (1889).
"Hello, formerly an Americanism, is now nearly as common as hullo in Britain (Say who you are; do not just say 'hello' is the warning given in our telephone directories) and the Englishman cannot be expected to give up the right to say hello if he likes it better than his native hullo. [H.W. Fowler, "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage," 1926]
{...}the National Convention of Telephone Companies. The first one was held at Niagara Falls, NY, from Sept. 7 - 10, 1880. And there, nearly at the very beginning, the newly elected president, George L. Phillips of Dayton, Ohio, spoke (somewhat awkwardly) to the delegates: "I haven't any speech to make to you. We are all in the telephone business. I can make a short speech to you which would express a great deal. The shortest speech that I could make to you and that would express a great deal to you, probably would be the one that is on all of your badges - 'Hello!' [Applause] ... We ... will present statistics showing the use the telephone is put to; showing how it has entered into the life of the public in such a way that if we are wise in the management of our exchanges nothing can drive it out."
Edison had written a short note on August 15, 1877 to T.B.A. David, president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburg, Pa., who was preparing to introduce the telephone into that city shortly after Edison had invented the carbon button transmitter. The brief - and now historic letter - which refers to a model Edison was making for him, reads as follows:
"Friend David, I do not think we shall need a call bell as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What you think? Edison - P.S. first cost of sender & receiver to manufacture is only $7.00."
Extracted from http://www.collectorcafe.com/article_archive.asp?article=800&id=1507
How apt it is then that the very beginning of a conversation, a word shared by millions aroudn the world helping to spread the rise of this so-called 'One World Language' as a globalized totalitarian language, was the byproduct almost, of a mishearing through the technology that also seeks to dominate, mobile telecommunication.
Towards A New Manifesto [part 1]
Extracted from a recent dialogue/discussion/arguements erupting over the
Xiipal Lapiix 26 October at 21:23
"[...] task (or one of them) must be to repurpose the building (and, indeed, UCF in general) in accordance with our own desires. To write over the rules that currently bind us from such simple acts as putting things on the walls or getting into the studios freely.Here is my responce, written over several days and reserach into the Separatist, Autonomous, National Liberation Movements, Non-Violent Revolution, The Singing Revolutions, Sovereignty, Reistsance Movements , Linguistic Right etc.
To this end, I want to produce some kind of text a bit like this from the Situationist/Lettrist bulletin Potlacht: http://www.notbored.org/improvements.html :But for the performance centre."
Xiipal Lapiix 26 October at 21:23
Apologies for the late reply to the continuing dialogue [flexes finger muscles]
We have stepped into the future. From living in the tight grip of the impossible, the unavoidable, the unchangable and the inevitable, we now have stepped through, are stepping through, into Our future of the open plains of possibility. Or so the thoughts are set to 'wishful' and 'idealistic' in my mind: and do not presume that we are not aware of the history, ethos and modes of production that UCF deploy. However, it appears you are still suggesting that we should accept defeat, surrender, 'give in'. sooner rather than later? And forsake such a deliciously affecting socio-political climes where change is a daily, hourly occurance?
No!
Yet I heed your signs of just how unsustainable the ravenous student satiation. I work through the medium of energy [hold it: no string-theory or quarks here, and no Totnesian earfulls either). The energy of the student corp.us at this very moment is still brimming with the vim and vitality drummed up from the Final Festival. How can we deny them their outlets of expression? Why should we suppress in our peer-less glances, their need to vent? I fear that any peer-enforced suppresion will only serve to cause a rising pressure in the youth of the Performance-Polis. The masses and the youth need such acts of spectacle and radical actions and statement in order to experience a catharsis of their own pent up energies. It is our duty and position to enact their repressed needs through controlled action. Their energy, like mine, needs to be channeled and diverted from the flow of an explosion towards constancy and progression- on Our and [future student] Theirs.
Surely The Old World taught us that though the World(s) continue to reign under the One True System of free trade, there are still and will continue to be, those whom seek to forge another path, a new way? [The Elmhursts, Karl Marx via Lenin, Rudolph Laban, Mahatma Gandhi, Commandante Marcos, Che Guevara, Superhero Vigilante Groups in the USA etc. and, last but not least, our great mother and father Leonard & Dorothy [and Tagore, yes let's not forget him just yet] who believed there was another way for society to function. Their success and failure is discussion whole a separate argument- but that is not the point I am raising- but rather that they TRIED. That they attempted what all others around them told them was a waste of time, impossible, it'll never take off etc.
Indeed, it should be Our concern and aimed target to find 'another way', other to, and perhaps steered from, the behemoth Capitalism- yet there is the taller giant upon which his side effects of alienation, disenchantment, exclusion et al crouch on- that of Order and its antithesis Disorder/Chaos. Granted, such dichotomies have little place now in our supposed 'fluid' state of post-modernity, thanks to the deconstruction of the forward slash, yet flash forward and the spectres of their once-dominance persist; bleed through the layered socio-philosophical wallpaper of whose presence we take for granted, without peeling back.
My continued research and practice into [reverse] Freemasonry and it's roots in the 'founding of America' have provoked the questions of the formation of the American psyche, the rise of Freemasonry in the US and its prevalent symbols in major advertising and global banks. The symbolic exertion of their power and influence is present everywhere (even on the god damn Oreo cookies I dunk in my tea). Their hierarchical systems of supreme patriarchy I also find present in the World of UCF and need to be addressed and realigned. We must hold Ourselves back from being subsumed and sublated into the 'progressive' dialectical march of Hegel's helmsmen in the upper echelons of the Tremough.
UCF aren't playing anyone's game but their own- Agreed, the European Regional Development Fund may have and still be pulling a string or two, but UCF are no passive puppets, no muppets- they are their own masters, directors, Jim Hensons- all major academic institutions become such behemoths of self-satisfied parochial autonomy- they become metropolis' of research and knowledge capable of wielding immense power in the community and are able to coerce every move of their context. How long will a suit-donning student agent survive in their systemic machinations?
However, the fortress walls of our particular UCF are crumbling, the very bricks are rearranging and the mortar is supple and prime for the reshaping of All Our Futures.
We should NOT lose ourselves in trifle squabbles when this precious time all around us is waving in front of our faces, beckoning progress and in its double gesture, smiling in signal of her desiring radical action AND responsible, rational interrelations.
And with this word, 'interrelations' I hereby make my sentiments, demands and battle lines clear; that DCA MUST retain its own sense of artistic, social and hermeneutic integrity- it must remain as a separate, autonomous entity, capable to making its own decisions and and choices as to its future. And with this line being draw, in the process of drawing itself but with Our hands, will We seek to engage with their World as a friend, ally and comrade, but never as higher authority whose claw controls Our World. This is what happened in the past, in the Old World. This was the cause- one of the many- of our downfall and flight from the paradise we once knew. Must this Future we find our selves in, repeat itself into dissolving Our Past, repeating a perpetual Present?
Forgive me for this ad hominem, all return gladly accepted with refund and refute, but are you suggesting that you would willingly, without grudge, start to fund your practice from the financial uptake of other commercial work?
@Harris~ You offer only the frame of the situation, which is known to all and understood as being the given- but you bring no directions, no supplications. no artillery of your own; what plans would you propose? How do we, as McDeath says, "work with the system, not within it"? You propose that we adopt the manners and customs of these 'natives' but at what price? At the sacrifice of artistic integrity; I hear a cry from the back there – a loss of historical links, attempting to plier-cut the chains of our now 'ancestral' heritage.
@Zoot~ Zoot- I'm am sure those cliff-hanging posing models we're chosen because they erected walls, but rather for the erection of other exclusive appendages...
We have stepped into the future. From living in the tight grip of the impossible, the unavoidable, the unchangable and the inevitable, we now have stepped through, are stepping through, into Our future of the open plains of possibility. Or so the thoughts are set to 'wishful' and 'idealistic' in my mind: and do not presume that we are not aware of the history, ethos and modes of production that UCF deploy. However, it appears you are still suggesting that we should accept defeat, surrender, 'give in'. sooner rather than later? And forsake such a deliciously affecting socio-political climes where change is a daily, hourly occurance?
No!
Yet I heed your signs of just how unsustainable the ravenous student satiation. I work through the medium of energy [hold it: no string-theory or quarks here, and no Totnesian earfulls either). The energy of the student corp.us at this very moment is still brimming with the vim and vitality drummed up from the Final Festival. How can we deny them their outlets of expression? Why should we suppress in our peer-less glances, their need to vent? I fear that any peer-enforced suppresion will only serve to cause a rising pressure in the youth of the Performance-Polis. The masses and the youth need such acts of spectacle and radical actions and statement in order to experience a catharsis of their own pent up energies. It is our duty and position to enact their repressed needs through controlled action. Their energy, like mine, needs to be channeled and diverted from the flow of an explosion towards constancy and progression- on Our and [future student] Theirs.
Surely The Old World taught us that though the World(s) continue to reign under the One True System of free trade, there are still and will continue to be, those whom seek to forge another path, a new way? [The Elmhursts, Karl Marx via Lenin, Rudolph Laban, Mahatma Gandhi, Commandante Marcos, Che Guevara, Superhero Vigilante Groups in the USA etc. and, last but not least, our great mother and father Leonard & Dorothy [and Tagore, yes let's not forget him just yet] who believed there was another way for society to function. Their success and failure is discussion whole a separate argument- but that is not the point I am raising- but rather that they TRIED. That they attempted what all others around them told them was a waste of time, impossible, it'll never take off etc.
Indeed, it should be Our concern and aimed target to find 'another way', other to, and perhaps steered from, the behemoth Capitalism- yet there is the taller giant upon which his side effects of alienation, disenchantment, exclusion et al crouch on- that of Order and its antithesis Disorder/Chaos. Granted, such dichotomies have little place now in our supposed 'fluid' state of post-modernity, thanks to the deconstruction of the forward slash, yet flash forward and the spectres of their once-dominance persist; bleed through the layered socio-philosophical wallpaper of whose presence we take for granted, without peeling back.
My continued research and practice into [reverse] Freemasonry and it's roots in the 'founding of America' have provoked the questions of the formation of the American psyche, the rise of Freemasonry in the US and its prevalent symbols in major advertising and global banks. The symbolic exertion of their power and influence is present everywhere (even on the god damn Oreo cookies I dunk in my tea). Their hierarchical systems of supreme patriarchy I also find present in the World of UCF and need to be addressed and realigned. We must hold Ourselves back from being subsumed and sublated into the 'progressive' dialectical march of Hegel's helmsmen in the upper echelons of the Tremough.
UCF aren't playing anyone's game but their own- Agreed, the European Regional Development Fund may have and still be pulling a string or two, but UCF are no passive puppets, no muppets- they are their own masters, directors, Jim Hensons- all major academic institutions become such behemoths of self-satisfied parochial autonomy- they become metropolis' of research and knowledge capable of wielding immense power in the community and are able to coerce every move of their context. How long will a suit-donning student agent survive in their systemic machinations?
However, the fortress walls of our particular UCF are crumbling, the very bricks are rearranging and the mortar is supple and prime for the reshaping of All Our Futures.
We should NOT lose ourselves in trifle squabbles when this precious time all around us is waving in front of our faces, beckoning progress and in its double gesture, smiling in signal of her desiring radical action AND responsible, rational interrelations.
And with this word, 'interrelations' I hereby make my sentiments, demands and battle lines clear; that DCA MUST retain its own sense of artistic, social and hermeneutic integrity- it must remain as a separate, autonomous entity, capable to making its own decisions and and choices as to its future. And with this line being draw, in the process of drawing itself but with Our hands, will We seek to engage with their World as a friend, ally and comrade, but never as higher authority whose claw controls Our World. This is what happened in the past, in the Old World. This was the cause- one of the many- of our downfall and flight from the paradise we once knew. Must this Future we find our selves in, repeat itself into dissolving Our Past, repeating a perpetual Present?
Forgive me for this ad hominem, all return gladly accepted with refund and refute, but are you suggesting that you would willingly, without grudge, start to fund your practice from the financial uptake of other commercial work?
@Harris~ You offer only the frame of the situation, which is known to all and understood as being the given- but you bring no directions, no supplications. no artillery of your own; what plans would you propose? How do we, as McDeath says, "work with the system, not within it"? You propose that we adopt the manners and customs of these 'natives' but at what price? At the sacrifice of artistic integrity; I hear a cry from the back there – a loss of historical links, attempting to plier-cut the chains of our now 'ancestral' heritage.
@Zoot~ Zoot- I'm am sure those cliff-hanging posing models we're chosen because they erected walls, but rather for the erection of other exclusive appendages...
Monday 25 October 2010
Sunday 24 October 2010
Performance Art Saloon #1 Barcelona<->NewWest
HEY UN FESTIVAL DE PERFORMANCE!!!
On the 24th of October, Octopus Inc. is gonna have a wonderful night called the PERFORMANCE ART SALON #1.
We are seven young and very contemporary emerging, alternative, and fresh artists from ALL OVER THE WORLD!!
You are gonna be our favorite guests and we will have plenty of surprises for you- including delicious drinks that will make you feel SO HAPPY to be with us!
Also, don’t forget that in every salon there’s always free stuff that you can get and bring back home! Maybe its not that useful... but it will make you happy (and that's what its about, no?!)
This is gonna be a RIVETING ART EXPERIENCE that will shake all your senses. You will never forget the PERFORMANCE ART SALON #1.
ARTISTS:
- Anne Lise Le Gac (FR)
- Christina Schelhas (GER)
- Adina Bier (USA)
- Alex Goodman (UK)
- Scarlett Lassof (UK)
- Sebastian Hau-Walker (NW)
- Ariadna Rodriguez Cima (SP)
So don’t be lazy : JUST COME !
There will be more information on the spanish Newspaper "El Periodico" tomorrow Sunday (the day of the performance). You can write to ariadnaunderwater@gmail.com if you want to confirm you are coming or have questions. WHAT: PERFORMANCE ART SALON #1. WHEN: Sunday October 24th. 8pm to 11pm WHERE: La Fundicio. Carrer Pallars 178, Barcelona. metro Llacuna. HOW MUCH: Free entrance! If you are in Barcelona, we hope to see you there.
[email from Adina Bier, sent to my UCF mail box]
We even managed to get into the National Newspaper, El Periódico!
http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/agenda/20101024/una-performance-obra-arte-espacio-tiempo-real/553903.shtml
Well, unfortunately my CEP budget doesn't cover the expenses of flying over to Barcelona and performing there, so I in order to perform 'live' I had to use the up-coming medium of Skype [webcam]. This way I was able to beam myself up into the space. However, I decided to give the whole webcam medium a taste of its own face-toface medicine and project the
'other side' and 'other half' onto the back wall, thereby giving me the opportunity to use their live stream as a material backdrop from which I could approach and recoil from.
And now for some some photographic documentation of my side of the performance.
[email from Adina Bier, sent to my UCF mail box]
We even managed to get into the National Newspaper, El Periódico!
http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/agenda/20101024/una-performance-obra-arte-espacio-tiempo-real/553903.shtml
Well, unfortunately my CEP budget doesn't cover the expenses of flying over to Barcelona and performing there, so I in order to perform 'live' I had to use the up-coming medium of Skype [webcam]. This way I was able to beam myself up into the space. However, I decided to give the whole webcam medium a taste of its own face-toface medicine and project the
'other side' and 'other half' onto the back wall, thereby giving me the opportunity to use their live stream as a material backdrop from which I could approach and recoil from.
And now for some some photographic documentation of my side of the performance.
Saturday 23 October 2010
"my name is Legion, for We are many"
2When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil [Greek unclean; also in verses 8 and 13}] spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 4For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 7He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!" 8For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!"
9Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"
"My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." 10And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
11A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them." 13He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
14Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 15When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 16Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. 17Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
18As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 19Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." 20So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis[c]how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.
Extracted from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%205&version=NIV#fen-NIV-24364b
Compare the greek/latin/english translations of the Masonic fraternaties "patriotic" logo is the E Pluribus, Unum -- From Many, One?
See here for various translations of Mark 5:9 from various Bible editions and translations.
Research developed out of pre-research on Masons, The Lone Ranger & The Texas Ranger "ethics":
http://www.masonic.benemerito.net/msricf/papers/marples/marples-lone_ranger_freemasonry.pdf
[above: Texan Ranger 'policy' for Mexican Immigrants caught crossing the border[?]]
True, fellowship may not have been at the forefront when two rival Masonic orders struggled for control of Mexico in the 1820s and 1830s, till Santa Anna seized power as dictator -- by turning coat from the left-wing York Rite Masons ("los yorkinos") to the right-wing Scottish Rite Masons ("los escoceses"). York Rite Masons in Texas, who had been among the first Americans to settle in the territory, thereupon instigated the revolution to "liberate" Texas from the Mexican Master Mason. In 1837, following Santa Anna's defeat by General Sam Houston, the Texas Masonic lodges gathered in the new republic's Senate Chamber as newly elected President Sam Houston presided over the founding of the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas.
Brief Timeline of Mexican History:
| 1823 | General Santa Anna deposed Iturbide and declared a Republic. Bitter struggle began between centrists (conservatives) and federalists (liberals), continuing to 1860. |
| 1824-1834 | First federalist regime. Centrists allied with Scottish Rite Masons (Escoces) and federalists with York Rite Masons (Yorkinos). |
| 1834-1846 | Santa Anna turned his coat and led Centrists to power. |
| Mar 1, 1836 | Because of Santa Anna's centrization, Texas declared its independence and won it at the Battle of San Jacinto. |
| Dec 29, 1845 | The United States annexed the Republic of Texas. President James K. Polk sent John Slidell to Mexico to settle differences but war party in Mexico under Paredes won out. |
Thursday 21 October 2010
Mother Nature to 9-11 Mourners: Eat My Dust
The grid system is so pervasive and so engrained in the minds and habits of New Yorkers that it is rarely questioned, indeed, rarely even thought about. -- The New York Psychogeography Association, A New Garden of Eden.
For an entire year after it took place, the destruction of the World Trade Center was consistently symbolized by right angles and straight lines: by either two rectangular boxes stacked next to each other in mimicry of the Twin Towers or by the number "11" in the date September 11, 2001. These rigid, unyielding shapes fit in well with the tough, "we will not be intimidated" rhetoric of the "war on terrorism" and with New York City's architecture and gridded-street plan, in which (almost) everything is in the shape of a square or a rectangle. In Manhattan, there are no circles, no "soft" symbols of the cycle of life, the movement of the sun or the earth itself. Everything is flat and hard.
And yet, at the moment of truth -- during the emotionally charged "Ground Zero" ceremonies that commemorated the one-year anniversary of the attacks -- the shape in which the mourners assembled and expressed their grief wasn't a box or a rectangle, but a circle or, rather, two circles, arranged concentrically, one within the other. We couldn't help but be reminded of the design of the community garden called "The Garden of Eden," which we have proposed should be rebuilt in place of the World Trade Center. In any event, the concentric circles of wreaths and mourners looked smashing; pictures of them filled the local newspapers the next day.
Almost all of these pictures emphasized the good weather, the presence of moderate temperatures and bright sunlight, all of which seemed to suggest that the ceremony was received favorably or at least tolerated by "God," Mother Nature or what-have-you, despite the reprehensible conduct of the United States since the attacks. (Self-avowed President George W. Bush used the grim occasion to call for war against Saddam Hussein.) Only the photograph taken by James Estrin and published in The New York Times on 12 September 2002 tells the truth. On the afternoon of the 9-11 memorial, Mother Nature swept through New York City with winds that gusted as high as 60 miles per hour. Down in the pit of Ground Zero, the winds stirred up the dust, which rose up in clouds and flew into the faces of those in attendance. The dust bowl got so bad that the ceremony had to be halted and work crews had to be brought in to spray the ground with water. Estrin's photograph was taken when the dust was at its worst; some of the mourners are completely obscured by it. No, Mother Nature wasn't having it; she rejected those particular circles.
-- the New York Psychogeographical Association, 13 September 2002.
http://www.notbored.org/wtc2.html
Eastern Orthodox Cross vs. The Cross of Lorraine
So a while back I began my research into the symbolic and geometric qualities of the Cross of Lorraine, enquring into the Historic significance of its pre-post-modern 'taking' by the Free French Forces in WW2, and its more 'recent' ironic Freemasonic resignification [see previous blog posts],
I feel the cross must once more enter the realm of its symbol of the fight against authority.
TURNOVER THE SYMBOL -> OVERTURN AUTHORITY
Having already overturned the other insidious pyramid of the Snellen eye test, now the cross of Lorraine- a symbol I see everywhere puncture the blue azure of NYC sky; the symbol of the Eastern Orthodox Jewish Church, not to mention the cookie buscuit company Nabisco's symbol of choice.
Everytime I munch an oreo, it's another patriarchal symbol digested.
Here's what I posted to my komradz on FB:
I feel the cross must once more enter the realm of its symbol of the fight against authority.
TURNOVER THE SYMBOL -> OVERTURN AUTHORITY
Having already overturned the other insidious pyramid of the Snellen eye test, now the cross of Lorraine- a symbol I see everywhere puncture the blue azure of NYC sky; the symbol of the Eastern Orthodox Jewish Church, not to mention the cookie buscuit company Nabisco's symbol of choice.
Everytime I munch an oreo, it's another patriarchal symbol digested.
Here's what I posted to my komradz on FB:
Xiipal Lapiix 21 October at 22:56Hmm... this could be the perfect time for my first year visual text/john hall knock-off 'Danger of Death/Death of Danger 'poster to go up.. I'll find a copy somewhere and post it later... http://www.proshieldsafetysigns.co.uk/signs/4013_signs.jpg
Meanwhile, I want stickers of an inversed 'Cross of Lorraine' http://www.seiyaku.com/customs/crosses/lorraine.html
to infest the PC with the following re-rewritten Poncious Pilot quote; "Our Kingdom is not THIS World" [from "My Kingdom is not of this world"]
Too satanical? Biblical?
I feel we have a lot to admire the people of Alsace-Lorraine: "The French Resistance groups, and de Gaulle's was called the Forces Francaises Libres (Free French Forces). The cross then also became known as the Free French Cross, the de Gaulle Cross or the Gaullist Cross..."
Bed Bugs love NYC
A recent survey of pest control companies found bedbugs are now prominently invading commercial businesses -- such as offices, clothing stores and hotels -- rather than private residences.
PIX 11 News first reported in May that New York City was quickly climbing to the top of the list of having the biggest bed bug problem in the country.
Extracted from: http://www.wpix.com/news/local/wpix-bed-bugs-on-the-rise,0,2726280.story
Signs everywhere I walk claiming to be a 100% effective guratantee bug extermination. Whole blocks and high-risers fumigated over night.
Are these creatures the New, New York immigrants?
Compare the linguistic hostility toards them with those mexicans crossing the border every minute.
Mass migration = mass movement = mass infestation = No Control, No Order.
New Rule: Every item of clothing I buy- the minute I'm home, thrown in the washer then the dryer. Twice over. Taking no chances with these blood-thirsty critters.
And now they could be my next inspiration for a performative Halloween costume.
Some of you blogstalkers may recall my performative outfits to the Freshers Ball Alice-InWonderland theme - when I was the Knave of Tarts, with a box-heart which you could open for candy and sweet? And a plate to play Tart Roulette- which one's filled with salt? Or maybe you remember the Glitter Ball, when I came as a cough sweet? All wrapped up in bubble wrap and white iridescent glitter; pop a bubble and recieve a sweet?
These costumes harken back to my younger adolescence when I'd go to clubs with friends dressed up to the 9s, they too, and we'd end up meeting everyone in the club and have our picture taken. Oh the club kid lifestyle, how I miss sometimes.
I've even been to a Bjork concert in Wolverhampton dressed as a present you could open (back when purple and yellow was just coming back as a clash-fash.)
Having missed my opportunity to perform guerilla at the Columbus Day Parade, this is my next chance before thanksgiving. And, perhaps, once more commenting on the current domestic American border and immigration policy with México and Mexicanos, I'm considering going as a Quasi-Mexican Bed Bug (or at least, a mattress, complete with sheets, pillow and blanket... perhaps, and this is the next level, use an actual old mattress, most probably infested with our fateful neighborhood friends ... but maybe I'll just stick to cardboard replicas again...).
The performance out of the costume would be to give away useful and not so useful advise on the control and extermination of bedbugs, but also highlighting the parable of the 'unwelcomed foreign alien' in our spaces of familiarity and control.
As per usual, (bed) bug sweets will be thrown around and handed out to all and sundry as a way of enticing and making [temporary] friends for the evening.
What more can I do..?
Post your ideas to PO Box 722 SUCKY SUCKY
[OutOfContext] "Heat-Smoke 'em out"
"What we're about to show you is brand new... her up-scale Northen Kentucky apartment hasn't been taken over by aliens [note: possible E.T. cultural reference? or perhaps more general cinematic infiltration of the 'site' of new alien technology/futuristic/biohazard apparatus- once again, a rmeinder of the implicated point sof reference hyperreal Hollywood has had on the American journalistic writing and average American psyche).
...she's been invaded by something far worse."
"Hoping to catch them, before they caught her... so humiliating, you don't want to tell anybody...
...she's been invaded by something far worse."
"Hoping to catch them, before they caught her... so humiliating, you don't want to tell anybody...
With the video above, note not only the moment when he announces that he and his family managed to get rid of the bed bugs, right before scratching his arm, hear that nice rasp, but that it appears that advertising companies now are giving some nice fat wads to customers willing to promote their products online via the 'home-baked' and 'neighbourly' medium of the self-uploaded Youtube video. Clever, very clever. McLuhan was right all along- only now the Corporations have cottoned on.
Is it me, or is there a fine line in the irony of the very heat they thrive to, is the very heat that kills them?
Is it me, or is there a fine line in the irony of the very heat they thrive to, is the very heat that kills them?
Wednesday 20 October 2010
Isaac Singer and the Sewing Machine
Developments from the rather uncatchingly titles, at present, 'Fire Escape Performance Research' has taken forth on a bold path, steering a course towards the old 'new' worlds of the immigrant needlework and tailoring history and lineage [see Comments to Fire Escape post]
Whilst researching the prime mechanical focus of the needlework and tailoring trade of NYC during the 20s and 30s lead to the discovery that Isaac Singer- the man who invented and patented the Singer sewing machine we all use today, was in fact a New York immigrant himself- or rather his father was, thereby making him of immigrant descent.
His father arrived 'off the boat' as they say (and still say in the USA) in 1769 from Germany at the young age of 16. His father's arrival into New York predates that of the 'Great Wave' of immigrants in the 20th Century, however, this is an arguement for a separate post, perhaps even essay. Nonetheless, both his father and his son hel the status of immigrants.
The website where this infomation is being gleaned from makes the comment that although his father came to America in search of the mythical 'Dream', it was his son, it was the second generation that managed to achieve it.
[sudden flashbacks to Derrida in Dissemination prompt me to googlebook search and rediscover~remind the following:
This bridge, this hyphen, this link, this connection, this thread from unravelling intellectual spools wrapped round my little finger, could provide an interesting parallel or historic allegory between Father/Son~Speech/Writing~Father Singer/Son Singer~First/Second Generation~Following the Dream/Living the Dream~ Dreamer/Earner etc.
I wonder how Son Singer- Isaac- felt about his immigrant past? Did his father want him to achieve great things? Pushed to be an inventor? To what extent, extentuation of my flights of yarn in contextual weaving, are able to 'tie-up' and 'tie-down' these ideas? To what extent did Isaac's father influence his decisions? To what extent did Isaac live out his father's "failure"? To what extent do all immigrant generations reflect themselves and long and strive to break through the mirrors of the past, strapped haphazardly to their backs?]
What is even more remarkable and extrordinary is that the Statue of Liberty herself is actually modeled on one of Isaac's wives: supposedly one of the most beautiful women in the world of the 19th Century, Isaac's half-French actress Isobel although most accounts will say that it's based on Batholdi/The Architect's mother...
Be that as it may, what is also of note about Isaac, was his [in]ability to read and write:
Singer had recieved a poor education, which was mainly in the winter at a local school. The writing above shows how much trouble he had later on in his life attempting to write even simple sentences .
However, here at NewWorld PerformanceWriting, this is exactly what we question, examine and offer interpretive answers to, to open and unpack the text from the work, from the man himself and back again.
Having bought a 'manuscript book' [see Supplies post] with specially lined pages for school children to learn cursive handwritting , instantly sends me back to an old time which was then the most new time, which was learning to write in English for the first time. Having already learned to speak at a high level of fluency and pronunciation, I was astounded at how difficult it was for me to write in this secondary, imposed language so similar and yet so different to Spanish. This 'problems' persisted well into my adolescent education, often with family and teachers pointing out the 'hispanic traces' within my writing; the extrenuous 'c' [something I still do often writing 'scentence' or 'reccomendation', 'acction']
Again, Derrida's cold hand rises from his deconstructed grave to point me back to his work in order to go forwards - maybe. Whilst the ability to write was secondary to me, it would seem those in second place always work harder to rise to the top most podium. Within a few weeks of constant daily cursive excercise at home at school at the dinner table in my bedroom on the bathroom floor, the ability to manipulate my handwriting to the conformity of the lines was mastered. Oh the irony now, that, though my ability to remember and re-write in American English (for several reasons, most notably for 'ease of understanding'- something to be discussed at a later date) that now I have trouble losing (at times, and at different levels of inebriation, not to mention the company being kept) my 'Anglo-phonetic-traces'!
Is it always easier to 'disguise' your ethnic and national identity in the written form than the spoken? Or is it all merely a matter of 'practice makes you look and sound perfect'
So returning to the subject of the performance- one needs to borrow a sewing machine and practice practice practice in 'becoming' this immigrant tailor (woman? Butler's been making me practice being feminine again).
Concept- simple: I wash and mend the audiences clothes. However, given the nature of my own lax ability at the Sewing Machine (I took my test a few years back, in a world I hope never to return to) and the amount of clothes and state of repair, will produce experimental stitches of every kind... from the clothes and the rails and the washing lines, a vast immersive, clostraphobic nest will be built from the various fabrics which I will hang all around me and my low-lit work- burning the midnight oil, she used to say and of which I am doing now as I type. Albeit the oil is now constant electric dreams of bulbs lasting forever until the bulb company withdrew the secret...
Whilst researching the prime mechanical focus of the needlework and tailoring trade of NYC during the 20s and 30s lead to the discovery that Isaac Singer- the man who invented and patented the Singer sewing machine we all use today, was in fact a New York immigrant himself- or rather his father was, thereby making him of immigrant descent.
His father arrived 'off the boat' as they say (and still say in the USA) in 1769 from Germany at the young age of 16. His father's arrival into New York predates that of the 'Great Wave' of immigrants in the 20th Century, however, this is an arguement for a separate post, perhaps even essay. Nonetheless, both his father and his son hel the status of immigrants.
The website where this infomation is being gleaned from makes the comment that although his father came to America in search of the mythical 'Dream', it was his son, it was the second generation that managed to achieve it.
[sudden flashbacks to Derrida in Dissemination prompt me to googlebook search and rediscover~remind the following:
"But what is a father?[...]One would understand or imagine a standpoint of a domain foreign to it, the transmission of life of the generative relation. But the father is not the generator or procreator in any "real" sense prior to or outside all relation to language."(J. Derrida, 2004, Contiuum Press, trans. Barbara Johnson.)
This bridge, this hyphen, this link, this connection, this thread from unravelling intellectual spools wrapped round my little finger, could provide an interesting parallel or historic allegory between Father/Son~Speech/Writing~Father Singer/Son Singer~First/Second Generation~Following the Dream/Living the Dream~ Dreamer/Earner etc.
I wonder how Son Singer- Isaac- felt about his immigrant past? Did his father want him to achieve great things? Pushed to be an inventor? To what extent, extentuation of my flights of yarn in contextual weaving, are able to 'tie-up' and 'tie-down' these ideas? To what extent did Isaac's father influence his decisions? To what extent did Isaac live out his father's "failure"? To what extent do all immigrant generations reflect themselves and long and strive to break through the mirrors of the past, strapped haphazardly to their backs?]
What is even more remarkable and extrordinary is that the Statue of Liberty herself is actually modeled on one of Isaac's wives: supposedly one of the most beautiful women in the world of the 19th Century, Isaac's half-French actress Isobel although most accounts will say that it's based on Batholdi/The Architect's mother...
Be that as it may, what is also of note about Isaac, was his [in]ability to read and write:
Singer had recieved a poor education, which was mainly in the winter at a local school. The writing above shows how much trouble he had later on in his life attempting to write even simple sentences .
However, here at NewWorld PerformanceWriting, this is exactly what we question, examine and offer interpretive answers to, to open and unpack the text from the work, from the man himself and back again.
Having bought a 'manuscript book' [see Supplies post] with specially lined pages for school children to learn cursive handwritting , instantly sends me back to an old time which was then the most new time, which was learning to write in English for the first time. Having already learned to speak at a high level of fluency and pronunciation, I was astounded at how difficult it was for me to write in this secondary, imposed language so similar and yet so different to Spanish. This 'problems' persisted well into my adolescent education, often with family and teachers pointing out the 'hispanic traces' within my writing; the extrenuous 'c' [something I still do often writing 'scentence' or 'reccomendation', 'acction']
Again, Derrida's cold hand rises from his deconstructed grave to point me back to his work in order to go forwards - maybe. Whilst the ability to write was secondary to me, it would seem those in second place always work harder to rise to the top most podium. Within a few weeks of constant daily cursive excercise at home at school at the dinner table in my bedroom on the bathroom floor, the ability to manipulate my handwriting to the conformity of the lines was mastered. Oh the irony now, that, though my ability to remember and re-write in American English (for several reasons, most notably for 'ease of understanding'- something to be discussed at a later date) that now I have trouble losing (at times, and at different levels of inebriation, not to mention the company being kept) my 'Anglo-phonetic-traces'!
Is it always easier to 'disguise' your ethnic and national identity in the written form than the spoken? Or is it all merely a matter of 'practice makes you look and sound perfect'
So returning to the subject of the performance- one needs to borrow a sewing machine and practice practice practice in 'becoming' this immigrant tailor (woman? Butler's been making me practice being feminine again).
Concept- simple: I wash and mend the audiences clothes. However, given the nature of my own lax ability at the Sewing Machine (I took my test a few years back, in a world I hope never to return to) and the amount of clothes and state of repair, will produce experimental stitches of every kind... from the clothes and the rails and the washing lines, a vast immersive, clostraphobic nest will be built from the various fabrics which I will hang all around me and my low-lit work- burning the midnight oil, she used to say and of which I am doing now as I type. Albeit the oil is now constant electric dreams of bulbs lasting forever until the bulb company withdrew the secret...
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