a grammar of becoming

writing as durational practice

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December Walking in East London

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7.11.17

I am considering the auspiciousness of a recently passed palindromic date. And what does it mean for something to come back to where it started? I am also considering orbiting, which is a similar idea without symmetry, And the experience of a human orbiting the earth, namely the first human to do so, Yuri Gagarin. Because I have been invited to collaborate with a songwriter Nicholas De Carlo, to write for and perform in a sound piece based on Gagarin’s flight at Freerange in Canterbury next Thursday for Migro Records and CISA.  (Composition, Improvisation and Sound Art Unit, Canterbury Christ Church University.) For now... It will be Guaranteed by the stars Purely imageless Unseen Seer I’m buried down there Seer Unseen Purely imageless Guaranteed by the stars It will be

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A Performance that could and couldn’t Happen

There is a crouched body. Slightly splayed. A delicate arm is wrapped around and reaches through the fold. Her face is invisible for hair. I slip my headscarf back. It drops. She breaths. We breath in rhythm.

Gradually she slides herself up, hands in contact with the ground until the last. She dares us to stare. In a dream Who Wants To Be a Millionaire was played as a staring competition. Maybe it was X-Factor, then Celebrity Staring Contest. Was that a dream or was it something I saw dubbed for Iranian T.V.?  She collapses.

When she slides up again, something has changed. An emotional state. Trembling. We spend more time, one looking out, many looking on, thinking about breakfast, thinking about lovers and lovers’ breakfasts, then there is another collapse.

The face disappears. The pose is an awkward fall. The elegant hand emerges out of the twisted waif who fills up the spotlight by half. She slides into a yoga pose. O.K. child’s pose, but I guess it’s all about hair. This thick, black, luxuriant hair. Do people really care about hair? She sweeps the floor with it. There is a clunky lighting change. Oh Theatre. You and your tricks!

Australians are quite rude. This is the bit where someone would say it needed a dramaturg to ask in development why is it interesting to do all this stretching and balancing and warrior backbends? The changes come quick and our meditation is broken. Maybe the answer arrives when the dancer is facing us again, facing and standing with discomfort visibly crawling from each hand to shoulders and face. It’s like being caught in the headlights. It’s like there has been an invasion of private space. There is a general social anxiety around women’s hair, necks, arms and legs in public in Iran. Theatre is a public place and these things should not be seen

Our private dancer is now a dancer in the dark. She’s facing front, facing back, and stopping so her audience can take in the image. Her hair is a face covering again. She’s the disembodied sorcerer’s mop in a meniacal . Look. Don’t look. My shining black curtain. Doing my thing.

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7 minutes and 41 seconds of being in a park at night in Tehran. Thursday is the first day of the weekend. The night brings respite from summer’s heat and a greater feeling of freedom in public.

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A month of 4 weeks exactly The cup with cocoa fines Still sitting on the bottom still sits On the cistern; A grainy crescent. It’s not magic To tell tomorrow Waits in the wings Whispering from dark drapes The Oscars changed moods entirely They’re going to promote Enlightenment Thinking The world is post post post Pick up concert tickets From the post Still to happen and what to wear? Who will have The most most most Late coming Home coming Teeth Brushings? Mornings breaking with questions What will happen out there?

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Sonnet 129: Age old wisdom or sex-negative? Reading Paul Cater - ‘Meeting Places’ - for William Desmond, erotically driven people “have a taste for ambiguity, for left and right, which may be a disadvantage in trying to walk in a straight line but is essential for the mastery of dance”. While vulnerable to “the twisted pathways of defiled desire” (WD), they are saved by “agapeic goodwill... a leap of trust” (WD), showing it is this “affinity between the human self and the world of becoming which grounds the possibility of a two-way, that is, metaxological - mediation between them. (as quoted in Carter, 2013, 5). In other words, desire stimulates that which happens between people, call it communication, communion, mediation, etc. Still, Carter goes on, “Lovers have the sensation, Roland Barthes says, that all of Paris is open to them; so it can be in the desert after sudden rain. At other times, distances knot and close up. These are ecological facts and they imply self-restraint, an ethics of self-repair associated with a region of care”. (ibid,8). I’m not sure where this is going but I am working on a new poetry performance called ‘Jelly Lands 2: the extension of hospitality in a waste of shame’ for Freerange Canterbury.

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Mammoth Time (19 hours)

I was invited by Mammoth [Koen Nutters (upright bass) & Rishin Singh (trombone)] to submit some writing for an event on “Tracing time: an ontology of experience. Writings and musings about the passing of time.” They had also invited me to perform the writing, however I couldn’t get to Berlin this time. I am looking forward to hearing how it is presented at the event. I wrote a new word per hour poem for the occasion. This time, upon completion I added a short commentary to the oringinal.

processing

news who's killing whose

disposing

garbos been and emptied my junk in your front yard your front yard your front yard

delaying

A co-worker The boss is paying without keys

displaying

diligence disposing droppings,   and cake

skirting

it's culottes day sorry you think you're shit

ogling

senior(e)s with push up bras

cussing

pinkie burnt on steam

elevating

you're not shit

piloting

The boat rides next to the swimmer navigates

swooning

slow version of Billy Jean

humouring

can I have a hand? which one?

cajoling

I have this project...

busting

wee a little

workshopping

now your culture my know how

consuming

spoils

mimicking

dis vorld piece-I-shit

refreshing

feed coup presidential facetime

reciting

wango wango damage from grandma disco trophy we saw an owl I saw a fox on the harbour Suzanne oh dear Suzanne

speculating

based on my diary

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Call you on Friday

Call you one Friday

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London Aquatics Centre

Sad to hear of the early death of Zaha Hadid. I wrote this in the London Aquatic Centre tuesday last week. Hadid was Iraqi born and her designs were commissioned in countries Hong Kong, Germany, and Azerbaijan, and include the London Aquatics centre. 22.3.16 Off peak I own my own lane

Big clocks Hands to race.

It’s special. It’s special like the Sydney Olymcpics Pool The best on earth together In this water They roar in the stands Supporting Though I’m no sporting dynamite I need some clapping Your hands for my arms And legs

They support each other, A most natural community Kick for push, pull for pull A push me pull me I made the most of it I’m napping after lapping

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April comes after March

I thought later Remembering her Coffs Harbour Banana, with chocolate and nuts Frozen

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Never/\Ever poetry

On Thursday 3 March at 2:35 PM I held time through me Isn’t it           sublime How humans hold so much pain? link

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Origins

(07.09.14)

Whip my words On the bike Got called college-youth, I’ll take that As well-worn threads And risks in traffic.

Got rearview mirrors Reflecting on reflecting Gotta get away From looking back. Contemplate past the act

A work of art, according to Heidegger, is the setting up of a world. It is the worlding of the world.

A while ago I did an experiment in time-based writing using only verbs. Halfway through I started looking just for transitive verbs. It is (only?) interesting to see some thing doing something to some other thing.

Heidegger’s use of world as verb is interesting in the question of what does a work of art do, and perhaps to whom or what. We might say that world in this context is the subjective realm of human apprehension; it is a ‘clearing’ or ‘illumination’. Decision, recognition, inquiry – these all see the worlding of the world.

The earth, for Heidegger, is the ground on which everything takes form and dwells, and by nature is undisclosable. Now we might consider that the work puts world in-action with earth. By allowing an expression of affect of forces at play, i.e. by drawing attention to the thingliness of things – rock, metal, colour, tone, word, the earth is ‘set forth’ into the opening of the world. In H.’s words, ‘The work lets the earth be an earth’. Some thing of its nature is brought forth to the realm of the unconcealed, a worlding that also enacts a refusal of the concealed. 

In Martin Creed’s equation that the whole world + the work = the whole world (Work No. 232), the world precedes the work, and then swells to include the work, i.e. the work is part of the world, and can’t be considered as existing separately. More interesting perhaps is the flipside that the world is in someway constituted afresh with the addition of the work, that in fact the work makes the world.

Meanwhile the work doesn't exist without the Tate logo.

Source: Heidegger, Martin, 'The Origin of the Work of Art' in Poetry, Language, Thought, Harper and Row, 1971.

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doing now

I'm writing a play. I'm making performances. I'm making them, many. Lots of ideas, sort of non-cohesive, which isn't to say incoherent. I'm working on a project. It's kind of about being here. I'm applying for jobs and opportunities. I'm spilling coffee on my notebook.

I'm learning speaking Farsi. I'm practicing ukulele for practical purposes. I'm taking a day off and going hard for the rest of the week. I'm jumping all over the place.

I'm living beyond my means. I'm meaning beyond my life. I'm aiming for it, tomorrow. The first day was the hardest. I'm carrying so much. I can't afford the postage. I said I'd checked the post but I hadn't and your letter from the bank was there after all. Maybe your card will come tomorrow and maybe you'll pay me back, but it's not that much money.

I'm getting involved. I'm involving ideas. I'm working ideas, making them, many. Not cohesive, but not incoherent, and spilling coffee on them. I'm mistaking someone for someone else. We're starting again, refresher, afresh. I'm remembering something about being in your kitchen without shoes, but it's not that kind of house is it? Yes, I've definitely been there.

I'm running out of money. I'm running out of time to make money. I'm running with my brother who owes me money. 98% of Britons are worried about money and 78% want less immigration.

I'm giving it a go. I'm going to give you a reason to come, to stay. I'll give you money. I'll give you a go. Give it a go give it a go give it a go. Go to war.  Don't stay. Don't come back. Don't look back, in anger, at van drivers, at bus drivers, at lorry drivers, terrorist insurgents.

I'm keeping fit, climbing stairs. I'm fitting in my work trousers.

I'm giving it a go. I'm giving it my all. I'm giving it time, I'm giving it money. I'm giving it all my money. I give it space, mental space. I give it money. I'm making money, and performances.

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[timewrite]

26.1.14

9:55:27

Quick grab Work fast

Half mast What lost?

Impartial impatience

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hands

So the world is coming out of my fingers; Each tree and pigeon, Waiter and tattooed Catalans Coming out of my fingers.

Tinny outdoor chairs, public sculpture Of fingers And Postcard rack Came from my fingers.

3 o’clock was my finger, Five past and eight past were my hands Ipad for your fingers Was in my fingers.

Now ten to four runs through my fingers. Then I brushed a man’s fingers From my fingers With my fingers.

Our shadows came from my fingers As we wound down Gaudi’s spiral path, Followed a desire path that shot from my friend's feet And our feet traced out a mosaic park bench That repeated forever And we jumped down rough stairs That came from my fingers.

A junky-thin girl with scarred shoulders Was in my fingers. Pain is the same as ecstasy In my fingers.

It could be 8 came from my hands, It’s actually 6:30 from my fingers. Infuse for 6-minutes in my hands.

Ten past ten was also in my hands And quarter past went from my fingers. Seventeen past passed while I worried about light (not enough) Coming from my fingers.

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La Perruque 2

Continuing with de Certeau, to introduce "other times and other places into the industrial [or service or academic] space. That is, into the Present order." (1984, 26)

Making this video in the time I am at work on a journal article,  I am cross-perruquing art, pub, and academic work. It is 'the everyday' that exists as a fringe around the artificially formed object of study. The place of discourse comes into being from the overflowing of the common, the ordinary, into a particular position. For de Certeau it is not just about "showing how [the everyday] introduces itself into our techniques", but also, "how it can reorganise the place from which discourse is produced". (5)

De Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, 1984.

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La perruque

Writing rescued from notepads rescued from apron pockets. Writing based on Michel de Certeau’s notion of la perruque. The French word perruque refers to a worker disguising their own work as work for her employer. Nothing of material value is stolen (using only scraps), and the worker is officially on the job. It is time in la perruque that is diverted from work, time which is according to de Certeau, “free, creative and precisely not directed toward profit” (1984, 25)

I’m late She sighs And kisses The clock (14:21)

 Dashing out-doors grabs high vis vest gloves, helmet races

You look like Heidi A school mistress With a bun “miss” big (5:30) Chilli Dog BLT What are those girls laughing about? They’re being quite rude. Ask em what a cum flower is 67% of people like it. (18:41) A drawing of a dick (19:19) Dinner time Noodle (19:43) Fantasy Football Dream (20:11)

Home time Or, Megsy Got lots of uni work to do? (20:28)

De Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, 1984.