//////////// TABLE OF CONTENTS //////////// + Preface /// NOTES ON BODY BUILDING + KINDS OF BODIES + HAG + SPIRITUALITY IS HARD + MATERIAL DICTIONARY + CHART BREAKDOWN + BODY AWARENESS PROGRAM + HIDING + Appendix /// RECURRING TOPICS +Bibliography Preface /// NOTES ON BODY BUILDING This text is a wing of a larger project, a project haunted by Anxiety of Totality. Anxiety of Totality: the lousy sister of a muse. Each work wants to be whole in itself but no - we call them “pieces”. I write an essay, but I also write another essay, and neither is quite enough, there is else to be said, and written they all become pieces in a larger body, a book of essays, a text. One performance, one afternoon in an attic with a video camera and a couple of parts and pieces, becomes eight performances over two years. The performances, private, spawn more material - literal ma- terial - I am making parts of a Body (literally), trying to Build the Whole Thing to get at - assuage - that idea Anx- iety, perpetual, looming, the always never quite enough temptation of Totality. I call them Gaps and body-build to fill them in. More gaps, more pieces, more parts, more forms - videos to cut, stills and remnants: a book-formed collage, the odd film, this suitcased body, these bound essays, pieces to fit - into a what - yes? a final whole? an installation - a place, in time, within walls, holding all these pieces: wings and tails, eyes and soles, might finally form One Whole Body. To me: Gaps glare and announce a kind of problem; art is work trying to be a solution. I don’t think this is the same as art therapy; I don’t feel better. I feel like every piece made creates more gaps, in direct disobedience of my intent. BODY BUILDING (2021) /// ESSAYS on BODY, SPIRIT & INVISIBILITY The more I try to say, the more there is to say. This is how it feels. Every bridge made is its own object surrounded by an aura to be bridged. Keep trying, rest- less sestra. As an art worker, my symbols, materials, activities are ba- sic to me but can be inscrutable to others. I try to keep it art-classy, just let it be sly & ambiguous, a two-way street of action and interpretation .. but at a certain point (this point) I just want to say the things I want to say, the rea- sons-behind, the accumulation of things noticed when you aren’t a real human trying to do real human things but an observer just slightly out of frame. The add-up, the narrative that emerges, not an author as much as a detective, not “an artist” as much as an assembler. In these essays I am trying to speak clearly, “to make my- self known” as a very direct kind of bridge [me—you]. It feels sort of terrible, it feels like I am walking a terrible breathless tightrope, but it also feels like I must finally say these things out loud, and say them correctly, in the right order, what I mean. I mean I’m not trying to be explicitly personal or anything. Actually, I am trying to be explicit- ly universal, speaking about like, Spirituality, or “Bodies”, topics known (in some form) to everyone. I like to say things you don’t know about things you know very well, or to reveal the things that you know quite well without knowing you know them. For better or worse, there is a common thread of deep anti-authoritarianism here. In this set of essays, the things I rail and buck against are versions of the impossi- bly large power structures that define our present culture: Patriarchy, Materialism, Rationality, Human Supremacy, Capitalism. But I have to call out those structures as fun- damentally ruinous and Wrong to clear the way - be- cause the things I care to talk about tend to be popularly & casually denigrated as a function of these background power structures & worldviews. If I want to talk about Spirituality, first I have to talk about the fifty reasons why we wouldn’t talk about Spirituality. It’s hard to be so neg- ative, but I am uniquely equipped to handle it. I don’t even think I like “hate authority” or anything like that. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind an authority that is like: thoughtful, careful, respectful. The authorities we have been stranded with are a nightmare of narrow interests and elite agendas, neglecting both the needs of a majority of humans and the whole health of the ecosystem. The world is suffering and we are at the end of an era. All along the big picture has been looming, the trajectory of our cultural values has been clear (certain havoc), but the decisions of authorities keep pushing us down this path, as if Wisdom is not even a viable option. I’m not even speaking about specific individuals, like humans in gov- ernment positions, but entire Systems that are designed only for the success of a few at the expense of an entire planet. I think my attraction to New Age literature (paperback shamanism) for so many years was that certain kind of voice privileging Wisdom. I was quizzed recently, asked to characterize “spiritual thinking” - how it differs from more common rational thinking. My instinct is to say that spiritual thinking is, at heart, about a whole wide understanding of the machine in all its parts, where “ra- tional thinking” is about the minute agendas of those parts. Spiritual thinking is hand in hand with Health, concern for the functionality of the total being. The suc- cess of spiritual thinking is in continually pursuing ho- listic knowledge of being itself - of neglecting no quarter, sussing out the possibility and potential for life and im- port of even the smallest, least possible detail, and giving it relevance and honor as an aspect of larger Totality. This small book is my homage to that. KINDS OF BODIES (YOU HAVE) People’s bodies are of great interest to me, I look at them a lot, noting the way we have formed our bodies for our cities, our work, our entertainment. I notice how historically ‘women artists’ often (can) talk about the body in a way that is contrary to the art tradition. They deal with self-physicality - to address a topic left neglected or abandoned by generic maleness. Women’s bodies are what prevent them from having the neutral human experience as postulated by generic male- ness - so they must confront the conditions of their own bodies. We speak about bodyness from the inside, the experience of being a body. The scope of this work Thesis always ties back into BODY. I keep making pieces of a whole that gradually materializes out of a detailed exploration of PARTS. We can travel through our bodies as a puzzle of parts, the idea that these obscure pieces add up to a larger picture. This project is about my body, but it is also about the pos- sibilities of all bodies. My consciousness is rooted in my body as as the recep- tacle and the front line of experience. The pains of bad habits, the current situation of digestion, breathing, cir- culation, ‘feeling’. We tend to attach the idea of feeling to ‘emotions’, but really we detect these emotions first as a physicality, as a sensation in the organs. The cold drop of fear in our guts, a prickle on our hackles. I have read that you store your dream memory in the tops of your thighs and can massage dream recall up to the surface. Can you breathe into your pelvis? Have you ever felt the or- gan-ness of your brain? Perhaps feeling is disregarded because it sounds so pas- sive, and our culture privileges independent action over interdependent reception. And yet our experience of the world is so much stronger when we can understand our- selves as a part within its whole. Partness within wholeness is fantastically crucial and within this knowledge we can reflect on the wholeness of our own selves. CONTEMPORARY DUDE THEORY (2010) /// inside out sociology; a document of its time How much are we - our ego identities - reflecting the wholeness of our physical presence, and how much are we denying? Are there parts of our body and our bodily feelings that we are actively ignoring? The ills of the world seem rooted in denial of the body (and of the larger world), neglect of its parts. The simple idea enclosing this vast complex is health through ho- lism. To embrace one’s own body as an antenna of the world is a powerful act. It is the most personal thing one can do. It requires trust of self and something like respect - a more refined and responsible version of the oft preached ’self- love’ that can privilege the individual over the whole. The topics leading from the body are a wide spectrum, but suddenly, as we regard them, we are doing so with a new sense of truth - what we have learned from the world, through our bodies in bare relation to the world. There are Kinds of bodies inside your body: circulatory body - blood body respiratory body - breath body water body sweat body - temperature body digestion body - fuel body kinetic body - action body, expression body - muscle + skeletal bodies hormonal body - endocrine nerve body organ body - machine body menstrual body birth body sensory body - receptive body - consciousness body erotic body - beauty body Body Hair as a sensory organ emotion body - feeling energetic body - chakra body astral body - dream body sephirotic body - supreme body mythic body of protection genetic body - destiny body planetary body - destiny body Night Body pain body - fail body age body - dying body venge, jealous, guilt, fail, fear bodies - problem bodies hunger body your body as a planetary home for Trillions of bacteria & virus pals microbiome body balance body Finally, the first and last body are of the unnameable void from which springs unconsciousness itself ~ Spirituality is Hard **** * Spirituality - Why is so hard to talk about? But more - Why is it so hard to respect? **** * Okay, I’m going to be really fair up front and say: there is a very good physiological reason that it is “hard to talk about” Spirituality. If we think of Spirituality not as an externalized noun-topic but! as a set of faculties endemic to the human experience, we notice that locus of these faculties does not lie in the brain. The spiritual abilities of humans are located in various organs of the body and offer direct perceptions of the world. Unfortunately, hu- mans have come to privilege The Brain as the trusted mediator of experience .. that is to say the brain itself has succeeded in asserting itself as the final word and author- ity. Even more pragmatically, we could see that the condition of being on top of - over the body has, um, gone to the brain’s head (?). Just the symbolic weight of upperness, the “looking down on it all”, has made the brain eventually tyrannical, unyielding in its own con- viction of superiority. Faculties endemic to the brain like Reason and Language have acquired our highest regard of import. If we cannot process something through Rea- son or Language or Observable (Obvious) Senses - it simply goes unrecognized to the average human so lord- ed by brain. Yes ~ UNFORTUNATELY the abilities of Di- rect Perception offered by other organs of the human body - things like gut feelings, heart response, dream ac- tivities, various knowings - aren’t easily translatable to the tactical brain, which generally needs more “evidence” before it takes true note. I mean - I certainly hope this is just some natural evolutionary stuff and NOT some rad- ical narrative about the war of the organs, in which each is trying to take DOMINANCE of the human body .. right? I feel like the moral of that story would be like - it was a war that only the brain was fighting - no other organ even wanted dominance, because dude that’s not how bodies operate. But that is sort of ... how the whole system of reason & Rational Thought has come to situate itself as a cultural value - with a radical superiority. Officially, we need things to Make Sense, to Add Up. The world is Wide Weird and Risky - the least we can do is try to be Logical about it. Somehow, when Western Culture was strategizing all its values, matters of Spirituality didn’t make the cut. Spirituality is just too Irrational (too subjective, too un- predictable) to factor in as a respectable world-builder. Perhaps the weird world of spirituality seems like a direct challenge to Rational Authority? A threat? But spirituality is not here to exterminate rationality. Honestly - doesn’t it seem by now - that the Specific In- ability of Rationality to grapple with intangible feelings and subjective states belies its own weakness? Its own unsuitability as a dominant cultural approach? The body is more than the mind and that’s true. The body is the host of feeling and subjective experienc- es. What are you so scared of? **** * And worse - not just neglect, not just aversion, but Rid- icule. It’s not exactly the same everywhere, but baseline west- ern culture privileges the rational to such an extent that any embrace of Spiritual mode carries immediate stig- ma. Isn’t this the unspoken stereotype? A flimsy person, weak-minded, dopey and weird, intolerably quirky, in- sufferably pious, assembling meaning where there is none, out of touch, prone to filth & sensory overstim- ulation - insipid, reviled, distrusted qualities of human anti-social being. He imagines himself to be so holy, but we know better. We know he is a fool, with dumb fool ideas. We laugh at him. So Spirituality has been officially rejected as a high cul- tural value. And thus we have forfeited our right to a spiritual Common Sense. There are a lot of platitudes, bumper sticker phrases about our moods and attitudes. But like - no one has “proven” anything, which is kind of what we require as a rational society. Without proof, spiritually speaking, we’re on our own, adrift. OBJECT MANIFESTO (2005) /// "Objects are People Too" This is the dangerous condition that has put human cul- ture entire in peril. **** * Proof might be a false value The culture of doubt might be a poison But the problem of Spirituality is a Proof Problem **** * We’re not going to get a satisfying proof out of the Spiri- tual realm: never. That slipperiness is a main quality of the spiritual expe- rience. It’s sort of a lesson about dealing with things out of our control, finding what you might call faith. Wait yeah - what IS spirituality? I keep talking around it, but what is it ABOUT ?? At this point it’s become the generic term, the locus for everything invisible, irrational, subjective, otherworldly, mystical, creepy, holy, the realm of feelings and vibes. If you can’t prove it, but you place importance in it “you might be Spiritual” - kind of like that. I mean there’s like finer states in there - spooky is not (necessarily) mystic is not (necessarily) psychic. Dreams are not (necessarily) ghosts are not (necessarily) angels. But specificity is for scholarship. Spirituality is more like a bucket, a dump for the vague and unknown. The Spiritual Umbrella of Invisible Experiences also includes the realms of: Belief, Attention, Imagination, POWER. This is important. Like, culturally we are chased away from regarding these things as “important” in a pragmatic way. They are wisp- ies, intangibles, mysterious concepts moving through our lives in a narrative fog. Belief, Power & Attention are these naive substances and energies inside us that we don’t know how (are not taught) to harness. But they are being harnessed. Like wow how our larger culture creates value by manip- ulating the innocent attentions of people. I mean it’s very insidious! And they’ve got it down to a science - if you want sci- ence, look no further than, for example, advertising. I’m not here to set fire to your tv or whatever - but to say like, there’s a real problem in our inability to know and respect our own abilities of attention and imagination - to control our own little personal spiritual world. It’s like if everyone was born with a basement full of gold and the culture was like oh duh that dumb sparkle-dirt geez what a drag and so we never go down there to see little government moles plundering our valuable gold re- serve. That’s what it’s like. **** * So Spirituality is this very discredited thing ... yet never not a Powerful Influence. Religion used to be the main thing keeping our Spiritual- ity under control: State Sanctioned Spirituality. A major cultural entity ingeniously sculpting our intangible, per- sonal, interior lives with a pre-baked set of morals and stories towards support of extant power structures. A very tidy cultural use of Spiritual Powers. [I mean there’s a lot of kinds of religions, and some are cooler than others. Please forgive my generalization here.] But then this kind of hilarious thing happened where Rationality comes along and gives people the intellectual tools to dismantle State Sanctioned Mythos. And people use those tools, because honestly, Religion is a huge drag for a whole lot of people. And so of course Rationality is feeling extremely smug at this point. Like David striking down the Goliath of Religion, dismantling in large proportion the power that religion holds over society, offering something smarter, more reasonable. No more assumptions, tales, inspira- tions - only what we can learn and know is provable thus true. What a relief, to exorcise these creepy gods right out of the picture, whew. But guess what ya can’t keep spirituality down !! Like a lump in the rug, that’s our Spirituality. Culture killed it but it just became a haunting ghost. De- nied the possibility of being an Obvious Cultural Force, it’s become an entrenched underground suspicion. Spiri- tuality officially tilted toward its Occult axis. You can’t learn about auras or dreams in school, but that in no way suppresses an innate thirst we have for the mysterious. The suppression makes the mysteriousness more power- ful, I imagine. More enticing in a big way. And it’s awesome to recognize this, to feel its humane presence - as a true component of reality! But how much do we suffer by this suppressed condition? How much does spirituality itself become a pale anemia of its proper self? What is the value of integrity in this degraded realm? My statement is not vanguard - it is talking about the problem from within the thick of the problem. Curiosity ~ I mean there’s a lot of seekers out there at this point. Young culture seems willing to throw a lot in a magical hat. That’s nice! I think. Maybe a generation that has room for spirituality in its tool box or value jar is destined to be better, more bal- anced. But I still have one last complaint, you know. Because the charlatans are pouring in. The spiritually abandoned are ready for any conspiracy to come hold them. Charlatans I mean there’s great systems out there, ancient and con- temporary, practiced systems of spiritual scientists and seekers talented and unbothered by common ‘credibility’. Spirituality is huge, it exists, how could it not become a market force too. Charlatans charlatans charlatans. Spiritual truth is real and charlatans anchor on some truth, right, otherwise how could they hold so much at- tention? Something true, said for cash It’s fine We all gotta live But this fucking market force, and how you rope in peo- ple, consumers - the currency of attention So you sell them very premature uses of spirituality You say spirituality can solve your problems ....... and even ........... bring prosperity !! I hate that, man: Spirituality as a tool to get what you want : ( //////////////////////////// But like Mary lol - right now it’s super crazy out there! Like how can I responsibly argue for Uncertainty - now - when outright DELUSION is rampant? — But I would argue that it’s not Uncertainty that is the problem — but this insane desire to feel like you know what the fuck is going on. Now charlatanism explodes into political power spiritually weakened, we are open to delusion Poor rational materialists trying to argue with - to dis- credit people on the basis of “hypocrisy” Facts are not cutting it The disintegration of REASON-ability - is this a back- lash to the oppression of materialism? /// a CERTAINTY ADDICTION? Certainty Addiction is the Emotional Component //////////////////////////// It’s a real quandary, a quandary anchored in class prob- lems. Gurus often seek rich acolytes not just for the obvious reasons, but because the rich have achieved all the world- ly things and realize that the luxury and wealth do not bring higher principles. (At least, that’s how Osho “the Rolls Royce Guru” explained it, ha.) The disadvantaged are guided to use their spiritual ener- gy toward betterment of circumstances. Spirituality is the realm of our invisible powers and its true - we might ‘feel things happen’ But I just feel like - the Satisfaction of Desire is a hope- lessly material objective. To even desire Enlightenment - the way a class has made this an almost material desire — Obviously the world is tough and people seek relief. I just wish we could be more savvy about the intangibles, though. To regain the value of the intangible Wishes and wants are just like ... more capitalism. Of course I often find myself praying against problems, it’s a natural thing. Is it human truth that a pure spirituality is only for peo- ple who have solved their lower needs? That would super suck. It could be that up until now, the role of pure spirituality was for the occult seekers only But everything must come out now. Maybe what we hate so much is not spirituality but an awareness that capitalism and higher knowledge do not mix well. That the fraud and the spiritual consumer are going about things in a wrong if not corrupt way. This is what we revile, what we instinctively mock. I’m going to suggest - that if you are one of the millions on a weird spiritual path - that you entertain this exer- cise - this idea of What Is Spirituality For / Outside of Serving My Desires. (Who am I, anyway? Why should my desires be so prominent, so ‘sacred’?) I have an idea. What is available through this path is a deeper level of connection to world that we live in, what lies within it and beyond what we can see, test, or prove. The objective is a finer relationship to what is, and that necessarily de- mands a greater sense of responsibility to that world, our world. We are allowed power and wisdom only as much as we are willing to admit that we are not the center of anything in particular. Sorry to have to be moral for a moment, but morality is one of those intangibilities that got thrown out the win- dow in the great materialism project. It just feels like and this might be naive but Since rationality / materialism has become the dominant mode of how we exist within the world, things have be- come very dire, heartless, alienated. We find a great Personal Will to “make things better “- - but the political and economic systems (anchored in ra- tionalities and the materialized “number”) in operation are almost impossible to shift ... to infuse with ‘ethics of care’ or just holistic regard. We may engage with valid practices of Improvement, and yet we must figure out a way to reconcile materialism and spirituality (high principles). If spirituality is the realm of desire, then we must learn to consecrate our desires toward the whole of the eco- system. We must consider the high-holy< sense of science which is pure and beholden only to ultimate truths. We must fine tune the emotions of Science and conse- crate the white coats into holy priest vestments? We must abandon the materialized number expired in purpose and impose a sacred geometry calculator where the Stock Market was ?? We must laud the Culture of the Niggling Anomaly ?? The greatest problem here HOW TO VALUE SHIFT AN ENTIRE CULTURE ******************** I BELIEVE IN SPIRITUALITY ******************** Material Dictionary Terminology of the Materials of BODY BUILDING The Body (the body as self-object) The Body is the only Vessel necessary to explore Mystery, ignorantly, with curious bent. Everyone has a Body //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// BODY - Thesis Body - The Sis what is the MATERIAL of the Body? facets PRIMA BODY //// parts and pieces in specific: • a Spine which is a line of Cores ... the Cores are var- ied and composed of Aggregates of excess Perfor- mance Materials ~ spherical, wound, compact • a Uterus which is Primary (the first made) ~ the magical organ (dreaming) • a Head which gains toward completeness - with a Nose, a Center Eye, my Actual Hair (periphery) ... two “eyes” as well (Built) • A “chest” area, ruled by Eagle ~ angel wings and breasts which surround lungs and heart • A crown for the head ~ sewn coil of ritual rope (Built) • A pair of feet (soles) • The body rope ~ a sense of nerve, total body con- nection/mass • Gloves, filled There are a series of “made objects”, similar to but not Cores: Built Organs. Also wrapped, wound, and com- pact, but nature of this organ-item builds around an ob- ject of particular significance, resulting in an odd shaped form. Specifically made in the context of the Body Build- ing project, to serve a ‘function’ in the Body ~ the object of a Park Work, sparked at the park and completed soon thereafter ~ Gap Fillers, or Solvents, or Conduits. The object of transformation of a Gap to a Conduit. Built Organs are as follows: * Tail * Womb * Gut * Heart * Neck * Brain Complements & Auxiliaries ~ Many Built Organs have COMPLEMENTS, which are often (but not always) natural or readymade equivalents to the Built Organ. AUXILIARIES are when the Double of a Built Organ is another Built Organ. Complements & Auxiliaries are definitely .. ex- tra .. but speak to the Double nature of the Body Build- ing project .. as if one-is-for-her, one-is-for-me. This convention also stems from the public and traveling nature of the project - unable to carry the whole Other body with me as it gained in weight (Solvents), I wanted the body (left at home) to retain a wholeness as I went out into the world to gather more parts for it. In more detail: TAIL: Tail is Built Organ like a wound crucifix (tele- phone wire). The Tail ties into bottom of the Spine; its Complement is a pyramid of Curly Metal that signifies a base upon which we stand: two legs and a tail. WOMB: Womb is Built with a powerful core: a menstru- al cup / quartz rod / tucson magnet shape. The Comple- ment of Womb is element Stone (Stone Baby). GUT: Gut is dual ~ Two Built Organs with slightly dif- ferent characters. The primary one is a small metal ball set in the wax center of a glass jar, sewn into a knot of intestinal fuzz. It’s Auxiliary is a Battery, wound in Metal and prop Guts. HEART: Heart is Dual ~ both hearts are of a wound na- ture. One is Classic - Yarn studded with Charms. Other is Deluxe - Rose Core built out with two fused yarn hearts. NECK: A spinal Leather wrap and BFF necklace encase a con-duit built around pine cones and battery cord, sym- bolic blood dripped through. Its Complement is lake- washed Wood. BRAIN: Brain is curly Red Light Bulb stuffed with Bal- loons. Its Complement is a Conch Shell. Further Body elements include: * Lungs (Balloons filled with MAGMEN air) * Skin * Broken Glass * Glass Hood * Rattle - Seeds in a heart-shaped metal box * Blood A metal cage houses personal Ephemera which indicate nodes of Personality. Other bodies: Stick Body, Metal Body, Broken Glass Body //////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Relics are objects which are formed in the magic work- phase and left behind in environment (also called ma- quettes) //////////////////////////////////////////////////////// this is often the act of two becoming three, of vaulting into a new level ——————————————————————— Comprehensive list of 2 -> 3 Heart -> Extra Heart Two Legs + Tail (3 Soled) Two Eyes + Third Eye Two Peripheries + Third Eye Heart + Two Lungs [ Chakra + (Organ + Complement) ] = Core Body The threeness of T //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////PROCESS NOTES This is-ness of things has always been interesting to me. To create a thing in its entirety - an object To set it in motion To do this requires a certain kind of belief an ability to believe it is a power - a suspension of power to let the object assert itself you are the actor that matchy matchy puts all the things together I that coalesces the cores of power process /// order v impulse but always toward order being a fool within order tamed by order complicit in order certain a moment so it is a process determined by other realm which i find my way to again and again through the use of obscure elements, objects that are (recognized as) charms and talismans in themselves. the simplest shape with an identity and power its own. SECRET CIRCUS /// poem i can’t tell what is the role of ego ~ it seems like you might say i am stepping away and yet it feels quite present are you tempered by your work So you form your cores and organs. Pick your materials, charged, accordingly. So you merge and meld. You build a whole from parts. ????????????????????????????? PROBLEMS as Art Material PROBLEMS TO SOLVE IN-BODY PHASES (intents) 1. a problem to realize 2. a gap to overcome (becoming an artist = being public) 3. a heart to modify 4. an examination of the Desire Problem (the fear prob- lem) (fear of loss*) 5. connection between head and body (upper level + low- er level attributes) 6. a cure to a real pain developed in Phase 4 (a pain in the ass) 7. firm head development 8. establishing relationship between my disjointed body parts and the (disjointed) Other. also, Lungs. ?????????????? MATERIAL?????????????? MATERIAL ~ Abundant Objects of like property /// THE ESOTERIC FORM OF THIS IS THE PILE Piles are heaps of material blessed by a looseness of con- glomeration. They hold a shape which might in space shift with time, gravity, weather - they rest almost body. They are the geometric expression of a (homogenous) material in abundance. TYPES OF MATERIAL STICKS, sensitive wood, made as a body is made, limbs of lived process GLASS, broken LINE is the Material of TIME + Action String, Rope (Tensile Principles) (Vibration - Conduit) - Tensile Sculpture = Living Element The winding of objects and materials into cores, items living in convergence, the meaning of all held to- gether in a mysterious form of which the outer edge only can be perceived. Objects in which something is hap- pening (as performance art) ////// Cores - Aggregates (shaped mass) ///// line as energy ~ therefore dematerial- ization of the art object - RADIAL / RIPPLE (echo) - Web (line as Object) / Map (line as connection) - Aesthetic experience (drawn line; outline & fill line) ~ Signature - Linear experience (narrative) (efficiency vs elaboration) - Tension (connecting) vs Compression (binding) /////// THESE ARE TOTALIZING ACTIVITIES - Knots - The winding path Objects Objects are more individual, particular than Material OBJECTS AS Metaphor / Relic / Talisman / Psychic Tool Objects as Living Beings of History, Form, Personality -> what is its power Objects - my objects bring me joy / who am i to discard an object? / better to bring them in, to offer shelter / we objects all together Valise is womb, and portability BINARY AS Radial & Ripple Conduit & Connection (as in the Nature of the Neck) Bang / Swirly Force / Grace Lean / Let Pit & Pile Material + Line = The Body as Tensegrous Conglomera- tion (T) /////// the magmen dream “coming together” held in your own wholeness approximating living into life WATER as material (???) the kapha sliver feeling as material CHART BREAKDOWN To approach my concern with Spirituality I resort to science aesthetic A certain path to invisible realm is language What are the names of the states What do they mean, I mean - What is the felt distinction between How does each word-concept characterize a factor of that total state Spirituality Simply: our subconscious sense of the unconscious planes All that immaterial That which is not evident or obvious enough to pin down Only feeling “unreliable narrators” To be a scientist of it To become a reliable narrator of the un- known world the mysterious world the unreliable world But how to talk about it U To communicate that: yes this is part of our existence us you have felt it too What do I know? & What words have we heard A process begins with knowing the sense of words contained in this landscape SPIRITUALITY There are so many What do they say how do you feel your way through words 1. Using basic thesaurus, we isolate the stron- gest words which refer to REALMS, total an- gles representing a unique Brand of immateri- al experience (x-axis) 2. Using basic dictionary, we list the Qualities found in the definitions of these Realms, not- ing repetition and recurrence (y-axis) ** It is noted that “Spirituality” as a concept is only one of those Realms, with its own specificity, qualities and limits. I have long been suspect that “Spirituality” (the word) is not our default because of a particular excellence of totalizing the imma- terial concept, but rather because it is the most concrete word in a group of esoterica, the most noun-like, therefore the easiest to grapple with popularly (materialism). Spiri- tuality is a word convenient for Americans, anchored in a positive state that conforms to the national anti-darkness fear programming, imbued with a ruthless sense of individuality. A basic duality can emerge in the types of Qualities, two camps commonly indicated in the general Experience of spirituality. The two camps can be generally char- acterized as dark and light. Not the old trope of ‘good and evil’ - but a subtler distinction hinged on our human levels of comfort in the state. It is a binary but less about linear sta- tions — more about qualities of knowing, of assurance within the dark parts, of an unfold- ing relationship. This is not talking about what we have experienced — that is often wholly personal. But it is the acknowledgement of a gradient of experience unacknowledged (or made trivial) by society. Dark is, essentially, not-knowing — the suggested sense of that-which-lies-beyond, which hints at us and teases that we are not complete, nor masters, nor ‘in control’. Words of the dark camp are anchored in the Other: supernatural secret, obscure liminal occult esoteric unexplainable eerie mysterious speak about the ways an outside-normal can be experienced through our own present sensory bodies of body (danger), mind (speechless), will (curiosity), and emotional bodies. We can place these extra-sensory experiences in certain planes and relations to ourselves and our own subtle combinations of regard, beginning to chart just where out there they lie, making inquiries into the shadows. The words of the light camp awesome immaterial divine sacred ethereal eternal liminal refer to the unfolding of those knowledges, the coming into union with them. They can include and acknowledge the Self of the experiencer. This can be through effort of learning or invited revelation. We encoun- ter strange states and human abilities like “belief”. These are senses of awakening, a plug into a bodily sense of “certainty” = personal proof. But what if this is not a binary as we cling to binaries But a disc with a center hole The hole is most dark Gaining in materiality as it grows out to form an edge A giant circle of Other palpable on the surface culture coating it like oil always anchored in void Dark camp pulls toward center Light camp out toward edge And states plot out among them revealing themselves only to be particular expressions of grayness various vibrations between knowing-other and unknown-other various specialties in the mystery BODY AWARENESS PROGRAM My experiment is an eight-point idea of my whole body. Anyone could do this. I chose eight body ‘parts’ that indicate eight body sys- tems that support our conscious being. I’m not saying there are only eight body systems. Some kinds of systems: Organs, motor machine, holy awareness, ultimate physicality, ancestral connection, sexuality, sensory perception, imaginary being. Hot tip: Choose simple body parts first according to a personal sensitive process, drawn to areas that seem to pose a kind of ‘problem’ or concern, and let them ‘dis- cover’ its own system as a kind of narrative. I rehearse the eightfold points as a walking practice, a public activity that is performed in the privacy of one’s own skin. They unfold as a map, as your legs map you through space. We walk like trance and center the mind in a gradual scan. The chosen body parts have a routine sequence to be determined arbitrarily or with intent. The order is not written in stone. Each body part is addressed in turn by sending the mind fully into awareness of that body part as it is being exercised in the rote action of walking. I performed this practice quite routinely and it came to acquire further features. The ideal is a kind of looseness - an awareness that circulates freely in the part and begins to sense its func- tioning in the connected whole in motion. This is done without the judgment mind nor forced correction. It was through this process that I gradually became aware of the parts as signifiers of their larger systems and the connections between them. The parts acquired eight helpful spirits, like animal spirits but not necessarily. The spirits fell along the true eightfold structure com- mon to any human: Four directionals, above and below, relative left and right. The acknowledgement of this map, now both interior and exterior, becomes a major protection ritual: The Sealed Body This ritual is neat because you can do it any time you are just walking around by yourself. You are a body in nature, listening. “in a totalitarian society there are no zones of privacy — no boundaries” quote Sandy Rockowitz ///// Hiding ///// The most likely explanation is that our stories of Good and Evil are a grand myth perpetuated by Patriarchy. Tales of types of Villains were created to enforce social behavior, a boundary for our possibility, a sculpted mo- rality keeping a certain social structure in power. Darkness and Light are certainly real, however. Light is the qualities we associate with living, wellness, knowl- edge, growth, success. Dark is the realm of death, decay and dreams, where uncertainty lies. This leads us to fear, fear of the unknown. A vast ruling hegemony has per- suaded us to favor light, to pursue qualities of Growth, to fear and ridicule the small, the private, the uncertain. Any binary offered holds the healthy possibility of bal- ance (or at least a graceful pedulum), but this is not the world we inhabit. Darkness is made into a lesson about Evil and our instincts to live quietly, mysteriously, aim- lessly are scrambled. Light crowds glaring our lives. Our personas and identities have acquired massive signif- icance as we feel more seen than ever, responsible for creating our own entertainments and becoming our own stars. Totalizing human philosophies, structures and practices are erected only on what is known and ‘prov- able’, omitting suggestions, clues, hints gotten in dreams. This behavior of lauding exclusively Light qualities has destroyed any functioning balance that could have made humanity a viable organism within Earth’s ecosystem. For the powers of darkness are real and with all wicked potential that has been ascribed to them, and they seethe with the frustration of unrecognized fury. We see it all around us in newsworthy forms — governments every- where in the world usurped by election of the ugliest monsters — young men unafraid to slaughter their peers and neighbors — destructions wreaked upon the earth body itself. Suffering is wrought everywhere with glee! and I suggest it is the natural result of centuries of Light Dominance — the pathological attachment to Light — that has made the darkness reactionary and villainous. When I began this project it was with the idea of bring- ing certain art practices “to light”, a decade of assemblage work guided with self-improvement ritual tactics and occult certainties happening in the privacy of attics. If the impetus of my work is a recipe for (artistic) Viabil- ity, it seemed I would have to reveal these most intimate parts. But as I work I understand that bringing-things- to-light is not desirable as a literal activity. I feel that my art process (perhaps anyone’s) is a dark one, happening necessarily in a hidden place, 85% conducted in secrecy, privacy, solitude. In my public park performances, I no- tice that I remain hidden from most passing humans, in the open and yet granted protected space. The 15% — the part to be made visible — is only a skin stretched over the secret interior body of making. Darkness exists, natural, within us. Our skin holds all or- gans in a light-tight body capsule, and every bodily func- tion that occurs — i.e. “me” (you) — happens in a secret shadow space. Efforts to literally visualize these processes — surgery, x ray, microscope — refuse to disclose the real secrets of our material being, the subtle connections, reasons, attractions, the holistic machine that fires ac- cording to a grand mysterious sum of self that emanates from a stubbornly invisible unconsciousness. There is the insidious moral fiction of Norms - the effort to mathematically sort what is desirable or not in this social structure. An average which taunts every individ- ual into anxious projection of Who Am I - and how do I measure up? Inevitably you fail — somewhere in this list of human quality you are haunted by inadequacy. Somewhere in you is a secret, unacceptable desire, a gas- troenterological weakness, a mental stutter, an emotional incontinence. These deviations may be quirky or extrav- agant, but our greater compulsion, the regular dictum, is to Hide Them Away. Humans are beings hiding, mimick- ing ‘each other’, showing only the acceptable, common parts. Perhaps in an ideal, value balanced world I could be equally private and public, but instead I have become morbidly obsessed. The hidden world has come to large- ly occupy my sense of this dimension. My eyes see most- ly darkness but with compassion, with forgiving sense that dark is not inherently evil, but only has been made so by the egregious cartoon of enlightenment values programmed in us. In this world I must hide to seek the hidden paths. I still try to see — to know — to under- stand — light knowledge. I learn these things as a fort of battened hatches, as survival instinct, as the world of Light crumbles into chaos. Appendix /// RECURRING TOPICS 1. Self ▪ trust this body (3) ▪ artist, demonstrator, communicator (actor) / scientist (observer), prover (postulator), reasoner (thinker) / author, narrator ▪ operating within your oppression (woman + age = Hag) ▪ Community relation: talking about Spir- ituality (4)/ preaching holism / Cultural Critic / insisting with moral fervor (15) ▪ The Private Person (5) ▪ Gray Practice (2) (rearranging material to communicate with immaterial) ▪ Contains: (5) Privacy (8) Anxiety of Totality (9) Problems and also (16) Feeling ▪ ego: LIINC the vessel on water (7) ▪ “herm” ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 2. Gray Path (witch world) ~ the Code, the High Value dictating personal acts in the world ~ ethics ~ a Manifesto of Intent ~ crucible of Discernment ▪ what is mercy ▪ in-between states (body 3) (spirit 4) (water/nature 7) ▪ Synthetic Solution to the myth of good and evil (15) ▪ within (encompassing) the overlap of Self and Outside-Self ▪ Uses Feeling (10) as a navigator ▪ Nature of Value ~ honoring parts within whole 3. Body ▪ gray (2) relation between Self (1) and Material world (12) ▪ Problems to solve (9) ▪ woman/body - hag relation ▪ ladder shape ▪ The Glory of the Part ▪ singular material state which serves as Antenna of the Immaterial World (Barometer) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 4. Spirituality is Valid ▪ weird, felt continuum of spooky to enlightened ▪ why does culture deny the (im(material)) whole ▪ forming relationship to unconscious (11) (from consciousness; through subconscious) ▪ confronting the disprovable ▪ arguing for legitimacy ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 5. Lay Low (undocumented experience) ▪ The Inside of the Body (inside skin) ▪ fear, survival, flourish ▪ darkness & secrecy ▪ impending Reveal affirms private practice ▪ private sensations and abilities eg feeling (10) 6. “Help Yourself ” ▪ relief from modern alienation ▪ Self-Improvement &/or Self-Control, expression of Will (supernal) ▪ Protection ▪ Art as Transformation Ritual ~ a site of Power, Potency, “MAGIC” (particularly 2-> 3) ▪ Being-in-Nature as Communion (7) ▪ encounter the immaterial world ~ Mystic Realm (11) ▪ Totality ~ Holism through Tensegrity ~ MAGMEN (-8) ▪ being part-within-whole (a piece) inside sense of your own wholeness (3) ▪ Intention as commitment to ___(a certain path)_____ [how to circumvent prideful prob- lems] (2) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 7. Nature ▪ listening + dialogue with nature ▪ Materials & Places (the Numinous) ▪ A Gray Path (2) ▪ Water ~ alien, powerful, on which LIINC ~ the Kapha Sliver ▪ animals 8. Anxiety of the Whole (Gap) ▪ I Want it All ▪ so many pieces ▪ panic, loss of control, fear, mania, worry ▪ personal need to prove or Know (perhaps equivalent to scientific bias against anomaly & uncertainty) ▪ refusing Holism ▪ need to work - will of work ▪ the (problematic) concept of Daily Practice as a Solution to Problems ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 9. Problems (Obstacle) ▪ Negative Being ~ Elsa ~ Corrosive Poison pride, anxiety, desire, shrewd, jealous = (fear mad sad doubt), afraid, ego aggrandizement (failures “false values”) ▪ anxiety of the whole (Anxiety of Totality) (8) ▪ are problems Gaps or Obstacles (active negatives, “evil”)? ▪ the large problem of the Art World & Cultural Criticism /// the petty problem of Self Specialness ▪ Lack of Self-Confidence in ability to judge or criticize art Quality ▪ the problem of Special-ness (feeling of being Special and desire to be recognized as Special) (special as unearned superiority) - NEED TO BE CENTERED (socially important) - ▪ CRUELTY AS A METHOD OF ESTABLISHING CONTROL just like - ok i’m onshakyground-jumptoTheWorstPossibl▪eConundrum“Idon’thavefriends”“fineIhaMtyesehlfeimrp”orta“nmceyisacbadrvealue.risover”“iamheartlessandautistic”“hopefullyiwilldie”. ▪ There is no reason I should have a voice. ▪ I“MFayimnsiastrhdyniniengsg”s tios oraehbpaurdldsgievtoeanbtode mhaenel.pafdudl.iction. ▪ I am hungry, dirty, and have no basic energy. ▪ I have No Craft. ▪ I am anoBtasdoPciearlslyonimopr oaruttainsti,c. ▪ I“TYodouonwlodat nh-tatvioerrsaealdyevasiaolnymtpertahcitnigceb. ut you don’t know what.” ▪ Not enough desire ▪ I forgot what I was working on / don’t care today. ▪ NThThoeorhenoeiuswsneoiusoldutotnloeotmtfioceesrsmiyf.Iydwidornk’t.make art. ▪ I’ve made too much already that no one wants. ▪ My art is just bad attitude that is not constructive for anyone. ▪ NItaoimson’natleawruacnyhdsivetarsly.tianngdtso. hard to make “a thing”. ▪ Too insecure / not enough confidence. ▪ NI onglyoothdinidkeabs.out myself. ▪ Other people do it better. ▪ I am embattled and oppressed by the energy of others (energetically vulnerable). ▪ I just want everyone to know I am different / special (am I? is it a lie?) ▪ HSuacpcpeisnseissfoisrajefraklse.value. ▪ They don’t really like me, they just like my creative partners. ▪ Competition is a bad reason to make art. ▪ There is too much art in the world. ▪ IMhyataertairst t&ooaretpishtes.meral. ▪ ▪ My aesthetic impulses are bad (matchy-matchy or frivolous nonsense or not sophisticated or clever choices) ▪ desire as the enemy of Totality ? ▪ the Material of (13) “Problems to address in body phases” ▪ Evidence not proof ▪ Management of these emotions like this: as if they are Breaking Waves to Slip Between ... 10. Feeling States ▪ The Sublime stuff - as Agnes Martin says ’response in primary awareness’ - feelings you would have at the beach - sublime, joy &c, all Positive. To be distin- guished from petty Emotions (9) ▪ attention ▪ Will as a receptive tool ▪ “i like this” -> i am like this ▪ Desire as a bridge to Totality ▪ BELIEF consciousness. The difference between belief and rationality (intellect); these different forms of mind; the Powers of both of those states; the Fusion of these in Direct Experience (2) ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 11. Mystery (Immaterial) ▪ Real state outside of proof ▪ the unknown ▪ is this the same as Unconscious / Void? ▪ an idea that the immaterial is rather the core of all material ~ and strata of spirituality heretofore identified lie as spheres approaching or resisting “material- ism” or “being Known” ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 12. Material ▪ what is formed with substance & has quality ▪ what we see in the light (not to be con- fused with holiness) ▪ what is known, plain ▪ the Object (Other-Body) 13. Thesis as Solution (6) ▪ Art as cure, coping strategy, “attempt”, DIAGNOSIS ▪ thesis product is summary of self experiment ▪ Tiffany ▪ ‘Authoritative artwork is dependent on the obedient state of mind.’ Agnes Martin ▪ Discipline versus desire (two common ways Art is made). I desire reconciliation of artist identity; I foolishly desire to be disciplined (daily practice). I do not desire to make art from for stephanie nothing, for no reason. I do love a reason or obligation to make art: a posed problem to interpret or “solve” with creative measures. This is a kind of complication of the discipline/desire binary - I desire a making practice that is desired from me: herein I find the discipline necessary to make. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 14. Women ▪ unique abilities gotten through internalized surveillance ▪ woman as body (3) ▪ Hag as Cultural Critique (15) ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 15. Culture ▪ New Age as Disorganized Religion ▪ Modern art as a flesh for occult ideas ▪ Human systems (often badly) integrating material with the immaterial - incl. the world of values ▪ The Stupid Patriarchy BIBLIOGRAPHY////////////////// Suzi Gablik; Re-Enchantment of Art; Thames & Hudson; 1992 Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer; Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind; Bantam; 2008 John Moffitt; Occultism in avant-garde art : the case of Joseph Beuys; UMI; 1988 Nancy Princenthal; Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art; Thames & Hudson; 2019