something. again.
05. 2006
Part 1 : Return.
The last time I spoke with you I asked each of you two questions:
1. What does it mean to know something/someone/some event intimately?
2. What meaning is there in doing something again?
I appreciate the generosity of your answers. I acknowledge we did not directly address the first question of intimacy. And again, we won’t directly address this question today. But I would like you to continue to allow both of these questions to remain an underlining part of our conversation. They direct my means of knowing, my life. I repeat:
1. What does it mean to know something/someone/some event intimately?
2. What meaning is there in doing something again?
And I want to add one more question:
3. What does it mean to bridge a gap? To grasp fundamentally relational understanding.
Part 2: Hypothesis.
Through attentive, invested, repetition (mimicry acted through the body) we learn intimacy. Inimacy equals investment; we alter our actions. Considered action creates large scale global change.
The world today, our current environment, and our lives call for change.
Part 3: A month ago.
A month ago, I met with Kimsooja. She listened with such focus that I could not choose to look away. I always take notes. I write to embody thoughts, to really feel them, to focus.
I took no notes.
When I left our meeting my mind was empty. Blank. For 4o minutes I stared at the wall. She said many things. I remember few.
“I would make sense for you to mimic Marina Abromovic,” I recall her saying.
“It would make sense for you to mimic many other artists.
But I am a needle. My body is a needle. My work comes from me,
my context.”
Then later in our meeting she told me that she quit reading for 10 years.
And, she quit watching and listening to news broadcasts, television, and films. For 10 years.
She wanted her work, her life (I can not remember which) to come from within her.
Later still, I asked her about her 2005 piece, Beggar Women.
“I had to have others to sit in this piece.” She stated. 40 volunteers sat for one hour in Times Square with their legs crossed and each held one outstretched hand gesturing to collect money. Simultaneously, 1 minute segments of video documentation of “A Laundry Woman”, “A Needle Woman”, and “A Beggar Women” play on the enormous television screens that project over the square. “Others had to sit in this piece. I could not mimic myself.”
I proposed to mimic Kimsooja.
To truly mimic Kimsooja, I returned to my questions.
This experience changed me.
Part 4: Loud soft looking.
In 2003 I had a paralyzing hand injury. I was ordered by doctors not to use my hands, not make sculptures (my media at that time) for a minimum of, 6 months. I had to hire friends to finish a large commission project I had been working on. I had to use voice recognition software to type my papers. I could not turn door handles, or open doors, so I began to read about access. Access to power, access to resources, access to health, to education, to knowledge. This is when I began to question what we culturally privilege, and more importantly what we culturally consider wisdom.
For years, I clearly had felt that my intuitive strengths were not valued in academia.
I also spent a lot of my time looking. I could not do, so looking became creation. Through my eyes I started to feel the authors (I had been reading) in the objects I knew habitually. Words, which I silently chewed in my bed, started to seep into the afternoon light that poured in through the library window.
Little details spoke loudly.
Subtlety stuck out.
And got louder as I read Annie Dillard.
And got louder as I read Annie Dillard.
Annie Dillard is considered an eco-feminist by Karen Warren. Karen Warren is one of my past professors, and the philosopher that created and coined the term Eco-Feminism. But, that is another story.
In my story, Annie Dillard is someone who likes to look. She noticed every detail of her land: the way 2 crickets mate in the prairie flood plane, the color of a cat tail reflected through a snow flake in a late December blizzard, and the posture of a praying mantis resting on a strong summer grass. She connected her looking to great thinkers; astronomers, ecologists,… her son. She told us intimate stories. She brought her privacy public
in her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
In contextualized language I brought her public private. Her intimate experiences merged into mine. Her words re-contextualized my public spaces, bridging together disparate moments, awakening subtlety. Again. Returned. I translated. Renewed. A new.
Part 5: Standing.
I went to the twin cities last weekend. There was still snow on the ground. But the sun was loud: water dripped, birds chipped. I went to the cities to address my health: a medical repeat, and my homes: a string of past that interweaves, lingering into my present. I brought an audio recorder with me.
I moved into 1662 James when I returned from Ghana in 2002; a quiet middle class family street across from a well groomed family park and a big open field. Open space. No doubt about it, I grew up in the Midwest. On the sidewalk, in the cold sunny wind, I stood completely still. For 30 minutes, recorder in hand. Neighbors walked their dogs past me.
Elias, Thadeous, and River now live on the second floor of 1689 Dayton. They are Georgiana and Peter’s grandkids; Georgiana and Peter live on the first floor. Georgiana had a beautiful garden forest in the backyard. When the boys visited, they used to timidly meander through our second floor apartment to visit the pigeons that Georgiana let to take over the attic, in that winter of 2003. Now the pigeon’s line the telephone wires just outside my old place. On the sidewalk, in the cold sunny wind, I stood completely still. For 30 minutes, recorder in hand. Planes rumble overhead. Finch’s call to the pigeons’ coo. Old mufflers cough to the nearby highway roar. Elias, Thadeous, and River never saw me, still.
Two Somali women pass me by. I remained perfectly still, not responding not reacting. They looked back at me and saw my smile. Minneapolis is different from St. Paul, especially in my body. 2112 22nd Ave is just down the street from the city anarchist hangout. The surrounding apartment buildings are the locus for one of the many Somali immigrant communities. I moved here in 2004. On the sidewalk, in the cold sunny wind, I stood completely still. For 30 minutes, recorder in hand. Air blew across my ears with a subtle force. Many bicycles creaked.
The street traffic borders deafening, I heard our house finch sing. Unknown neighbors pour by on their way to the train. Rush hour foot traffic in high heels, and work boots. For a passing moment Latino rap vibrates the sidewalk I stand upon. I only chose to live here, 2558 North Bernard, because I knew the roar would only last for a few hours everyday. Then it grows quiet, relative to Chicago anyway. On the sidewalk, in the cold cloudy wind, I stood completely still. For 30 minutes, recorder in hand. Planes continue to rumble overhead.
Part 6: Parallel.
Each unperformed event arose into my day, just as Annie Dillard’s text found it’s way onto:
a railing guard, a door hinge, library blinds, book ends. Translating a gap, relational but non- existent.
Sip a bitter, iced drink through a very narrow straw.
Continue until the drink is empty.
for: A tree that is growing from the crack of the sidewalk
duration: 2 minutes to 1 hour.
Still, I question, how do these experience find their way into the world. Accessibly. Silent. Yet active.
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