'Sorry, I hope we can be friends' by Rosina Ivanova to Yanir, Esse, Alessio, and others...
Against love. Against my body. Against ignorance March 23, 2020 sorry sorry sorry sorry i hope we can be friends, etc.
Every time I open up a book by Paulo Coelho the same panic occurs- I see a sentence and I start typing so I never actually read his things. In the early mornings, I'm usually in front of a mirror outside, dancing on hard techno. I'm not here for one hour every morning with or without the virus. I have Rebecca Solnit's book open in the other window, two articles on the current pandemic discussing politics, society and how to handle our shit together, or what consequences the situation may have on surveillance, civic obedience. I also have the techno Schrantz Thorak-Schranznaation #7 one-hour set 'with love from Berlin' crushing out of my speakers- the curious warning to my body what it actually wants to do- to move and dance. I am traveling in and out of the rooms with the music, and the house while writing, typing and dictating on Notes and Grammarly, using multiple devices around the house, from phone to computer- to a mobile speaker- to headphones, crunching on cucumber slices, then I switch to dictation writing and listen to the system voice Karen reproducing my text to audio at normal speed; with her I practice lip sync of my own text, usually right out of bed, in absurd posture, rolling a green umbrella in the background to achieve motion. Fun isn't it, some dancing and writing simultaneously, movement, in general, is good for writing, to free my mind and body We have forgotten to pay attention to our deepest desires, the best we can imagine of ourselves, because now more than ever we play according to social formulas and our preconceptions; we are also dealing with structural changes that are too huge to see. Very strange times, global pandemic, difficulties breathing, extreme isolation, weird obsessions, struggling to find a language to explain what is happening-everything that was wrong with our society is now recommended to do, distance relationships, laziness, doing
nothing, overworking virtually, pajamas and home cooking bloom are the new history of Art as Everyday life, much respected by me ideas in contemporary art practice. The Lithuanian pavilion comes to mind.1 Now is the moment to study the structural vulnerabilities of our society and its political priorities, our spiritual priorities, for others is just the repeated aggregate to make money online. Many people were already working from home anyways, now the public jobs also. Maybe this is a more ecological approach, but we are still wondering and can't grasp what we are loosing.[ref missing] We are losing the same things we were loosing A virus, like everything else we experience, exploits our bodily politics. Body politics refers to the practices and policies through which powers of society regulate the human body, as well as the struggle over the degree of individual and social control of the body, our own governments within us we believe in.[ref missing] Is what feminists and performance artists are doing- claiming the power over their biological bodies, and bodily experiences to reposition ourselves at any given moment, to shift, to move across freely, to engage in a multiplicity of states. We are watching online, deliberately passing over tonnes of materials, some making us laugh, others more, trying to relate somehow, trying to identify ourselves in there, deliberately ignore unwanted information, often people say they struggle to find survival via our own voice is what? To insist on the ethos of your own battles, some of which u never gave up on, Against Ignorance Rarely do we realize or live with the intense feeling every second that we are in the midst of the extraordinary, of the magical, the most exciting. Bordering on manic behavior. Things occur right next to us, and we do not see them coz we have forgotten to believe how to tolerate the best because we don't want to be stressed, we maintain some line above the curve but we don't push too hard, coz we want to be able to breathe and our spiritual heath comes from practicing as less stress as possible so that we can survive in the very stressful working conditions, isolate ourselves to the things we already know how to do The 1st questions we ask is what is happening to me, to my body, what I wanna do "the conflict driving the plot engine of the human race has been the tension between individualism and collective behavior—between the goal of independent flourishing and the concept of the common good. As a species, we have spent several centuries nurturing a collective mindset that rejects collective endeavor, and most of us are living in nations that 1 https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2019/national-participations/lithuania
seem perilously convinced that the human race is a thing you can actually win."[ibid, hahahah] "The collective psychology of neoliberalism encourages self-interest that is organized around the kind of constant insecurity and stress" that actively prevents us from thinking beyond ignorance. Ignorance is not and is the problem here. This is a mistake that scientists, reporters, and right-thinking liberals, left-thinking activists make again and again. It's deeper than that. But what happens to love in times of the corona crisis? Is it possible that our tinder-lightly taken dates become our life long partner because of the proximity and the isolation resulting in constant sex together, or is this a weak up call, to remember the best for ourselves and make it happen, no matter the circumstances? After all, there is no strong person who hasn't been through suffering. I am suffering for a love that is not worthed. It's more common to hear the considered "empowering" "and I don't care he is an asshole". I will never call back. He should be looking for me, so no explanation (a stereotype that usually works) Just let him go But I think is more like I am suffering for love that is worth but my courage is forgotten and fear has taken over, timing is not right, he is a coward, that fucks up with my gender expression, coz he is convinced I want to chase him and that I like him more than he does, that I am weak, the polite thanking for everything someone does for me, expressing constant appreciation for what I have. Oh man! reading the amount of engagement in such situations is very odd, in the sense that they don't need your loving, they need to love you for what they gave you already. And what if I all I want to do is want to give, not take? So people lightly discard each other for the smallest word or behavior they hear/misread they can't fit in, they[including myself] block relationships in a split of a second, and the effort to approach and be real with the other has minimized, if not extinct. Are we going to become more tolerable towards negotiations, and discussions on what went wrong now that somewhat there is some time we have won by excluding commuting, instead of relying on someone's else's voice on what is expected and how we should and what should we do with each other? There are no rules here brothers, these rules are being built up from the ground, together, they are not you analyzing how I am acting weird, you think that I am acting like this and what it means, just ask. There is a lot of effort here, to see, to understand, to talk, to discuss so that things don't get misinterpreted about why the other of us is acting like this. Is this state of crisis going to help us rethink our uttermost sensual reason for being and existence and how we want it for us to happen? Yes, love, to love to be loved
Are we going to continue to walk like zombies, switch to work to distract ourselves, to walk some more, and with our faces trying too hard to be excited ab anything else because we cannot be our best about only that one person which makes us weak and vulnerable, and we cannot even dream about it by ourselves coz is not true, is true but only for few days, weeks, years, then you have to forget and practice loss very fast... Are we the same zombies walking around with hidden sad faces, unwilling to admit that everything we do, we do it for love, we work hard and wait one day it will drop or will happen or we make strategic decisions on how to screen more potential partners, but now that is out of the game, and we are more and more unaware of our faces coz we don't have to put up the show, wondering if all the things we told ourselves were true, always craving for love, but in the moments we teach ourselves to forget... Sometimes a moment of love is given and neither giver nor recipient knows what its true dimensions are, and what it appears to be at first is not what it will be in the end. "Like beginnings, endings have endless recessions, layers atop the layers, consequences that ripple outward." Confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is gendered, as Rebecca Solnit puts it in her book 'Man explain things to me', whether or not they know what they are talking about. It's that moment and feeling that keeps women from seeking up and from being heard when they dare to do so. And if they do dare, they are either too caring, too weak and emotional, too annoying or aggressive/bossy, which leads to self-doubt and self-limitation. Is what I call "Male invitation to silence", unnecessary female reflexivity or a 'headline behavior' you just have to suppress, suck up and tuck inside, and that is the correct way to deliver a premium service to your self. Not to care. Say it, out loud, I don't care, Say it again. Distract yourself... Until you meditate your self back into and believe yourself you don't care. What does that make us, morally? I am curious about his interpretation and about more surrealistic interpretations. A patient dignified conversation is denied, it has something to do with war, conflict, with the lack of credibility in what the woman co-produces in such a situation, with the ignorance from the man, and the need for a "restraining order" as if he is protecting himself from her magical power over him to enforce it via presence or texting. No. is not that, is the incapacity to confront his own clarity. As if the status of a woman is bordering on harassment "I object to the behavior of a man that claims that the incidents" I am talking about is only in my head and it hasn't happened at all, that "I was subjective, delusional, dishonestly, female" [ref missing, from her book, ok] U gotta have some sort of public standing, a profession of the sort that gives you credibility in your standing, that you are a reliable witness of your own truth [ibid] But my truth is no man's property, not now, not ever
No man has ever apologized for the things explained wrongly to me, things that I know they don't know. They always send me that text, where they explain, let me tell you how things are, and let me tell you how it’s gonna be and what the situation is. Written in such a way, that nowhere is a slight question or doubt or any space for any wanted reply. It is the male truth, another invitation for silence. An almost goodbye, but not really, an echo of a goodbye. 'U know I told you and I am right', is the feeling u get. And not sure if I am to hold my breath so I don't shout on paper or breathe deeply days after days to exhale all the dishonest bullied out given ugliness that invites me to hold back as if I am a witchcrafting occasion, and error, in his system, but he gets the chance to be polite coz, look at me, I spent 4 days in your amazing pussy, while I was literally screaming 'you are the best blow job I ever had and roaring', I don't owe you an explanation, but look how nice I am I will send you an ignorant, senseless message to show that I am a civil member to try to be polite plus the most hurtful 'Let's stay friends' (its the part that u ruined that possibility, by wanting to silence me), to pass the worst of the worst, not even send you a message, so I've done my civil deed for the others. Its the part where he gives you the chance to become delusional, maybe he wants for real to be friends, how nice, Is the part I understand you didn't mean it. How will you make the transition? By further carrying about me but cutting contact. It is selfless and arrogant to send "Let's be friends" message, I told you from the beginning, what I wanted...A Police state for shapes and forms not allowed other than what the Man wants. Imagination here is quarantined. Sometimes, not sending that message is better. I don't wanna have man explain things wrong to me, and me not to have the chance to reply decently or space to explain. Why send anything like that? To put me down, to announce my defeat? To tell me to behave, to think for himself that this is him being nice? This is what I call 'taming females'. Instead, it teaches females to be "strong", to actually not care, to act and believe that they don't care, to slice off that feeling in a split of a second as if it never existed, to make them senseless, emotionless. To say I don't care. What I don't tolerate I don't worry about, and there it is, it does not exist. We never existed. As it never happened. Is ignorance becoming a survival skill? Erasure of love, and the faster you start practicing the better you will cope. The problem with that is that these things can be so hurtful that defense mechanisms, push young girls into the corner to give up, to silence themselves, and even if they have something to say, it will be rotting restless inside of them, killing inspiration of a voice that was generated, a brilliant voice that naturally processes things as they are thrown at you The Voice that should be heard even when they invited u to silence *****
In her* creative practice, she experiments with texts, bodywork, video, writes from workshops and experiences to create poetic text, calls to actions and press releases which become the documentation for her performative work. *Rosina Ivanova is a transmedia artist with a body of works in public performance art, video art, community art, and experimental writing. She holds a Master in Fine Art from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, NTNU and a Master in Art in Creative Practice from the Transart Institute, TI awarded to her via the ‘Community Scholarship’, a Bachelor in Communications with an emphasis in Advertising from The American College of Greece via the ‘Scholarship for Merit and Excellence’, a Minor in Visual Arts, and a second Minor in Art History from The School of Fine and Performing arts (SFPA). She is the 1st recipient of the ‘Visionary Artist Award’ initiated for her by SFPA for motivating young performance artists. She holds an International Baccalaureate in Foreign Languages from Bulgaria. Rosina participated in the three consecutive ‘Photography as Performance’ exhibits at the Athens Photo Festival (2011-13) one of which she curated. She organized and exhibited in venues, special events and group projects that include Kafeneon Pop Art Project, ACG Art GalleryCenter for the Arts, ART-ATHINA International Art Fair 2010, 2013, the 2nd Athens Biennial HEAVEN 2009, EMST State Museum of Contemporary Art, in Greece; Tanzfabrik, Supermarkt, Linder Project Space in Berlin, Germany; Bozar in Brussels, Belgium; Brooklyn Art Space, New York; Metamorph Biennale for Art and Technology, Norway, among others. Born in Bulgaria, lived in Athens, Greece, all these other places, she is now based in Trondheim, Norway where she will publish a collection of manifesto text by world-renowned experiential performance artists, poets, musicians, and filmmakers (some of which are Linda Mary Montano, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Demosthenes Agrafiotis, Caroline Coebel, Kandia Bouzioti). She is looking for contact with local experimental artists willing to play with the idea of translating the text pieces into (sound/musical) performances, scores, sets. The results will be shared with the public as event-based series of live musical happenings at different locations accompanied by the hard copy publication of the texts titled ‘Manifesto Compilation as Freedom Songs’.