Borges and I
Performance details, where, duration
date
Sample Text Heading
Sample text follows : The School of Contemporary Art (SOCA) of
Edith Cowan University (this year in conjunction with The Bureau of
Ideas) recently held the second of a series of six annual symposia
planned on the subject of beauty. There is no room here for a full
account of the symposium. What follows is essentially a personal and
highly selective impression picking out a few items out of a rich and
varied fare.
Domenico de Clario, Head of SOCA, explained that the idea of the series was stimulated by his meeting Arthur Danto and reading his lectures titled 'The Abuse of Beauty'. This particular symposium had the aim of exploring ideas around '&the dialogue between those who are drawn to maintaining classical paradigms of beauty& in either their practice or theoretical approach and those who are drawn to the constant reinvention of new ones.
Work#2
The Universe as Mirror
Performance details, where, duration
date
Sample Text Heading
Sample text follows : The School of Contemporary Art (SOCA) of Edith Cowan
University (this year in conjunction with The Bureau of Ideas) recently held
the second of a series of six annual symposia planned on the subject of beauty.
There is no room here for a full account of the symposium. What follows is
essentially a personal and highly selective impression picking out a few
items out of a rich and varied fare.
Domenico de Clario, Head of SOCA, explained that the idea of the series was stimulated by his meeting Arthur Danto and reading his lectures titled 'The Abuse of Beauty'. This particular symposium had the aim of exploring ideas around '&the dialogue between those who are drawn to maintaining classical paradigms of beauty& in either their practice or theoretical approach and those who are drawn to the constant reinvention of new ones.
Work #3
Landscapes
Performance details, where, duration
date
Sample Text Heading
Sample text follows : The School of Contemporary Art (SOCA) of Edith Cowan
University (this year in conjunction with The Bureau of Ideas) recently held
the second of a series of six annual symposia planned on the subject of beauty.
There is no room here for a full account of the symposium. What follows is
essentially a personal and highly selective impression picking out a few
items out of a rich and varied fare.
Domenico de Clario, Head of SOCA, explained that the idea of the series was stimulated by his meeting Arthur Danto and reading his lectures titled 'The Abuse of Beauty'. This particular symposium had the aim of exploring ideas around '&the dialogue between those who are drawn to maintaining classical paradigms of beauty& in either their practice or theoretical approach and those who are drawn to the constant reinvention of new ones.
southness (the book of questions)*
from 8.36 pm (sunset) january 14 2007
fremantle arts centre
fremantle
Pablo Neruda is the quintessential poet of the south. His verses address both a deep sense of alienation from the world as well as the cathartic joy of a homecoming, once we are returned to it; the dynamic generated by the ongoing interaction between such polarities can manifest at times as southness.
But what is southness? It might best be described as the range of qualities that characterise those marginalised but nevertheless highly significant ‘minor literatures’ that define major languages.
the book of questions was completed by Neruda in 1973, only a few months before he died, and as the poet’s last work it constitutes a final testament to the dynamic described above. It is composed of 74 poems containing a total of 320 questions; to these no rational answer exists because they emerge from a state of unknowing, and each is as unanswerable as a zen koan.
A koan is a paradoxical question aiding those who search for a pure contemplative space in which temporary liberation may be found from the confusion brought on by our relentless subjectivity.
Asking such questions may result in disengagement from the specificity of language, and consequently listening or looking may be transmuted into hearing or seeing.
The limitation of knowingness can then be abandoned in favour of an ongoing clear-sighted questioning of all we have hitherto assumed the world to be.
Great poets like Neruda are able to shape and sculpt language into endlessly rich and eloquent images, but where might we find the poet’s first instinctive voice as he ‘sounds’ a primal response to the world’s southness if not in the remote zones that exist before language, certainly pre-dating the poet’s sublime architecture of words?
Here the paradoxical phenomenological world is experienced anew (is this not the artists’ gift, to perceive the world as it is constantly being re-born?) and as a consequence the poet’s first response, the inner voice, manifests as wordless sound arising before language shapes it into intelligibility.
From the very first reading these 74 poems have for me constituted a musical score, and I have concluded that perhaps the purpose of its composing was to guide the reader/listener to a space beyond understanding, beyond knowing and beyond paradox; perhaps even south of paradox.
This may be the transmutative space that Pablo Neruda has always inhabited.
the book of questions at the fremantle arts centre
I was delighted to receive an invitation in 2006 to present a performance in the Fremantle Arts Centre in the context of d&k’s residency/project. Since my first reading of the book of questions in 1983, I have come to understand that the only condition allowing such questions to arise is that experienced by the pure in spirit; perhaps the moon-watchers.
The buildings that since 1972 have contained the Fremantle Arts Centre were built between 1861 and 1868 by a convict labour force to house the colony’s first Lunatic Asylum. In 1909 its inmates were moved to a new facility and the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum then became an old women’s home.
In 1942, after extensive refurbishment, these buildings served for
three years as the US Navy’s Headquarters.
In the 19th century the word lunacy was used to describe a wide range
of mental illnesses, comprising various states of perception that
through ignorance simply remained undiagnosed. According to Carl
Jung the etymology of this word associates it with the feminine.
Moon-worship has since the dawn of time represented feminine consciousness;
the first temples to Artemis built almost 3500 years ago honoured
her as the triple-moon goddess, and the architecture of such temples
was aligned to the moon’s path as it lit the night-sky.
The word lunacy was also used to describe the perceptual state arising
once the normally balanced relationship between self and outer world
dissolves into utter subjectivity.
This ensuing state of seamlessness between subject and object can
facilitate both a pure-spirited approach to the world as well as
the emergence of a simple, child-like perception in those experiencing
it.
Questions-as-koans are frequently asked by children, but also by the adults who are either afflicted by this state, or somehow manage to enter it voluntarily.
In order to compile the book of questions Neruda cast the poet’s net wide into the world of wonder and paradox, and returned with an extraordinary catch.
Perhaps he somehow managed to shine reflected moonlight into an ocean of southness, consequently illuminating for all of us the quintessence of its rich under-water life.
Here in the courtyard of the Fremantle Arts Centre a keyboard is surrounded by 74 light fittings, each emanating coloured light. The windows of the former Asylum look down on the gathering.
Through allotting each consonant, vowel and punctuation mark in the original Spanish version of the book of questions to a series of numbered white and black keys on the keyboard, I ‘sound’ out each of the poet’s questions in a voice that attempts to avoid specificity of language.
This voice manifests as random keyboard notes, and is in no way intended to replace or subjugate the poet’s sublime verses.
The ‘voicing’ begins at dusk, and as each questions is completed one of the coloured lights spread through the courtyard is in turn switched on until 74 questions have been articulated.
The hope for this sound-translation of ‘the book of questions’ is that it may facilitate further disengagement from knowingness, perhaps allowing us the freedom to briefly listen where we are and as we are to whatever may have guided Neruda to articulate, as his final offering, such responses to paradox.
This translation itself attempts to constitute both another unanswerable question and one more paradoxical proposition.
Through attentively listening to the wordless questioning of what might appear to us to be the world, the shroud continually veiling it may lift, allowing us a brief glimpse of what this great poet of the south first saw; the world-as-it-is, in all its apocalyptic transparency.
domenico de clario
fremantle
january 2007
*the book of questions was first presented in Pablo Neruda’s ship-like house facing the southern ocean in Valparaiso, and timed to begin at sunset on October 7 2006, as the full moon rose above the city.
Approximately 340 inmates inhabited the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum from 1868 to 1909; this is the exact number of questions contained in Neruda’s book.
Tonight each single question is dedicated to the memory of one of those that lived and died within these walls.
thank you d&k for the invitation and the light
Philomela
Work #4
Performance details, where, duration
date
Sample Text Heading
Sample text follows : The School of Contemporary Art (SOCA) of Edith Cowan
University (this year in conjunction with The Bureau of Ideas) recently held
the second of a series of six annual symposia planned on the subject of beauty.
There is no room here for a full account of the symposium. What follows is
essentially a personal and highly selective impression picking out a few
items out of a rich and varied fare.
Domenico de Clario, Head of SOCA, explained that the idea of the series was stimulated by his meeting Arthur Danto and reading his lectures titled 'The Abuse of Beauty'. This particular symposium had the aim of exploring ideas around '&the dialogue between those who are drawn to maintaining classical paradigms of beauty& in either their practice or theoretical approach and those who are drawn to the constant reinvention of new ones.
Half Moon Rising
Work #5
Performance details, where, duration
date
Sample Text Heading
Sample text follows : The School of Contemporary Art (SOCA) of Edith Cowan
University (this year in conjunction with The Bureau of Ideas) recently held
the second of a series of six annual symposia planned on the subject of beauty.
There is no room here for a full account of the symposium. What follows is
essentially a personal and highly selective impression picking out a few
items out of a rich and varied fare.
Domenico de Clario, Head of SOCA, explained that the idea of the series was stimulated by his meeting Arthur Danto and reading his lectures titled 'The Abuse of Beauty'. This particular symposium had the aim of exploring ideas around '&the dialogue between those who are drawn to maintaining classical paradigms of beauty& in either their practice or theoretical approach and those who are drawn to the constant reinvention of new ones.
Towards Morning
Work #5
Performance details, where, duration
date
Sample Text Heading
Sample text follows : The School of Contemporary Art (SOCA) of Edith Cowan
University (this year in conjunction with The Bureau of Ideas) recently held
the second of a series of six annual symposia planned on the subject of beauty.
There is no room here for a full account of the symposium. What follows is
essentially a personal and highly selective impression picking out a few
items out of a rich and varied fare.
Domenico de Clario, Head of SOCA, explained that the idea of the series was stimulated by his meeting Arthur Danto and reading his lectures titled 'The Abuse of Beauty'. This particular symposium had the aim of exploring ideas around '&the dialogue between those who are drawn to maintaining classical paradigms of beauty& in either their practice or theoretical approach and those who are drawn to the constant reinvention of new ones.
Floating Land
Performance details, where, duration
date
gnitaolf
dnal (seven-ness)
initially the body (and its seven energy centres) is proposed as an effective conductor between the inner world and the outer world); the body then as an antenna/crucible sensitised to the invisible/inaudible, and facilitating through a transmutative process a potential dynamic between micro and macro; a blindfolded someone sits at a keyboard and touches the keys throughout a full-moon night; sound is made, and in itself it’s inconsequential. its only purpose lies in its potential as a catalyst for an engagement with the world as it is, and as it’s always been.