BACK COVER WHAT IS THIS ZINE? WHY WHO HOW WHEN WHAT WHERE
WHAT IS THIS CONTAINER? WHO: by Vanessa Virta, Maia Means, Chloë Chignell, Sonya Lindfors, Nicole Neidert, Gry Tingskog and Ellen Söderhult WITH: Maia Means, Ellen Söderhult and Chloë Chignell and in case of bad weather Stina Nyberg WHERE: The stage by the water, close to Index and on the Internet. WHEN: Friday, August 5th 18.00-19.30 WHAT: Performance + zine WHAT, HOW, WHY? (See also TITLES, SCORES and THE PERFORMANCE on FRIDAY)
EDITORS IN CHIEF: Chloe Chignell and Ellen Söderhult.
Z Z S
ZINE ZIGN SIGN
a container
A bit of romance and also some other stuff. A deeply superficial choreographic performance A lapse from virtue or in it for the long run A recipe (but not for eating) A sequel to everything up until now A shallow cover of all the best pieces of art ever And then she walked onto the podium and started to recite the Manifesto for Maintenance Art Being several Better half Binaries are so over, quality and quantity are best friends some special Fridays Chameleons Chronic imposter syndrome Clear Eyes, Full hearts Committed containering Committed ambivalence. Do no Harm Don’t Quixote Emotional Cosmology EPIC Tournament first round Facts and feelings Fear of failure and dreams of falling Fictitious fake trying Friday Night Lights Light Friends Gonzo choreography Gonzo choreography has no need to be picky Gonzo choreography is so over pretending to be objective Horizontal tourism Hobbying I could have sworn Agamemnon was a lady I have seen worse and other poetic things I love Judith Butler I should not die happy unless… Imposters, counterfeiters and thieves If I was… you would… If I was an artist I would title things in a more specific way I’m all for it I just didn’t think it through In the end it totally mattered Instead of Success Intimate invitation Is that a request? It’s only art if it is useless Leonora Many feminist’s elegy Melodramatic journeys New scars, old wounds Ode to August Ode to the speech by Michelle Obama’s husband Once a Gilmore always a Gilmore Opinions weakened with time Pilot in parts Please and thank you Reading is Sexy
Seeing other people Semi successful conviviality Several feminists sparkling sonnet Scenes from Part 2 Somewhat near you, soon. Sparkles Teenage dirtbags revisited That man Oedipus The attention seekers The beach and other places that don’t exist The catfish experience The choir of several feminists The Cult of Likability The farm dream and other abstract stories depicted in a way that leaves it up to you The fundamental things apply The inaudible lesbian opera The incomplete encyclopaedia of random knowledge and dear dances The landscapers The most discrete amount that exists The one with all the questions The one with many dances and words The one with the alliterated title The one with the audio commentary thing The one with the landscapes This could be a grievous error This is transpersonal This is true, I promise This is the title of a book This one is a fake title Too fast for the Internet Trio not A but also not quite B Twilight Ursula K Le Guin is my hero Used as found but always break the rules Usefulness and the destruction of art Vegan hunters Volcanos and girls: a naturally erotic fiction We have no art we do everything well What did Judith Butler do? What is Judith Butler going to do? What kind of day has it been? What Would Donna Harraway do? What would Chris Kraus do? What would Eileen Miles do? What would Karen Barad do? What would Maggie Nelson do? What would most feminists do? What would Paris Hilton do? What would Rory Gilmore do? What would Silvia Federici do? What would Ursula K le Guin do? You’ve been Gilmored
SCORE/INSTRUCTIONS To be activated by a group of people, at least two. Instigate a container piece i.e. ask your collaborators to contribute with content to a piece of art. Recycling, transcycling, using, curating and developing old material can be encouraged.
DECISION MAKING IN A GROUP The more people you have collaborating on The Container Piece, the more difficult or prolonged decision-making can become. It is important to agree on each decision, it is not important if you disagree. However, it is possible to take another approach: It is important to disagree and it is not so important when you agree.
METHODS FOR DECISION MAKING IN A GROUP: Distribution: Divide choices evenly among you. In this method everyone will make there own decisions but every one will have made the same amount of decisions. Delegation: In this method consensus or shared interpretation is not necessary. You can each decide individually and still feel together. Vote: Can be done loudly through talking, or silently, making a tally on a page. Which method you choose depends on your desired visibility. Discussion: Trying to convince those who don‘t agree with you, to agree with you. Being convinced to agree with someone Chance: Rolling a dice or other such methods (see John Cage). In this method no one makes decisions. Force: Self-explanatory. See also emotional arguments Manipulation: using skills of persuasion to trick your collaborators into agreeing with you. Emotional Arguments: Talk about how you feel about a decision; try to be as personal as possible. This type of discussion can be the most time consuming but can also be a bonding practice. Agreement: Only collaborate with people whom you know will already have the same taste as you.
FROM MIND FULL HELPLESSNESS TO MINDFUL HELPFULNESS
What is self-help? It is most commonly referred to as a self-guided self-improvement. But what is improvement and who defines it? What ideas or beliefs orient us when navigating in the direction towards it? And what is a self? A good deal of self-help is closely connected to fitting into society. It provides methods for adjusting to societal injustice. It is about being functional in a dysfunctional society. The improvement suggested can be many things but it is very common that the aim is success as defined by the market, meaning by money. It invites working hard to change oneself, not the world. The idea of the free market (or should we call it the freedom from welfare,) is fused with the idea of competition and social mobility. It is not supposed to matter if you are born, for example, a homosexual woman of color in a poor family, because only merit and your choices will decide what your life will be like and who you are or will become. It ignores the fact that resources and possibilities are violently unequally distributed as well as the fact that recruiting is not unbiased. And when you are free to choose, you are also responsible for how things turn out. When competition is encouraged and considered healthy, which is a central part of neoliberal ideology, a serious division is made between individuals. In this ideology the dream is individual. The word ideology is used to point out the fact that many ideas connected to neoliberalism seem invisible and natural today, because they are seldom questioned and often experienced and considered self-evident. For example it appears as self-evident that self-realization is more important than changing the world or the way we live together, and individualism seems natural although there is a structure that can be said to make as act as individuals that is not at all natural. Competition and a need for self-realization have been naturalized and individualism has become self-evident to the extent of almost being invisible. Despite living in an economic system based on the idea that every human is a rational, independent island, most people know that an individual doesn’t make herself. Because we are born into co-dependence and as social beings, we build our sense of self through others. What I perceive as reality is constituted and shared by the collective history and present I am born into. I am not free to choose history, social or economic structures or belief-systems that will influence or shape my beliefs and how I perceive the world. But together with others, we produce or reproduce and shape belief-systems. By following them, by participating in them we manifest them, by transforming them, we have the possibility to manifest other ones. Social mobility doesn’t change how society is organized, it only makes it possible for different people to take different roles on a social ladder that prevails. Instead of changing society, self-improvement can result in isolated individuals who in the imposed competition and fear of failing try to adapt to the world as it is. Or enough self-absorbed to not attempt to change societal structures. And since the ideology is about how we “make ourselves” individually, the dreams are not about how we could change the way we live our lives together. Even though the idea that you are free to be whomever you want is made up, it’s effects are real. The imagined idea of the self-made individual makes it impossible, or at least very hard, to blame anything other than yourself if you, for example, are unemployed, don’t reach your goal, end up in poverty or get fired. Despite an obsession with positive thinking, the idea that you have can become whoever you want produce a lot of anxiety, depression and burnout. Simultaneously, when taking a look around: most freedom to choose simultaneously appears as connected to money as really big corporations or very rich individuals. While those corporations are sometimes treated like persons in court, people are behaving like corporations to survive in the competition. Self-help includes a cluster of perfect methods and strategies to increase one’s human capital, to make oneself more marketable, likable, relatable. flexible.
Developing unique selling points, constantly further educating oneself and marketing oneself as a happy, positive, team-spirited person on social media have become other aspects of work. Like marketing for an enterprise but for a human. “Success is the only option” is a frequently used phrase, but is it really? If you are extremely goal oriented, like much self-help proposes, all alternatives to the one specific goal decided upon are in a way defined as failure(s). Besides questioning success as the only option, how can self-help be used to work for redefining success in many directions? Since we are all dependent on each other and the planet we live on, what if we would consider all of humanity as a second layer of self-hood, as one collective self and help that self? What could a collective success be? What if success was something very different from variations on being better than others or having more than others? For example, what if success would be living in an economic system that doesn’t accumulate wealth, dismantle welfare and increase income gaps? It is very possible that the climate and conditions produced by the belief in the free market, has created a need for self-preservation that sometimes takes the shape of self-help. In that aspect, self-help can be understood as a covering up of historical and daily structural violence, oppression and exclusion. A fixing of the symptom, and not the structure which would be the cause. While self-care is of major importance in the age of depression, burnout and medicalizing many behaviors, the idea of helping oneself and oneself only echoes a capitalistic way of thinking economy based on the false idea that a self is an isolated, independent entity. It also echoes the belief that we are responsible for ourselves and our possessions only, to the extent that much of the environment like the air and the water as well as other things that are not defined as belongings are polluted without second thought, treated as infinite resources there for the purpose of being used by humans only. But also owning is a reason to deplete and use, ignore sustainability and ecology to produce quick profit. An instrumental relationship to the rest of the planet is a consequence of trusting the market as defining value. But if we were to remove the idea of self as an isolated being, self-help might become a strategy to change not only people but shared beliefs as well as how we perceive reality and what we pay attention to. Because ideology is internalized and made invisible exactly because it is a shared belief or a common taken for granted. It might be boiled down to the question: is it possible to change the subject of self-help from helping yourself at the expense of the environment we live in and everybody else because of competition, to a way to a better life with other people, since you are always part of and dependent on something bigger than an isolated you? Since the problem is not only mine or yours but the belief in profit, competition and capitalism, variations on collective self-help might hold a possible strategy for change. It would be great to start with noticing how our actions and words affect not only ourselves but also others and the future. In that sense, every action and formulation is a manifestation in universe, is a reciprocal formation. If change is wanted, it makes sense to trust in our capacity to be aware that we are in a plastic relationship with our reality, a relationship in which we shape and are being shaped, figuratively as well as factually. Catherine Malabo writes about the plasticity of the brain as something that stands between “flexibility and rigidity, suppleness and solidity, fixedness and transformability, identity and modifiability, determination and freedom”1. So, what we think; changes our brains. With this plasticity in mind, the word accountability, as in giving an account of oneself, gets a new and more layered meaning. Maybe we can think of that accountability as the political dimension of Catherine Malabo’s concept of plasticity, that our brains are plastic and thus capable of
(self-) modulation and (self-) reparation, as “responsibility in the double movement of the receiving and the giving of form”2. (I think of this as different from the responsibility to be employable, improving, flexible, and more in the direction of responsibility to care for a bigger picture and accountability for how we constitute ideals, ideology and collective dreams.)
1. MINDFULLNESS
The reciprocal nature of this relationship is of importance. We are born into co-dependency and to some extent everything starts with the collective, which is what makes individuation possible. We are born in a deep need of care, and the idea of finding yourself by yourself deep inside can definitely be challenged by the belief that it all starts with a collective and we become ourselves through others and through meeting the world. If this is true, it does not make a lot of sense to help not only through bettering oneself or fitting in, but rather to aim for conditions that support a way of living together that seems meaningful and good, to aim for the life you want to live with others. To change the conditions, change the rules of the game instead of focusing all one’s energy on getting better at the game.
A radio play with three roles:
Just like self-help in general and some mindfulness theories, this collection of scores aims at redirecting one’s attention slightly, just to see what that would mean and do. Not only (but also) to you, but principally to the context and world upon which you are dependent and which depends on you. Mindfulness is a quite common strategy within self-help. The idea is to be present in the moment. Thinking about the past of the future is sometimes compared to sleepwalking or not being “present”. But the human ability to be aware and act conscious about future as well as past is not only or at all necessarily a problem. This score collection proposes another interpretation of this word, which is a sort of ambitious, willful day-dreaming. The possibility to think and visualize beyond what is at the moment considered real is a super power of human imagination, and its only application is not individual goals. If shared, new affirmations and imagining the future otherwise can shift what is believed to be real, and the room for action might change. Imagine a group meditation on what the future could be like. Self-help could be a used as a means to a different end. Etymologically, mindful is easily traced to the Old English “Myndful” which means “of good memory”. Old English also had the adjective “myndig” which means “mindful, recollecting; thoughtful”. To be aware of something that may be important, to bear something in mind. As in to walk mindfully, to mind one’s step. What if we would attempt to put effort into increasing our capacity to visualize the future, to train our brains to picture the world otherwise? To work on a good vision of the future instead of confirming what is, as a good memory but made up and in the opposite direction in time? What if attentiveness to the future is practicable, along with awareness of the plasticity which makes the future seem so much more open ended? I hope this can be a stepping stone for our shared imagination that can create conditions for bringing the potentially possible “otherwises” into being! Definitely not always positive, but hopeful and shared.
Offer to watch over someone so that they can take a nap (right now)
2. BRAGGING A skilled counterfeiter/con artist An admirer of the counterfeiter A conventional artist The plot: the conventional artist and the admirer are convinced that the counterfeiter is the humblest and greatest artist of all. (possible arguments: she cares more about the art than about Herself, she takes care of what already exists, she is not self-obsessive or obsessed with innovation, nor with being special, unique or new. 3. SELF-EXPRESSION Make a self-expressive dance as your favorite character, fictive or real (Hint: can be a character from Netflix, a friend or a role model)
4. HORIZONTAL TOURISM or LANDSCAPE Score to be activated as a trio Decide on a place to meet that is not a home (Proposals: library, museum, church, university) Find an open space Lie down next to each other Sub score: Practice forgetting yourself, identifying as a group body or Do your best to perceive your three Bodies as one landscape 5. SLUMBER PARTY (Group activity) Sleep in a pile. Sub score: Practice forgetting yourself, identifying as a group body.
6. DIARY Write in your diary as if you were a) the whole universe b) every single cell in your body c) all of humanity
7. 8. IDENTIFICATION Form an amateur theater group instead of going to theatre.
Decide on a play (hint: transcripts for movies are easily found online) Try to each impersonate every single role in the play. Think of the theatre practice as art in and of itself, meaning it is not about what it produces, it is about the practice, the doing, the executing it in and of itself that is the actual thing. Variation: Instead of a play, follow the same direction but identify with a landscape. Avoid projecting human traits onto the landscape but try to relate through sensations such as density, temperature, sense of time, direction, mass and similar.
9. NORM-MACHINE Dedicate yourself to building mental images of your choices as one of many and very local and peacefully co-existing norms. Be a norm follower or be norm-creative, but instead of trusting market demands, tradition, presumptions or peers, trust your future visions or collective dreams of the future. Define your norm as successful per se and remove the idea that popularity gives it more importance. Encourage others to be their own norm-machines or happy norm followers. Repeat, but replace norm-machine with a) notion of quality-machine b) parameters of success-machine
10. HORIZONTAL TOURISM II Find the biggest church in the bank district of the city you are in or in the closest city to where you are located. Lie down on the marble floor. Close your eyes to direct your attention to the temperature of the floor and the parts of your body that are in touch with the ground. Stay there for as long as you desire. Then attempt to disperse your sense of self through try to identify with the environment you are in as much as with your (partly socially constructed) idea of yourself. Helpful strategies could be focusing on textures, temperatures, shapes, weight or to think about how the whole universe is made out of the same stardust or energy. It can also help to melt into the floor.
11. READY-MADE ENCYCLOPEDIA This score can also be done as a group exercise. The “you” addressed in the score can admirably be a plural you. There is no need to agreeing on everything, meaning any text that is important for any one of you can go into the encyclopedia. Collect texts that have been of importance to you or that you find interesting. Aim for texts that you find life changing and truly wise! It is possible to choose texts by female authors only. The texts might be of different formats such as prose, poetry, theory. Find a word or a concept that you think is central to each text or a word you think the piece of writing relates to for you personally, thematically, emotionally or a personal association you make between the word and the text. It can be through association, emotion, similarity, different logics. Organize the texts in a way that appeals to you or makes sense to you personally. By doing this you are in the process of making a transforming (or as often as you please transforming) associative, non-complete encyclopedia, as all other encyclopedias, (depending on how you define those terms). Paint or sketch or print a cover (hint: use an image of a cover of a book that look very important, from the internet) Print it and read it to a friend while they are lying down with closed eyes.
12. NOT LAZY To be practiced when tired from stress or hard work Lie down on your back and imagine your body to be a plastic bag filled with water. Stay there until you feel like leaving. Whenever you feel lazy, find a way to define what you are doing that gives it value according to you. For example: I am resting I am melting I am releasing I am listening I am noticing I am perceiving I am softening I am recovering I am processing I am being I am dreaming I am transforming I am doing what Audre Lorde would have described as an act of political warfare (self-care “is not self-indulgence – it is preservation, and that is an act of political warfare) In some situations, or states, it will make you feel much better to go out running as fast as you can, or going out dancing with your friends. Never ever trust a self-help book!
13. MINFDULLNESS II Imagine a dance company with old women in many different body shapes, sizes and skin colors. Imagine this being the Royal Ballet, and the plot a lesbian love story of two older ladies working as cleaners. Consider what such a dance company would have done to your idea of dance.
14. FEMALE BONDING It has come to the attention of several biologists that patriarchy is the consequence not of force or power but of male bonding. Whilst it is generally believed that females are the masters of social bonds, this particular bonding is more in the sense of father supporting son, master supporting student or other strategic relationships of trust and loyalty, (like in the boards of big corporations or in the crime film the Godfather). It is a networking capacity more than a friendship hunger, a bromance in which one keeps the power within the strategic alliance and stands up for each other. Historically it is believed that while the wife was loyal to her husband, the husband was loyal to other men. For this reason, a possible way of positively affirming a future without patriarchy, this score proposes that we all consider starting to act with this in mind. For more inspiration see for example books by the following authors: Judith Butler, Sara Ahmed, Rosi Braidotti, Eva Illouz, Silvia Federici, Helen Cixous, Donna Haraway, Jill Johnston.
15. ACCEPTING SUPPORT It is widely spread in self-help books that one needs to take care of and love oneself before loving others. Presume for a moment that this is completely false and…
Try to notice every time someone attempts to help you. Try to practice generous support without expecting something in return.
16. TEAM SPIRIT It is another widely spread belief that you need a corporation or a team to experience team spirit. What if team spirit can be felt without competition and even a formal common nominator? Try to practice this first while taking a walk (hint: feel the team spirit with Gaia, all your cells, everyone that comes to your mind or the universe), later by thinking of the whole yoga class you are in as a team, or whoever is around as on your team in the fight against the environmental crisis.
17. A MAGNIFICENT SUPER POWER You have immense powers of empathy, comfort and care.
18. COUCH AMOEBA Inspiration can be a reason and help to change behaviours. Two clear ways of relating to what is, in form of norms and social behaviour is adaptaion and resistance. This score proposes to look for and identify with what you like, being picky and choosing carefully what to reproduce and copy. One place to look: movies, tv-series, novels. Change yourself through being like someone you admire.
19. WHAT WOULD-GAME Think of your favorite feminist or most inspiring fictitious character What would your favorite feminist do in this situation? (Whatever situation you are in right now)
20. MOTHER NATURE This score has two roles and can be done in a group of even people. As the inviting part, you (maybe together with other inviters) a landscape you would like to experience with others. Bring a gues to this place and braid the persons hair while you all enjoy the view. If the persons hair is to short, give them a back massage. If you don’t know how to braid here, watch a tutorial.
21. RUDY see next edition 22. HEAVY DREAMER Lie down to spend some time dreaming. Dream about which conditions would be good to change to promote other behaviors than egoism, individualism and competition.
23. KITCHEN KARAOKE To be activated in a kitchen, a living room or in a collective. Find songs most of you know, look for a video with lyrics on YouTube, turn the solo song into a live choir version of the song. It is important to take the choir into consideration. This is not multiple solos, but a shared choir singing.
24. THE POET
26. THE DECISION MAKING POWERS
Find a poem by a female poet. Write an additional verse or paragraph or section, add on to the poem
Imagine how many important decisions for example a president has to make every day. Imagine a day in the president’s life where she has many very important and big decisions to make. She solves the problem by doing as many things as possible in her life exactly as most other days. She sleeps in the same bed, in the same house, has the same breakfast, does the same cross-fit program and listens to the same playlist. Let this image inspire you if you find it useful and try it out next time you have something important to decide.
25. STORYTELLING This score is about identification with one’s profession. Remember the last time someone asked you or you asked someone what they do for a living. Think about the importance of that question. Think of jobs that you think of as important but that have low status and or low pay. For example: Animal right workers Teachers Nurses Caretakers (taking care of old people or differently abled people) Human rights workers Now make a list of jobs that you think sound impressive or signal things like ambition, intelligence, endurance, wisdom, empathy or respect. Possible examples could be: Lawyer Judge Medical doctor Now make a list of jobs that you are really happy for that people do, but which you would not like to do, and that you know is not well paid. Possible examples: Cleaner Sanitation worker List number 4: make a list of jobs or roles that the main character in theatres, TV-series and ballets or other stage arts performances often have. President Journalist Special investigator/detective/police Servant Lord King, Princess, Prince Queen Prostitute Mom Fifth part: In your mind or literally, re-write a story that you like (hint: TV-series, movies, theatre play, ballet, opera, novel) with this collected information in mind.
27. YOU Every time you read the word you Presume it is meant as a plural you, concerning all of humanity or smaller groupings or humans or humans and animals.
28.LISTS List your goals. List your goals for our planet. List your goals for humanity. List your shoulds. List your shoulds for the planet. List your shoulds for humanity. Try to analyze those lists. Ask yourself if you think it would bring more happiness to you, the planet or humanity. What makes something a should? Think about what will happen if they are not achieved. What posts of the list do you feel motivated to act on? In what way could you be a part of acting on the ones that do not only concern you?
29. MOTHER NATURE With so much plastic in the oceans, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the temperature rising, it is easy to feel fear concerning our planet. Make a list of big fears and strategies for working against them. Think of a way to constitute a you that is bigger than yourself.
30. GAIA LOVE Replace “radical self love” with “radical Gaia love”, which can be considered self-love since your self is completely dependent on the environment. Replace the notion of “self-fulfilment” with “environmental-fulfilment”.
31. BECAUSE OF YOU Can be done as a group, couple or alone. Take a hike into nature. Sit down in silence and smell, listen, touch and look at the nature you are in. Write a thankful love poem to the nature, thanking her for making life possible or describing how magnificent she is and read it aloud. If you at any other moment find yourself manipulated or prone to think of nature as a resource, remind yourself of this moment.
32. GRATITUDE Start a conversation about nature and insist on calling it her and refer to her with gratitude, love and respect. If you believe that SHE doesn’t care about your gratitude, that she possibly
is completely indifferent; know that our shared idea about her matters. Remark on if people objectify her. Tell them you find it offensive and ask them to consider her glory. (Or if that doesn’t work, their indebtedness.) Be sharp, strong and supple in your arguing.
33. OPTIONS Many people, magazines, coaches and other once, or more likely multiple times, said: “Success is the only option”. Ponder upon this expression. Make an ambitious list of other options that you think lead to happiness, for you or others. When or if you are satisfied with the list, copy it (hint: a title can be good, for example OPTIONS TO SUCCESS), and leave it in places you choose carefully.
LANDSCAPING: (speech acts) Find an image of a landscape; you can do this on the Internet. Describe it to some one using one or more methods listed below. SUBJECT Position yourself in the landscape. Describing what you see from this location. You can describe using phrases like, ‘Close to me there is’… or ‘In the distance I see’. COMPARATIVE Describing by comparison, so you do not say what it is that you see but you speak about how it is similar or not to something else. You can describe using phrases like “it is a bit like…” or “it is not at all…” or “It seems as if…” QUALITATIVE Describing using only the qualities that you observe of the space, not the shape or talking about what it actually is. You can speak about things like: temperature, texture, weight, density, light etc. You can describe using phrases like “I might feel like…” or “it appears as it could be…” SPECULATIVE Describe how you think the landscape came to be this way. Describing relationships elements of the landscape. This kind of description invites you to talk about time and emergence, how it came into its form. You can also speculate on futures for the landscape, how might it continue to form/deform. You can use phrases like “it seems that…or “It is possible that…” It might be that…” or “it might have been that…” FACTUAL/OBJECTIVE Describing the shape, color and size. It is not about your perspective but about how it actually is. In this you have to imagine the image as an absolute truth. You can use phrases like “it is…” try not to say ‘I’.
LAYING DOWN: HORIZTONAL PROACTIVITY This score positions horizontality, or laying down, as a way for body/ies to not only claim space but also produce new territories, environments and ecologies. Laying down—often considered a position of passivity, or soft resistance, here becomes a proactive approach to rethinking the relationship between territory and the body. In laying down cozy-ness and a complete lack of urgency can become primary conditions for action. This score can be undertaken individually or through collective imagination. It is not a matter of representing or becoming but through thinking the body/ies take space. This imagination does not ask for self-transformation or a moving towards the qualities of the landscapes; it is that the landscapes, through thinking, emerge as the body/ies. The imagination is thus a way of producing and participating in that, which is outside of the possible. Thinking into being offers as a method a kind of radical assertion, “I laydown and an entire mountain range becomes my body”, it does not guess at or try out, but simply does. Needed: Yourself Others (if desired) Floor/Ground Anything you would like to make yourself comfortable Lay on your side, close your eyes and imagine your body as a mountain range. If you become uncomfortable adjust your position, new peaks and valleys might emerge. Lay on your side, close your eyes and imagine your body as the horizon. You can spend time letting your body spread into flatness. The horizon extends past the walls of the room and the boarders of the city. Your body is the perimeter of the earth, the edge of the visible and the threshold of the possible. Lay on your side, close your eyes and imagine your body as an iceberg. Your body is only the tip of the iceberg, below you is the rest of your body. Lay on your side, close your eyes and imagine your body as a desert-scape. Your body is rolling sand dunes in constant formation and deformation by wind. Lay on your side, close your eyes and imagine your body as an island. Your body is a landmass that makes no contact with any other landmass and is partly submerged in water. Lay on your side, close your eyes and imagine your body as the ocean. Your body is in soft and continual contact with every landmass.
WHY? ART.
MORE ABOUT ART
Someone once said “Art is whatever you can get away with”. Another artist once gave the advice “learn the rules so that you best know how to break them”. A third other someone once said “Whatever I say is art is art”. That was funny because the person that said the latter, happened to be extremely famous and important in art history, because of a piece of art that was most probably submitted not by this person, but by the lover of this person. The lover of the person thought that the art club had stupid parameters of quality and therefore sent in a thing found in a bathroom. The person who claimed to be the author, the so to say “thief-author” named the artwork “The fountain.” Already here, in the middle of what was to be defines as a ground breaking moment in art-history, the moment when the whole art history changed retrospectively since all of a sudden everything could potentially be art, the idea of authorship and ownership is confusing. The reason why authorship gets confusing is the act of using, naming or claiming or stealing authorship as making. If the idea and not the artwork itself as a crafted item is what is valued, intellectual property is of interest to the art market. For someone who believes innovation to be ongoing and collective, this is a confusing way of working for fostering an environment in which creativity and innovation can flourish. Some might say that art is a specifically elaborated form of creating variations through imitation, that bastardizations, versions, covers, transcreations and dispersed authorship is the exact nature of human art making, social being as we are. But to get back to the famous authors and a very different version of history and belief, namely the history of the genius given divine inspiration and holding magnificent talent. Since the thing found in a bathroom was not made by either of the persons considered senders, authors or owners of the intellectual property the gesture of proposing the bathroom thing as an artwork is, the gesture proposes that choosing is making. The person who crafted the actual bathroom thing as you might have noticed is not mentioned. That person was just copying, and copying is not authentic, and it doesn’t look as much as choosing. If choosing is making, then making is close to curating. And curating, derived from curare is etymologically to take care of. I guess in the age of social media, that is double. As we engage as prosumers, presenting ourselves through our choices on platforms for user developed content like twitter, Facebook, instagram, myspace, curating is also possibly adding on to or building for a reputation economy. Since the beginning of what has been called “the affluence society” in the west, choosing is important in building one‘s persona, one’s identity, label or unique selling points. Curation can then be understood as a self-evident method in what can be called the branding culture or corporate culture. This means that within our present ideology, there is a belief in competition and the free market, that puts the strive for profit to the forefront. Short version is that there is a connection between that, and the popularity of self-promotion, much like corporations themselves as enterprises. The tendency to think of ourselves as corporations or specs of human capital is also encouraged by the need of flexibility and social skills in the professional life in western capitalism. To make oneself an instrument to profit by selling one’s free lance to whomever pays the most in the name of profit is not considered as crazy as it sounds. But apart from constituting our identity as relatable and likable (after all we are social beings!), curating is a matter of choosing what to manifest. A matter of being “an agential part of the material becoming of the universe” as Karen Barad might have put it. To choose, responsibly what words, thoughts, activities to attend to. Seen from a very different perspective, the act of putting the bathroom thing in the museum and giving it a name is an act of caring for what is. Supporting the act of putting out attention to it. Even though it existed before, the act of sending it to the museum expanded its purpose and changed the way we perceive it. A thing that was already existing was used to re-constitute reality. Not more nor less than a new thing or other things, but still.
What happened to the bathroom thing that got places in a museum also says some things about the idea of talent within art. Most people that I know that are considered talents are people that break rules or invent new and better ways to cheat or convince. This is nicely illustrated by the opening quotes. Talent is sometimes a way of not acknowledging circumstances or commitment to a thing. For example, the person who said “whatever I say is art is art” had to help convincing people by writing a review under pseudonym about how provocative the bathroom thing was in order to create debate and finally be considered fairly talented and super successful. Instead of changing oneself, one can attempt to change a shared idea of quality within art. Because talent is connected to quality and quality is floating within art. Proof for this can be found in art made during wartime functioning as propaganda, art painted in churches designed to instil respect, maybe fear and the idea of the greatness of God. This might be compared to things like “The black square” or “The fountain” or “Touch sanitation”. In “Touch sanitation” the artist shook hands with all sanitation workers in New York. The artist also wrote an amazing manifesto in which question are asked about the relationship between reproduction and life’s dreams. Reproductive work has since the beginning of capitalism been made invisible since it is not paid, and therefore not visible in statistics or the gross national product. One can take a pause and consider the consequences of that. Can it also be so that many artists work is made invisible or not considered art for the same reason? How does those facts inform the constructed idea of talent? Who has been given time and conditions to develop a “talent”, who has been powerful enough to define it? Some people like to distinguish art from design, meaning art is “useless” for anything else than being art, and design being made to make us like something. Other people claim that there is political art and unpolitical art, while others say that all art like everything else always is political, and that there is a big difference between making artwork about something political as a theme, and considering the specific politics of the methods, modes of production, product and proposed logic of an artwork. Some artists use art to express themselves, sometimes called self-expressive art. One very famous artist once hired an actor to talk about his works in a museum. When caught in the action, the author replied something like “the actor was simply much better at performing myself than I am”. The same artist also at one point came to Stockholm and the museum of modern art to see an exhibition of their own work. One artwork included shiny silver balloons that hovered close to the ceiling. In the exhibition in Stockholm, the responsible people could not find balloons like this, so instead they had filled plastic bags with air. They were lying on the floor. The author of the original artwork then said “wow that is so much better than anything I could ever have thought of”. This can be considered a successful example of transcreation. A translation or imitation that includes destructive and creative acts or elements. If one considers innovation as collective and ongoing, art is like everything else in a culture “always again, but never as before”. (Or: creativity is often a mistake interpreted as a sign of genius?)(Or: it is not about the art, it is about who is sensible enough to appreciate it.) It’s definitely complicated.
I am, therefore I shit I am, therefore I piss I am, therefore I’m distant I am, therefore I’m yours I am, therefore I’m stealing I am, therefore I’m using I am, therefore I’m sharing I am, therefore I’m a subject I am, therefore I’m multiple I am, therefore I’m objectified I am, therefore I’m okay I am, therefore I’m broken I am, therefore I do my dishes I am, therefore I doubt I am, therefore I doubt my existence I am, therefore I doubt my existing I am, therefore I believe I am, therefore I perform I am, therefore I’m constructed I am, therefore I don’t want to miss my subway I am, therefore I’m the best I am, therefore I’m humble I am, therefore I speak I am, therefore I listen I am, therefore I rise I am, therefore I fall I am, therefore I loose I am, therefore I win I am, therefore I go I am, therefore I do I am, therefore I’m with you I am, therefore I brunch I am, therefore I smoke I am, therefore I meet I am, therefore I’m sick I am, therefore I’m vulnerable I am, therefore I salivate I am, therefore I’m strong I am, therefore I’m feminist I am, therefore I rule I am, therefore I’m queen I am, therefore I’m gendered I am, therefore I’m activism I am, therefore I’m quite similar I am, therefore I’m unique I am, therefore I reproduce I am, therefore I produce I am, therefore I’m growing I am, therefore I play I am, therefore I work I am, therefore I put on masks I am, therefore I do laundry I am, therefore I clean I am, therefore I’m enlightened I am, therefore I study I am, therefore I’m curious I am, therefore I’m willing
I AM, THEREFORE
I AM, THEREFORE
I am, therefore I think I am, therefore I dance I am, therefore I drink I am, therefore I fuck I am, therefore I’m free (lol) I am, therefore I’m conditioned I am, therefore I’m surviving I am, therefore I sleep I am, therefore I eat I am, therefore I serve capitalism I am, therefore I’m lying in my bed staring at my ceiling I am, therefore I use autocorrect I am, therefore I grow I am, therefore I dress I am, therefore I’m entering society I am, therefore I’m entering language I am, therefore I masturbate I am, therefore I day dream I am, therefore I get out of bed I am, therefore I’m staying in bed I am, therefore I question I am, therefore I sometimes don’t find the energy to question I am, therefore we are I am, therefore I socialize I am, therefore I’m lost I am, therefore I have anxiety I am, therefore I’m sleep deprived I am, therefore I snus I am, therefore I’m addicted I am, therefore I love I am, therefore I hate I am, therefore I hate myself I am, therefore I love myself I am, therefore I’m proud I am, therefore I’m indifferent I am, therefore I’m gay I am, therefore I’m queer I am, therefore I feel I am, therefore I sense I am, therefore I survive I am, therefore I’m discriminated I am, therefore I discriminate I am, therefore I’m dedicated I am, therefore I conquer I am, therefore I’m weak I am, therefore I am I am, therefore I surrender I am, therefore I organize I am, therefore I’m empowered I am, therefore I am, therefore I’m starving I am, therefore I’m needy I am, therefore I’m selfish I am, therefore I’m contributing I am, therefore I’m crying I am, therefore I’m laughing I am, therefore I exist
I am, therefore I’m creative I am, therefore I imagine I am, therefore I affirm I am, therefore I destroy I am, therefore I concern I am, therefore I identify I am, therefore I’m distant I am, therefore I flee I am, therefore I fight I am, therefore I escape I am, therefore I’m horny I am, therefore I freeze I am, therefore I’m indifferent I am, therefore I’m deviant I am, therefore I’m norm I am, therefore I break I am, therefore I die I am, therefore I cuddle I am, therefore I live I am, therefore I’m not I am, therefore I housewife I am, therefore I reject I am, therefore I change I am, therefore I collage I am, therefore I fart I am, therefore I fake I am, therefore I make I am, therefore I’m convicted I am, therefore I kill I am, therefore I exploit I am, therefore I save I am, therefore I fear I am, therefore I title I am, therefore I’m competent I am, therefore I have flow I am, therefore I’m disrupted I am, therefore I do art I am, therefore I tell I am, therefore I imagine I am, therefore I crave I am, therefore I want attention I am, therefore I confirm I am, therefore I menstruate I am, therefore I’m not your expectation I am, therefore I’m romantic I am, therefore I age I am, therefore I own I am, therefore I breathe I am, therefore I’m magic I am, therefore I’m nothing else I am, therefore I’m limited I am, therefore I’m disgusting I am, therefore I’m perfect I am, therefore I’m several I am, therefore I’m many I am, therefore I know I am, therefore I’m wise
I AM, THEREFORE
I AM, THEREFORE
I am, therefore I fail I am, therefore I’m loved I am, therefore I’m seen I am, therefore I’m unseen I am, therefore I’m past I am, therefore I’m present I am, therefore I’m the future I am, therefore I don’t I am, therefore I resist I am, therefore I shield I am, therefore I take care I am, therefore I interrupt I am, therefore I hide I am, therefore I’m the one I am, therefore I’m protagonist I am, therefore I’m secondary I am, therefore I take place I am, therefore I take space I am, therefore I try I am, therefore I give space I am, therefore I do woman I am, therefore I travel I am, therefore I’m discovered I am, therefore I give place I am, therefore I invent I am, therefore I collect I am, therefore I inspire I am, therefore I hurry I am, therefore I run I am, therefore I stress I am, therefore I get destroyed I am, therefore I don’t find my way I am, therefore I crush I am, therefore I mass-produce I am, therefore I continue I am, therefore I fall for you I am, therefore I change I am, therefore I add I am, therefore I’m captured I am, therefore I’m game I am, therefore I continue I am, therefore I correct I am, therefore I do art I am, therefore I’m political I am, therefore I engage I am, therefore I’m body I am, therefore I write I am, therefore I do text I am, therefore I go on I am, therefore I don’t stop I am, therefore I edit I am, therefore I repeat I am, therefore I’m hypothetical I am, therefore I will I am, therefore I might I am, therefore I won’t I am, therefore I stop
I am, therefore whatever I am, therefore I swipe left I am, therefore I am complex I am, therefore I create potential I am therefore I am dirty I am, therefore I have time I am, therefore I ask for help I am, therefore you are thought I am, therefore I could totally be in a movie I am, therefore I act I am, therefore I am history I am, therefore I’m unnatural I am, therefore I vibe I am, therefore I am total I am, therefore I’m incomplete I am, therefore I’m fiction I am, therefore I post I am, therefore I publish I am, therefore I am author I am, therefore I am authoring I am, therefore I’m incomplete I am, therefore I’m fiction I am, therefore I post I am, therefore I publish I am, therefore I am author I am, therefore I am authoring I am, therefore I evade I am, therefore I sing I am, therefore I make noise I am, therefore I am heard I am, therefore I scroll I am, therefore I swipe I am, therefore I steal I am, therefore I am body, meat, flesh, I am, therefore I am exhausted I am, therefore I proliferate I am, therefore I am one I am, therefore I cannot be one I am, therefore I am seen I am, therefore I dream I am, therefore I could be a part time vegan I am, therefore I am available I am, therefore I spend time I am, therefore I am in need of time I am, therefore I fill absence I am, therefore I out of love I am, therefore I don’t know anything about love I am, therefore I make maps I am, therefore I make territories I am, therefore I claim space I am, therefore I participate I am, therefore I love Judith butler I am, therefore I Netflix I am, therefore I am sleepless I am, therefore I am undecided I am, therefore I am
I AM, THEREFORE
I AM, THEREFORE
I am, therefore I regret I am, therefore I make capital I am, therefore I employ I am, therefore I’m mundane I am, therefore I’m ordinary I am, therefore I’m unspectacular I am, therefore I’m lonely I am, therefore I’m happy I am, therefore I’m writing this I am, therefore I desire I am, therefore you are I am, therefore I make I am, therefore I’m virtual I am, therefore I’m image I am, therefore I’m distributable I am, therefore I’m universal I am, therefore I affect I am, therefore I am ineffective I am, therefore I am real I am, therefore I lie I am, therefore I am mother I am, therefore I am sister I am, therefore I am friend I am, therefore I become I am, therefore I transform I am, therefore I’m fluid I am, therefore I’m concrete I am, therefore I’m social I am, therefore I’m collective I am, therefore I’m dying I am, therefore I’m living I am, therefore I mend I am, Therefore we become I am, therefore I am everything I am, therefore I am nothing I am, therefore I am animal I am, therefore I move in circles I am, therefore I am aware I am, therefore I am ignorant I am, therefore I subvert I am, therefore I’m a paradox I am, therefore I disturb I am, therefore I sacrifice I am, therefore I bleed I am, therefore I’m fragile I am, therefore I’m tender I am, therefore I am porous I am, therefore I choose I am, therefore I can be I am, therefore I am not I am, therefore I have knowledge I am, therefore I produce knowledge I am, therefore I am destructive I am, therefore I experience I am, therefore I am elsewhere I am, therefore I am here
COLLIDING WITH YOURSELF
INTIMATE CARTOGRAPHY
This score does not propose an event, or a performance, nor will it produce anything for anyone other than the one participating. The score is what I might call a Life Score; it can be used as a way of experiencing yourself in the world. Yes, to be clear it is useless.
If here I can address intimacy as the proximity between things, between people or otherwise; then I would like to propose intimacy as a method of mapping the world— mapping yourself into the world. The task of mapping is seemingly to orient yourself to space or to organize space in such a way that you can navigate it, territorialize it. But in fact mapping can also be a way of creating space and producing new kinds of organization and relations. Intimate Cartography does not propose mapping as documentation but as process. It looks to mapping as a meta-structure for organizing things, people and others into some kind of relational appearance. Intimate Cartography does not rely on logic to guide the mapping process, it is to be constructed through intuition, desire or for no reason at all. Without preferencing a logic of organization, no map can become absolutely important and no map is more useful than any other.
Colliding with yourself is almost like experiencing déjà vu, but it’s not about time and memory. Colliding with yourself is more about meeting your own body in real time, but not necessarily in real space. To somehow appear again to yourself, being different than one, but not necessarily more. There is no method for reproducing this self-collision, it is accidental and contingent. This is not meant to inspire hopelessness, but rather continual and unmediated potential. Everywhere you could possibly be and everything you can possibly do, you are equally likely to collide with yourself.
As space is the primary material for mapping I want to expand upon the kinds of spaces with which intimate cartography takes and/or creates space. (Of course mapping also happens through time and with time, but here we can focus on space). PHYSICAL SPACE: concrete bodies, objects and places. EMOTIONAL SPACE: the expression of space, feelings, sensations, maybe also vibe. CONCEPTUAL SPACE: Thinking, or imagined spaces. For example: a mind map.
A simple task that might work: Close your left eye and point your left finger to something in the distance, open it holding your finger there, close your right eye, point your right finger to the same object in the distance. When both eyes are open, neither finger will seem to point to anything and your arms will most likely make an X. If your fingers would reach toward the horizon they world circle back around the world and reach right back through your own shoulders to collide again with themselves. Or: Lay on your side, close your eyes, and imagine you are laying down sleeping. Think about all the times you can remember yourself sleeping (not falling asleep, but sleeping). And Another: Put your hand on your thigh. Feel your hand touching a thigh, after some time swap perspective and feel your thigh in contact with a hand.
Each of these different spaces offers different kinds of materials to organize, different things and others for which relations can be made. It also becomes possible that we could, through intimate cartography, map between these spaces. A map traversing across materials and producing relations where before there might not have been. The map is not absolute it is only a representation of how something might be. If a map becomes too fixed, if I were to print it in a book for example, then quickly it would just become an image of a map and no longer a map for forming relations. In this sense the map must be weakly made, it must remain fluid and highly unstable. A map must be participated in by those that it organizes. The Map is a highly unstable structure, since the map itself has no interest in being a map. It must be continuously constructed and continually in reference to a series of others. Intimate cartography is then inviting performance—being continuously observed and enacted—the map is somewhat more similar “to a theatre than a factory”. “Always when a world comes to an end and a new is initiated, is the time of the map. Maptimes stand for the transformation from one order (of space) toward another.” Schlögel Karl, Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit, p.87.
CUTENESS Cuteness is maybe something I can agree to.
SHARPNESS AND INTELLIGENCE Sharpness and intelligence kindof requires a steady ground and an answer. I dont have that and even if I do, I dont want to work with it.
WATER I am made of water, many procent, I think that doesn’t mean that much to me. Sometimes it helps me to think of how sad I am. its like that thought brings me back to realty, like if you can know matter then I think I’m hanging more with it when I know that I’m sad. There’s a picture of a girl standing by the wall next to my mattress, and she‘s looking at me. I wonder how she feels about matter. Actually not, actually I just want to lie down. I wonder what is important to me. My fingers are a bit heavy when the are hitting on the letters on the computer. My brain is mostly just water. What can words do that I also want them to do? What do I —. Sweat, a bit of sweat lying on my skin, even though I just showered. Time, timings. Maybe I want to write a score, I mean, write within a score. I feel pride, I feel a big need to be the one that —. I just drank some water. I should drink more water, I often think about that. Now I’m tired and I want to lie more down.
i o n c e w a n t e d t o b e r e a l l y g r e a t, and i once wanted a lot of things now i have a stomach ache and i want this day to be over
WEAKNESS
My eyes and fingers and verbal linguistic brain thingies are overworked All those cells being like
It annoys me when people want personalities and not art I dont think I am a strong unforgettable personality That’s not what im working with I’m working with the work, but its too weak for people to consider it Maybe that will be my thing, weak art. Weak texts, weak dances, weak artist. Gosh how we hate weakness. It gives us all a stomachache and brings forth a bad taste of disgust I will do disgusting art, without pooping on stage, because that’s at least a statement I will do art so disgusting that its pretentious without being big, unexpected without being daring, deriving from form without offering anything else, without coming with any solutions, without packing it in and giving it, it will have no budget and still no b-movie aesthetics, it will be poor without being strong. It will be weak and not beautiful. It will be off, without being kitsch and it will be personal without being intimate. It will not be normative but it still won’t be cool, it will be sad without being beautiful.
t h e s k y i s q u i t e f l a t l i k e m e — o r i t w o u l d b e — i f i t w a s n’ t for those goddamn clouds—three dimensional fuckers— shit h ead cloud suckers
CELLS
Ode to winter landscape I
Ode to a Map
Your middle is a cold river, winding its way through a landscape coloured red by the sun
The peak of America is reaching into a big ocean
The colours speak of autumn, but the coniferous forest makes it hard to tell
The oceans appear to have floating edges, they overlap, into each other
The jagged mountain ridges contrast so strongly against the blue skies
Not like nations, stopping all of a sudden, changing name and sometimes much more than
They look like time; they show time in a way human eyes cannot perceive
just a name
The strong, hard mountain you are partly covered in the fluffy and cold snow
Antarctica is watching over all of it, as a moon watches over a landscape
The snow is stuck in the unevenness of the sides of it
Watching over is more easily done from above, since that increases the distance the gaze
The heat from the sun reaches a lot of surfaces on this side
can move and makes possible dangers detectable from further away
the shape of the huge mass makes sure other surfaces are left in shadow
The visual information find eyes earlier
The temperature must be very unevenly distributed
Since the earth is round, there is not really a specifically good place to watch over all of it
Areas covered of snow and ice, areas meeting the sun, big parts reaching deep into the
simultaneously except in space but that’s outside the map
earth, for other, warmer temperatures in the other direction
But north is a notion as connected to up, as much as classical music is a notion connected
The supple powers of weather, water and wind destabilizes you
to white men in wigs and a lot of strings
You are touching in a grand way, you are a magnificent vista
Despite the earth being located in an endless universe
Testifying to time, massiveness and change imperceptible by humans If north is up, north must be “on top of things” But North cannot be seriously considered up It could never be considered more up than any other direction when the universe is taken into account Gravity doesn’t care about up and down but about clumping matter together It cares about every direction equally and it doesn’t privilege sides But I feel owned by this untrue understanding of directions I feel owned by the idea that north is up and that to be on top of things is a good thing You, dear map, shows the world at least as accurately as other world maps, but you also let me know how easy my brain is fooled Never before have I thought of that specific part of the north Pacific Ocean as the centre of the world Neither have I thought of myself writing this situated in the lower right corner with Africa on top reaching up between the South Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean This map, that upside down I used to navigate How silly! In the way they say it in costume movies of Jane Austin’s books
MERCHANDISE DIY
NEEDED: Plain T-shirt Marker Name of favorite feminist
HOW TO: Lay shirt on even surface and write: WHAT WOULD INSERT FEMINIST HERE DO?
AUTHORS THIS CONTAINER AKA… by Chloe Chignell, Maia Means, Ellen Söderhult and Vanessa Virta SCORE/INSTRUCTIONS by Maia Means and Ellen Söderhult METHODS FOR DECISIONS MAKING IN A GROUP by Chloe Chignell FROM MIND FULL HELPLESSNESS TO MINDFUL HELPFULNESS + SELF HELP SCORES by Ellen Söderhult LANDSCAPING: (speak acts) by Chloe Chingell ALTERNATIVE LYRICS TO I AM THE WORLDS GREATEST developed by Ellen Söderhult HOBBY From the Coming Boogie Woogie by the students of the MA in Choreography at DOCH in 2012. By Stina Nyberg WHY? ART. by Ellen Söderhult I AM THEREFORE by Chloe Chignell and Gry Tingskog COLLIDING WITH YOURSELF A not so instructional how to by Chloe Chingell INTIMATE CARTOGRAPHY by Chloe Chignell ____(the text after intimate choreography and before ode to winter landscape) by Maia Means ODE TO WINTER LANDSCAPE I and ODE TO MAP by Ellen Söderhult COLLAGES by Ellen Söderhult