CYNAMööN

One Step to Caracol City

2011-12-30T00:08:00.007+11:00

Background

This performance was created for the Pop-Up Migrants exhibition, curated by Matteo Rubettino for the United Nation's International Migrants Day on December 18th 2011.

One Step to Caracol City was born from thinking about the process of migration that I have been through personally and the one that a loved man is going through at the moment for us to be together.
After researching, reading and filling out so many forms and applications, the first idea was to make the audience fill out a questionnaire with challenging or nonsense questions, to portray that annoyance that the process brings.
Nonetheless, thinking about how hard it has been for us and millions of other migrants, I decided to change the annoying questions to nice and inspiring ones, to turn around the pain into something that others could appreciate.

Concept
The idea was to embody a snail (caracol in Spanish): an animal that carries its home wherever it goes. In this case, I would have to 'walk' 44 steps in the form of questions or requests that the audience had to respond to in order to form a spiralling trail on the ground. Each question was written on a cut-out paper footprint of my own feet.
Making this a continuation from my past performance Until They Were Together (see previous 2 posts), 44 steps is a representative number, being the days until Víctor should set foot in Australia, counting from the day of the exhibition.
From the beginning I sensed gold would be the colour for this piece. It talked to me about the sun, the light at the end of a tunnel of hardship, and magic.
My friend Rain Fisher Wolf crafted the magnificent bamboo shell in which I could curl in perfectly as well as carry it on my back.

Performance
I started curled inside the shell with my eyes closed, and slowly awakened to look around the space. The footprints were hung on the shell showing the black side, representing burden and heaviness; a road yet to begin.
I put my hands out and started signalling people to approach me, and asked them to take one of the footprints and answer the question. At first people were shy, but slowly they started to come closer, asked what it was about and responded with enthusiasm. The overall feeling balanced between mysterious, introspective and fun.
I like the idea of giving participants something in return, even if it's something small or symbolic. In this case, I gave each person a little golden stick-on 'jewel' (like the ones I had on my eyes). I told them that it was to remind them of what they had responded on the footprint.

The performance went for about one hour and a half nonstop, which for 44 people to engage with was quite fast. I was very happy with everyone's response and involvement, it really felt like the shared construction of a path, making the burden less and less and the light spread wider with every step.

Without you, this wouldn't have been:
*Matteo Rubettino who invited me to participate in the exhibition,
*the venue Tinder Box Studio,
*Víctor Sandoval Ayala for being my artistic and life accomplice,
*Rain Fisher Wolf for sculpting the amazing bamboo shell,
*Andrew Bott for taking amazing pictures,
*The 44 people who answered 44 questions or requests to make sense of this performance.

Until They Were Together: Spreading The Love

2011-11-24T17:17:00.194+11:00

Following up my Until They Were Together performance for the Hagámoslo! exhibition, I will be posting here the photos of each written heart and where they end up around Melbourne. Enjoy and share the love!

1. I wanted this first one to be one that travels around the city...

Photo by Isra Gutiérrez

2. And this one will probably travel around Australia!

3. I wanted to have this one in a place where I could see if it lasted, and how people react or if they even notice it. It's at my local tram stop.

Photo by Isra Gutiérrez

4. The site chosen for this one was perfect for the message...

5. Another traveling heart, all the way from Frankston into the City.

6. Love will knock at any address...

7. I've always wanted to do something on that extremely white light tower... this is a start! I hope it lasts until the next rainy day...

8. Give way to love... And this one goes with a song... Te Quiero!

9. In any city, we will create the country of our Love.

10. Two hearts become one under the summer foliage of 'Separation Tree' at the Abbotsford Convent.

11. Across the oceans all the way to the Yarra River!

12. On the laneway where the Hagamoslo! exhibition was held, where this sharing of love with the City of Melbourne started! And it will be continued...

13. Overlooking the city

14. Very appropriate for the season!

15. Bridges between you and me...

16. Drunk with love

17. Visiting the Warburton side of the Yarra River

18. ...

19. Outside the Brunswick Neighbourhood House, where I hold a Spanish conversation class. Sharing the love with my students and anyone who might come across it!

20. Sun, Moon, Stars and Stereo Cupid

21. All we need is...

22. Stereotypical Mexicans...

23. Caracol City is where we will meet...

24. Vintage-style love travel

25. This is the first of a few that I will stick backwards, since the part of the "Migration by Partner" form they are written on refer to information about the relationship.

26.

27. Flowering in the concrete jungle

28.

Until They Were Together

2011-11-23T23:59:00.004+11:00

Until They Were Together was a performance part of Hagámoslo! (Let's do it!), the first Secret Lane Art Show in Melbourne, organized and curated by Matteo Rubettino.
This collective exhibition by Latin artists based in Melbourne was a 'fringe' show to the Hispanic Fiesta, happening a few steps away on Johnston St, Fitzroy.

Photo by Carmenza Jiménez

The inspiration for this ritual came after being at home in Mexico, falling in love and having to come back to Melbourne without my loved one. In thinking how to conquer the frustration of the distance between us, looking at migration possibilities and obstacles, it came as a natural theme to use for the performance.

Photo by Carmenza Jiménez

I got the 'Application for Migration to Australia by a Partner' form from the immigration website as a symbol of just a little step (30 pages long) that couples who qualify to apply have to go through. We're not even close to being able to use that form, but I wanted to use it as a symbol of the cold formalities imposed on love.
On each page of the form I printed and cut out 2 hearts, making 60 in total, plus one extra.
The idea was to ask people passing by the laneway to help me write our love story. I had started it on the first two hearts:
"Once upon a time there was a woman in Australia. She was in love with a man in Mexico" and
"Once upon a time there was a man in Mexico. He was in love with a woman in Australia".
In the extra heart, I wrote down the (desired) end of the story, which Víctor and I wrote together:

Photo by Phillip Walsh

Throughout the afternoon I was surprised and very happy to find that almost everyone who I asked to write said yes without much hesitation. People wrote everything from funny happy endings or their own experience with long-distance loves, to wishes for us and reflections about love in general. A few shared their own experiences with me, either past or present.

Photos by Carmenza Jiménez

Each person pinned the heart on my skirt, as a way of sharing this love and their good vibes. In return, I offered them lollies to make their day sweeter. I felt it was important to give some love in return, even if it was a very small thing. (Lollies were guarded by our offspring, Fénix).

Photo by Carmenza Jiménez

Photos by Susan Doel

After the successful day, coming back home with my love-filled skirt, I decided the next step was to photograph one heart every day and send it to my love, to share it with him and as a reminder to keep strong in the process... until we are together.

But not only that, I also want to share and spread the love that everyone shared with me, so every day, I will go out on the Melbourne streets and leave a heart out there. Hopefully, they will bring a smile to someone's face and make their day brighter.
I will update the next post constantly with the photos of the hearts around the city. I hope you enjoy them, and feel free to make any comments or share your own stories.
To see more about the other great artists in this exhibition and Matteo's Secret Lane Art Show project click here and 'like' it!

Feel My Colours

2011-10-02T22:25:00.150+11:00

Feel My Colours was the third edition of my Colour Melos interactive painting performance.

(See: Colour Melos 1, and Colour Melos 2).

It was part of Carnaval Latino, event by EL TARRO, Samba Cine Club and Institute of Pataphysical Studies for Melbourne Fringe Festival 2011.

This carnival of Latin soul was be full of great artists and performers, delicious food, and the most danceable rhythms.

(Click on image to go to the event's blog)

I had the idea for quite a while of doing this performance inside a life-size picture frame, to literally transmit the concept of my body being a white canvas for the audience to create a communal artwork (reinforced by the sign on the blackboard which I later had to change to a more explanatory "Paint on Me!").

I got in place once there were a few people arriving for the event. Unlike the past two times, this version didn't have a set duration or lapse of time in which people would be dedicated to it, but it was part of a larger event where other things happened at the same time.

As it usually happens at the beginning, it took a while for the audience to warm up and get into the participative spirit, but once some brave ones dared to dip their hands into the paint, everything started flowing.
Another thing that was improved form the past two Colour Melos performances was that this time I wanted to give something back to the people who participated. I created an event on Facebook asking people to contribute with images, phrases and songs/sounds that related to colours, as well as pieces of material with interesting textures. The idea was to use materials as well as paint to bring different textures to the artwork, but in the end I decided to not use them to keep it more simple.

I put the songs in my iPod and placed it on the frame with headphones and printed all the images and phrases and separated them in different envelopes according to the colour they made reference to. They all had the name of the person who sent it and the author of the song or phrase.
Every time someone painted, according to the colour(s) they used, I would pick a random image or phrase from that colour's envelope, as a kind of 'fortune cookie'. I also invited participants to listen to whatever song was playing from the Colour playlist on the iPod.

To add to the 'Latin street party' environment, I had a donation jar in which some people kindly left a few coins (thanks!). In a couple of occasions when someone approached me to take a photo I yelled "To take a photo you have to paint!"...but they understood pay instead of paint...! Oh well, thanks!

The performance went for about three hours non-stop, until there was not much space to paint on. In my view, it was a great success!

Gracias to: Claudia and Jorge from EL TARRO for inviting me once again, everyone who contributed with images, phrases and songs on Facebook and those who painted and made this performance exist! Dani Comito for building the wonderful frame and board, Andrew Bott for taking awesome pictures as usual.

MONARCA: a letting-go ritual

2011-09-01T14:59:00.000+10:00

Monarca was a letting-go fire ritual created for Federation Square’s The Light in Winter Festival 2011. The name Monarca comes from the Monarch butterflies, which in ancient Mexican cultures were a symbol of fire and regarded as Daughters of the Sun.

Butterflies in general are a symbol of metamorphosis and mobility, and this particular species migrate to Mexico in millions every year from Canada and the U.S.A., escaping from the winter and taking shelter in Mexican reserves that are today recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage sites. This relates to my cultural background as well as the very present issue of migration in Australia, and as the metamorphosis that is required for anyone to let go of an old life and step into any kind of change, embracing it to be something beautiful.

Flyer designed by Ali Villaseñor and Carolina Rodríguez

During the weeks leading to the Festival I collected dry leaves from parks around Melbourne. The leaves were the chosen material for being another symbol of the transformation and cycles of nature, as well as an environmentally friendly (and free) material to use. In two occasions, people were invited to write down on the leaves whatever they wanted to let go of, bad experiences that still haunted them, stressful thoughts about the present or future or any kind of problems or worries.

The first time was May 26th, at the gathering held by the Turkish Association for all the participating communities in the Gift of Light Solstice celebration.

The unfortunate event of my grandmother Daisy Valenzuela passing away that same morning gave a whole new significance to this act, I dedicated it to her and used my own leaf as a way to write down my farewell. It was very powerful to share this at the gathering and feel the support of all the beautiful people involved, as well as having them write the first leaves as the start of this community performance.

Community representatives at the meeting. Photo by Sinan Ozgun

Written leaves

The second occasion was June 18th, during the Solstice Celebration on Federation Square, in which the Mexican Temazcal sacred space offered the audience an introspective ceremony followed by the offering of a leaf to write any feelings or thoughts to burn on the night of the ritual, followed by a cup of Mexican fruit punch.

Xiomara as the 'chamana' in the Temazcal

Finally, on the evening of Thursday 23rd of June, the Monarca ritual took place.

A path of light was set out by the Guerrilla Lighting team, connecting Bruce Ramus's Light Hearts pyramid to the indigenous Leempeyt Weeyn' campfire.

Indigenous Mexican music was mixed by A Sound Design with a text created especially for this performance by Víctor Sandoval, recorded by the author in Spanish, and my translation in English (read it below).

As the music started I walked out of the pyramid, with a Mexican Copal inciense stick in one hand (gift from Chilean artisan creator Karen Maluenda) and my own written leaf on the other. I was wrapped in a cocoon made of bandages and the written leaves. A small procession followed me carrying the rest of the leaves, sewn on one of the fabric walls of the Temazcal.

Photos by Fred Kroh

We arrived to the fire and my assistants started unwrapping the leaves to discover the butterfly dress as the cocoon slowly disappeared.

Then, they started distributing the leaves for the spectators to burn, making it a collective act of detachment.

As people approached the fire to put the leaves in, Bruce's video of rainbow butterflies was projected onto the crowd, as if the inert dry leaves suddenly jumped out of the fire into that new life of colour.

Photos by Fred Kroh

After all the leaves were gone, still with butterflies fluttering on clothes and skin, I kneeled by the fire and performed the final most discreet and intimate action of the ritual, burning the content of the locket I wore around my neck as a last good-bye.

adiós nonna querida

Photos by Fred Kroh

I took the locket off and left it by the fire, changing it for a butterfly necklace as the last sign of transformation, of spreading wings into a new being.

Nuevo Sol

Soy este lugar que respiro, esta circunstancia que deseo.

Soy el lugar y las circunstancias que abrazan al tiempo que a cada segundo creo.

Mis huellas son las cenizas del incendio generado por mis pasos, mis palabras y mis actos.

Ardo en un fuego lento,

habitado por territorios pasados,

por vidas lejanas,

por nuevas historias que desfilan

incitantes ante mi hambrienta mirada.

Patria hay una sola:

del cielo a la tierra, habitando todos los mares, devorando todos los miedos.

Mi país es la vida que comparto, las pasiones que me acechan, las palabras que descubro, los silencios que me acercan a otros cuerpos… y me incendian.

Ardo en un fuego sordo,

migrante feliz y liberado

en el centro de la torre de Babel,

quemo las naves del futuro y del pasado,

dialogo con el presente… me tomo unos tragos con él.

Patria hay una sola:

del cielo a la tierra, sanando todos los males,

reinventando todos los tiempos.

Migrante soy de La Vida hacia un mundo mejor, incendio todo a mi paso con estas llamas sagradas de mi pasión.

Ardo por todas partes,

mis días futuros cenizas ya son,

sólo tengo mis pasos, mi mirada y mi abrazo,

corazón, rostro y cuerpo,

ahora,

dan vida a un Nuevo Sol.

Patria hay una sola:

del cielo a la tierra reCreando sueños,

reescribiendo mares,

compartiendo juegos.

New Sun

I am this place that I breathe, this circumstance that I desire.

I am this place and circumstances, embracing the time that every second I create

My footprints are the ash, left by the fire of my words and my acts

I burn in slow fire,

Housed by past territories,

By far away lives,

By new stories that parade

Igniting before my hungry gaze.

Motherland there’s only one:

From the sky to the earth, dwelling in all the seas, devouring all the fears.

My country is the life that I share, the passions that lie in wait for me, the words that I discover, the silences that bring me closer to other bodies… and set me on fire.

I burn in a deaf fire,

A Happy and liberated migrant

In the center of the Tower of Babel,

I burn the ships of future and past,

I talk with the present… I have a few drinks with him.

Motherland there’s only one:

From the sky to the earth, healing all the woes,

Reinventing all the times.

I am a migrant of Life to a better world, I burn everything as I walk with the sacred flames of my passion

I burn all over,

My future days are already ashes,

I have only got my steps, my gaze and my embrace,

Heart, face and body,

Now,

Give life to a New Sun.

Motherland there’s only one:

From the sky to the earth reCreating dreams,

Rewriting seas,

Sharing games.

Great thanks to everyone who made this performance real with their help and support:

The Light in Winter Festival and Federation Square

The Gift of Light communities
Every single person who trusted this act and wrote on a leaf

Nadja Kostich (Gift of Light, Federation Square)
Víctor Sandoval (writer)

Pedro Chan (MexVic)
RMIT Link Arts & Culture (funding and promotion)
National Fund for Culture and the Arts, Mexico (FONCA)

Bruce Ramus (video)

Guerrilla Lighting (light and projection)

A Sound Design (music mix)

Carolina Rodríguez (costume)

Xiomara Ruiz (project management)

Ali Villaseñor (graphic design and production)

Laura González (production and welcome words)
Paty Galán (production)

Aleida Montalvo (production)
Paulette Arvizu (production)
Fred Kroh (photography)
Alejandro Alcocer (flyers and video)
Israel Gutiérrez (flyers)

Some of the Monarca-MexVic team getting ready: Xiomara Ruiz, Carolina Rodríguez,

me, Ali Villaseñor, Paty Galán (and photo by Laura González)

My CV

2011-08-21T16:01:00.005+10:00

Please click on images to enlarge

Colour Melos 2

2011-08-04T19:40:00.004+10:00

The second version of my interactive painting performance Colour Melos took place on June 10th 2011 at 1000 Pound Bend in Melbourne, for the event Samba Cine Club and EL TARRO (see the poster and the first Colour Melos).

In this occasion I closely collaborated with Colombian dancer Kathleen González, who shared the stage with me. We used background projection of TAO.S's colourful painting animation and A Sound Design put together a soundtrack for the piece.

The main concept of Colour Melos 2 remains the same as the first version: the intention to start a conversation between performer and audience through touch, bodies, colours, now adding music and projection. The aim is to reduce the space between us, to remember that we are all human and need to feel each other, to literally "keep in touch".

Colour Melos is an experiment part of my artistic exploration of the sense of touch, and aims to observe how we interact through this sense in different settings, in this case, when people are allowed to touch someone with the excuse of it being an artwork.
Both presentations have been as part of an art event, but with very different spaces and audiences. In this case, there were more people in the audience, but much less participation than the one at Renaissance Festival.

See photos of the event by Phillip Werner here (thanks Phillip!).

Photos by Antony Kraus (gracias!):

The idea of the collaboration with Kathleen was to start the performance as separate beings, slowly recognising each other as similar and complementary. This is why our costumes were in complement with each other: where I showed skin, Kathleen had covered in white, and viceversa.

We each started wearing a vest made of latex gloves tied together, that represent a leit-motif in my work around the sense of touch, since my first OutsideIn tactile installations. Gloves represent a barrier that we use when we don't want to directly touch something, so we undressed from them at the point of the performance in which we started to recognise each other, literally taking off a barrier to allow interaction.

Each colour of the paint we had in front of us had a previously accorded movement effect, that we first showed painting on ourselves and then on each other. We only painted on our 'active' zones, the ones covered in white stockings.
After doing it with each colour, we 'realize' that there is an audience and invite them to interact with us. It was hard to get people involved and make them leave the confort of their seats to get their hands full of paint and risk getting it on their clothes. Nonetheless, there were some brave ones (mostly male) who did participate.

When no more people were willing to participate, the end of the performance was marked with a hug, the final recognition of each other, one of the best manifestations of the sense of touch.

Colour Melos 2

2011-06-07T22:49:00.005+10:00

I have been kindly invited by EL TARRO smallest performing space in the world to present a second version of my interactive painting performance Colour Melos. This time, Colombian dancer Kathleen González has collaborated with me in further developing the concept and will join me on the stage. The performance will incorporate projection of artist TAO.S 's painting animation and music mixed by A Sound Design.

(Click on image to go to El Tarro's blog)

Colour Melos. Interactive Painting Performance

2011-05-11T15:29:00.012+10:00

Colour Melos is an interactive performance piece that follows an extensive artistic exploration of the sense of touch and the role this sense plays in our everyday interaction. The title came from a phrase in Bruce Chatwin’s book The Songlines: “Melos: Greek for ‘limb’ hence ‘melody’ ”, which got me thinking about how when we touch someone it’s almost like a choreography which can flow beautifully or be a little awkward.

In this performance, the idea was to offer my body as a white canvas (covered by white stockings) for the audience to creat their own work of art, the trick being they can only paint with their hands, no brushes or other tools. It comes as an experiment with the aim of observing how people react to the possibility of having free access to touch someone's body with the excuse of painting.

The idea is to perform this in different locations, and the first and most perfect space was Easter Renaissance Village Festival 2011. I knew the type of audience is very particular and being a family-friendly event I felt very secure to try this idea for the first time.

Arriving on stage: the 'dress' made out of latex gloves tied together comes from the tactile installation works that I have previously done, as a leit-motif that gives continuity throught my work.

My entrance was announced only by the start of a song, so just a few people knew what was going on and most of the spectators around were surprised and expectant so see what this was about.

Natasha and Ramón started the action painting my feet. I reacted to their touch moving the part of my body they were painting on.

People around were watching and when Ramón and Natasha started offering the colours for them to paint on me, the initial reaction was to say no. At that point, I got worried that no one would want to participate. But that feeling didn't last long, people started approaching and little by little getting more into it...

...until there was not much room to paint on. Everyone took a step back, left the paints on the ground. I looked around as to inquire if that was it, and it was.

After the performance, the real challenge was getting out of the tights... and getting the paint off my body and everyone's hands! Thanks dear friends for that extra help! (yes, I also took a shower afterwards!).

THANK YOU

Ramón Martínez and Natasha Friedrich, my performance collaborators and Dani Comito a great help all along. Janusz Matisse for having me at Renaissance again! Sebastián Ávila, Kathleen González and Dani for photos and video. Thanks all the friends around and those who participated in the creation of this artwork (even just watching)!

*As a support for my studies in Arts Management in Australia, I received an economic stimulus from the Mexican National Fund for Arts and Culture (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes) and the National Council of Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología) through the Scholarships for Studies Abroad Program FONCA-CONACYT for Artistic and Cultural Studies.

The Un-Marriage Day

2011-04-26T22:11:00.003+10:00

Saturday October 30^th Renaissance Festival, Yarra Junction, Victoria, Australia.

After our first night in the bush, I woke up In a cabin surrounded by people who would be sharing and supporting me through this day, the day of Un-Marrige. After breakfast everyone dispersed into the festival activites, and my ritual started.

I started getting dressed slowly, preparing my body, mind and soul for what was to come. Skin coloured tights on my legs, cut so I could wear sandals. Skin coloured tights as a top, because it was not going to be very warm. Cute white underwear with lace (in case it showed). A second-hand babydoll with a very sutile embroidered symbol to be revealed at the end of the ceremony. Lastly, the Juliet style second-hand wedding dress, embroidered by me for the occasion with a purple moon on the left side and a blue sun on the right side. A little bit of make-up and my hair as it fell freely.

I carried my materials in a lovely purple purse that my friend and star photographer Andrew Bott brought for me from Thailand: white fabric cut in the shape of tears, coloured markers for people to write their thoughts on them and thread and needle to make strips and attach them to the dress.

I came out of the cabin in time to join the opening parade lead by the haunting drums of Ballistix. I followed the crowd, dancing, but I felt strange… It was my un-marriage day… should I be sad? Should I be happy as brides are on their wedding? Should I adopt ceremonial attitude, stop dancing and be serious?

I got to work. I went around the festival ground telling people about my mission, and I had a very positive response. Most of us have love stories that stay stuck in our heart in a painful blockage that avoids our soul to flow freely to a new love. A lot of people happily took this opportunity to put it out there and say goodbye.

Dressed as I was, some would asked me if I was getting married. I decided this day was of great joy, so I responded with a smile “No! I’m getting un-married!”. It was a beautiful sound of liberation.

It was an intense day. Lovely people asked how I felt with that burden on me, if I needed help to carry it around. At the time I didn’t realise how powerful it was, I felt good and more worried about everything going well for that night’s ceremony. It was raining and I was worried that the dress would be too wet to burn, and that, first of all, we might not be able to light a fire. Luckily, everything worked out and the perfect spot was found for it with the great help of Lawerence S.

The ceremony was scheduled at 8, but in this events one completely loses track of time. I just wanted it to be dark, and it was. Not everyone showed up, but a lot of people gathered in the Arts Shack with a respectful and peaceful energy.

I took the microphone and gave a small introduction on the inspiration for this act: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Psicomagia, a healing technique through metaphoric performative actions.

The ceremony began with my dear Víctor Sandoval’s heart-filling text written for this special ocassion: Luna Nueva/Luna Llena, New Moon/Full Moon, which I read in its original version in Spanish and my translation in English:

Luna Nueva / Luna Llena

Desandar los días de una vida ajena, de un amor perdido, de una historia cancelada.

Mirar de frente la mirada del olvido, el anhelo saboreado, las caricias y los pasos compartidos.

Agradecer las palabras desgastadas, las acciones prometidas, los abrazos sin sentido.

Visitar por última vez el cuerpo de Luna Morada, creciente, sonriente… menguada.

Desandar los días de una vida amada, de una historia retorcida, de un amor mal construido.

Mirar de frente el rostro antiguo, el cuerpo lacerado, el corazón tan desnutrido.

Agradecer las caricias extasiadas, las palabras compartidas, el fuego de algunas miradas.

Vestir por última vez el cuerpo de Luna Morada, creciente, sonriente… eclipsada.

Nunca más un Sol que juegue a las escondidas.

Nunca más una Luna que busque ser completada.

No más deseos que terminen en tragedias.

No más sueños que perviertan la mirada.

Cierro los ojos y no hay Sol en horizonte alguno.

Giro las manecillas y no hay reloj que cuente historias.

Inhalo la vida y mi mejor compañero es el vacío.

Mi escucha divaga en esta oscura vacuidad del infinito.

Abro los ojos, mi cuerpo irradia la luz y el calor que necesito.

Giro las manecillas y la historia que deseo la escribo yo.

Inhalo la vida y mi mejor cómplice para crear es el vacío.

Morada Luna Plena, atiborrada de caminos por andar…

Luna Llena en fuga…

A través de esta luminosa vacuidad del infinito.

Octubre 26 de 2010

New Moon/Full Moon

Retrace the days of a foreign life, of a lost love, of a canceled story.

Look up front with the gaze of forgetfulness, the savored yearning, the caresses and shared steps.

Thank the worn out words, the promised actions, the senseless embraces.

Visit for the last time the Purple Moon body, crescent, smiling…faded.

Retrace the days of a loved life, of a twisted story, of a love badly constructed.

Look up front at the antique face, the lacerated body, the half-starved heart.

Thank the ecstatic caresses, the shared words, the fire of some gazes.

Wear for the last time the Purple Moon body, crescent, smiling… eclipsed.

Never again a Sun that plays hide and seek.

Never again a Moon that searches to be completed.

No more desires that end up in tragedies.

No more dreams that corrupt the gaze.

I close my eyes and there is no Sun in any horizon.

I spin the hands and there is no clock to tell stories.

I breathe life in and my best companion is emptiness.

My hearing wanders in this dark vacuity of infinity.

I open my eyes, my body irradiates the light and warmth I need.

I spin the hands and the story that I want is the story that I write.

I breathe life in and my best accomplice to create is emptiness.

Total Purple Moon, replete of roads to walk…

Full Moon in escape…

Through this luminous vacuity of infinity.

October 29, 2010

After the reading, my friend Marianne Mier helped me get out of the dress, to reveal the babydoll embroidered with a joined Sun and Moon eclipse, as opposed to those embroidered on the dress that were separated.

This symbol, for me, represented being complete in myself, with no need of any half to complete me. I am a full person that can share herself with others and this act was about re-aligning that force in me.

It was still raining, but must of the participants came out with me to the fireplace to watch the dress burn. I poured honey on it to symbolise that this was not a violent act, but one full of sweetness and healing power.

Then I invited everyone to roast marshmellows in that same fire, as an antidote, integrating in us part of what was being destroyed. I took three white ballons, one for each love I was letting go of, spread honey and kissed them and stuck some of the ashes on before liberating them into the sky and saying the final good-bye. Others approched and did the same.

It was beautiful and emotional, people around me looked moved, I got hugged, thanked and congratulated. I was so happy to be able to share this and make an effect on others.

Spectators dispersed, Marianne and I stayed until the last of the dress burned.

It was over. The Un-marriage was done.

I was wet but felt warm inside. I took a warm shower and came out to the festival again. I walked around and started feeling strange, out of place. After a while I got back into the Art Sack, where people where enjoying a jamming session. I sat down by the fire, closed my eyes, tears started to pour. No sobbing, no pain, just a clear river flowing from my eyes.

I slept badly, and woke up tired and feeling distant. I went back to the city and kept feeling strange until the next day. I observed my feelings and tried to understand them. The day of the act I didn’t realise how big the energetic burden I was carrying was, but it was obviously quite strong. I realised that the act had been succesful for me, since those loves I wanted to let go of suddenly felt less important, and it was a sort of initiation to other things that I discovered I have to work on in me.

That’s my Un-Marriage story. I would love to read your comments, especially if you were there. Endless thanks to those who made this possible, those who helped in every bit of it, those who helped me economically through FundBreak, and especially those who trusted me with your stories.

Thanks family as always, for your endless support.

Most photos used here by Andrew Bott, thanks!
Thanks to Janusz Mattisse and Emily Hodge for having me at Renaissance.
Thanks to all the sweet people around me before, after and on that day.

Special thanks to my FundBreak contributors:

Daisy Posada

Grisel Ayllon

Alejandro Bedolla

Luis Sarabia

Jesu Marquez and Familia Posada

Ana Patricia Hoyos

Luis R. Granados

Jenny García

Iván David Reyes

Jillien Angharad

Paulina Ojesto

*As a support for my studies in Arts Management, I received an economic stimulus from the Mexican National Fund for Arts and Culture (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes) and the National Council of Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología) through the Scholarships for Studies Abroad Program FONCA-CONACYT for Artistic and Cultural Studies.

Un-Marriage

2010-10-13T18:17:00.009+11:00

Un-Marriage is a healing art performance to cleanse from past unresolved love memories, inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky's teachings in Psicomagia, a technique to heal through performative metaphoric actions.

This is a participative performance in which a group of people will write their unsolved love memories on pieces of fabric shaped like tears that will be sewn to a wedding dress which I will be wearing.

After gathering the memories, there will be an un-marriage ceremony in which the dress will be burned and the ashes will be put in balloons with helium that will be liberated as a symbol to let go of those memories and move on.

I have been kindly invited to present this for the first time at Renaissance Village Festival in Yarra Junction at the end of October, and have found a lot of support and excitement for the project.

Participation in the performance will be free for people attending the festival.

If you want to contribute to fund this Psychomagic performance, please click on the image below to go to the project's FundBreak profile. Any small or big amount will be highly appreciated!

OutsideIn at RMIT University

2010-03-08T21:55:00.023+11:00

This is a second version of OutsideIn, an exhibition on what you can touch but not see, and what you can see but not touch, this time held at the Art Spaces inside RMIT University.

Setup Pictures

Opening Pictures

More pictures by photographer Andrew Bott here!

Won't get tired of saying thanks to everyone here and there for you amazing support!
Thanks so much Rowena for your awesome help with setup and pictures!

Thanks Holly McNaught and Marc Morel from Union Arts for your help.

The exhibition will be up until March 26th, so you can still come along and experience it. If you want a personal guided tour by the artist, just let me know!

*pictures by Rowena Booth and me.

Portable OutsideIn

2010-01-29T16:03:00.005+11:00

A small portable version of OutsideIn, an exhibition on what you can touch but can't see, and what you can see but can't touch.

What you can touch but can't see (inside the gloves): rice, thread, steel scrub, buttons, fluff balls

What you can see but can't touch (covered by translucent fabric): feather boa and bubble wrap

For all friends, here and there

2010-01-04T11:00:00.003+11:00

Life Lines

2009-11-22T20:39:00.013+11:00

Life Lines is my (winning!) entry for the Salvo Art Award, a competition open to all School of Art candidates to create an artwork for 109 Clarendon Street, Southbank, Australia, shown below:

(image from the RMIT Salvo Art Award website)

In visiting the site, I felt that a lot of colour was the essential need for it, being surrounded by busy concrete roads and high 'glass box' or gray buildings. Since my art research is based on the sense of touch, my first approach was to try to make a Mandala out of the silhouette of a hand. This is a draft of the idea:

I thought this looked more adequate for a community centre than for an "innovative state of the art designed residential apartment tower", so I decided to go on with the hand design, but in a different way.
I made some tests tracing the map of the area inside the hand silhouette on tracing paper, and finally, after many hours of Photoshop, created the final image:

Life Lines, 2009 by Cynthia Granados

Life Lines is an abstraction of 109 Clarendon's surrounding area. The main red line is Clarendon Street, which gives continuation to the distinctive red line of the building.
The streets represent the palm's life lines. As people living in 109 Clarendon start to get familiar with their new home area, they will get to know it "like the palm of their hand".

OutsideIn - my first solo exhibition

2009-08-31T13:35:00.009+10:00

About the artist

Cynthia Granados *CYNAMööN* (Mexico City, b.1982)

Cynthia Granados completed a Bachelor of Media and Communication in Mexico City in 2006, graduating with the thesis Iconological Analysis of Remedios Varo's Ouvre: The Moon as a Symbol of Femininity. She is currently undertaking a Master of Arts - Art in Public Space at RMIT University. She has worked in the arts sector in Mexico as assistant editor, photographer and cultural events coordinator for the literary magazine Revista De Libros and Donceles 66, a new cultural centre in the heart of Mexico City. Most recently, she took part in the Melbourne project Intersection for the Moonee Valley Arts Week 2009, producing the photographic work The Moonee Valley Tarot. She is presently a coordinator for the intercultural project Alternative Worlds, which links art and design practice in Mexico, Australia and Canada.

About this work

OutsideIn is the first of a series of experiments by the artist around the sense of touch. Growing up in a Latin culture, Granados found the lesser extent to which people in Australia interact through touch in everyday life to be striking. This work highlights her desire to use art as a medium to bring attention to this sense.

Touch can provide such different and enjoyable sensorial experiences. It is increasingly taken for granted and slowly being used less as computers and other technologies become our main form of relating to each other.

The title of the piece comes from the fact that people often put on gloves when they don’t want to touch something but, in this case, the invitation is to touch what is inside those gloves—even if that cannot be seen. There are also visible objects that have tactile appeal but cannot be touched, to accentuate that although we may desire to touch we are unable to do so—as can often happen in our everyday experience.

Today's Letter

2009-08-21T14:46:00.005+10:00

As part of my master proposal, Today's Letter is a game I play around the city, placing self-adhesive coloured letters on advertisements as a way of protest, bringing texture as an outside element to the flat images that order us to buy what we don't need but should have, what we should wear, eat, drink, how we should look...

The add above changed, but the letter remains!

Magnum

Yarra Trams

TOUCHing Art

2009-08-18T21:25:00.018+10:00

Of the five senses, touch is the only one which we cannot 'shut down' or refrain from using. You can shut your eyes, stop breathing, cover your ears, avoid flavours, but never avoid feeling something with your always active skin. Surprisingly, touch is usually the one sense we take for granted, and never give too much thought of how it would be to live without it.

As an example to illustrate the importance of this sense, take a look at the "Sensory Homunculus":

This model shows what a man's body would look like if each part grew in proportion to the area of the cortex of the brain concerned with its sensory perception.

Coming from a Latinamerican culture (Mexico) I have noticed during my stay in Australia, that the way we interact through touch in this two countries is very different, and find myself yearning for those 'hello' and 'goodbye' hugs and kisses between friends and family that happen so naturally on an everyday basis back home.

For this main reason, my research for my master thesis of Art in Public Space will look at how people interact with each other in everyday life through the sense of touch, and how this interaction is different between cultures and types of relationships.

On the other hand, being part of the "laptop generation" (as I just read Peter Greenaway calls people between 13 and 30 years old), I am very interested in looking at how internet based social networks, such as Facebook, affect our interaction with each other in 'normal' life outside the computer. Though it may seem that we are more connected to each other, human touch is never experienced through a telephone or computer.

I have done some work about Facebook, which you can look at here.

I will also look at the fact that most of the time, people are not allowed to touch art, limiting our interaction with it, and how people relate with art that can be touched.

My aim with this research is to promote tactile interaction between people, which we seem to be losing as we spend more time using technologies to relate with each other.

Also, to draw attention to the enjoyment of tactile experiences through art.

For this, I want to bring a tactile experience on the public realm of the city, where usually people avoid touching each other even if they find themselves in crowded situations.

I will soon upload some examples of artists that have relate to this and have inspired my practice, as well as the projects I am working on.

I hope you enjoy them and if you have any comments, thoughts, advice, or anything, you are more than welcome to post them.

Let the touching begin

Crossing the Line. Female Artistis in the Mexico-USA Border

2009-06-22T13:00:00.035+10:00

(Blog edition of my Theories of Art essay)

The aim of this essay is to explore how female artists have engaged along their practice with different themes concerning the border between Mexico and the United States of America, and the reality of being a woman in this setting. I will mainly analyze the work of the group Las Comadres, and the Mexican artists Lorena Wolffer and Betsabee Romero. The Mexico-USA border has a total length of 3,169 km., following the Rio Grande as accorded to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It divides the USA states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, from the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. This is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, with about 250 million illegal crossings every year, most of which go from Mexico to the USA, and the total population of the borderlands is estimated at some 12 million people. This particular border has been the subject of many controversies, of which the most common is the illegal immigration and the great dangers people have to go through to get to the other side, and according to the International Federation of Human Rights, about 4,000 people have died there in 12 years. There are also increased deaths related to drug dealing, and more than 1,060 women have been murdered or have disappeared in the last 14 years from the border city Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua.
Artists have for long been responding to this border’s tensions. To note only one early example, Frida Kahlo painted Self-portrait on the border between Mexico and the United States in 1932.

This painting speaks about our differences, the natural vs. the industrial, the traditional vs. the technological, our eternal fight for territory, the US’s invasion in every level of the Mexican’s lives, even in a time where illegal crossings, drug dealing and deaths were not as today.

In this always increasing inhospitable climate, between 1988 and 1992, Las Comadres started taking other artistic actions. This was a multinational women’s group with different nationalities (Mexican, American, British, and Argentinean), races, and socio-economic backgrounds. They were based in the San Diego – Tijuana border, making efforts to perceive this dividing line more as a bridge than a barrier.
Even if the only thing all the members of Las Comadres agreed on was that “power politics and ‘multiculturalism’ [were] interimplicated up to their eyeballs” , as one of them, Marguerite R. Wailer, stated, they didn’t need much more to start taking an activist position in response to the violence against undocumented Mexican laborers and the nativist feelings along the San Diego border that caused each time more racism. Las Comadres were interested in how the artists and the media represented the ‘Other’, which in this case were the Mexican neighbors, women, the poor, and people of colour. Their activism was mostly materialized in installation art and performance, which, according to Aida Mancillas, another comadre, were “strategies that could initiate the kinds of disordering needed to break through the oppositional paradigms of the us-versus-them structures” . Their aim was to “navigate through a sea of illusions, absurdities, inverted discourses, mass marketing, stereotypes, and other superficialities to touch a secure landfall where real dialogue and empowerment is possible”.
In April 1990 the second Light Up the Border event was held, in which dozens of contributors stood with their car’s headlights on the desert of the California border, which still had no barriers, to draw attention to the authorities so they would build one to prevent illegal crossings. As a counter-protest, Las Comadres distributed a "Border Handbook" to provide contextual information about the relationships between Mexico and the US, and also hired a plane to fly a banner that said: “1000 points of fear – another Berlin Wall?” With this action, at least they succeeded in turning heads towards the issue.
Installation and performance were the main tools this group adopted. An example of this was Border Boda (Border Wedding), which was staged in La Vecindad/The Neighborhood (1990), a multidisciplinary exhibition that featured three spaces: the multicolored Kitchen contrasted with a black and white Conflict Room, and a third space made by two small rooms with the Reading Room and video viewing room. In Border Boda, according to Ruth Wallen, they “explored the difficulties of negotiating borders – within ourselves, in intimate relationships, and as citizens of the borderlands”. In this performance, a ‘chicana’ grand-daughter translates between the three rooms, interacting and negotiating with her grandmother, aunt, and the personal and political issues that take part in the contested space that is the border.

In 1993, La Frontera/ The Border exhibition was held in the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, and the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Mexico City. In this exhibition, even if the group had already separated, Las Comadres took part with their installation Sala de Lectura/Reading Room, a second revision of the first 1990 version, which was their most collaborative work.
It was an interactive space in which spectators acted as readers of, and figures in the space, since they could sit at a table to read a collection of feminist and border-related material. In the back of the room there is a painting of a big tire, symbolizing the journey from one side to the other. Next to it, there are tow road signs that say “Caution” and show the silhouette of a man, a woman and a child running. Next to these, 2 other signs saying “Cuidado” (caution in Spanish) show the same silhouette but with skeleton-like people.

Sala de Lectura/Reading Room

Las Comadres had an important impact on the cultural analysis of what being in the border, and also, what being a woman in the border, meant.
Although their time as a solid group was very short, most of them continued their art work, writing and teaching in related themes to feminism and the border.
This collective served as a precursor to other works that take place today, when the border tensions and deaths, both for various reasons are still important issues that far from finding an end or resolution, grow worse by the minute.

Lorena Wolffer has worked for the last 15 years as a feminist performance artist and on some visual projects on public space. In her own words her work: “explores the very diverse and complex forms in which society constructs our notions of woman, female body, and femininity. [It is] based on ‘reconstructing’ my own body as a metaphoric receptacle of social and political encoded information”.
She uses her body’s possibilities and limitations in search of referential symbols that reveal the constant crisis societies and individuals go through. Like Las Comadres, Wolffer reacts directly to issues concerning women’s everyday life in the border and in Mexico in general, also referring to how this country has been mistreated as well as the people in it. One of the most striking examples is the piece Mientras dormiamos, el caso Juarez (While we slept, the Juarez case) from 2004, in which the artist registered the dramatic ciphers of murdered and disappeared women in Ciudad Juarez, and the unpunished violence against them. She used her body as a symbolic map to tell the story of 50 cases. With a chirurgic marker, she painted with dotted lines each of the bruises, cuts and one bullet that the murdered women had suffered.

Mientras Dormiamos performance
(picture from her website)

In 1995, Wolffer also tried to make the border a bridge of understanding, with the action presented in the project Terreno Peligroso/Danger Zone, an encounter she organized between Mexican and Chicano artists. The action consisted in washing, with water and blood, the feet of the other 10 participating artists. Using this catholic ritual she aimed to create a clean environment that would facilitate a dialogue between two communities that are often not able to understand each other.

Betsabee Romero relates to both Las Comadres and Lorena Wolffer in exploring the border as a cultural migratory phenomenon. She mainly uses installations with vehicles, pneumatics, mirrors and objects to symbolize the physical and cultural exchange across this dividing line. Romero draws attention to the multiple colonizations the Latin American countries have suffered, how their land and resources are being taken away and people have been forced to go out to seek jobs in the north, splitting their families in two and at the same time, taking a bit of their own culture to another place, keeping it alive in their minds. In her opinion, everything ‘borderizes’ because the lines of division are also inside the country, in its own society:
“Borders in the south are the saddest and the longest to travel, the hardest to understand, the cruelest for being made of mirrors, crystals that break when we look at ourselves in a wall where there’s only reflections of ourselves, unfortunately, we all have a south”.

Romero has done a number of installations in museums and institutions, but one of the most relevant is Ayate Car, in 1997, a Ford Victoria 55 covered with fabric that was oil painted with catholic virgin iconography from the XIX Century, and filled with 1000 roses inside.

Ayate Car (picture from her website)

This car was left to in the Libertad colony in Tijuana, just in front of the hostile dividing border wall.
“The automobile as home, refuge, altar. In the Ayate Car, interior becomes exterior, masculine becomes feminine, mechanical becomes craft, and urban becomes personal and emotional. An offering to a long history of accidents and disappearances that are a daily staple in places like Colonia Libertad”.

El Cielo Al Reves (The Sky Upside Down), her 2006-2007 exhibition at Centro Cultural España in Mexico City was a revision and selection of works she made since 1997 about the theme, and also showed 4 inedit works. The influence of Las Comadres’s Sala de Lectura / Reading Room is noticeable. First, as an exhibition logo, she uses the image below, which is almost identical to the one on the Reading Room installation.

Also, her extensive use of carved tires, some of them with that same drawing, extends on the metaphor of the journey, even if, like with Ayate Car, the vehicle is there, but it’s useless since it can’t go anywhere.

Even if with many different approaches, from painting, performance, installation, or any hybrid multidisciplinary form of art, many of these artists and more still continue to address the border conflicts that highly affect the lives of so many Mexicans, women, and border dwellers regardless of which side they are on.
Who knows if any of their actions, from the subtle to the scandalous ones, will help change the dreadful everyday interaction of this border? Hopefully, at least, they will gradually open the eyes, minds, or even the hearts of humans, regardless of their nationality, gender, colour or background, to help construct that bridge of mutual understanding and peace.

Me in MELBOURNE in Me

2009-06-10T21:37:00.011+10:00

This is my final work for the Melbourne Studio class.
During the semester, we went around different landmarks and sites in Melbourne with our teacher, Dianne Beevers, who knows everything there is to know about the what, where, who, when, and whatever of Public Art in this city.
Some of the visited sites included Argyle Square (Piazza Italia, in which she was directly involved for its creation), Federation Square, City Square, Town Hall, the Victorian Tapestry Workshop, CH2 (Council House 2), the Meridien Bronze Foundry, bits of Swanston Street, and lots more. (Some pictures of all this in my Facebook)

The final assignment was to create a map of Melbourne in a creative way. Anything we could think of, using the sites we visited, or important sites to us, or some conceptual crazy thing, whatever.
What I came up with, was a double map which I titled Me in MELBOURNE in Me.
I created 2 different black and white picture collages:
one of the places, art, and different things I've seen during the course trips and along my experience living here.
The other, with pictures of the people I've met here, that have obviously been very important in making my experience here more enjoyable (to all thanks!).
The first collage with the places and art was placed inside a silhouette of myself, and the second, in a one of the Melbourne area.
This was to symbolize how the people are in the city, but at the same time, the city is in the people, in our daily lives, in our memories, in our experience.
In this way, the public places become private to us, and our most private possession, our body, becomes public as we go around the city.
To mark the outline of the silhouettes on the outside, I cut 3 different "normal" maps of the city, creating senseless and chaotic roads that lead nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

Hugging time!!

2009-06-10T19:42:00.005+10:00

more on this coming soon...

Meanwhile check out the beautiful Free Hugs Campaign and the more than ridiculous Hug Panic in the US
Also, Dave Matthews Band video for Everyday. Just love it.

BELIEVE - for Laneway Commissions

2009-06-08T18:34:00.009+10:00

This is a project I am developing for the Laneway Commissions that the City of Melbourne gives each year to 4-6 artists with the aim of revitalizing the city's laneways with creative public art.
My idea is to draw attention to our capacity of being happy in this life by our own means, instead of waiting for some external force (partner, job, god, whatever) to complete us or save us. So, with this work, I want to draw attention to self-esteem and introspection.
This may not be the final proposal, but I just want to share it here, comments and constructive critique always accepted!

The viewer of the piece will go through 3 sets of curtains that hang on the laneway: first, a black and heavy one, then grey and lighter, and finally, a white, light and almost transparent one. This represents a passage from a dark, heavy, even polluted world, to a pure, peaceful, lighter profound world.
After the curtains, there will be a reflecting waterwall, in which the viewer will encounter him or herself, detached from the everyday rush.
On the wall, there will be words written with LED lights that will slowly and harmoniously turn on and off giving the viewer time to read and concentrate in each for a while:
Holy, Salvation, Love, Confidence, Sacred, Forgiveness, Respect, Promise, Light, Superior, Peace

This image is just a broad example of how it would look:

There will also be a container with printed badges with phrases like:
It is Me who I trust, It is Me who I believe in, It is Me who I love, It is Me who I forgive, I make my destiny, I forgive me
People will be encouraged to take one in exchange of leaving something else, as an offer to themselves.

3x3 three images, tree minutes

2009-05-19T23:56:00.008+10:00

For the Place and Space course, the first assignment was presenting ourselves with three images, talking 3 minutes about each.
My first image was "Nacer de Nuevo" (To be Reborn), by my favourite artist, surrealist Remedios Varo.

This is an image I strongly identify with, being interested in the esoteric symbolism and femininity that it shows.
This was one of the images I analised for my Bachelor Thesis "Iconologic Analysis of Remedios Varo's work. The Moon as a symbol of Femininity".

This picture I took in Mykonos, Greece, was my second image.

Apart from being charged with great memories from the time, being the first trip I did on my own, I realized after seeing this sunset - probably the most beautiful I've seen in my life - that contemplating this daily wonder was one of my favourite things to do in life.

The third one is my "surrealist self-portrait".

This is an example of the style of drawings I do, mostly using purple, blue and green, and some common elements like the Moon, hands and eyes.

The End of the World Souvenir

2009-05-18T14:02:00.005+10:00

As a part of the State of Design Festival 2009, there was a call to "Make a souvenir for the last on earth to take home. Make a souvenir to commemorate the last of earth." I came across it too late to submit a proposal, but I developed one anyway, since the idea came to me quite quickly and clear. Of course, I was inspired by the recent events concerning the close-to-apocalyptic swine flu outbreak, which forced the inhabitants of Mexico City to stay at hoe, go out using a face mask, avoid touching or kissing each other, and some other (pretty ridiculous) security measures.

So, while wearing a face mask, it gets a bit hard to express your emotions, and, why stop smiling even if the End of the World is close?
My "End of the World Souvenir" consists in one of a kind customized smiling face masks!
Show people you're still enjoying every moment as if it was the last! (maybe it is...)

The idea would be to have special kiosks in malls (of course, if you're gonna die, might as well go crazy on that credit card!) like the ones that print your picture on mugs or pins, so you get your face mask with your own lovely smile printed on it!
This is how mine would look:

May look a bit creepy... but really really happy! Yay!!
Enjoy as if it was...
THE END.

Moonee Valley Tarot on site

2009-05-14T18:59:00.014+10:00

This is how my Moonee Valley Tarot cards looked on site for the presentation in the Intersection project as part of the Monee Valley Arts Week 2009
The cards were spread out through the site on the place where the picture was taken (or close to the place).

(To see the images with more detail, refer to the Moonee Valley Tarot post further down)

During the opening of the exhibition, I don't think anyone got to see the 22 of them, and certainly not the one in more hidden places, but they will remain there for the locals or passerbys to discover.
Apart from this A3 size prints, I carried with me a pack of normal sized cards to show together and did a couple of Tarot readings.

I received good comments about the idea of making a site-specific Tarot, and for the pictures I took to illustrate the cards.
Chris (Landscape Architecture teacher), thought The Mother should be called The Bride. To be honest, I didn't think about it at all, and the image of the veil on the ground first struck me as a crying mother.
On not very positive reactions, I was told that a man (who was pretty drunk) felt very insulted when he got to see, because how could I ask him to walk all the way up there to be called a fool? And he thought the card said "You're a fool"...
Another one was The Fortress, which, after the opening ceremony I found lying on the table by the BBQ area. Someone took it off, I don't know why but I can guess it was because it was on the public housing buildings...

Tuesday, May 19
Went back on site to find out that only 2 cards were left. Hopefully, people liked them and took them home, and they were not just removed and put in a rubbish bin.
One of the left ones was The Rainbow, which was in a not very transited area.
The other one, which impressed me, was The Chariot, which was on the tram stop booth, but it got a graffiti tag on it. Would be interesting to know what that means.

My LOVE/HATE Relationship with Facebook

2009-04-30T19:00:00.037+10:00

for the Place and Space course, teacher Julie Shiels

I know what I like
The task was to analyze a place I like and one I hate (which in this case, is the same place) using a critical theory or an artist's work, and creating an art work for that place.

I chose: FACEBOOK
What is Facebook?
An Internet based social network
Used for posting comments, sharing pictures and videos, and other more pointless things
A public cyber-space A virtual world, no-place that detaches the user from living in a present place, in a present moment Bringing people together... or separating us more?

I LOVE:
Being in contact with old and new friends (even if only to know they're still alive)
Looking at my friends' pictures
Posting my pictures and videos, as a way to share with friends and family what I'm living away from home
Receiving messages and comments on my pictures (makes me feel noticed and important)
Leaving messages for my friends
Occasionally chatting with friends who are online

I HATE:
Wasting my time looking at profiles and pictures of people I don't really care about
Wasting my time looking at, and answering stupid (and very addictive) tests
Chatting with my flatmates (when they are 15 steps away)
The idea of total surveillance, intrusion of privacy and compilation of my personal information as a means for control and commercial purposes (scary)
Did I mention wasting my time?

About our personal relationships on Facebook...

(for more great Webcomics click here!)

Some interesting numbers of how we "use" our time in this social network:

To read a couple of interesting articles about facebook, check out Tom Hodgkinson's very harsh one on The Guardian, Josie Fraser's response to it.

In relation to cyber space, where Facebook exists, I chose to talk about Internet art, net.art, browser art, and art hacktivism
For a quick definition, Internet Art is not the same as Art on the Internet. The first one uses internet as a tool to create and present art, and the second can be any kind of art or artist showing their work on an internet webpage.

To learn more about this and see some examples of Internet Art, check out this links:

Rhizome
add-art
Jodi
The Google AdWords Happening - Christophe Bruno
Internet Delivers People - Ramsay Stirling
0100101110101101.org Collective
Olia Lialina - My Boyfriend Came Back from the War

Feel Human. Facebook Intervention

My artwork is a response to the coldness of cyberspace, the lack of human touch that is experienced and which we are loosing more through time...
It is a message that urges you to get out from that virtual life into the real world.

Ideally, it would pop up when anyone logs into Facebook (like a virus, but without harming computers).
It would look something like this:

The words that appear are: touch warm skin feel human
Between each, the pixelled hand crashes the screen glass more and more, in an urge to get out on the real world.

Sense Tour @ Debneys Park

2009-04-30T16:59:00.019+10:00

This is the Presentation Tour developed by Claire Tracey and me, in collaboration with landscape architects Mitch ? and Rhycea Clifton
The task was to circumnavigate the site using Iain Borden's four kinds of difference in public space, a powered vehicle and a metabolically powered vehicle, to create 3 different experiences in the same space.

Iain Borden's four kinds of difference in reference to public space are*:
1. We all have different ideas of what public space is, and make up our own places to foster our identities.
2. Public spaces should not all look the same. It is required to take the risk of having true diversity in city spaces.
3. Certain parts of the city are used differently at various times.
4. We all have different experiences of spaces, of the way in which we approach our cities and architecture. It is required to take the risk of not always knowing what lies around the corner.
(*Taken from Stimulating the senses in the public realm by Iain Borden)

My experience traveling the site on a tram, was first of all, the amount of time I had to wait for it. The next video is a response to that, as well as our presentation's introduction:

We decided to focus our presentation on the senses of hearing, tact and sight.
I did the trip on the tram, and focusing on the things you can't touch around the site, when you travel on a vehicle.
As a result, my work was made by taking black and white pictures of details on the site, printing them and placing them where they were taken with an element found on the site, to draw attention to the simple details we don't pay attention to in our everyday life, but are beautiful and always around us.

Claire did it in relation to the 4 kinds of differences, and focused on hearing, creating wonderful music instruments out of rubbish found on the site.

Mitch and Rhycea did the trip on skateboard and bicycle, and focused on sight, marking with stencils the lines of desire on which a person would travel depending on the used vehicle.

We placed the items in 12 different points around the site, relating the number to the 12 hours of the day, and how people change the way they use a space throughout the day.

Enjoy the pictures, and thanks to our lovely passengers!

Moonee Valley Tarot

2009-04-24T20:14:00.054+10:00

This is my intervention for the project Intersection, in the Moonee Valley Arts Week

The Tarot is a book written with images and symbols that articulate between each other, constructing a code. Its birth goes back to ancient Egipt, and it is a way of transmiting secret and sacred symbols to the hermetic initiated. It is a know and effective predictive vehicle, and above all, an iniciator in secrets and misteries, which, we know, are found within ourselves and our environment.

One of the most used deck of Tarot cards is the Tarot of Marseilles, developed in Italy, in the XV century. This consists in a total of 78 cards, of which 22 are Major Arcans, and 56 Minor Arcans, (Arcan means secret).

Each Major Arcan represents an archetypal image, with a great number of symbolisms.
All of them are depicted with a representative image, a roman number and a name, excepting number XIII, which is the Nameless Arcan, or Death; and The Fool, which has no number and is used as 0 or 22.

I have chosen to create the 22 Major Arcans of a site specific Tarot, reinterpreting images of things found on the site. Almost all of the images and their names have correspondence with the traditional Arcans.

Each card will be located where the picture was taken. In some cases, the things will no longer be there, in others, they represent more permanent elements of the place.

What can this cards tell us about the present, past, and future of this place?

2009-04-24T20:08:00.006+10:00

Welcome all! This is a blog dedicated to my art practice in Melbourne, during the course of my Master of Art in Public Space and Graduate Diploma in Arts Management at RMIT University... and beyond.

I hope you enjoy it and feel free to leave any comments that come across your mind!

Performance attire: Until They Were Together and Feel My Colours