YEAR 1: Me/Mi MôMo Mu
Conceived of the 5 elements, Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Aether;
Me = 1st body (neophyte)
Mi = phantom body (Boricua counter-colonial living cage of the octochronoplasmantic time-prism)
MôMo = Artaudian Hauntologisms (the post-humanoid suicided by society [HOAX! {check Snopes}])
Mu ≠ Fateful Transcendentals Bridging Ocular Vocalities to Volcanic Transubstantial Curse-Tourism
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Following my funded experiential training and research in Conscious Dreaming, sensory deprivation floatation, and on/through the letters-as-hauntings of Antonin Artaud, I have ascended off of the staging space of paper and pen, and back onto the audiovisual spectacularisations of performance. Me/Mi MoMo Mu (MMMMM) was developed in dialogue with the elemental themes within my drawings, trying to form equivalencies of earth, air, fire, water, and aether within an arrangement of theatrical effects. The costume functions as a bridge between the body and the flatness of the page, a relief sculptural allegory of animal fur, geological formations, and the plasma residues of ghosts that are intended to perform alongside as cohabitants. Like the drawings, performances are attempts to entrance and to be entranced, using techniques of sonic spiritualism(historical and invented), stroboscopic effects (to shift from Alpha to Theta state of consciousness, in line with the preconditions of dreaming), comic durations of noise (playing out Brechtian disruptions of entrancement), and use of sub-base cross-phase tones (which are felt more than heard), along with other sonic effects, towards maximal disorientation.
MMMMM centres around a guitar treated with psychomagical motifs – dynamic adaptations (or betrayals) of the Thelemic ceremonial wands. This instrument is tuned to Alexander Scriabin’s ‘Mystic Chord’ (as an open tuning). It is played with quartz crystal, oak wand, and lignum vitae plectrum – the hardest wood on earth, the wood of Taíno medicine thrones (and stolen by the colonial collectors who claimed their owners extinct). Atabey, supreme Goddess of Taínos, gives blessings through lignum vitae as intermediary, along with strong blessings / curses from the lands of the dead. Unica Zürn is likewise a collaborator, who writes the adaptive musical/magical score, and gives input on choreography and sub-bass phase intensities. Antonin Artaud voices screeching rhythms for affective curse-spaces, to impose BwO rebirth upon bem/conf/used audiences.
The cross-over of these thematics between the drawn and the performed would have likely been impossible for me were in not for the embodied knowledge gained through dreamwork, floatation, and the opportunity to take a filmic re-approach to my Artaudian research in Paris.
- Me/Mi MôMo Mu at: BYOP, SPACE Studios; Unperforming, Arts Admin; Noizemaschin!! 22 and Exchange Project, Amersham Arms, London. Photos credits: Celine Antal; Jin Han Lee; Zoë Mendelson; Joey Ryken //
