The stone

The stone will become soil

the stone is not a stone

it's an animal

it's a god

it's a Buddha

I love the stone

because it is a stone

-Siddhartha

Thinking about how we think

One of the greatest tragedies of society is that it privileges one kind of thinking over others.  Being able to articulate oneself in what is considered a logical matter and having the capacity to receive ideas and concepts in that format is essential for survival. The problem is that not everyone’s brain works the same way.

I have always known this on some level although I had an interesting experience the other night at a theatrical performance by Alarm Will Sound  (a 20-member band committed to innovative performances of contemporary music) that made the importance of the constructs of thinking very clear to me. 

                          still from Song Books                                    

The performance, which reimaged Song Books, a 1970 text by John Cage, was an absurd, disjointed, glorious collage of performance and sound. Just to give you a glimpse into what this looked like: at one point there was a performer on stage writing poetic, abstract thoughts on a chalkboard while another played with an old record player and yet another made contorted sounds with his voice that stretched the limits of what the human ear can hear.  Meanwhile, a performer entered from the rear exit doors wearing a horse-head mask and calmly walked through the audience while an older gentleman strapped on a pair of women’s evening shoes and feather boa in preparation to sit down at an old fashioned typewriter and begin typing.  It sounds a bit crazy, but it didn’t feel that way. It actually made me feel very relaxed.  Review of Song Books. 

Shortly after the performance began I started to imagine objects and movements for a new performance piece.  I didn't have any plans to think about anything in particular during Song Books, but it seemed that my mind just got inspired and took off on its own.  While thinking about this new performance idea, I started imagining a new drawing and then some of the figures from my old drawings began dancing around in my head. After a while, my mind started organizing my syllabi for school. I have a couple of new classes in the fall that had been feeling a little daunting, but as the cacophony of the performance carried on my mind opened up and it all seemed so simple.

  still from Song Books 

I don’t have many experiences in my daily life that can even compare to the Alarm Will Sound performance although as I think about it, Manhattan does have that kind of disjointed, irrational rhythm, which is probably why I like living here. The performance taught me that my environment, who I am with, what I choose to focus my mind on etc, will have a deep impact on my ability to think clearly and creatively.  I am very lucky in the sense that both sides of my brain work pretty well, but I need to remember to nurture the less popular side.   I have a feeling there will always be a forum and audience for words and well structured ideas, but it is important to pay special attention to the less glamorous sibling who sounds like she is speaking gibberish. Truth is, I need both of them all the time, regardless of how distinct or how amorphous the activity, both ways of thinking are essential.

 I will leave you with the last line spoken in Song Books. It is from John Cage's  Mesostics Re and Not Re Duchamp.  I found it very moving and you can also see some of his logic in the way he formatted the text:

"the telegraM/ cAme/ i Read it./ death we expeCt,/ but all wE get/ is Life"  

Bodies in space

This is a short video that Ailie kindly shot for me of the installation.  I decided not to edit it too much for now in order to give a sense of  how all the parts of the installation relate to each other in the space.