awards

And so that same drooping, drawling, inherent sadness sets in. Like the day settling into beyond its final hours. After the official minute of sunset (as per the paper) has come, but for a brief time there's still light. Settling its passive, slight weight over me. Hello and welcome.

On the first Dunedin day of rain, following the eruptions of the previous night. One: That post-concentration explosion of focussed energy, the last scraps of life being extracted from the bottom of our selves; Two: That pent-up suffering felt by many for many years but never articulated between the skins. We bury ourselves and bring ourselves out again. We drag our buried selves out of the ground, vomited up dregs by the mouth of inebriated inhibition. We do the things we know will tirelessly bring restlessness. And hope that this time they will bring us peace. This time. Things will be perfect.

Then, finally, that lingering emptiness. When we have purged ourselves of all fluids. All gorishly scoffed fast-food gluttons. All unheard hate. All breath and tears and uneatings. All thoughts. All minds. All sense. Then, finally, we sit in the voide of This Morning After. But this morning is this late hour of early evening; this day then begins at five o'clock, post meridiem. We find ourselves thrust into the future, into tomorrow. Robbed of a day as punishment for our unthinking deeds. We have been made to sit quietly and hear our own vices ricocheting around and around and around our hollow stomach-lining heads. There is no rewind or option B. There's not even a make-do-with. There is just a huge, big hiatus that for you and you alone has fallen into the abyss of "did-not-exist".

You will try to fill this huge-big gaping hole with your tears, but they are so small and insignificant in comparison that they will only fill the small holes of your face. The holes of your face infected with black-streaked tiny face-waters. Carving rivers into your cheekbones and philtrum.

So that - once more, and not for the last time - your knowledge is cemented. That you are indeed and truly one self. One person. A part.

post-mentalist

We are Lost. We are supposedly following road signs but they aren’t right. We are driving down a foreign road that leaves the city. There’s no street lights anymore. The road is ominously and dangersouly – warningly – dark.

We’re still climbing the hill. Labouring in third gear automatic. Coming round a corner. I don’t feel good about this. I feel a physical fright in my body. A surge of energy creeping up into the centre of my ribs. It asphixiates my back muscles, they grip my body forward into itself. Shoulders shielding. Lock the doors, lock the doors.

I’m doing a U-turn in the worst place possible. This U-turn is deadly. There’s something sickening in this place. There sharp shards of energy in the air pricking the edges of us. It’s dangerously out of kilter. The unevenness throws me off; I don’t even check I just swing the car around. Catch the gears. Fly blindly forward onto the road. Get out, get out, go. Am I thinking that or is it being told to me? I think it is being commanded of me.

I have been affected. I have been slaughtered by some warped presence that I stumbled into by accident. It found me, like it almost hunted me out. Still the tightness in my sternum.

I think I must be in a horror movie. I shift my eyes franticly over the rear view mirror, searching out a large engraved sign. It reads: Ashburton Clinic. We are all over the place.

If you don't value something much, then not having a lot of it doesn't seem like such a big deal.

328

gnarled old hands warping
plasticky credit cards
eyes opened
fright-concern
mouth wide with the freeze-frame of
old. age.

break it up, break
it up before someone sees
they'll steal your money in this modern age --
they'll take everything from you
don't. trust. anyone.

up-turning

vacuous presence, here
She steps out into the circle
finds herself walking around and around
sees the back of her own head
sees her own self from behind --
ah, that is what I look like --
knows that she is this and nothing like this
and some likeness to this

knows that she is the same figure before her
and after her own self
hunting her own self like a dog sniffing out a stray cat

emptying rubbish bins in an attempt to
'Find Herself'
and still treading her own footsteps
making clear the rhythm in which she walks
one, two
one, two
and-one, two -- when skipping, tripping
over herself in an attempt to catch up

catch up with yourself
come on, come on
walk the circle
see yourself
watch the shape of your hair bobbing slightly 'round your skull

step into yourself
and around yourself
step out of yourself, away from yourself --
side step
don't get in your own way
make sure you step to it
hop to it
one-two it
on to it
"on to it"

the day is backwards

I am wishing I was in higher houses
writing and head-dancing into the night
but still able to wake
fifteen minutes before class
roll out of bed onto the floor
with two legs or four
roll across the street
roll into class, dance
and dance

I want to travel lots and live a nomadic lifestyle
but I don't want to style my life into two separate places
I want my work place to be my home place to be my studio to be my tea house

I want to have twenty-five coffees and
six hours of conversation only,
only
I want to dance with the inside of my mouth
stretch it open, look inside yours
I want to live on a rooftop and take in
the colours of the city, of Western Springs park

I want and I
want
and I want
wanton
I don't want a wanton or
to be wanton
only wanting

I have
I have and
I have
and have nots
I have what I have
and have in other places what I
have not
have knots
here and there
and hair
hair knots
and hair wantings
and hair haves
I have locks

you tell me your wants
my hair
and here
hair haves and hair wants and
hair knots
hair locks
wanton hair locks
with warlocks
and knots
knotting ourselves into each other
I have wants
and I want
and I have and I
have not
so I want
and I have not
and I have wants
I am wanting

I want six hours of feeding
my mouth is open
and eating
I want endless caffeine
I want meeting
and meetings
and eatings with meetings
and forward-thinking
and thinkings
and thinking
and thinking
and thinking
and thinking

jack's bakery

Standing under Jack's Bakery on Adelaide. Inadequate guardian of adult-esque 5 and 8 year old. There's two minutes til the bus, actually. Read the board. Hobbling no shoes come corporate office Queen. Oh that's right-- I'm in the city; people wear heels to work. But also make-up. My freckles shine through the pale remnants of last night's basting. If I'm going to traverse night and day borders then I'm going to own it. Let's not pretend. Everyone knows what I've been up to.

I feel small detached guilt at being a bad example to the uniformed adolescents I cross paths with. They know. I like this though, that last night had ticked over seamlessly into today and with consciousness. Feels like I am elongating time. Making chewing gum out of hours.

I am practicing testing myself. I am laying wires to land in unfamiliar situations and see how I cope. What will I do? I am keeping a record of the answers to this question. Documenting my progress. I am employing controlled variables and searching for a pre-determined outcome. I am counting on one hand the number of places I've visited; I'm throwing darts to decide where I'll go next.

I am following instructions and breaking several rules.

Staring at a photo of you and thinking, 'who are you?'.

The Performance Arcade 2012

This week I have been working with Serene Lorimer and Elise Chan on their installation Circular Persuasions as part of The Performance Arcade 2012. This is the third time the event has been run by The Playground NZ and features artists of different mediums creating work in shipping containers on the Wellington Waterfront. It is also part of the NZ Fringe Festival.

Basically for Circular Persuasions we constructed (with the help of builder Liam !) a dividing wall within the container and put a clear Perspex front on it. The writer types stream of consciousness, taking in what they see on the waterfront and in the audience, and their words are projected into the dancer's side of the container. The dancer then moves or creates tableaus in response to the words.

Here is my very accurate impression of a crooked pole:

The Arcade runs from 10am-11pm each day so we do 2 hours shifts of either writing or dancing. It's quite exhausting improvising for that long without stopping but I really like it.

The audience can indirectly affect the dancer's actions if they want to. If they make the connection between the projected words and the writer, and/or the words and themselves. Which takes some people a surprisingly long time.

People also think we can't hear them inside the container. We can most definitely hear you.

We've been rained out, but it adds a nice kind of reflective sheen to the waterfront pavement and pretty droplets of rain on the Perspex. Also umbrellas look beautiful en masse, especially silhouetted. 

If you're in Wellington, come down tomorrow (Sunday 4th) 10am-11pm. The installations are all great, there's some very talented artists and most of the containers are interactive. 

Photographs all by Elise Chan except the daylight one which is by Sam Trubridge.