A response to my sketch: between

In early May, I shared a sketch titled, between.  As further response to and exploration of the questions that lead to that work, I composed the following piece employing Anne Carson's 'short talk' poetry form.   The work consisted of a plaque, posted on an informational sign post situated at the intersection of two diverging paths. This sign post was one of a series of 10 for a piece titled, Short Talks, Short Walks that was displayed at Smoke Farm for the Lo-Fi Arts Festival // Ad Hoc.  An intimate performance corresponded with each post and was enacted during the festival.
 

Short Talk on Pairs

Socks are worn in pairs, usually matched.
Brackets are always used in matched pairs.  
When writing, brackets can be used to inject or
set apart text. They can denote an idea related to
but separate from the original idea discussed.
Empty brackets indicate omitted text.
Before I leave the house I put on my shoes.

Press your hands together in front of your chest.  
Pause. Separate them slightly. Pause. Repeat.

 

MORE: TESTS (from THE LAB)
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Short Talk on Housing

For days these words have been resting on my tongue, slowly dissolving.
The lines have begun to settle into my hips. 

“Here is one thing you can do if you
have no house. Wear several hats -
maybe three, four. In the event of rain
or snow, remove the one(s) that get(s)
wet. Secondly, to be a householder is a
matter of rituals. Rituals function
chiefly to differentiate horizontal from
vertical. To begin the day in your house
is to ‘get up’. At night you will ‘lie
down’. When old Tio Pedro comes
over for tea you will ‘speak up’, for
these days his hearing is ‘on the
decline’. If his wife is with him you will
be sure to have ‘cleaned up’ the
kitchen and parlour so as not to ‘fall’ in
her opinion. Watching the two of
them, as they sit side by side on the
couch smoking one cigarette, you feel
your “heart lift’. These patterns of up
and down can be imitated, outside the
house, in vertical and horizontal
designs upon the clothing. The lines
are not hard to make. Hats do not
need to be so decorated for they will
’pile up’ on your head, in and of them-
selves, qua hats, if you have understood
my original instruction. ”
— "Short Talk on Housing" by Anne Carson

MORE: RESEARCH (from THE LAB)
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Horizon: Intimate distance

Between my body and the horizon stretches an indeterminate distance and infinite time. Simultaneously, I embody it.  My feet rest on earth.  My head, the sky.  I am within the horizon, yet it is unreachable.

“The horizon (or skyline) is the apparent line that separates earth from sky, the line that divides all visible directions into two categories: those that intersect the Earth’s surface, and those that do not. At many locations, the true horizon is obscured by trees, buildings, mountains, etc., and the resulting intersection of earth and sky is called the visible horizon. When looking at a sea from a shore, the part of the sea closest to the horizon is called the offing.[1] The word horizon derives from the Greek “ὁρίζων κύκλος” horizōn kyklos, “separating circle”,[2] from the verb ὁρίζω horizō, “to divide”, “to separate”,[3] and that from “ὅρος” (oros), “boundary, landmark”.[4]”
— Wikipedia

Three types of horizon (from Wikipedia).

Poet Ann Lauterbach continues in her article "The Thing Seen":

“Indeed, as the Internet continues to flatten time and space into a scan that erases the “horizon” (the classical metaphor of both spatial depth and temporal aspiration), young artists are faced with a deracinated landscape. How to steady this mobile map, in which one’s own presence-one’s personhood-is without discernible evidence or local? ....[Artists] need to find ways to claim a physical, embodied presence within the increasingly dematerialized modality of connection.”
— Ann Lauterbach. Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century

MORE: RESEARCH (from THE LAB)
or find posts from all categories of THE LAB below.