I've been working this weekend at Tate Modern for the new exhibition and installation part of The Long Weekend. There's also new displays on level 5, like Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Venus of the Rags, which contrasts a figure of a classic roman sculpture as the old values with a big amount of ragged clothes conveying the detriment of society's values.
Click the image to read an article about these new displays There's also performances in a regular basis, like music performances, like an extract of St. John Passion by Bach, performed with a cello in front of the painting of Janis Kounellis and futuristic sound-escapes around the part named Energy and Process, where Minimalism was before.
In the Turbine Hall there's an installation from artist Robert Morris, Bodyspacemotionthings, which was first displayed at Tate Britain in the Duveen Galleries back in 1971. Is composed by a series of objects people can explore and try, like balancing on a beam or on a wire, see saws, climbing through a sort of chimney, sliding down slopes, and things like that. On its first installation, the display was removed after a few days due the amount of injuries happened. For this time, Tate has disposed a series of safety measures to avoid major injuries and trained staff on each of the objects. During these days we are proud to say that no major injuries had happened and that has influenced in the decision from Tate to extend the display up to the 14th June.
Click the image to read an article regarding this installation: I've enjoyed working in this area, first because it allows me to take a more participative and active attitude towards the installation and the people, and second, because it's so nice to see a proper interaction of the people in a more physical way where kids have fun playing around, and adults have the opportunity to become a child again by also trying the objects. All over I see bright eyes with smiling faces, enthusiasm and receptive attitude. I guess a session within the objects and the release of energy that allows the visitor is positive for the receptivity of art itself, as sometimes when going to a museum one gets overloaded by intellectual activity due the efforts of understanding the art itself, its processes and the variety of ways in which it's expressed (in particular, modern and contemporary art).
Today I dreamt I was seeing myself in the past, like living some fictional situations, but it was in the past. I could see myself like if I was an invisible witness in the room, or next to her, which was me, years ago. I could hear what she (me) said, how she (me) respond to other people, and all that. I saw a a young woman who was more receptive in experimenting, without judgement and with more innocence, with more hope, but at the same time, she was more vague in her determinations... I wonder at this point if she was really me, because i always been very strong in my determinations, or was that the impression of my own self at that time? Would I have believed I had a strong will and determination, and the at the end I wasn't that strong?
Click on the image to see the video. Excerpt from the film The Bear, L'Ours (IMDB) by Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1988 (I was in primary school, maybe that's why I don't remember it)
Love it! And it's about two actors: a baby bear and a big cat. The big cat pursues the baby bear all over the mountains and down the river. Great performance I have to say, very believable. I'm impressed. And it's well recorded.
Trailer of L'Ours at IMDB But the video above is much better, this one is a bit crap, I have to say.
___unpredictable ____________contrasts ___________________postponing ___________________________confused ________________________________attached to the past __________________________opportunity ______________________mute _______________passionate ________loneliness ___yearning
<...Decoding...>
....... Love .......
<...Fixing errors...>
/////////////////// C H O I C E ///////////////////
sometimes you think you are winning something and in reality, you are loosing, .... and vice versa, sometimes nothing is too important, sometimes you meet someoneand his/her life is so complicated that you have to discard the case because of its impossibility, sometimes your life is so complicated that giving timebecomes a sinsometimes you don't want any more what you've achieved under a lot of effort, sometimes we fall in love and other times, we think we fall in love, sometimes nothing is too much and too much is nothing, sometimes I miss something so much that I never tell it, sometimes I understand the situation a bit later of my reaction, and when I do that, I don't know how to bear with it, sometimes everything is complicated and dramatic, others,simple and serene, sometimes I look inwards and I just find fog... sometimes the only thing you can hear is a bunch of dreams leaving you, sometimes anything matters, sometimes I am myself, and others, ... I am not, sometimes I feel free, ... and it's the best sensation ever
The best Weather is in Miami... You see??? If you click in the image you'll see the webcam pic of the moment, but not this moment, your moment... And I checked Bora Bora, and Seychelles and Barbados... in this site ... Uhmm it seems is a bit shity all over the Earth... except in Miami... And by the way, talking about Miami, the other day I met a man from there, called Brad, who came to see the exhibition of Van Dyck at Tate Britain, which is already over. He was very chatty and friendly and is always great to hear that accent from time to time. I love the way they say 'exactly', 'there's tons of...', 'phenomena', 'consciousness', 'random', 'fantastic', 'awesome' (which I don't hear it much here, unless talking to Australian friends), ... etc. etc. etc. He asked me if Charles I was the one to be beheaded or Charles II... Oooops! 'Charles I was captured in 1647. He escaped and was recaptured in 1648. Despite his son's diplomatic efforts to save him, Charles I was beheaded in 1649, and England became a republic.' (Wikipedia) ... A woman, later on that day, told me that he wore a few layers of clothes to not to show he was shivering before being beheaded...And when Charles II came back, he had no more political power which was controlled by the Parliament from that time. The end of political power for the monarchy... and it remains like that nowadays. And now, we pay loads of taxes for the floor we walk, for the place the house is, for the air we breath, so they can have mansions, and yatchs and holidays, and everything!! Anyway most of the people portrayed in that room died in violent circumstances... And you see them so posh attitude and that, and probably the rest of the time since the paintings were done was quite crap, as comes with a war and rebellions and violence...
Well, I prefer to think I'm in the beach of Boca Raton, in Miami... --
I was watching a film the other day, romantic comedy, He's not that into you,and the film starts saying that a girl never forgets the first boy she liked... and I remembered mine! hahahha
I just came from Mexico, back in Andalusia, summer times. I was living there for a few months before moving somewhere else. I lived in a residential area, with white houses attached one to another, with gardens and salamanders creeping by, and a main general green field which was leading to wide steps in direction to a swimming pool a.k.a. Moby Dick (because before we had the real swimming pool they put a plastic one in the hole, and one day it blew gases inside because of the change in temperature and inflated the material... and as the pool was deep in one side and swallow in the other, it looked like Moby Dick).
One day, I came out from my house at 5pm, time we (kids) were allowed to go to Moby Dick (extreme sun/heat and digestion reasons apply), and I saw this tanned happy boy cycling hard and fast his yellow awesome tricycle, dressed just in a yellow swimming suit... I guess that because of the effort he was puting to reach Moby Dick the first, he didn't realized that his thingy, his parts were actually hanging out from his swimming suit!!! And that was the view... and to see his strength, his passion, his ...beauty,... I felt in love. It had to be love, isn't it?
And then he tried to drown me everytime he saw me in the pool. I looked for him but he would really put me underwater for such a long time... that I started not wanting to go to the pool when he was there. But I tried to play with him and my brother. One day they decided to go to my father's Jeep Comando, and jumped in, and both of them didn't let me get in the jeep... He gave the car lighter to my brother to burn my hand, which he did... and he burnt my hand, and my screams were heard in the whole province, and I had to wear bandages for 2 months, and I got to the conclussion that he probably wasn't gonna be the man of my life.
Actually, how I could forget it... as the scar that remains in my right hand refreshes me the whole story...
Once, I had a boyfriend, my first boyfriend, who had a Mr. Hyde.
I didn't know he had a Mr. Hyde... at the beginning he was my love, my man, and then, once I started living with him, quite quickly and without thinking too much, I met this evil someone else.
What a mistake.
He had a very big and impressive scar in his belly. He told me he had an accident back in his homeland with an old car, and that the gear lever stick went trough his body. But that was not the truth...
He was a bunch of lies of himself. He was a puzzle of "hims". Living with him wasn't easy, it was hard to realize who was the real one. The friendly, happy, generous, loving man I was in love with? ... or was this other one, evil, cold, malicious, violent one.
The first day I met Mr. Hyde I couldn't believe it. He attacked me for no reason, and then, hours of monologue - dialogue saying I was the one who was going against him, that I provoked him. He whipped me with a towel, while he was ordering me to have respect to him. I tried to speak with him, but he was not responding in a normal way. He was someone else. His face had a different expression, and I could feel his energy or aura different and strange. His eye's expression were very weird, widely opened and still. I could feel his hatred in his stillness. I was shocked. For a 21 year old girl was quite of an issue. Sleeping with my enemy. After that first time, it was like being in a thriller movie.
And then, he turned to himself again, to be the man I was in love with. I started to feel very confused, and scared. He used to threat me to throw me through the window. I guess he never did it because the police station was just underneath our windows. Other times, he was trying to ask me for help, to be more understanding with him.
I could feel the change straight away, transforming to some being who would enjoy to hurt, to dominate, to hate. He said I was lucky, because he didn't beat me like the others. During those 'in between moments', he confessed me some of the things he did. He actually threw his girlfriend through a window. He had scars on his arms as well of cuts he did himself. He killed his own dog when he was 6 and lied everyone, saying he lost him. He beat every girlfriend he had. He even sold part of the furniture of one of the girlfriend's houses. I guess it was the one who after a while paid for killing him. Yes, his scar wasn't from a car accident, it was because this ex-girlfriend paid one of his mates to kill him with a big knife. He survived and spent 2 months with his guts outside his belly covered in a jelly. Part of the wound closed on its own and the rest was sewed with no anaesthesia. He spent a year in a wheelchair. And came back again. I'm sure he just confessed me a little bit... of everything he did.
I feared him loads. He made everyone lie to me about his future intentions. He threatened me for not to say people how he was with me, or he would say I was crazy. One day, playing with him, to hug us, and that, he tied me with a string and hung me from the curtain holder, sit in a chair and lighted a cigarette. He said he had to be sure I was able to cope if someone attacked me. I managed to release myself, but the signs and pain in my wrists lasted for weeks.
I came in one day and say hello... and he didn't answer me. I found him sitting by the side of the bed in a bare torso, sweaty, stiff and with his eyes very opened. He looked at me and he showed being very scared. He asked me who I was. I tried to touch him and reminded who I was. He said I was a "dead one" and beg me to be merciful with him, he also said a lot more things I couldn't understand, talked about "them" and what they wanted from him.
Sometimes he left me outside because I didn't cook. Others he brought me sweets, and leave them there without telling me they were for me. He told me I would be in serious trouble if I was touching his stuff. Other times, he said I was ignoring his efforts to make me happy and that I was a bad and unsensitive person for my coldness.
One day I got very sick, and had to go to hospital, but he didn't want me to go. He was stopping me at the door and shout me with full rage and threat me that I would never be able to come back home if I was going. I thought he might be able to kill me. I had enough strength to confront him, and I managed to go and get the antibiotics I was needing. When I came back he wasn't there. Sometimes he disappeared for days or came home with a friend to live there for a few days, a complete stranger. I didn't want to leave the house because there was a 6 month deposit held in the bank, and might be lost if there were problems with the house. It was my mother's money. I couldn't tell her I chose wrong. I couldn't tell her what was happening. I had to protect her money and the house. I couldn't tell her everything was a mistake.
He had control over my phone and pursued me if a male friend called me, and spent days inquiring me about that, if I was with someone else, and how bad person I was... up to the point that I had to make calls from a public phone and ask my friends not to call me.
The last month he was particularly violent, and looking for an argument about any single thing. I didn't understand why and tried to make him dialogue, but it was impossible. His friends would follow his ways as well. We had a friend in common and I guessed she felt compassionate towards me, and one day I was telling her all my worries and fears, and not understanding his behaviour against me... she finally told me he was going to Australia to marry someone else, ...with a wedding visa he managed to get with the testimonies of many friends, who had wrote to the embassy agreeing in the faithfulness of that relationship. Their relationship. I was shocked once again. I went home and asked him if that was true. He denied everything. The next day, I don't know how or why, he told me he was leaving the following day to Australia, and that his intention had been not to tell me anything at all, and just disappear. He said to me "The truth is that we are in love and we don't want to recognize it", bollocks, I said "The truth is that I'm the only one who is in love, otherwise or you wouldn't have done everything you did, including this or I wouldn't be here talking to you". He also didn't pay the rent of that month.
He left many stuff in the apartment, notebooks, clothes, music, and other things. I opened the notebooks and I found drafts of letters for the embassy, telling the testimony of their relationship... Letters that friends, apparently, had written and contributed to all that lie, ... or was the truth? I sent him a message to know if he had reached well, because I was in love, I was worried for him and the trip. After a week he sent me a message: "You are a fucking crazy whore, Spanish bitch; you and I we have never been together, respect us and leave us alone"...
Soon after his departure, some of his friends came around saying that he owed them money. But I managed to made them understand that was not my problem, and he owed me money too. I had to come back home, loose part of the deposit, and go home with the "tail in between the legs".
Once he left, I've never seen him again.
After a year he called me back and asked me to get married.
Yes, ... marry.
I obviously said NO!!!!!!!! No way!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He inquired if I was not doing so he had to marry someone from there!
"Do it" I told him, '...leave me alone'.
And that was it, my first love and that someone else.
One is laying in a sofa, relaxed and perceptive: A Other just arrived, eats and chats with the first person: B The 3rd person bursts in the room to get something to eat, and returns to its individual space: C
There is a 4th being which disturbs the familiar tune of the situation: a big peaceful silenthairyspider which is noticed by the 3 other... followed by an argument regarding the expulsion of the intruder.
A is dumbfounded and wonders how the spider got to their place. B is in a participative mood but reserves the intervention to another one. C is really anxious and asks frantic to A or B to kill the spider.
A believes in no violence, and considers the fact to kill the spider is an excessive measure that can be avoided by looking for another solution without harming the spider or letting it to invade their space. A is alert and will consider further action if B or C attempt against the spider.
B doesn't bother to kill it, actually enjoys the argument and remains as an observer interested in its end by letting A and B to decide.
C keeps trying to convince the others to kill the spider, otherwise she threats with hovering it.
As A doesn't want the spider to be hovered, she proposes to catch it in a glass. Neither B or C want to take such action, so A does it for them.
Unfortunately and by accident, A slips with the spider in the glass and fell down the floor causing its agile runaway somewhere in the room. B and C, runaway seized in panic from the room as well... leaving A laying on the floor.
A ends catching the spider again on her own, and kindly asks B or C to bring the glass with the spider to the garden due she is wearing a pyjama, as outside is very cold....
Again, B and C let her down...so she has to bring the spider to the garden in pyjama herself, under the passive sight of B and C.
When A comes back, C inquires that due to this act, the glass would never be able to be used again...B observes passively, having fun at A and C.
Daring A, fills up the glass with water and in front of B and C, drinks it, without holding sight, and says "Every thing is fine, Good Night", then turns around and leaves the room. B leaves the room. C leaves the room.
I suddenly inherit a big amount of money... somehow; and I decide to go to Southampton and buy a sailing boat, leave all my stuff in a warehouse, and head on to America, sailing south towards the Canary Islands and take "the highway", which are the trade winds, also called the trades, which blow 30º from the the north-east in the Northern Hemisphere... During the trip, I started to write a diary of my lonely solitaire journey, plus due the lack of someone to speak to, I start to set film a diary with my underwater camera... For doing so, I organized quite a few batteries in a charger system which takes the energy from the wind and the water itself, so I can avoid to take the energy to charge them from the main batteries which take the energy from the engine, and therefore, avoid the necessity to switch it on and save the gas oil to when is really needed. I can easily edit the filmed diary through the camera, and I go across a journey of images of the ocean and interaction of the boat's elements with it, my interaction with the boat, the movement, and the exploration of my mind, which blows feelings, thoughts, confessions and hopes all the way through nice soft weather, to stormy ones, day and night, moments of relaxation, boredom, craziness an exhaustion. As is an underwater camera, I manage to hold it on the chain which attaches the anchor, with a view of the boat underwater, once I reach the tropic islands in America, and add clips of an underwater dance... After staying for a few days recuperating from the Atlantic, I stop in a tropical port, refill the gas oil tanks and water ones, buy some food and head to Panama. From there I cross to the Pacific and start heading north sailing close to the coast. I bought a number of bottles, corks and wax sealant in one of the ports I've been, because I have an impulse to throw messages to the sea, with parts of the writing diary... All of them have an initial page which says "Over the vast ocean of life you may feel at times you are lost, that you are alone... but you found this message because you need to know one thing: You are not alone, and someone may be looking for you in this vastness, just feeling as lost and lonely as you"... I put this message in 3 different languages, English, French and Spanish. The last bottle I had left, I considered it as special one, and therefore, I thought I had to put something even more risky, more personal, like if it was the final explosions of a firework celebration... So I passed the 2h film I got from the film diary, excerpts of the last few months in the sea plus an email to contact me, to the laptop, and place a copy in a SD card, wrapped it with cling film to protect it, put it in the last bottle with the page of the initial message and throw it to the sea. By that moment, I was already in USA coast line, California, and I stop in one of its ports. Contact my friend Ricardo and meet up with him in LA, where he was having a fashion show for his last collection, and invited me to high style parties and that. I decided that my trip was ended with the boat, so I sold it over there. Soon after I received an email regarding someone had found the last bottle with the film, and wanted to meet up in LA, this person resulted being a producer who wanted to buy the rights for making a film of "my story", as he found it a very original...', and I thought, 'Yeah, and I'll probably be upset because they would change the script into something else! ha ha ha... 'Well, doesn't matter, as long as I get the money to keep going my trip, they can do what they want!!' So I sold the rights for the film for a big amount of money, spent a month with my friend visiting parts of USA, and decided to go treking Nepal towards the city of Kathmandu. Over there, I spent a couple of months chanting mantras in a Buddhist monastery, and then keep my journey towards China, by train, and following the Great Wall of China. Then, I left the boots and the backpack behind and head to the islands of South-east Asia, where I had all the fruits I never imagined they existed, went to Gamelan music concerts while visiting Bali and Java. After that, I head to Australia, and went to see the Uluru, and head south to the city, where I met some people who were preparing an expedition to Antarctica. I told them them my story, and were pretty amazed. They told me I was the type of person they were looking for, to join them in the next expedition to film a documentary of Antarctica and the impact of global warming, plus also related to the impact of those changes in the life of the white bear. I accepted and joined them. I spent a couple of months in an icebreaker... very cold. After the documentary was finished, we changed boats and head to South America crossing the Roaring Forties... I remember the art work of Tacita Dean during those days of stormy sea and insane winds... and arrive finally to Tierra de Fuego, in Argentina, passed through Comodoro Rivadabia, say goodbye to the last bit of the team that was left, and head north. I stayed a couple of months in Buenos Aires, learning Tango, and flirting loads,then I got bored and head to the Amazons, then to Colombia, Peru and the Machu Pichu, and went back to the tropics, then to Mexico and Costa Rica. I was particularly keen to spend more time in those last ones as there were the countries I passed my childhood, and I was glad to visit them again...',
I open my eyes and I am hang gliding over forests of pine-woods bursting in flames. Black thick smoke is rising up to the sky and I am zigzagging them as well as the top of the highest pines... At some point I reach to see that in some of those tall pines there are constructed platforms, with tiny houses, and people who are saluting me while I am passing by... All of a sudden, I'm on the ground, like if I've always been there. There are no flames, everything is in mid shadow and the floor covered by a thick carpet of dry leaves. Once I start walking, the leaves crack under my feet. I see there are 2 wild kids dressed with simple light brown clothes and playing to pick themselves, running and laughing. They look very happy. In a wink of the eye I'm back hang gliding... I have the sensation it has been like if I remembered it... while I was observing the people who lives on the trees... I manage to keep zigzagging the black smoke and the top of the trees, and I have to cross a solid column of smoke. I can't see anything because of it... at some point I get out of the smoke cloud and I'm flying over an immense, huge, spacious green plain with a lovely blue sky and a smell of fresh grass. I look at the grass and I suddenly remember that I use to fly moving my arms like a bird, and I never was able to get off more than a metre from the floor. I laugh and I feel fulfilled and proud of my beautiful wings hang gliding very high, very fast and very free. I try to go higher and higher, to try to see the end of this green plain... but there's no end of it. It seems it's endless, and I get scared for a moment, and then I feel peaceful. I relax, and hold nicely my hang glide... I feel I don't need anything, I feel very happy, I feel full. My mind expands with the space and the air... I feel alive.
I reserved my ticket to Australia through the internet. I just had the money for the trip and as the hotels in the area were full, I had to reserve accommodation further north. When I arrived there, I went to a shop by the sea to buy tobacco and water, and realized everything was far more expensive than I imagined. I saw many people that were moving alongside the coast like if the roads didn't exist. I caught a boat that was taking to a middle place before reaching my hotel. There was a residential area near by. Kids were playing and a couple, a Hispanic man and an Australian woman were taking care of them. It seemed they were celebrating a birthday. I asked tha man about the best way to reach the place for my hotel. He started laughing, and said it was very far away, and that it would take me days to reach there. I felt scared because I had my flight back in 5 days, and I was very short on money to do another reservation. I realized if I was reaching my destination, I was not going to have time to come back and take the return flight. The man advised me to stay in that place, but as I didn't have money to pay a hotel, I thought I might be able to sleep in the beach, but I didn't have a backpack, sleeping bag, food or water, just the suitcase full of useless things for those moments. I caught a boat that was heading north. I saw other boats full of people having fun. I thought that the situation was out of my hands. I stared at the sea. I thought that getting back to were i landed it was actually the beginning of another trip, as I had to sort my accommodation anyway. And I didn't have money, friends, or family to help me. I was sitting in the small boat heading to the unknown, and staring at the sea, I emptied my mind of worries and fears. I just enjoyed the smooth swaying of the boat, and the waves splashing on it. I just relaxed...
I was working as a GA in an outside gallery, and there was a blond kid with a red T-shirt was looking at the installation of red contemporary sculptures which were forming structures. I was distracted by this kid and suddenly we started to have a mental conversation... He told me he had an illness related with breath. Someone came to relieve me and I started to chat with that person when suddenly I saw an old friend. All of a sudden a strange man substituted our supervisor who seemed not to know very much of the system we were organized. He looked a bit lost. I saw that the parents of the kid were leaving the space and the kid looked at me and told me serious and serene: 'What impresses me the most of life is that I'll never get to see what you have seen, as I will die soon because of my illness, I can't breath...'. The parents were looking for him and they finally spotted him, but they didn't hear what he told me. Soon after that the weather turned pretty ugly, there was heavy rain... I looked at the window and suddenly, the space changed. Now I was in a big red sailing boat. I went to the prow and looked to the sea. We were reaching a port that had been destroyed, and the pieces were obstructing the way to access. I started shouting and warning about the danger, and the supervisor came. I explained the situation and suggested he should turn the boat a few degrees otherwise we would wreck. The boat was sailing pretty fast and the people from the land who was watching us was quite altered. The captain turned the bout, but was too late and we wrecked at the entrance of the port. We could see all the people agitated, and the people of our bout were shouting and trying to save their lives. The bad weather turned to a better one. The storm passed away. I managed to get out of the boat, reach port and started to walk through the maritime walk. I walked until I found a black tent. I went inside the tent and I found a friend there was long time I haven't seen, and which I was very attached for many years. He looked pale and serious, and he seemed unaware of my entrance. I was very surprised to find him there and I approached to him, I tried to hug him, but he didn't answered or react. He was as cold as ice. I asked him if he didn't recognized me. He seemed to make a minimal gesture, and seemed to be positive, but he was like blocked. From the tent, I looked to the port and I could see the people trying to govern more boats that had a similar problems to the one I was. He suddenly recognized me and started to speak to me slowly:'They all die... only my father is alive... Everything is lost...', I told him that I was going to be with him and together we could go over it, that I would support him. Suddenly the strong wind blew the tent and left it shrugged to a side. People arrived and they wanted to occupy the space were the tent was. My friend suddenly started to loose that sparkle of life he had with me with all that fuss. I took the tent and put it how it was, but the wind blew inside the tent, throwing corks, sand and leaves into the air, getting into my mouth, until I couldn't breath any more...
Carefully, he organized and distributed the technical material that was along the stage, and started to put everything in their covers, cases and bags. Other technicians were collecting the backdrop and gazes, and others were dismantling the sets while the last performers were leaving the backstage. There were agitated moments, the end of a long day of work, and everyone were rushing to finish as soon as possible.
He felt proud of himself for being able to meet the technical requirements for the piece as it had been a complicated show. He was thinking he should pass through the studio to check the equipment he was needing for the next job, plus leave a few lights and tripods he was not going to need for the next day. It was really late, but he thought it was better to do it in that moment than wait for the morning as it was a really busy one...
He fit the equipment in the car, said goodbye to the colleagues and head to the studio in Manhattan. He put some music, pull the window down and enjoyed the breeze of the city. He was fulfilled that after those years in NY he was assured of getting jobs in what he liked and enjoyed a wide infrastructure of jobs, contacts and chances related to his field. Plus it was nice to be that busy so he was pleased to not to have time enough to think about her that much. He had to get used that she wasn't going to be in his future anymore. Since she was gone, he used to feel vertigo when looking towards the future with the sudden increase of opportunities and possibilities life could offer.
He arrived to the quiet street and find a close place to park the car. He introduced the key in the lock which turned squeaking slightly, and the door opened. A hint of non ventilation arouse with the dust while he was stepping inside. He suddenly stood in stillness astonished as a young woman was dancing in his studio unaware of his entrance with big headphones holding her hair and her eyes closed. For one moment he was about to stand in front of her and shout her to leave. His eyes quickly checked the stuff and the studio, and saw one of the windows of the street was slightly opened. He observed his stuff was all there and blamed himself for leaving the window opened, 'How stupid was that... Jesus, I left that opened for a 2 weeks!... it seems there are no loses', he thought. And he started to look at her unawareness and a smile draw in his face feeling so lucky there had been no burglar at all.
He was supposing at some point she was going to open her eyes and see him. He observed her dancing, and felt more and more drawn in her movements and the sense of trance and freedom she was transmitting. He felt absolutely abstracted in her movements and performance, like any dancer he saw before. Her breathing was paired with movement and he started to feel more and more aroused by her dynamics, her freedom and the intensity of her movements. He dind't know how much time she had been dancing in his studio, but all of a sudden his mobile started ringing... He rushed to stop it or silenced it, but she opened her eyes and stopped. They stared each other in silence, for an indeterminate time, while her breathing was slowly going back to normal.
-'Who are you?', she cried nervously with a Spaniard accent, he felt very surprised for the question, -'No, WHO are you? This is MY place, how did ye get in? Don't you know it's illegal to sneak on private property?', he said proudly. And she was quiet for a moment until she rushed to say, -'I'm sorry, I just saw the window opened and... it was very cold outside... I didn't pretend to stay, I was just dancing, ... oh please, don't shoot me! I leave right now', she looked for her coat, put it on and raised her hands comically with a shy smile. He tried not to laugh at her, as he was trying to keep the seriousness of the moment, even though he found her very funny, and had an attractive beautiful smile. -'I'm not going to shoot you, ...what do you think that all Americans have guns and behave like in the Wild West?... we had evolved from that...', he joked ironically. And he added, 'Where are you from? Do you live here?' -'I was born in Spain, but I lived in different places, ... and I live in London, I'm here for a short holiday', she informed him. -'Listen, I rather go, it's very late now... and sorry again', she rushed and head to the door... -'Wait!', and he stopped her -'Maybe our fate was to meet up... I work for a theater company tomorrow as a technician,... I can get you a ticket to watch the show... if you'd like to' -'Oh really?' suddenly attracting her interest -'Where about?' - 'In The Palace Theatre, between West 46th and 47th street...' Here's the info', and he gave her a flyer from his pocket, -'But I need to know your name to tell at the front door...' -'OK, great, I'll go, Thanks!, ... Oh my name is Lola', she said with a smile looking at the flyer... -'OK, Lola, nice to meet you, my name is Alan', and they shook hands, smiling, and she left.
She was walking through the cold streets of Manhattan, held to her coat and thinking what that city could taught her those days. The city was as it is, pavements, light posts, streets, bins... the humming of the car and buses, the people walking, traveling in their daily routine abstracted in their own thoughts... Just as she was walking, observing the city, looking to its people dressed with the colors of the city... browns, blacks and grays, ...winter tones, shelter tones... looking for warmth. She has been looking for a few days a studio to rehearse but she couldn't find one due the availability and overpricing. Also she was quite excited to see the city venues and couldn't decide for one or another, as she thought that looking for it was the best way to know the city...
She was walking until she reached a crossroad with a silent street... She thought it may be a shorter way to the hotel, in theory she believed it was in a diagonal towards the direction of that quiet street. It was shop bared, with old buildings of darkened facades due the time and the lack of maintenance. She observed most of the windows were covered with curtains and the basements had the windows at the height of the floor. She took the mp3 player out of her pocket to change the music she was listening to, and the transport ticket dropped to the floor. She crouched to pick it up and realized that one of the windows were open in one of those basements. She got closer to the filthy glass and distinguish a studio of big dimensions, with fabric covered forms stored to the sides of the space and mirrors along one of the walls. It looked like an old dance studio, left abandoned and used for other purposes.
A sudden thought passed through her mind raising some kind of excitement... What if she goes inside? What if she is caught? She didn't want problems... She looked to the sides of the street and to the windows in the buildings. No one was in the street. Her pupils started to dilate and the blood stream increased. She opened the window and sneaked inside.
There was not much light, but her eyes started to adapt to the shadows and her body relaxed as the difference of temperature began to be noticed. She observed the shapes were a sort of sound system with a black cover and the mirrors had a thick layer of dust but still able to see through them. There were more items stored to the sides close to the original door of the space. There was also a sofa, a table with a light and an office chair. It seemed no one had been there for weeks. She walked around until she found herself reflected in the dusty mirrors. She smiled to the look of herself with that big coat she was wearing.
She was listening to an intriguing atmospheric music,... and she started to open her presence to the space, to let her body fill up the visual silence were she was, accompanied with her reflection.She remembered the words of a friend regarding she had to reach the point of confronting herself in the studio for being able to create, breaking the image of reality. A winter reality with a stalking loneliness in good company of the music, the worlds she dream about, the adventures she imagine inspired by the tunes... In that moment she had in her hands the chance to embody with movements those imagery creations in the bare anonymous space.
She breathed deeply, closing her eyes and started to raise awareness of her body. She imagined herself standing in the middle of the room and led her muscles listen to the music until her body started to follow it with shyness, transferring her weight from one leg to the other in a sustained plie, until the swaying began to warm her body slowly but gradually. Her body kept moving acquiring different shapes passing smoothly from one to another getting more and more fluid, faster and faster.
Soon she found herself warmed enough to reach more and more far with her limbs, picturing them as rays of colored lights, drawing the sound vibrations in a three dimensional canvas, ...towards an infinite universe, feeling the eternity of the present moment fed by the inhale and exhale of her rhythmic breath which was one with the movement. Her body changed its shape fluidly and continuously and her presence opened and filled the empty space with lights, landscapes, emotions, strokes, wishes, frustrations, and love-sickness. She drew the loneliness of her ardent soul, she danced her success and her failures, sailing the undulating wave of life, letting her body reach that millimeter more to bring the gravity to its maximum possibilities, contracting and releasing, spinning in an axis passing through the space... Her mind paired her body movement... Each image she visualized had a response in her body, bringing her to a state of happiness and fullness, letting her heart to be invaded by this intensity... she could feel her blood flowing in a muscular symphony making her lighter and lighter each moment, making that millimeter more dream in a state of ecstasy. The soul expressing its millenarian memory living in one moment all of her existence...
And there she was, in between the images, the music, the infinite movement,... dancing restless in that filthy studio of an anonymous street, that cold day of winter...
Magic is a succession of unexpected events, ackwardly familiar, which arises curiosity, excitement and an unanswered interrogation...
I have to thanks these guys, they do loads of stupid comic films... One day, we passed a whole morning watching their stuff, the FND films... But I guess there was a winner, maybe because we were related to the song in terms of age, and it was so funny to see him doing those tongue tricks and gestures... We watched it several times... and here it is the cause of our loose laugh:
Oh well, I was reading others blogs, and I just realized how much thoughts they can fit in one post, and how sensitive that could be, plus how different the release of information can be...
I just suddenly felt guilty. I felt guilty because I hide my feelings in facts and actions, I avoid to express directly how I feel, and try to find a way to recreate that feeling by describing the situation, the props and set. I may find to read about real feelings more interesting than to write the events in mini stories. Stories which are directly related to me, but I feel I centralize them from only one point of view, which tends to look for the neutrality and at the end of the day, another way to express myself minimizing as much as I can, and rationalizing what, how I felt.
I might feel embarrassed to myself the fact to be emotionally so ... how to say... diverse. Out of control, yip, ... and considering that I'm an impulsive person you may need to prove your empathy towards me... and believe how much I fear of myself, of my impulses and my innocence.
... But they drag me in a playful hurricane of feelings which I always try to hide, put make up on, just because I find very difficult to recognize that I'm not in control of them, and don't know where they blow me to.
I was at the gallery chatting to a colleague, and we were talking about love... I can't believe what he said... 'Oh Andrea, yeah, you're that kind of girl who falls in love very quickly, very easy when you go out with someone, aren't you??', I started blushing. How was that possible!? I only went out with a couple of guys from work, until I decided 'Never Again'... No one knows how much I try not to show I'm that ...weak... easy... vulnerable. Mierda, Merde, Shit! It doesn't mean I am, the matter is also to be too expressive and ...alive.
Innocence. It may be my biggest virtue, ...and my biggest problem. Plus impulse. No matter how many times I find myself in trouble, how much I learn, how much I experience... I'm still innocent and impulsive. Gosh, how do you cure that? Because many times I feel is like being an Idiot... and the cause of many problems, many misunderstandings... how could you, if you are a sensitive person and visionary enough to picture the situation it may overcome, how could you not feel afraid about it? about yourself? about what you may come to say? about what it may occur you to do? or to express? and how that may be 'too much' to others... considering the consequences it may have started...
There's a book about Tai Chi (see the comment), beautiful in simplicity, that has a quotation from Mencius, and helps me, inspires me to look for balance:
If you know the point of balance, you can settle the details. If you can settle the details, you can stop running around. If you can stop running around, your mind will become calm. If your mind becomes calm, you can think in front of a tiger. If you can think in front of a tiger, you will surely succeed.
Because I aspire to be able to think in front of a tiger. - But I don't agree with my colleague. I haven't fall in love since 9 years ago, truly, crazy, hurtful and devastatingly in love, leaving scars all the way... But I loved everyone I've been with, in different ways. More or less. It's just different to be with someone you like. I can love someone I like to be with, but not be able to fall in love with that person. And I hope, the next time it happens, if it happens, Cupid will be merciful towards me this time.
Today I woke up early, had a shower, a coffee and dressed in blue, just as much blue as I could find in my wardrobe.
Blue socks, blue tights, blue skirt, blue top, blue cardigan, even blue knickers ... but blue bra, as I don't have one.
Isn't amazing that colour? I had the chance to guard an original IKB at the Barbican in the show Colour After Klein. I enjoyed looking at it for several ays during the exhibition. Although, this was the last exhibition I attended over there, as I was caught with a book on pose, and sacked due to that, 'to keep the discipline in the gallery'. It was The New Hudson Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, an edition from 1911 I found in one of those second hand bookstores from Portobello Road at the cost of £1. The cover is also blue, by the way... I was trying to read it, to be honest, but I couldn't fully understand it due the stage my English was at those moments. I remember dreaming about Donald Judd's 'Untitled' (c.1990): I climb it and appear in a parallel world away from the boring stillness and silence of the gallery.
I haven't replied to his invite. He must feel rejected. I should feel guilty. But, really, I don't have the energy for a Chas number 2.
I rather dress blue, like deep International Klein Blue... and answer some emails from friends I've been postponing painfully.
And buy a kettle in Argos... as the one we had, is broken now.
So today, I'm blue, but happy... and reestablishing connections...
So this is the present going forward. That's why is in italics.
I arrived to Tate Britain early, the only day of the week that I was working. I already knew I had the training for Customers Services and Visitors with members of other departments. I had to stay at Van Dyck until 3pm when the training was going to start.
At some point, I was talking to another GA, regarding my latest news. Looking for a job, broke up with someone & writing a blog. Later on we talked again, when I was relieving him and told me:
- Andromeda, you always smiling,... it's good.- while he was giving me a hug, and a high five.
- Yes, like the message my father sent me recently, which says, 'Keep smiling even when you are sad, as you never know who's gonna fall in love with your smile'...
- Like me, I may fall in love with you... - while he stared at my lips and kissed me...
Wao!
I didn't expect that!
And I didn't expect that he spent part of his break pretending me to go to the toilet to kiss each other... which I didn't go... Why? It was too sudden! I was scared!
It reminded me the first time a boy asked me out. He was one of the most popular boys in school, the kind of perfect one. He waited for the break to end, caught me on the door back to class, and said me: 'Andrea, I like you a lot, would you go out with me?'... and I became petrified, not knowing what to do, also because his friends where not far away, giving him support,... I could hear things like 'Come on, do it!' or 'Tell her!'... But it was too much pressure... I actually got so scared not knowing what to do, that I run away to class, and didn't tell anyone what had just happened, blushing hard... And I avoided him ever since, not being able to speak to him again... until one day I heard he had a girlfriend. I was 14, and now I feel the same. It's like the experience doesn't change the reactive mode.
What a thing, the training, which was fun, lots of interactive games, relaxed environment, and by the end we have to write on post-it one thing you liked (interactive games), one thing you would change (decoration of the place) and one thing you learned (responding, not reacting).
Would I ever manage that???
He sent me a message, for going out to have some drinks, which I would love to, but I don't know if he would control himself, so he doesn't push me, metaphorically, as he seems to be quite excited, and therefore, I don't wanna end feeling that I may not manage the situation...
I'm not in love, and I know from before, he likes me, but it may be enjoyable, as long as it is enjoyable...
But would be even better to find the one to fall in love with...
But in the main time... I'll think about it, as I'm not very much in the mood to another one looking for sex... I'm getting bored... plus I don't have the energy at the moment to pass through the early stages of meeting up, and talking about my things over and over again...
I should replied his message, but I haven't done so...
She woke up early that morning, looked at the mirror and realized she went to bed with the clothes on,... again. 'Until what point of slovenliness I reached for draining my heart, trying to understand his hurtful peaks and downs, swaying my reason in and out of sense...' she asked to herself. She turned around and looked through the window where a merciful sun bathed the tidy garden. She walked to the kitchen and started to clean and refill the small Italian coffee kettle with strong Arabica. She opened the fridge and stood for a while wondering what the options were in her nearly empty shelf... salad, ham and natural yogurt. 'It sounds like a breakfast'.
She sat by the kitchen table in silence, drinking the first sip of the strong coffee and her eyes and mind remained spaced out for an indefinite time until she felt the need to wake up from the stillness in her hands and feet. She washed the cup and other dishes left behind from who knows when and cleaned the hobs. Out of a sudden, while looking the tidy, empty garden, she told to herself, 'I must move on and get back to life', and for the first time in many months, the idea of having a routine leading her life, sounded as the best of the options,... after all that storm of feelings which have been dragging her out of the road, just when everything seemed to make sense...
'Maybe I should write it down, as I'm not able to understand it now, one day I will, and everything would make sense again...'
She went to the living room, switched on the laptop, and started a blog.
