“do stuff. be clenched, curious. not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. pay attention. it’s all about paying attention. attention is vitality. it connects you with others. it makes you eager. stay eager.”
~ s u s a n s o n t a g
outside there are lights moving, and bodies moving, but my own body is still a formless craving, gasping at the beauty of those fluctuation, enabling others
where you going to get that fire?
and I ask them to sit some, my eye gasp, body heavy, body; mind sharp.
“darling, we are going to have to break some shit, to give each other what we want….. I only hope that you are up for it. “
What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both your fingers, until your fingers are broken?
TH I am still working in Aubervilliers, where my studio is located. Paris is not Paris without its suburbs. Aubervilliers is a part of Paris. What I need, as an artist, is to live in a space of truth, and this space of truth exists in Paris. As in almost every large city, the space of truth is its suburbs, their so-called banlieues. In Aubervilliers, as in other Parisian suburbs, one can touch the truth and be in contact with it. It’s in the suburbs that there is vitality, deception, depression, energy, utopia, autonomy, craziness, creativity, destruction, ideas, young people, hope, fights to be fought, audaciousness, disagreements, problems, and dreams. It’s in the suburbs that today’s big issues are written on the building facades. It’s in the suburbs that today’s reality can be grasped, and it’s in the suburbs that the pulse of vitality hurts. It’s in the suburbs that there is necessity and urgency. It’s the suburbs that will save the city center from a most certain death! This incredible energy has to be directed somewhere and be fruitful somehow, find a destiny and a response. This is the problem of “small” Paris. The “small” Paris turns its back to all this energy coming from the suburbs. That’s why I am for “Le Grand Paris.”
“Anybody can do as I do — work just as slowly as I, and better. All you have to do is rid yourself of certain tastes, and sacrifice a few pleasures.
I am not at all virtuous, but I am consistent.
And though I have great needs (which I never mention), I would rather be a wretched monitor in a school than write four lines for money.
I could have been rich; I said fuck all that, and I continue to live like a Bedouin, in my desert and my pride.
Shit, shit, shit: Such is my motto.
And I embrace you tenderly.”
while we search for the antidote, or medicine to cure us, the NEW, that which can only be found in th eunknown, we must continue to turn to sex, books, travel, even knowing that they will lead us into th eabyss, which is as it happens, the only place where we can find the cure
Henry Miller’s Commandments, from Henry Miller on Writing:
1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it–but go back to it the next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.
WE WANT
We are searching
changing
demanding a space to develop a discoursean investigation of multiple modalities of discourse; discourse is not only words, but action, behavior, exploration
a platform which gives us space to explore
a stronghold, access to space, collaboration, in order to progress/engage
(exploration of) (indication toward) new economic and social modalities, which are sustainable and invigorating
to ( re ) establish the necessity or art and artistic engagement
SIDELINE
PASSION ENGAGEMENT DRIVE
I move around this world, speaking to people, the man at the Bodega, with his 16 hour days, the meat workers whose wage fell to the minimum wage within the past years, kitchen workers 6 day a week 12 hour shifts; popping heart meds/5 hour energy/ scraps of bacon when no one is looking.
They are speaking, we are speaking.
(felt this thing shaking inside of me, as I spoke with the Mexicans, mucho trabajo, no me gusta, we go on to speak of dancing, when will they dance again)capitalism is trying to hold itself up on shaky legs us, we, all knowing that there are other ways of being in relation to each other and to the world.
The passion that we share for engaging, exploring, developing, is a place of enormous power It is time right now!
If there is a solid frame, a solid structure, the a space for engagement and discourse is open.
ETC.
to inspire, uphold, uplight each other (and the world)
that “life” is a complex and multifaceted thing, something connected to
this is going to be a powerful platform for engagement and exploration
a place for passion so it does not collapse in
exhaustion. in between heavy fences. we forgot how to speak to each other.
and the streets. are not opening. very tired.
bring it back in somehow.
that is what your passion is for.
The transformative energy of long-durational work is immense, for the
performer doing it and the public watching it. Durational art can change
your patterns of thinking and bring you more into the here and now.
TESS TENNESSEE MILLER 