diários do lado a

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Data: 17.06.1978
Local: Largo D. Gualdim Pais, Amares
Observações: Nascimento [cesariana]



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Data: 1978/1983

Local: Largo da Igreja, Figueiredo/Amares

Habitantes: Mãe, Pai, Avó

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Data: 1983/1988

Local:Lugar das Levegadas, Figueiredo/Amares

Habitantes: Pai, Mãe, Irmão, 2 tios e 3 primos [durantes os meses de Verão]

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Data: 1988/1996 — 2011/...

Local: Lugar de Cavaleiros, Amares

Habitantes: Pai, Mãe, Irmão, Avó

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Data: 1996 (Outubro)/1997 (Fevereiro)

Local: Rua das Madres, 61, Lisboa

Habitantes: Velho & Velha [senhorios], Polícia [andar de cima]

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Data: 1997 (Fevereiro)/1998 (Junho)

Local: Rua Artur Lamas, 5, Lisboa

Habitantes: Vânia, Catarina, Mónica [vários estudantes universitários, ocasionalmente]

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Data: 1998 (Junho)/2000 (Setembro)

Local: Travessa do Giestal, 24, Lisboa

Habitantes: Vânia, Catarina

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Data: 2000 (Setembro)/2003 (Janeiro)

Local: Rua dos Navegantes, 39, Lisboa

Habitantes: Rosa, Pontes, Madalena, Hugo, Filó

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Data: 2003 (Janeiro/Julho)

Local: Rua do Olival, 166, Lisboa

Habitantes: Alaíde

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Data: 2003 (Julho)/2005 (Setembro)

Local: Rua da Alegria, 58, Lisboa

Habitantes: Alaíde

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[continua...]

[Versão utilizada na estreia da performance "Vou A Tua Casa" em Lisboa (caderno de argolas vermelho, fotografia colada, legendas em caneta de feltro preta), durante os anos de 2003 e 2004. O objecto desaparece da performance em 2005, não tendo sido actualizado desde então.]

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VOU A TUA CASA

PROJECTO DE DOCUMENTAÇÃO

Um objecto editorial de Rogério Nuno Costa

Coordenação editorial de Mónica Guerreiro

Direcção gráfica de Nuno Coelho

Pré-publicação online: http://vouatuacasa.wordpress.com

Cinco anos após o início do processo documental que compilou o arquivo de um projecto performativo, assim como produziu materiais novos (textuais e visuais) sobre e à volta desse mesmo projecto, chega finalmente a oportunidade do espectador/leitor apropriar-se de uma selecção especial dos melhores conteúdos do livro e do vídeo-documentário "Vou A Tua Casa", com data prevista para lançamento "físico" a Fevereiro de 2012. Da selecção agora tornada disponível constam alguns textos integrais, outros em formato teaser, outros em processo/plano de intenções, todos ilustrados com imagens que fazem parte do arquivo "Vou A Tua Casa". Colaboram um grupo vasto e heterogéneo de artistas e teóricos portugueses e estrangeiros oriundos das mais diversas áreas: curadoria, história da arte, escrita, artes plásticas, design, ilustração, joalharia, jornalismo, crítica, teatro, música, cinema, antropologia, geografia, arquitectura, filosofia... Mais informações:

Blog: www.vouatuacasa.blogspot.com [etiqueta: projecto de documentação]

Facebook: www.facebook.com/vouatuacasa

Youtube: www.youtube.com/vouatuacasa

©José Luís Neves, excerto de trabalho fotográfico incluído no livro, Lisboa, 2006.

VOU A TUA CASA

Uma trilogia teatral em forma de mapa-percurso: o ponto 'A' é a tua casa, o ponto 'C' é a minha, o ponto 'B' é aquele sítio impossível onde por ti sou apanhado no meio.

Vou A Tua Casa — Projecto de Documentação é um projecto transdisciplinar que compila uma panóplia de materiais documentais oriundos da trilogia “Vou A Tua Casa” (2003/2006), conjunto de três performances (a primeira na casa dos espectadores, a segunda em espaços públicos à escolha do espectador, a terceira na casa do criador) num catálogo e num vídeo-documentário. Mais do que uma prospecção sobre materiais residuais de uma performance circunscrita a um tempo e um espaço específicos, o projecto alicerça-se numa reflexão sobre a própria prática documental quando aplicada às artes performativas, operando criticamente em conceitos como os da efemeridade, memória, intimidade/privacidade e discurso autobiográfico. À distância de 5 anos, o catálogo revê o trajecto geo-emocional e performativo percorrido por um artista, uma peça e os seus espectadores, visitando Lisboa, Torres Vedras, Londres, Porto, Hamburgo, Covilhã, Berlim, Braga, Caldas da Rainha, Évora, Arnhem e Amares.

Autoria & Concepção

Rogério Nuno Costa

Direcção Gráfica

Nuno Coelho

Coordenação Editorial

Mónica Guerreiro

Colaboradores

Ana Cardim, Ana Pais, André e. Teodósio, André Guedes, Beatriz Cantinho, Carlos Bunga, Cláudia Jardim, Cláudia Madeira, DJ Next Track, Franz Anton Cramer, Jeremy Xido, João Carneiro, José Luís Neves, Luís Firmo, Luísa Casella, Maria de Assis, Maria Lemos, Natacha Paulino, Nelson Guerreiro, Pierre von Kleist Editions (André Príncipe & José Pedro Cortes), Ramiro Guerreiro, Rui Ribeiro, Teresa Prima, Verónica Metello & um grupo vasto de ex-espectadores.

Financiamento

Presidência do Conselho de Ministros/Direcção-Geral das Artes

Apoios

Transforma AC, Artinsite, Câmara Municipal de Amares, Advancing Performing Arts Project, Prado/espaço ruminante, Teatro Académico Gil Vicente, Andar Filmes, DIF, Censura Prévia AC, Núcleo de Experimentação Coreográfica, Companhia de Danca Contemporânea de Évora, Dance Kiosk, Tanzfabrik, ArtEZ/Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, [msdm], Ninho de Víboras, Forum Dança, Centro em Movimento, Festival Sonda, Festival Alkantara, Lupa Festival, Circular/Festival de Artes Performativas de Vila do Conde, Festival Encontrarte, A Sala, Geraldine, Atelier Re.Al, Nomad Dance Academy, O Espaço do Tempo, Quarta Parede, Teatro Universitário do Minho, Universidade Católica do Porto, Escola Superior de Comunicação Social, Escola Superior de Artes e Design/Caldas da Rainha, Galeria ZDB, Teatro Praga.

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TEASER #13

CRONOLOGIA

A história verdadeira

Rogério Nuno Costa

[...]

No final de Outubro de 2007, conto um total de 132 espectáculos realizados em 9 cidades de 3 países. Desses, 71 pertencem ao ‘Lado A’, 26 ao ‘Lado B’ e 35 ao ‘Lado C’. Número total de espectadores: 449. Destes, 259 são mulheres, 189 são homens, 1 é transsexual; 128 são amigos e conhecidos, 111 são conhecidos de vista ou de nome, 210 são totalmente desconhecidos; 358 são portugueses, 32 alemães, 20 ingleses, 5 brasileiros, 4 franceses, 3 escoceses, 2 suecos, 2 brasileiros, 2 turcos, 2 espanhóis, 2 austríacos, 1 polaco, 1 italiano, 1 holandês, 1 belga, 1 arménio e 1 iraniano; 11 têm nacionalidade indefinida. 235 são artistas; 47 jornalistas ou críticos; 17 crianças; 12 animais. Destes, 8 são gatos, 2 são tartarugas, 1 é hamster e 1 é cão. Dos 210 totalmente desconhecidos, 40 nunca mais os vi, 141 encontrei-os por diversas vezes em contextos sociais e/ou mantive contacto com eles por e-mail/MSN, 29 tornaram-se meus amigos para sempre e é como se ainda estivéssemos “em performance” de cada vez que nos encontramos. Apaixonei-me por 6. 12 apaixonaram-se por mim. Dos 449, lembro-me da cara de todos. Objectivo cumprido.

©Rogério Nuno Costa, Vou A Tua Casa (espectáculo), Braga, 2006.

Mais um teaser que sucede a pré-publicação online e parcial de "Vou A Tua Casa/Projecto de Documentação" [livro e vídeo-documentário] num website que foi disponibilizado no passado dia 21 de Outubro de 2011. A publicação "física" será em Fevereiro de 2012. A seguir também aqui!

#12

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TEASER #12

DIÁLOGO

Cut, copy and paste

Uma conversa escrita entre Nelson Guerreiro e DJ Next Track.

©Nuno Patinho, mashup de Nelson Guerreiro com Virgílio Castelo, para o espectáculo Vaivém/A história verdadeira de um projecto transdisciplinar, Montemor-o-Velho, 2005.

[...]

Nelson Guerreiro — É curioso, isso tem muito a ver com o trabalho do Rogério. Ele também dá muita importância à leitura individual, à escala microscópica das emoções de cada um e, por inerência, à responsabilização do espectador. Neste projecto, ele trabalha sempre para poucas pessoas e a partir da partilha da sua escuta. Para além disso, os seus trabalhos não estão encriptados. São transparentes. Faz da forma conteúdo, mostrando como faz. As suas intervenções são como os programas de culinária na TV em que o chef, ora numa sofisticada cozinha indoor cenográfica, ora numa cozinha realista, ora numa cozinha improvisada em fundo natural numa qualquer parte do mundo, nos encaminha desde a preparação até ao toque final. Produz pequenos gestos que fazem toda a diferença: mostra um cartaz que diz Ne me quitte pas, abre a porta da sua casa, dá a provar um bolo que fez, diz adeus e olha duas ou três vezes para trás, tal como o chef, quando põe a erva decorativa na borda do prato, faz cair uma chuva de vários queijos, ou quando pulveriza o seu cozinhado com essências pouco calóricas! If you know what I mean… Mostrando como se faz, tem tudo à vista, não esquecendo, claro, a partilha dos ingredientes, à excepção do tempo de cozedura, o que no caso do Rogério diz respeito ao funcionamento do seu pensamento e ao modo como ele produz as acções, num tempo condensado. Pois, tal como em televisão o tempo é sempre pouco e tão precioso, também na performance o tempo é ouro, tem de ser eficaz, numa exigência paradoxal e inadvertidamente capitalista.

[...]

DJ Next Track — O que me estás a dizer é que ele não procura controlar totalmente o seu trabalho. Como se procurasse instaurar uma espécie de relativismo, cujo enunciado não se prende com isso, mas com o facto de o seu trabalho se destinar a poucas pessoas e haver esse reconhecimento de que cada leitura é individual, que cada pessoa fará dos espectáculos o que bem entender. Isso também me faz lembrar uma piada sobre um tipo que vai ao psiquiatra e diz: “Senhor doutor, estou muito preocupado porque só penso em sexo!” O psiquiatra mostra-lhe uma foto de uma vaca e pergunta: “O que é que isto lhe faz lembrar?”. “Um homem e uma mulher a fazer amor”, responde o paciente. De seguida, o psiquiatra mostra-lhe uma foto de uma caixa de papelão. “E agora, o que é que isto lhe faz lembrar?”. Resposta: “Um homem e uma mulher a fazer amor”. Depois, mostra-lhe uma foto com uma caixa de uma dúzia de ovos e diz: “Muito bem. E isto, faz-lhe pensar nalguma coisa?”. “Um homem e uma mulher a fazer amor”. “Bem”, diz o doutor, “tenho de lhe dizer que está mesmo obcecado com sexo”. “Eu?”, responde o paciente. “O doutor é que ainda não parou de me mostrar essas fotografias porcas!”. O Edgar Degas também dizia que a arte não é o que se vê, mas o que se dá a ver aos outros.

[...]

Mais um teaser que sucede a pré-publicação online e parcial de "Vou A Tua Casa/Projecto de Documentação" [livro e vídeo-documentário] num website que foi disponibilizado no passado dia 21 de Outubro de 2011. A publicação "física" será em Fevereiro de 2012. A seguir também aqui!

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TEASER #11

DIALOGUE

UTTER OPENNESS: what happens after is “our” task

A chain letter between Franz Anton Cramer and Mónica Guerreiro.

I asked the German critic Franz Anton Cramer to me by guest star. We first met in a book he was publishing in, which I organised (and co-translated); we afterwards swapped places when he asked me to contribute to a book he organised (and co-translated). So are both editors and translators of each other. But that is just one of many features we have in common: the interest in art, and performance in particular, being another important one. We are also both critics. So I couldn’t think of a better company for this trip around Going To Your Place [Vou A Tua Casa]. Hopefully, he accepted this unorthodox challenge: he had never come into contact with the project. I sent him some information and photographic material about it. He had a poor online access, so he was unable to look up most of that. Still, we kept our discussion. And speaking with Franz was, as always, enlightening.

[Mónica Guerreiro, 2006/2007]

[...]

Dear Mónica,

Your letter arrived just when I was starting to wonder whether our exchange had maybe come to an end — in which case I had already been thinking about how to find a good reason to continue. It came also, as you rightly supposed, after some days of distance: of rest, of no phone calls, of long walks and some deep breath, also in the light of the habitual process of assessing the past year and its highs and lows, and of trying to figure out what the issues will be for the upcoming year. The professional doubts and turmoil will most certainly stay with us, whether we like it or not. Me, too, I have had some unpleasant experiences, probably similar to what you have been alluding to. The peak was reached just recently, in December, when a local artist had printed postcards with a text in which he insulted me and expressed his disgust over my work, the intellectualism in all of dance in general and my despicable role in it in particular. The postcard was distributed to all visitors of a major dance festival here in Berlin. And as usual with this kind of initiative you find out who actually has been waiting for this and is relieved that “somebody” “finally did it”. It is not an encouraging attitude. But it speaks a lot about the contexts in which dance and performance are taking place, the complexities of the discourse produced, and the issues raised by the very fact that performance does happen and is contained in a certain frame. I am not implying that critical action, discord of views, and difference in appreciation should not occur nor that there would be one side good, another deficient. However, I do believe that certain forms and interests may be reclaimed: what you hinted at with “ostracism” and the lack of exchange is probably what we both experience, and what seems to be inevitable. It all depends, in the end, of how powerful you are yourself, and who is backing you, if need be. My experience is that there is very little support once a true conflict breaks open. And more often than not your own power base is quite limited. This seems to be part of the game. But I didn’t want to insist that much on these issues. In fact, I have been trying to read the title of the project we are setting up our exchange on. With my rudimentary notions of the Portuguese language I come to understand Vou A Tua Casa as “I come to your place” or maybe “I go to your place”, in the sense of home, of house. Or maybe even Your House, with majuscule letters? In German this would be “Wohnung”, wohnung being the apartment, but etymologically the place were you live, in German “wohnen”, to dwell, to inhabit. Inhabit refers in some way to habit, so the situation of routine, of where you “are”, where you stay, where you go and come back to, regularly, always, where you don’t have to think or to decide, where you “just are”, until you decide to change place. During the vacation days I have been to Ikea’s in order to buy bookshelves so as to reorganise my papers and intellectual storage-systems. And the German advertisement slogan currently reads “Wohnst du noch oder lebst du schon”, Are you still dwelling or already alive; probably in Portugal you have a similar campaign. Now, Ikea is implying that the routine part of your flat, the things you have had since long, the ways and steps that you perform in it blindly, the automatically felt distances between door and table and from bathroom to living room, the spots on the floor that make funny noises when you step on them, all that which is familiar in your habitation would be something other than that what you live, or what would be your life. Of course this is an advertisement trying to stimulate people’s desire to consume and to continue consumption. The TV spot that goes with it shows “dwelling (heterosexual) couples” throwing their “old”, their “habitual” furniture out of the window in order to reinvest their space with Ikea items. It is about the strive to never be content with what is, it is about the capitalist calling for eating up resources and for creating market structures in realms of life that were sort of exempt from mercantilisation and commoditisation. Adding the different languages and their ambiguities, this campaign of Ikea’s basically states that the fact of living somewhere is not life but needs a commercial input to become “full”. By inhabiting a space and filling it in with all your habitual behaviour, knowledge, and furniture, you remain in a state cut off from life, from the real thing, from the life you can buy, obtain, purchase, receive, take — in short, from a life that would never be yours unless you make an effort and go grab it, preferably in a special offer campaign, as “saldos” (Ikea claims to be “cheap”, so the life you go buy there is supposed to be at a good price). And what would this mean to a performing arts project that goes out there in “your home”, in that place were according to Ikea’s capitalist logic life is not taking place, in order to materialise its essence (or its scope — you rightfully said you weren’t sure to have understood completely the methods, intentions, ends Going To Your Place aspires to achieve) and insist on some kind of condensed moment of life, or action to be taken, or experience to be made: the step from sheer habitual dwelling to replenished conceptual life. In this sense, there might be a subversive and “resist!” aspect to a show that is not really one and that trespasses the commoditisation-borders of common spectacle. It steps out of the spatial organisation usually (habitually) inhabited by performance, the place where the viewer’s locus is excluded (but in this very distinction of course setting up also a specific dialectics that instates the two realms as being one, as being dependent one of the other), in order to unfold an intimately artificial situation there where life would be — I am still paraphrasing Ikea — in a more authentic, or less heightened state of being. (That dance would be a “heightened state of mind” is a commonplace among early 20th century dance authors and dance discourse.) Going To Your Place, then, inscribes itself by its sheer strategy, and just by deducing from what knowledge I have gathered, into the field of the performative as political consciousness. Not in the sense of ideology, but in the sense of set-up: a place, or situation, were certain parameters have been deactivated in order to enhance others, and where there is neither/nor, not yet and not quite, in and out, life and art. Of course the relationship between both is never easy and always ambiguous. Nothing but trying to draw a distinction already presupposes so much. But what you say about Rogério’s own views, his distrust towards certain arts attitudes and the constant thrive for surprise and innovation is striking in the entire presentation, I would hold. For the newness in the idea seems proportional to the smallness of its scope, that is its public visibility, thence its spectacular value. It is innovative in not trying to be innovative; it is inhabiting and alive at the same time, to come back to Ikea; it is constructive and deconstructive without shrieking out loud all of its content. Maybe this shrieking out loud is our task — if we find terms more calm, like “speaking out loud”, for instance. Dear Mónica, as I am writing this I keep thinking about how far (maybe) our respective lives are intertwined with art, art making, art discourse, and the reality of artistic production. Maybe it is a fiction we nurture that we would be somehow “outside” the arts, the fact that it is “them” who do art and “us” who communicate about it. True, in these times there is some kind of a stagnation in this exchange, and my own professional contact to artists and their concerns is reduced; you seem to have similar difficulties, also stemming from your activity in funding bodies, commissions, juries etc., me as a critical mind too little involved in local affairs in order to be accepted there (that is: here, in Berlin, where people distribute nasty postcards and colleagues won’t let me publish any longer). But all of this is just one aspect, the commercial one maybe (we are trying to make a living). Otherwise, our form of work, of inspiration, of resignation, of combat (sometimes it is combat, don’t you think?) and of production seems in a way much more related to the artistic instabilities than to the fixations of career and commerce. I don’t know at all whether this is good or bad; sometimes I feel overwhelmed and hate what I do, sometimes I sense it’s the only thing that really inspires me in life. Not necessarily watching a show (as this is a public act malgré tout), but later on trying to understand what has been going on and what all this is about. Understanding never comes to an end; which is why I believe this dialogue on Going To Your Place never will have a solid result with respect to the original question (do we know what the original question was? Was there one at all? Or was it not rather a wish to communicate?). But this is maybe what will be worthwhile. At least I feel this debate by correspondence has opened a lot of doors in my thinking and perceiving, and it is in this way that Rogério, whom I don’t even know, has visited my house too. This is maybe the fundamental difference between “true” artists and commenting staff as we are: the first step, the coming into being is performed by “them”, what happens after is “our” task. It is not the worst thing that could have happened to us, don’t you think? Wishing you a rewarding New Year, with lots of possibilities to do what you would really like to do. I thank you again for your utter openness.

All my very best, Franz

©Miguel Melo, remodelação e re-decoração da sala onde se realizou a 3.ª parte da trilogia Vou A Tua Casa (Lado C), com base em artigos do IKEA. Festival Alkantara, Lisboa, 2006.

Mais um teaser que sucede a pré-publicação online e parcial de "Vou A Tua Casa/Projecto de Documentação" [livro e vídeo-documentário] num website que foi disponibilizado no passado dia 21 de Outubro de 2011. A publicação "física" será em Fevereiro de 2012. A seguir também aqui!

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TEASER #10

DIÁRIO DE BORDO

Life-Zone

Maria Lemos

Rogério Nuno Costa

Teresa Prima

©José Luís Neves, No Caminho [versão papparazzi], com Rogério Nuno Costa & Teresa Prima, Jardim Botânico, Lisboa, 2006.

“Man is most beautiful when he – like a child building a castle of sand at the shore – is completely possessed with what he is doing”.

[Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1968]

Conheci a Teresa Prima em Outubro de 2003. Nessa altura, o “Vou A Tua Casa” contava apenas três meses de existência. Era um projecto uno, com fim marcado para daí a uns meses; não lhe imaginava duas sequelas, nem projectos paralelos, nem edições retrospectivas, nem viagens ao estrangeiro. Estava em Torres Vedras, na condição de observador de um Festival de “artes contemporâneas em contextos locais”, incumbido de produzir textos sobre cada uma das propostas apresentadas (a Teresa era uma das artistas presentes, com o espectáculo “Segunda Casa”). Tendo assumido uma abordagem semi-criativa/semi-analítica ao meu acto de observação, decidi desafiar cada artista a embarcar numa espécie de entrevista “ao contrário”: eram eles a fazer as perguntas, e não eu. Foi, por isso, com uma dose considerável de embaraço que me dirigi até à janela da sala da Tuna Comercial Torreense, onde a Teresa me esperou após o espectáculo. Fez-me perguntas idênticas às que faria a qualquer espectador, sem prestar muita atenção ao facto de estar perante outro artista (a fazer as vezes de crítico) com o perverso intuito de ter que escrever a seguir. Gostei. Hoje, directamente do gravador de voz, recordo:

(1.) Qual é a sensação, ou o que é que te desperta ires ver um espectáculo e perceberes que ele não termina no local onde o vais ver, que tem mais dois projectos agregados a ele?;

(2.) Qual é a sensação de veres um espectáculo que acontece numa casa (tocas à campainha, entras numa sala…); o que é ser visitante?; [aqui desvenda-se quem sou, o que faço e a coincidência dos dois universos criativos; “Ah! És tu?” — risos];

(3.) Como é esta sensação de viagem, o facto de teres que ir à procura do espectáculo?;

(4.) Como é que lidas com as decisões dos outros espectadores, ou como é que tomas as tuas próprias decisões?”.

Bateu tudo muito certo: sorrimos de orelha a orelha e ficámos curiosos. No ano seguinte, sou eu o artista, é ela a espectadora. O projecto já é trilogia, e eu estou no mesmo Festival de Torres Vedras a apresentar o “Lado A” e a estrear o “Lado B”. Sem casa própria naquela cidade, a Teresa decide marcar um espectáculo no quarto do Hotel Império. No caderno de notas electrónico, escrevi: “Terá sido, provavelmente, um dos melhores Vou A Tua Casa que fiz, a vários níveis conceptuais e emocionais. Depois disto, a Teresa pediu-me ajuda para a sua performance; eu pedi-lhe ajuda para a minha”. Confirmação quase-cósmica: ficámos amigos. Correspondemo-nos, contaminámos os processos um do outro, observámo-nos. Em 2005, convidei-a para consultora do “Lado C”; em 2006 para colaboradora do “Projecto de Documentação”. E a Teresa arrastou com ela a Maria, aluna e performer que já me conhecia à distância do blog e que depressa se revelou o elemento terceiro (logo, criativo) em falta. Decidimos empreender, em performance, uma espécie de “vida especificamente vivida”, um encontro a-temporal e des-espacializado. A três. Por isso é que o conteúdo deste diário extravasa os limites do “Projecto de Documentação”, porque o que fizemos entre Novembro de 2006 e Janeiro de 2007 (no contexto da residência artística “Life-Zone”, em Torres Vedras), tem raízes passadas e vontades futuras que não queremos ignorar. Contar a história toda, desde o menos infinito que a origina ao mais infinito que a projecta, parece-nos o mais honesto. Por enquanto. À hora a que termino este texto, está a Teresa a chegar à cidade indiana de Bangalore, para onde foi estudar e aprofundar as matérias do seu trabalho durante um ano. A continuação desta nossa life-especificidade passará também por lá. Entretanto, vamos continuando a trocar vontades: eu, a Teresa e a Maria. Neste livro (em 8 partes) por fechar, ou noutro qualquer.

[Rogério Nuno Costa, Agosto 2007]

Mais sobre a Life-Zone aqui.

Mais um teaser que antecede a pré-publicação online e parcial de "Vou A Tua Casa/Projecto de Documentação" [livro e vídeo-documentário] num website que será disponibilizado hoje ao final do dia! A publicação "física" será em Fevereiro de 2012. A seguir!

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TEASER #09

CARTA

I have this strange feeling

Jeremy Xido

©Luís Firmo, residência Projecto de Documentação, Transforma AC, Torres Vedras, 2006.

[Apresenta-se a seguir a primeira carta de Jeremy Xido enviada por e-mail a Rogério Nuno Costa durante a residência artística de um mês na Transforma AC/Torres Vedras (2006), com o intuito de preparar a realização do vídeo-documentário "Fui A Tua Casa", um dos objectos documentais do "Projecto de Documentação". Apesar de residirem no mesmo espaço físico durante todo o tempo da residência, a troca de correspondência foi uma das "metodologias" de trabalho e de pesquisa adoptadas pelos dois artistas como fixação de um discurso teórico-prático oriundo de conversas, reflexões, leituras, passeios e análise de documentos vários sobre o "Vou A Tua Casa". Versão no original Inglês, não editada:]

I have this strange feeling. Expectancy… Like I have the sense that I am about to find myself again. Sitting at the table with you yesterday, we were talking and, at some point, I suddenly felt my esophagus constrict. Tighten. Now, a day later, I am not sure what to make of that moment, but it was unmistakably familiar to me in the same way that, while dreaming sometimes, I find myself falling and will wake up with a start grabbing out to hold onto something in order to catch my balance. As if contact with some physical element could keep me from falling in my imagination. What I thought as we were sitting there, Rogério, is that I needed this conversation at this point in my life. Somehow we were talking about different forms of self-reflection and witnessing. We seemed to be talking about the sense of “being there”. There’s a word in German — wahrnehmen — which comes to mind. In English you translate it as “acknowledge” or “to be aware of”, but when you break down the German word, it splits into two parts, Wahr (meaning “true”) and nehmen (meaning “to take”). To take the truth into your hands. Or to truly take something. It is about a relationship between my experiences of my self as I come into contact with what is. What is true. What is there. And you don’t have to fabricate this, because it is already there, you just have to take it or acknowledge it. It is a shift of perception, an opening of awareness. It is about looking at what isn’t hidden, but what is invisible, precisely because it is right in front of you in plain view. The things we disregard because they are taken for granted. The things that are dressed in camouflage like the music playing in this café I am sitting in or the plastic bottle that is placed next to a column in the square just outside of the window I am looking through right now. The cap is off and the bottle is half full and it is there nestled against the column on the top step and surrounding it is the story of how it got there, of my becoming aware of it and the feelings and thoughts my recognition of it engender and the future of what will happen to it and to me, and and and… And you told me that most of the people who begin to write about this project or tell the story of what happened in their encounter with you usually begin with the story of your meeting. How it happened. Where it happened. And this makes perfect sense to me. Because, from what I understand, that is very much the piece. Being aware of where you are when it happens. Not aware of it being the performance, but aware of the moment of living. This particular story they share with you and everything that happens — either outside or inside, I imagine — is the piece. And of course, the moment that they become aware of it, as you said, it is over. Because it is no longer being lived, it is being defined and interpreted. And this is something else. Another moment. A different project.

Several days have passed since I began writing this. In the meantime, we had a meeting with Luís about what we will do together and about my workshop and the idea we have for a late 19th century or early 20th century artists’ correspondence. Just like you, Luís asked us both to write something. However, he wanted us to put our conversation in some order. I think what I am now writing is perhaps the same sort of thing, but not articulated quite like that — and I think that difference in articulation is quintessentially the difference between the two forms of writing, even if the impulse is similar. OK. Here is one of the things that I wrote for Luís, that I think fits here anyway. In answering what we plan to do over the next few months, this was the first entry in my list:

1) Help Rogério figure out an appropriate way to create a video documentation of “Vou A Tua Casa”. The challenge in doing this is like the way Jewish Mystics describe looking at the face of God. You can’t. It is behind a series of veils. To look at it means death. How do you film a project that attempts to reveal the ephemeral sense of being there? Film is the quintessential artistic form in not actually being there. It is a form which denies the moment of watching as an event in lieu of an imagined space of possibilities. There is a conflict of forms. This is an interesting conversation for me. And I think I might be able to help. So this is part one of my work with him.

I think I read about the veil thing in a book by Karen Armstrong. I can’t remember which book, but I found this quotation by her online: “The experience of God that is finally attained is utterly indescribable, since normal language no longer applies. The Jewish Mystics describe anything but God! They tell us about his cloak, his palace, his heavenly court and the veil that shields him from human gaze, which represents the eternal archetypes”. I am not religious. Not in any typical sense of the word. But the experiences that religious people try to get to and talk about often help me understand some of my own experiences. There is this feeling of truth or of presence that may be similar to their feeling of god or godliness. I don’t know if this is true, but Nietzsche wrote that he couldn’t believe in any God that didn’t dance, and I would agree, and somehow this seems to be an appropriate thing to write. (I am shocked that I am quoting so many people and thinking in such a literary way — Nietzsche and Karen Armstrong of all people! And a little later on I will quote Stanislawski…). You talked about “the birthday aura” (you quoted Paul Auster). The feeling of specialness. Like a field of energy. Like when dancing in a club and we see someone dancing away and just in it people start singing, “It’s your birthday!”. So let me think back to the day of the meeting. I remember my jet lag. The coldness of the space at Transforma. Full of malleable spatial possibility. I remember seeing your table with all the names of the people who took part in “Vou A Tua Casa”written out on index cards folded in half and set on end to look like so many little hills or pylons or those weird rock formations in central Turkey as a result of erosion or maybe like the image of forests in the computer game Ultima back in the early 90s. The flip flops and power cord on the table and me loving the fact that I just had to wonder what the hell you did with those things in your performance. I remember walking to find a café to sit in and talk. Rain. The first places were closed. You walked very quickly. Muscles taut and your motion certain. My cup of coffee. The television behind me that I couldn’t see but remembered from the last time I was in Torres Vedras and would always go to that particular café and order a tuna fish sandwich without mayonnaise. At some point as we were talking, I wanted to order a sandwich more out of habit than hunger. And as you were talking, at some point I had that constriction of my esophagus. It wasn’t bad. It was… revealing. Something happened to me like waking up from a dream and I was trying to catch my balance inside. You see, I have spent the past 7 months traveling around Europe to all of the places you will probably travel to this coming year for APAP. And I arrived with my camera and some newspaper articles and was housed in strange places and felt so unbelievably lonely and out of place, but I had a project ahead of me. I was scared because I didn’t know what I was going to do. Only in retrospect do I see clearly how I am often scared before something begins and once I am in it, fear never enters the equation. Then I am just doing and problem solving and improvising and more or less enjoying it. After months of being on the road, though, I started to feel a tremendous sense of disassociation from myself. I was so outwardly focused — on the stories I was trying to put together, on the interviews with other people, on trying to fashion a film out of it all, on the fact that whatever I did would be seen and judged by other people. Over the course of this time, I began to feel like I was drifting further and further away from myself. From my sense of being there. From my own body and life and fears and joys and things like what it feels like to do the dishes while talking with a friend. All of these things were so so so far away. My whole life was becoming like a perpetual state of jet lag. A friend of mine always quoted someone, I forget whom, and said that when you fly, your body moves through space much faster than your soul. So when you arrive, it takes days or even weeks for your soul to catch up. I think this was Jorge Luis Borges (now I am quoting someone quoting someone else!). So the feeling I had sitting there, listening to you and trying to grasp what you had been doing for the past three years, was of permission. I felt like I was going to be permitted to permit myself to be present. I was going to be able to accept my being and that it would be witnessed. And that it didn’t have to be spectacular. I just had to show up for my cup of coffee and be there. OK, so here comes the Stanislawski moment I promised. I knew it would come, because when I sat down here to write, the first thing I did was go online to try to find it. I found this, copied and pasted it at the end of the letter, knowing that I would eventually get here. So what you are about to see is a bit like time travel — I plucked this out of the past and in the middle of the letter told you what I would write in the future. Which is now:

It is funny, I haven’t read this book in a million years, but over the past couple of days, since our meeting, it began to pop up in my head again. Stanislawski’s “An Actor Prepares”. And one thing in particular. I was thinking about attention. So I poked around on the Internet and I found this:

5. Concentration of Attention

75 An actor must have a point of attention, and this point of attention must not be in the auditorium.

82 Solitude in Public: when you are in public (e.g., on stage) but have a small circle of attention and feel alone within it.

83-5 Your focus of attention can be larger areas, but this is harder to maintain — if it begins to slip, withdraw the attention to a smaller circle or single object/point, then gradually enlarge the circle of attention again.

88 At the end of every day, in bed, you should go over everything that happened in great detail, both appearance and inner emotions. Also try to refresh earlier memories of places, events, people. That is the only way to develop a strong, sharp, solid power of inner and outer attention.

89 You should give the objects of your attention on stage an imaginary life (where did it come from, who’s used it, etc.) so that they’re more interesting to you.

93 Observe things in daily life — bestow them with imaginary backgrounds to heighten various emotions. Remember those scenes and draw on them.

93-4 When interacting with people, attempt to comprehend their inner emotional life through their actions, thoughts and impulses. Why did they do that? What did they have in mind?

You know, whenever I think of Stanslawski I vaguely remember something I think I heard about him, that he wasn’t that great of an actor himself, but that he was an extraordinary teacher.

OK. I’m finished for this round. Almost. What I want to say, Rogério, is that I’m glad to have met you and embarked on this little journey. I have no idea how to do it or what to write, but I will try to trust that whatever I come up with will have to do. And it is bound to lead to the next thing.

Hug, Jeremy

Mais um teaser que antecede a pré-publicação online e parcial de "Vou A Tua Casa/Projecto de Documentação" [livro e vídeo-documentário] num website que será disponibilizado hoje ao final do dia! A publicação "física" será em Fevereiro de 2012. A seguir!

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