I'm writing from my studio in the Bronx right now -- we can't be on the island on weekends yet. I'm working on editing videos and sketching and thinking thinking thinking. I think something might be developing out of it all. This is one of the first times I've worked in this way -- producing and developing the idea at the same time. Producing and thinking at once; laboring and reflecting. Well, not really at once, but alternating at a faster rate than usual. Or blurring the definitions of concept and fabrication more. I think that's what this blog is.
G texted me just as I was editing some video. I had been thinking of her so much today, because I feel like I really don't quite understand what I'm doing, and I think she could help me understand. So I called her, and we made a date to talk tomorrow morning. She makes me so happy! It was great to hear her voice. I told her I was so sorry for not having called. She said: "I know you're very busy over there in Jessica-land." And I was saying something about how I make myself feel so busy, like everything's a crisis, and then I can't call anyone or see anyone. I told her I was having trouble, in my life and the piece, with real-time communication. She said: "Having trouble with real-time communication! It sounds like you know exactly what you're doing." Thank you, girl. You just gave me my energy back.
It's a quiet spring night, and the air is the way it is on quiet spring nights. I'm feeling some joy in this work right now. It's one of the best feelings in life -- when you can work with a sense of confidence, or security, or limitation, rather than under duress and with infinite possibilities and endless tasks ahead. I was listening to my interview with Eddie today. I asked him how he felt and he said: "I feel like a slave. A free slave, but a slave."
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
May 14, 2010
It's awesome weather today. It's FINALLY warm out -- not hot yet; it's about in the 70s. It's moist, though, like summer. I love it. My studio windows are open. I went for a run this morning in the park and it was misty and overcast and just wonderful.
I'm feeling stressed about our upcoming studio visits -- I have very little to show in terms of objects. I was hoping I would have the room built by now, but I'm not ready. I need more time with the people and the recordings. And I need more time with the site. I think that is really what I need to know about -- it's a site-specific installation, after all, and the piece centers around the problem of place and displacement. The problem with the site is, I don't know what it is. NPS has given me a space just outside of Castle Williams, which is not my dream spot, but which I actually find very interesting. I think I can make a lot of it. The piece will change, but that's OK, since the piece isn't solid yet anyway. The thing is, it seems like the space they're offering me is currently fenced off and filled with dumpsters. Hmm. I was like, 'Is this right?!' I went out to look at it yesterday and at first was so upset, but then I thought it was pretty funny. In an insulting sort of way. I don't know if I'm supposed to say it, but I have this horrible premonition that the powers that be out here have a very different aesthetic than I do. Or maybe it's just all a big misunderstanding.
It's a fear in general, though. That those necessary and important to me resent what I'm doing. Or, there's this sense of confusion that is coupled will alienation. Or maybe the work just sucks. I overheard some women who work here on the island talking on the ferry yesterday on the way back, and it was so disheartening to hear the way they were discussing our projects. I'm not saying "they just don't get it," but a little more generosity of spirit, or a little more space before judgement would be nice.
But back to the Fear In General. It's more a fear of being misunderstood. As esoteric as things can get, I think the point is to be understood, and to understand. Or for me it is. I think. I hope. I tried to explain a recent performance to S the other night. He tried to understand, I think. But I had also recently looked up his ex-wife, who is, at least in my mind, about as opposite to me as could be. She is a publicist who used to be a dance writer who at one point I think used to be a dancer. And man, she has a very different aesthetic than I do.
So. Fear. It makes us withdraw from each other and push each other away and judge each other. Well. Glad I figured all that out. I'm on one of the last chapters in the Foucault, which is called 'The Great Fear.' He describes how the perception and treatment of insanity came full circle, when the insane were sent to live in sanatoriums that previously were built for lepers. Then and there developed a paranoia and general fear that these sanatoriums were filled with bodily disease and "bad air," which endangered the nearby towns, causing greater separation and a general sense of disgust and terror. It also was the beginning of a medical treatment of insanity -- not out of kindness, but out of fear of its spreading. F says:
" ... fear and anxiety were not far off: in the reaction of confinement, they reappeared, doubled. People were at once afraid, people were still afraid, of being confined ... But now the estate of confinement acquired its own powers; it became in its turn the birthplace of evil, and could henceforth spread that evil by itself, instituting another reign of terror. ... There prevailed, then, a sort of undifferentiated image of "rottenness" that had to do with the corruption of morals as well as with the decomposition of the flesh, and upon which were based both the repugnance and the pity felt for the confined."
I'm feeling stressed about our upcoming studio visits -- I have very little to show in terms of objects. I was hoping I would have the room built by now, but I'm not ready. I need more time with the people and the recordings. And I need more time with the site. I think that is really what I need to know about -- it's a site-specific installation, after all, and the piece centers around the problem of place and displacement. The problem with the site is, I don't know what it is. NPS has given me a space just outside of Castle Williams, which is not my dream spot, but which I actually find very interesting. I think I can make a lot of it. The piece will change, but that's OK, since the piece isn't solid yet anyway. The thing is, it seems like the space they're offering me is currently fenced off and filled with dumpsters. Hmm. I was like, 'Is this right?!' I went out to look at it yesterday and at first was so upset, but then I thought it was pretty funny. In an insulting sort of way. I don't know if I'm supposed to say it, but I have this horrible premonition that the powers that be out here have a very different aesthetic than I do. Or maybe it's just all a big misunderstanding.
It's a fear in general, though. That those necessary and important to me resent what I'm doing. Or, there's this sense of confusion that is coupled will alienation. Or maybe the work just sucks. I overheard some women who work here on the island talking on the ferry yesterday on the way back, and it was so disheartening to hear the way they were discussing our projects. I'm not saying "they just don't get it," but a little more generosity of spirit, or a little more space before judgement would be nice.
But back to the Fear In General. It's more a fear of being misunderstood. As esoteric as things can get, I think the point is to be understood, and to understand. Or for me it is. I think. I hope. I tried to explain a recent performance to S the other night. He tried to understand, I think. But I had also recently looked up his ex-wife, who is, at least in my mind, about as opposite to me as could be. She is a publicist who used to be a dance writer who at one point I think used to be a dancer. And man, she has a very different aesthetic than I do.
So. Fear. It makes us withdraw from each other and push each other away and judge each other. Well. Glad I figured all that out. I'm on one of the last chapters in the Foucault, which is called 'The Great Fear.' He describes how the perception and treatment of insanity came full circle, when the insane were sent to live in sanatoriums that previously were built for lepers. Then and there developed a paranoia and general fear that these sanatoriums were filled with bodily disease and "bad air," which endangered the nearby towns, causing greater separation and a general sense of disgust and terror. It also was the beginning of a medical treatment of insanity -- not out of kindness, but out of fear of its spreading. F says:
" ... fear and anxiety were not far off: in the reaction of confinement, they reappeared, doubled. People were at once afraid, people were still afraid, of being confined ... But now the estate of confinement acquired its own powers; it became in its turn the birthplace of evil, and could henceforth spread that evil by itself, instituting another reign of terror. ... There prevailed, then, a sort of undifferentiated image of "rottenness" that had to do with the corruption of morals as well as with the decomposition of the flesh, and upon which were based both the repugnance and the pity felt for the confined."
Thursday, May 13, 2010
May 13, 2010
It's another very cold day out here. I really want the windows open, but I think I'm going to have to close them. I want the smell of the sea to come it, but it never does anyway. It's gorgeous out, though, except for it being unseasonably cold.
I feel like I don't have that much to say -- Im ready to get to work. I want to start building, but I don't have the materials or help I need. I lost my glasses, so I can't drive a truck out here with the drywall and wood anyway. And on top of it, I just stopped taking my seizure medicine, so I really shouldn't drive until I know I'm ok without it. And that will take a month. I've been thinking a lot about the practice of medicating. People are very opinionated about it, that's for sure. I was sitting at a starbucks on the upper east side yesterday, next to two guys who, well, didn't fit in on the upper east side. Anyway, one of them was going on and on about how all the women over 30 in New York City are on psych meds. He was a total asshole, but he might have had a point, or something resembling a point. And he definitely didn't like women. Or psych meds. Or homosexuals, or white people, or homeless people. Or anyone, really. He was hard to sit next to. But, I was thinking - what is it in our culture, especially here in this city, that makes us so in need of calibration? And what makes the difference between being sent away for "correction" and doing it internally? Some of the answers seem obvious, but what I've really been trying to understand is what it means to quarantine or expel someone, or some problem. And, more so, what it means to draw attention to that practice, that problem, that someone.
Oh! There is a barge filled with garbage passing my window. It looks so cool.
Anyway, yeah. I'm thinking about how so much of my work has been angry and violent and about all the awful things is society. And I'm trying to understand what it means to show that to people, and why I want to. Which is sort of the inverse of expulsion. And if, perhaps, there's some other way.
I feel like I don't have that much to say -- Im ready to get to work. I want to start building, but I don't have the materials or help I need. I lost my glasses, so I can't drive a truck out here with the drywall and wood anyway. And on top of it, I just stopped taking my seizure medicine, so I really shouldn't drive until I know I'm ok without it. And that will take a month. I've been thinking a lot about the practice of medicating. People are very opinionated about it, that's for sure. I was sitting at a starbucks on the upper east side yesterday, next to two guys who, well, didn't fit in on the upper east side. Anyway, one of them was going on and on about how all the women over 30 in New York City are on psych meds. He was a total asshole, but he might have had a point, or something resembling a point. And he definitely didn't like women. Or psych meds. Or homosexuals, or white people, or homeless people. Or anyone, really. He was hard to sit next to. But, I was thinking - what is it in our culture, especially here in this city, that makes us so in need of calibration? And what makes the difference between being sent away for "correction" and doing it internally? Some of the answers seem obvious, but what I've really been trying to understand is what it means to quarantine or expel someone, or some problem. And, more so, what it means to draw attention to that practice, that problem, that someone.
Oh! There is a barge filled with garbage passing my window. It looks so cool.
Anyway, yeah. I'm thinking about how so much of my work has been angry and violent and about all the awful things is society. And I'm trying to understand what it means to show that to people, and why I want to. Which is sort of the inverse of expulsion. And if, perhaps, there's some other way.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
May 6, 2010
I am writing this while sitting in the waiting room for the ferry. I missed the 10 am ferry by about 10 minutes, which is typical. But I REALLY needed that coffee I went to pick up around the corner. And, truth be told, I am getting a lot done sitting here in this room. I left a message with S about his connections on Riker’s and Randall’s. On Ward’s Island there is a psychiatric hospital “for the criminally insane.”
Last night I had the worst nightmare. In my dream, there was a serial killer who went around with his little son killing people by throwing them on the ground, planting his foot on their backs and shooting them in that soft mushy spot on the back of your skull, where the skull meets the spine. But before he killed them, he talked to them about how insignificant life was, how were are all so meaningless, how we’re all just going to die anyway. And he brought his son as a way of “teaching” him this truth. And in my dream I was thinking: yeah, sure, of course. But I’d still be screaming and begging him to spare my life. A says serial killers don’t kill because they think life is insignificant, but the opposite.
S called me back – the wife of his friend on Riker’s Island just gave birth and is still in the hospital. He says she’s doing pretty well and that it’s a big baby – over 9 pounds. I didn’t ask much more. But he said that she is waiting for him to call so that she can tell him we are coming to visit, and then can tell us when we can come. He’s been so helpful – he also has a contact on Randall’s Island and is working on getting me a visit there. But it seems he wants a date in return.
So now I’m out here – we just missed the rain beginning. They are still moving the sand today. I think they might have finished today, but I’m not so sure now since it’s raining. The sand will be so much heavier when wet, so I’d think they’d stop working until it dries.
I’m still on the Foucault, and I’m simultaneously feeling quite conflicted about this piece. I have all these video and audio recordings of other people, their lives, their rhythms, their work and rest, their spaces, but I don’t know what that says, or what I’m bringing to it. There’s not enough in it, I haven’t made meaning yet. I think there needs to be true collaboration; I need to open it up and open myself up to create a real conversation that is human and caring. And I’m trying to figure out where the art is in all of this.
F writes:
… representation within the image is not enough; it is also necessary to continue the delirous discourse. For in the patient’s insane words there is a voice that speaks; it obeys its own grammar, it articulates a meaning. Grammar and meaning must be maintained in such a way that the representation of the hallucination in reality does not seem like the transition from one register to another, like a translation into a new language, with an altered meaning. The same language must continue to make itself understood, merely bringing a new deductive element to the rigor of its discourse. Yet this element is not indifferent; the problem is not to pursue the delirium, but by continuing it bring it to an end. It must be led to a state of paroxysm and crisis in which, without any foreign element, it is confronted by itself and forced to argue against the demands of its own truth.
Last night I had the worst nightmare. In my dream, there was a serial killer who went around with his little son killing people by throwing them on the ground, planting his foot on their backs and shooting them in that soft mushy spot on the back of your skull, where the skull meets the spine. But before he killed them, he talked to them about how insignificant life was, how were are all so meaningless, how we’re all just going to die anyway. And he brought his son as a way of “teaching” him this truth. And in my dream I was thinking: yeah, sure, of course. But I’d still be screaming and begging him to spare my life. A says serial killers don’t kill because they think life is insignificant, but the opposite.
S called me back – the wife of his friend on Riker’s Island just gave birth and is still in the hospital. He says she’s doing pretty well and that it’s a big baby – over 9 pounds. I didn’t ask much more. But he said that she is waiting for him to call so that she can tell him we are coming to visit, and then can tell us when we can come. He’s been so helpful – he also has a contact on Randall’s Island and is working on getting me a visit there. But it seems he wants a date in return.
So now I’m out here – we just missed the rain beginning. They are still moving the sand today. I think they might have finished today, but I’m not so sure now since it’s raining. The sand will be so much heavier when wet, so I’d think they’d stop working until it dries.
I’m still on the Foucault, and I’m simultaneously feeling quite conflicted about this piece. I have all these video and audio recordings of other people, their lives, their rhythms, their work and rest, their spaces, but I don’t know what that says, or what I’m bringing to it. There’s not enough in it, I haven’t made meaning yet. I think there needs to be true collaboration; I need to open it up and open myself up to create a real conversation that is human and caring. And I’m trying to figure out where the art is in all of this.
F writes:
… representation within the image is not enough; it is also necessary to continue the delirous discourse. For in the patient’s insane words there is a voice that speaks; it obeys its own grammar, it articulates a meaning. Grammar and meaning must be maintained in such a way that the representation of the hallucination in reality does not seem like the transition from one register to another, like a translation into a new language, with an altered meaning. The same language must continue to make itself understood, merely bringing a new deductive element to the rigor of its discourse. Yet this element is not indifferent; the problem is not to pursue the delirium, but by continuing it bring it to an end. It must be led to a state of paroxysm and crisis in which, without any foreign element, it is confronted by itself and forced to argue against the demands of its own truth.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
May 5, 2010
I AM SO HAPPY TO BE OUT HERE TODAY.
Or I was until I realized my mic isn’t really working. I got it to work with my little portable recorder. That thing is the greatest. But now I’m worried that I didn’t record Eddie at a high enough volume. What I’m recording now is just the sounds of labor. When I first got here, someone was sanding or something like that a few studios over – a regular rough analog sound, without a machine. At the same time, there were a few guys out the window shoveling sand into the fake beach. Great sounds, the sound of the shovel plunging in to the sand. I just wrote: the sound of the shovel plunging into the sound. Hmm.
Anyway, what I was going to tell was about how wonderful it is to be out here today. The air is perfect. It’s FINALLY not freezing anymore. I was grouchy and achey this morning, and I have been making myself very stressed out because it is the end of the semester and I’m preparing for a performance on Monday, and I have a kabillion applications and proposals due. And I’m all uneasy and frustrated about well, love, I guess. It’s really a pain in the ass sometimes. Love and work – too much work and not enough love.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I kept trying to write about how happy I am and it keeps turning into a complaint.
I guess there is some luxury in being able to complain, especially about heartache and noise. Anyway, I was so achey on the way down here, and felt barely awake. And then I got off the subway at south ferry and was hit with the smell of the salt water and BAM! Life is beautiful again. I know that’s very romantic, but it does it to me. There is something about the sea that is magnetic. I feel this urge and longing for it, especially when I am so overwhelmed with work and obligations. I think, wow, what would it be like to give it all up , to leave and go work somewhere on the ocean. I took a day-long vacation to the sea last summer and I really didn’t want to leave. I kept thinking: what if I just didn’t go back? I could get some job bartending and spend my days swimming and riding a bike and cooking good food, spend my nights serving drinks to some stupid sleazy guys with thick necks, and smile a lot. S was trying to tell me that he thought the poor people living in the villages he visited in Cambodia were happier than he was. I basically wanted to slap him, but I didn’t. And hey, it might be true in some cases. We do find ways to torture ourselves.
So I just videoed the shovelers for about an hour. My legs hurt from crouching down at the window. So I can’t imagine how they feel. Amazing, the amount of work that goes into making that ugly fake beach.
And now I’m feeling grouchy and stressed again. I guess time just goes too quickly for me. I feel like it’s moving out of control – everything and everyone is just slipping through my fingers. Opportunities passing, work hours passing, feelings changing too quickly to monitor them. I have to go make a list of everything I have to do. There is so much. And it’s all things that I make myself do, that’s the trick.
I was with this guy this weekend who is a public defender in Canada. He was telling me about his visits to maximum security prisons up there. He said that the inmates for whom there was hope were the ones who tried to carve out a little home, a personal space for themselves, within the jail cell. Eddie has done this with his space on Roosevelt Island. I have still to do it with my space here. It’s sort of just a dumping ground for gear and a too-small desk right now. In a way, the settling in marks a kind of hopefulness. It seems paradoxical, because what he wants most is to get off that island. It’s the ambition that kills you. But it’s the ambition that saves you. N and I talked last night about how to be more in the moment, how to accept working on and living in what is happening now. We both always have too much to do, too much that we make ourselves do. She was going home to her husband and I was going home to pay bills and fold laundry and set my alarm to get up and come out here. And she was saying how jealous she was that I could do whatever I wanted with my time. Somehow it doesn’t feel that way at all.
I was also telling her about this piece, how hard it has been to establish communications, especially as there is such bad cell service on the island. She was shocked, because she says there are so many radio waves in downtown Manhattan that she can’t stand the noise. I think: the water between here and there is another glass sea, but one of communication. It’s a sudden drop-off, a dead zone.
Or I was until I realized my mic isn’t really working. I got it to work with my little portable recorder. That thing is the greatest. But now I’m worried that I didn’t record Eddie at a high enough volume. What I’m recording now is just the sounds of labor. When I first got here, someone was sanding or something like that a few studios over – a regular rough analog sound, without a machine. At the same time, there were a few guys out the window shoveling sand into the fake beach. Great sounds, the sound of the shovel plunging in to the sand. I just wrote: the sound of the shovel plunging into the sound. Hmm.
Anyway, what I was going to tell was about how wonderful it is to be out here today. The air is perfect. It’s FINALLY not freezing anymore. I was grouchy and achey this morning, and I have been making myself very stressed out because it is the end of the semester and I’m preparing for a performance on Monday, and I have a kabillion applications and proposals due. And I’m all uneasy and frustrated about well, love, I guess. It’s really a pain in the ass sometimes. Love and work – too much work and not enough love.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I kept trying to write about how happy I am and it keeps turning into a complaint.
I guess there is some luxury in being able to complain, especially about heartache and noise. Anyway, I was so achey on the way down here, and felt barely awake. And then I got off the subway at south ferry and was hit with the smell of the salt water and BAM! Life is beautiful again. I know that’s very romantic, but it does it to me. There is something about the sea that is magnetic. I feel this urge and longing for it, especially when I am so overwhelmed with work and obligations. I think, wow, what would it be like to give it all up , to leave and go work somewhere on the ocean. I took a day-long vacation to the sea last summer and I really didn’t want to leave. I kept thinking: what if I just didn’t go back? I could get some job bartending and spend my days swimming and riding a bike and cooking good food, spend my nights serving drinks to some stupid sleazy guys with thick necks, and smile a lot. S was trying to tell me that he thought the poor people living in the villages he visited in Cambodia were happier than he was. I basically wanted to slap him, but I didn’t. And hey, it might be true in some cases. We do find ways to torture ourselves.
So I just videoed the shovelers for about an hour. My legs hurt from crouching down at the window. So I can’t imagine how they feel. Amazing, the amount of work that goes into making that ugly fake beach.
And now I’m feeling grouchy and stressed again. I guess time just goes too quickly for me. I feel like it’s moving out of control – everything and everyone is just slipping through my fingers. Opportunities passing, work hours passing, feelings changing too quickly to monitor them. I have to go make a list of everything I have to do. There is so much. And it’s all things that I make myself do, that’s the trick.
I was with this guy this weekend who is a public defender in Canada. He was telling me about his visits to maximum security prisons up there. He said that the inmates for whom there was hope were the ones who tried to carve out a little home, a personal space for themselves, within the jail cell. Eddie has done this with his space on Roosevelt Island. I have still to do it with my space here. It’s sort of just a dumping ground for gear and a too-small desk right now. In a way, the settling in marks a kind of hopefulness. It seems paradoxical, because what he wants most is to get off that island. It’s the ambition that kills you. But it’s the ambition that saves you. N and I talked last night about how to be more in the moment, how to accept working on and living in what is happening now. We both always have too much to do, too much that we make ourselves do. She was going home to her husband and I was going home to pay bills and fold laundry and set my alarm to get up and come out here. And she was saying how jealous she was that I could do whatever I wanted with my time. Somehow it doesn’t feel that way at all.
I was also telling her about this piece, how hard it has been to establish communications, especially as there is such bad cell service on the island. She was shocked, because she says there are so many radio waves in downtown Manhattan that she can’t stand the noise. I think: the water between here and there is another glass sea, but one of communication. It’s a sudden drop-off, a dead zone.
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