10.20.2007

Participate... (part 2)

So if you would like more background information on this post, then read Participate (part 1) directly below this post... much like The Hobbit, it's a nice prequel that gives you an inside look, but nowhere near absolutely necessary, and might make you fall asleep.

:)

OK. So I've been trying to analyze this experience. I think the saddest part for me is how quickly it faded and that I had to leave so early when I wanted to stay all night...

It's hard. It's hard. I've been trying for 2 days now to blog about this. What about it is so hard? I think it is the effort of trying to separate the experience from my experience. So... this is my experience.

Cookies. Cookies. Cookies. I walked in and smelled cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. My mouth watered even though I knew I wouldn't have any. Someone, someone handed me a schedule-ish type of thing that had the artists, their definitions of Performance Art, a map of Julia's house... something else I can't remember.

I saw people and found I was being drawn into conversations, and I didn't want that. I didn't want to socialize. I wanted to experience what was there for me. What beautiful thing I could make of it, and what beautiful things were being offered up. All art is revealing something about the artist. A pride, an insecurity, a hope, or a fear. I wanted to examine and feel for myself these beautiful things being laid on the tier to burn brightly for just one night. Just this night. This particular circumstance.

Videos. Home videos in Julia's room. I wandered in and the lights were off, and I was alone. There were voices coming from the attic where the audio installation was going, and a red light was the only light. This steady hum played background music and I filled myself full of these home videos.

It's Julia. She's turning four. She's playing. Playing. Other tiny four year olds are laughing. All little girls in dresses. Our little girls only wear dresses to church now. But these darlings... all dressed in fluffy things with bows and ribbons. Musical chairs. And the song was one I knew from my childhood. Some church song. The angle was odd so I found that if I sat on the floor and watched it through the mirror I got a better angle. I crouched down, drew my knees into my chest, and let myself exist only in that moment.

Musical chairs. And laughter. And I laughed with them. Shrieks of delight, high and piercing, and it hits a chord inside me and reverberates out into my own joy. It becomes my joy. I am four with them and looking for the last chair.

Then we are opening presents. Big pink presents. Julia is surrounded by tiny people who want to help and she says we can. En masse we attack the present. A skirt, one says. No, a dress, another says. It can be either, chimes a third. We laugh. I am laughing and I don't know where it comes from but I also start to cry. This is personal. Impersonally my personal torment. This love and joy that I can't have. This gets personal quickly. I want to withdraw, but instead I let the branding iron closer and closer. I let my own pain interact. I am making this what I want it to be. What I need it to be right now, for me. For me.

And I looked. I was staring in the mirror at this happy birthday. But I was staring at myself. And I saw that it was good.

I walked downstairs. The man had set up his life in the blue box. I was mesmerized. He was watching tv. He was reading. He was writing. It was Asian television. Extreme Home Makeover, Japan Edition, or something along those lines. He had a suitcase, a backpack, magazines, books. He existed within this tiny world, oblivious of us. I walked over so I could see his face. See him laughing, frowning, shocked, bored. I watched his face. He rubbed his eyes. Was he tired? I wanted to intrude into his little world and hold his face in my hands and ask him if he was tired. I wanted to hug him for being alone.

I made it mine. Once. Once. I was alone, and I lived in a little hollow world of my own. Watching him, even if it was art, even if it was a message, it made me ache. NONONO. We aren't meant to be alone. We are meant to interact. I wanted to.

We played a dice game. A game I didn't understand. Dice. Roll. Who is higher? You win, oops, now she wins, pass them, you win. Then Julia and Patrick are the winners. And three safety pins determines our President. Maybe there was something deeper to this, that I couldn't grasp. Maybe I had saturated myself too quickly.

The girl baking cookies is wearing an apron and has a vacuum. She is heading towards Julia's room. I laugh at her, Julia's, dismay. I would feel the same way. Part of the art is the destruction. Art is meant to strip away what we think we know, it is meant to make us uncomfortable. And then we settle in and get comfortable, as Julia will in a week or so... but then we delve deeper and make it uncomfortable again. That is art. To never be settled.

And then Julia sets up spin the bottle. There is laughter. LAUGHTER. It is pouring out of us. Our faces hurt. It's not about a kiss. No one really kisses the way you would kiss a lover. Instead two people come face to face and press their faces together. Flat lips. No kisses, really. It's more about barriers. How many of these people have touched each other at all the entire evening? And now, they are blushing. It's not as though one looks at the stranger and asks for a kiss. It is a random spin of the bottle, and wa-laa... old married man, embarrassed to discover he is coerced into pecking the lips of a blushing girl. But it's not about the kissing. You can look into everyone's eyes and see tears running down the faces.

I am reminded of Julia's comment about the phone booth stuffing... that, who cares if it is cliche, have you ever done it? I wish there had been a survey asking who had actually played spin the bottle. I think I was examining why this was so joyful, and part of it has to be adults, grown adults, adults who can have sex, adults with lovers... grown-ups, blushing at the aspect of kissing a stranger.

One of the most wonderful things I heard was as I was leaving. Thank you for kissing me, someone said. Why you're welcome, was the response.

I was sad I couldn't sit through the second game, which I heard was even better, even more rowdy. It's just amazing.

Instead I sat outside with the guy cycling a stationary bike to light the outside. He was sweating. I wanted to help him. I offered him water... or to wipe his sweat. I offered to help him take his jacket off so he wouldn't be so hot. He said he didn't need anything, he was almost done. I felt bad to leave him alone lighting the porch when no one was there. I felt obligated to sit there with him. Even if I said nothing to him, just to sit and use the light he was making for us. For me. I thought of god, honestly. I wondered, if he's really there, is this what he is doing... lighting a light when no one cares to look anymore... it was too much to think on for one night. But I think I understand the motivation behind it. I think I understand my take on it. It was beautiful and painful.

This is amazing. The whole night was amazing. I hurt from laughing so hard, and I had a deep emotional experience that I am still trying to understand. I cried. I felt joy. I felt giddy. I felt empathy, I felt alone, and I wanted to keep others from feeling alone. I don't know how something can be more successful, honestly. I wish more people had come, or maybe, I wish I knew there were more people who were touched deeply... Maybe, as always, I want to know that I'm not alone in this. But I don't think I am. I don't think I am.

3 comments:

Julia said...

Its really amazing how similarly we experience art, Robyn.

I absolutely love how you came to the show, and took all this art and ran with it. I love it.

You took this crazy experience and sucked a hell of alot of beauty out of it, and that thrills me.

Another thing that thrills me is the way you reacted to the projection in my sister's room. I fucking love that you were watching the movie through the mirror. I don't know if any of us artists even dreamed that the installation could do what it did to you, and why should we have?

But alot of people walked right by, and you made it something huge.

This is an amazing thing.

I think it goes along with your anti-waste thing... I mean, you did a great job at using as much of this event as possible, not wasting any of it. And thats an extremely rewarding way of existing.

I love it.

Lets suck every bit of beauty out of every fucking second of our existence.

no waste.

Robyn said...

Yeah, amazingly enough I think the most profound and significant thing that happened for me was in those first 20 minutes or so watching those home videos. Who would have thought?

It was a great example of meaning of art, which I think I'm going to post about soon.

I think about all the things we walk by on a daily basis that could be beautiful. I want them to be as beautiful as they can be.

It's funny that we are thanking each other for the experience. Maybe that's how it should be though; the give and take.

It was really fantastic. I think we should make this a habit.

b.s. said...

sweet!