The vulnerability of the spoken word

I have had many thoughts about the spoken word/video piece I created. (preliminary title: Hidden In Plain Sight)

(https://www.instagram.com/p/CGyQWVqJTeI/)

 It does not seem to have gained much traction amongst my peers, I wonder if I should have specified that it was a spoken word work, and not relied on natural curiosity? That at least is a lesson to be taken on board for next time. The piece itself was actually very taxing for me to make and post.  I am not comfortably putting my own self out into the world.  My voice, my feelings, in such a brazen manner. So it was a huge positive that I was able to do that.  Whether that is repeatable. I am unsure. Certainly the source for the piece is somewhat exhausted now, as I shall attempt to explain shortly.

The words I spoke.  They had no preplanned emotional expression, I just wanted to read them and see how they fell.  Thinking on this, I then wondered how they would have come out had I expressed them in a different environment.  My original plan was to recite them while walking at night, recording my steps through a rainy city, the lights reflecting off of wet surfaces, but that proved to be too difficult, logistically at this point in time.  But would those words have had different cadence, different subtle intonations, had that been the situation?  They certainly sounded different, more broken, in the environment they were expressed in. 

I could, one supposes, take those same words and repeat them in different places, if just to see how different they can sound, but I am unsure of repeating myself.  It’s not something I feel comfortable with.  Familiarity could potentially dull the impact, even if new facets could emerge from new locations.  It’s something I need to think about.  After all, the songs themselves would have been performed in multiple locations, to multiple reactions, across the course of their existences.

The words themselves relate to my emergent theme of love, loss and obsession.  An ex friend made a mix CD for me, many moons ago, when that was still the done thing.  I took a line from each song in

order, in an attempt to see if a narrative could be crafted from it.  That there was one, and that it emerged so strongly was a pleasant surprise. 

The way that even the German language line seemed to fit perfectly into the ‘right’ place in the narrative… it makes me wonder about the person who made the CD even more now.  The work was fed on obsession, and feeds my obsession in turn, an ouroboros of feeling and emotion and art. Rather nice, really.

So, I am recontextualizing words, lines from songs.  Strip them from their original context almost completely.  No music, no cadence, no rhythm, not even the context of the verses and choruses they were originally part of. But keep them as a whole, like the CD they came from, and try and find an emotional newness.  Fueled by the person who made the CD, her touch, thoughts, intent still present, but stripped and changed.  These are deep concepts for me, at least.

I have never considered myself a performer or actor.  That might have to change.  If I am still not comfortable seeing myself on camera, maybe I can learn to live with my voice.

Heart beats faster from inside.  Thought it was a big charade.... truth of the matter is I'm complicated. You're as straight as they come. Take it away, I never had it anyway.  You think it's all for show? But this is the only way I know.  When the truth is found to be lies and all the joy inside you dies?  You can feel his disease! So, are we lost or do we know which direction we should go? Now you've disappeared, I hear you breathe so far from here, and now it's starting to rain.  We'll tell lies about each other. I love you.  I hate you. I can't get around you. We'll never be the same again, never feel this way again.  Speak the truth about me.  It's taken so long to come true, it's just a kiss away. Whatever tomorrow brings... tut mir nicht leid. Pick me up now, I need you so bad.

But see how deep the bullet lies.

Spotify link to CD playlist

To Reflect

 All right, lets reflect.

Time to sit and think about my work for a bit, what's working, what's not, and why.  And maybe work out why I'm struggling to get going again.

Broadly speaking, my art can be split into two groups.  The work I make to derive an emotional response from myself, and the work I make to derive an emotional response from others.

Within those groups: From the first; I make art based on a person I am incapable of getting over, and cities at night, from the second; more conceptual, larger ideas form.  Installations, lights and sounds.

What links them?  Lights in the darkness.  Vibrant colour in the night.

The outlier? The work based on a person.  A part of the work, yet seperate from it.

Is there a reconciliation?  Or must one strand remain seperate to the rest, as much as that person is seperate to me now?

Where do they connect?  Where does the person fit in the city, is she light or is she dark?  Is she both, the unifying filament?

And an idea presents itself.

So anyway, what do I 'like' about my work thus far? What works about the work? 

In terms of the clay pieces, the hand crafted look to them is working for me.  Ties into my summer work of touch and memory of touch.  My fingerprints on the clay, moulded from memories of her skin.  There's something to enjoy there. I've done a lot of erotic drawings this summer, but the clay pieces are almost erotic to make.  

So, next stage.  I want to make bigger, and extend further down the body.  Bring more of the curve of the hip in.  And then we shall see where that takes us.   I'm not keen on just making a sculpture of the female form, that's a bit passé, but something that evokes the feeling of a Goldin photograph?  Dirty and grimy and sexy and real?  I can get behind that.

A negative however is the scale.  The scale works for me and where I'm working.  But without the advantage of being a more true to life scale the piece edges more towards abstraction.  Not in itself a hundred percent bad, but enough to lose some of the essence of the pieces I'm working on.

Soon I'll start another, with the same general shape as now, but more integrated to another idea, when the things I need arrive in the post.  Further thoughts on that when it happens.

I am no sculptor, and I think that helps.  I'm having to make my own mistakes and find my own solutions, and that's fine, that's fun.  This is better than being given rules, I think.  If I do work bigger and need to use an armature, that's where more expert advice will need to be sought but for now, on my small scale, I think I'm good.

I have stumbled across the Tokyo works of Cody Ellingham.  Work I like.  Lines and shapes and neon and darkness and cities.  I need to get to Tokyo.