the text and images below are posted from beijing, berlin, buenos aires, hong kong, los angeles, new york, sado island, shanghai, tokyo and zürich. there are a few of us, and this is the space in between.
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all that glitters

allthatglitters(for 邓利、杨鸽、陈延娜 and 陈芳，on participation and parting)

In an exergue to the collection of poems she entitled Requiem, Anna Akhmatova recounts how her poems were born. It was in the 1930s, and for months and months she joined the line outside the prison of Leningrad, trying to hear news of her son, who had been arrested on political grounds. There were dozens of other women in line with her. One day, one of these women recognized her and, turning to her, addressed her with the following simple question: “Can you speak of this?” Akhmatova was silent for a moment and then, without knowing how or why, found an answer to the question: “Yes,” she said, “I can.”

As Agamben notes, “I can” here does not mean a conviction of the possession of certain capacities that guarantee success in ‘describing’ the indescribable, but a radical acceptance of “the hardest and bitterest experience possible: the experience of potentiality.”

What is set upon the stage for potentiality, where “speech”, but also a refusal to speak can take place? Where do our bodies take us that our words do not? What transitory epics are written in the face, the things that tell you to wait, to feel, to know that this mess we’ve created is greater than ourselves?

things will change soon. i know it. to say, “i wish i could describe it to you better” is to turn around the thing, over and over and over again. like words, nearer and nearing to meaning, wavering infinitely close, proximitous without sameness. Can we speak of these unnameable spaces in between the named? Can you describe them, will you ever know that silence with me here, a glittering in darkness, a deafening roaring?

(partial text and thoughts from Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities, and Where Everything is Yet to Happen; photo from OVERSEAS, close by)

Posted by 丫 | reply »


to find and not find the centre of things, all things aside

working_nightshift

nightshiftabove: putting up the exhibition (photo by 高灵 Gao Ling); below: walking back after finishing the installation ｜ 上海 shanghai，2009年9月

i am sorry. time is everything.

cannot go there, too much or too little, traveling, hanging there, a collection, hanging on. i seem to have an affinity for stories of people getting lost, perhaps a bit too direct a reference yet were i to introduce myself to you as that one who liked to find this little thing in the street it perhaps would remain too ridiculously nebulous.

direct.

direction.

we would have been looking in the wrong direction to go astray, to find the beside. aside, as in put in reserve, for future use, the collection of objects for which we may find value or function at another time. we never know what will become useful in the end, or the lessons come too late, i feel the top of her head and wonder what positions i layed in as a child, what positions i moved in sleep, next to you or dreaming without you. we cannot always think so functionally, in love and in war. i don’t strategize very well. but we may very well have a hunch.

a hunch is an open space of time, a forethought without expectation, like a collection of random things for which we may find use later. i suppose it could be important to figure out how to make use of them, but perhaps their being together could be enough. find meaning beyond use value, a cabinet of curiousities, our collection of oddities.

that’s the thing i’ve been missing lately. to take time for my collection of oddities, to try to go back to a certain kind of objectivity without expecting too much. i have a hunch. perhaps i was looking in the wrong direction and now find myself lost, a story that i liked to hear, her voice in two languages on loop. it’s my own aside that is now addressed to you, without letting the other characters hear, a story shared without knowing if anyone is listening. you, dear audience member or director, the lights are shining so bright…i cannot see if you are out there.

Posted by 丫 | reply »


for a minute

castle

The most difficult part of living in that castle was utilizing all the space.  I was alone at the time and passing through those immense empty rooms just shed light on how solitary this life could be if I allowed it.  Not to mention my phobia of immense empty spaces.  So of course I invited all my friends to live with me.  That still left a few rooms empty.  So each empty room was designated as studios, mapping rooms, a greenhouse, a giant laser building workshop, etc.

The location was great as well.  We had a great view looking west over the East River, an empty lot to the south and a junk yard to the north.  The east side of the building faced the street where we could easily load and unload from the building.  I wasn’t about to call it a utopia but it seemed like a nice little niche that we had carved out.

I thought that the “trick door” on the south side of the building would be great to keep just in case I decided to turn evil.  It would be something that would really get me going by telling someone that the next room over was absolutely amazing . . . go ahead, just walk through that door.  In the end, I knew it would only be used to take in the views of the south.

The castle was in a bit of disrepair but I’d figure that we could start on that the next day as it was getting dark and we had no food inside.  This meant I would have to leave the grounds and venture back into town . . .

Posted by joe | reply »


in passing, black-capped chickadee

Michael writes to H.F:  “We enjoy the space between being ‘in the know’ and simply being attentive to one’s social environment where the unexpected may occur, setting up an interaction that will provide a meaningful communication, ‘loading the decks’.”


[photos by 戴璞 Dai Pu]

It ends with a face in rain, or two, that washed away one after the other like passing faces in a party.

The next day, he sends me a message: “One day I will explain to you why things are so complicated.”

And then it becomes difficult to respond, silence an only recourse, uncovering to plot thickening. The loneliness amidst joyful crowds, like the stripping away of an impersonator who says, “I don’t know. I was born that way.”

People ask questions all the time to which we must answer, “I don’t know.” I can’t remember anymore which way it was when i was born, but somehow I always return to a letter read as a child, from an old woman. I read her as if I were her already, so confounded by the inexplicability of my thoughts, to the possibility of their being expressed. It seems now, in future, utterly impossible to answer any question asked of me. I find less and less the words to place the complexities of my feeling.

Perhaps now back outside of each of those moments, I could answer each of you in turn, eloquently and honestly. Like an old woman’s remembrance of the sound of a black-capped chickadee, a doing nothing kind of being or simply, so simply, the fullness of…

Posted by 丫 | reply »


a comment to 什么是文化交流? 或者什么是性交?

– Cultural exchange – Interesting examination – Hm, difficult to define. I think everybody (as the videoclip proves) has their own definition. I added parts from the interview I made with the Chinese women. 文化交流? I was thinking of the word 交流 and it reminded me of the question where I asked to define “性交”. And in addition, I thought Ouyang’s definition of cultural exchange was also very special…and fits to this question.

m：你是怎么理解做爱的？你介意么？

interview1： 你是指两个女生么？我ok的。如果抛开孕育下一代这个想法，这是人的基本的生理需求，很正常。

m：你觉得做爱和性交是一个意思么？

interview1：我觉得意思差不多，是不是一个褒义一个贬义啊？呃…不太知道。

m：为什么是性交会有贬义？那个性是指什么？交是交流吗？

interview1：呃…交，交换一下东西吧。交换一种感受，一种体验吧。可能有些感触只能是通过异性来带给你的。

m：那如果是两个男人在做爱，你可以用性交来形容吗？

interview1：呃…..不知道，应该可以吧。性没有规定是只有异性之间的吧，我不太知道这个词究竟应该怎么定义。

m: 那对女的来说差不多，那自慰是做爱吗？

interview1：我觉得做爱是两个人的事情，而自慰是一个人的，可能效果是一样的，但心里感觉不一样吧。

interview1： 因为每个人都对自己的身体很好奇，我觉得很正常。但是可能自慰这个词在我脑海中出现的比较晚，所以我不是很了解，但是当它出现的时候我还是可以接受的。可能如果再出现的早一点，小学初中的话，我就不能够理解。

m：你能用你自己的话来解释一下“做爱”或者“性交”吗？

interview2：是名词解释吗？就是很自然的一种行为吧。然后，那是生活的一部分。譬如说，如果你把兴趣爱好和工作放在一起，然后你的感情生活和性生活又是一块东西。如果说定义的话，就是生活的一部分而已，没觉得有太多别的东西… 其实我也不是经常会有这样的体力活动，但是我们都会希望会有一个稳定的东西，因为那样⋯⋯就像我之前跟你说过的，我觉得两样东西是不可以分开的。（性）是一个你希望它能够稳定而有故事的东西。如果非要解释的话，我会觉得是一种必需品，不一定在每个阶段都会出现，但是它会是必需品。

m：你觉得“做爱”和“性交”的意思是一样的吗？

interview2：我觉得“性交”也包括动物对吗，但“做爱”是人才用的，你不会说，在街上看到两条狗在做爱。哎，但是也可以，好像也可以这么说。“性交”感觉是写在书上的字…“性交”听起来有动物性。你不会跟你的男朋友说，我们来“性交”吧，你会觉得这句话说出来特别楞。但你会说，我们“做爱”吧。

Posted by mon | reply »


¡¡vamos chicos!! que la clase ha terminado

take

ride

path

Posted by 丫 | reply »


debatable

debatable

Excerpts from 10 conversations that I have recently either been a part of or have overheard.

1. “so the 10 or less line is quicker?”

-in regards to a grocery line

2. “…you’re an artist, your tastes are refined”

3. “would you rather date someone with a head half the size of a normal one or twice the size?”

4. “…so 90’s…”

-in regards to photos of empty lots in an urban setting

5. “…let the audience fill in the blanks…”

-in regards to that anxiety-ridden moment when art leaves the studio and enters the public realm

6. “…pasta or beef?”

-on a recent flight

7. “…this country is based on individualism and the idea of not having to rely on anybody but yourself is still very much alive…”

-in regards to socialism and universal being 4 letter words in the U.S.

8. “…there is no good mexican food in NYC…”

-in regards to the most ridiculous/absolute conversation that constantly presents itself

9. “…i just learned that my new roommates entire country, that is 3 times the size of Texas, has about half the number of people than the 11211 zip code here!”

-in regards to Greenland.  Not really debatable but that’s a nice combination of references

10. “…then maybe failure doesn’t exist?”

-in regards to learning from our mistakes

Posted by joe | reply »


the unfolding or the folding, always halfway

frame021

“to say nothing, to say everything, to say the thing itself and to sink the word into its pure presence as a thing, it is all the same, the same fury. it is always to forget the caress of the sign, the light touch of meanings always distorted, never fulfilled. neither the explicit nor the implicit ever attest to anything, other than the unfolding or the folding, always halfway. not to say everything but to let something be said of everything.” (jean-luc nancy)

(one frame captured from the pile of rotting (porn) film reels, a work-in-progress with toby, more info here soon..)

Posted by f | reply »