recorded
live
1
- This cycle of low and high
- It’ is not even a choice
- in my case that’ s what happens
- whether it is a necessity or not it’ is something that…..hm…. it’ is a cycle that happens.
- I still hope that one day…..... I will be able to…....
- You experience a lack of enjoyment in anything you do..
- a kind of pointlessness….
- and absurdity…..
- Well it is pretty depressing, let’ is put it that way, at every level….whether it is physically, whether it is mentally, whether it is …hmmm… spiritually.
- Is it something that….. you know….. just a few people…....
- You wish you could…hmmm…you know, stay in it and enjoy it as much as being high.
- Well to get away from this state of lethargy that you end up being in.
- You feel that you haven’ t advanced, you are still at the same point.
- You feel that whether you do something or whether you don’ t the result is the same.
- The line that come through is this kind of…..hmmm… passivity.
- you cannot react to anything anymore….Nothing matters.
- It feels so real.
2
- At the same time it feels like
- Self indulgence or …..wallowing in self pity…..which I don’ t want to fall into.
- It is hard to be both detached and be able to see yourself from the inside.
- When you start analysing where you are at this point in time…... next to where you would like to be…..
- Not being happy with my day to day routine, not being happy with my level of enjoyment, not being happy with….
- with the way my work is received, not feeling happy with…hmmm…..hmmm…. with my social environment….not being fullfilled by …. you know…by Love.
- Which aspects should you deal with…
- To see the gap between the kind of…. your fantasy..
- you know and the reality ….You see this gap getting bigger.
- Is there anyway….you know… to live this fantasy to the full ?
- Desillusion and a kind of dissatisfaction of some kind…
- But then you think if you are dissatisfied about something …you know…you are the only one involved and you are the only one who can do something about it. You are on your own.
- If you want something badly enough you should…. you know, you should be able to get it.
- Well you are loosing the energy to kind of….. go and get….what you want.
- I don’ t know…
- I want to…..to try to….to try and have a go from the inside and really confront myself.
- pride and ego get in the way.
3
- I want some kind of recognition for my work
- Which means I want to produce work that people appreciate and….hmm…invite me to make some more.
- It could be as mondaine as wanting a washing machine , to wanting a big place to live and to work in….. between the sea and the mountain
- For exemple, if my place is in a mess and I clean it completely. Then I think that’ s it it is all clean…. forever…it is all done.
- Every time I make something, I think that’ s it, this is it. But it never is
- The problem for me is still the same…
- It is…. you always….I always feel I am in… in a dilletante position….I am always…. I am only here for a while…. wether it is physically or…. whatever…...everything I do…... it is only…..something very…..temporary.
- I just see myself ….at fifty or sixty, still being in the same kind of temporary position…..still waiting for the answer.
- I feel that I am loosing, you know…..it is like a game of Monopoly. I slowly go and sit down.
- I think I have always felt isolated and I have always felt an outsider, and that’ s why I have been going to all these cities in France and then coming to England. Trying to find somewhere that felt like my home.
- After 15 years here I still feel like an outsider, I still feel temporary in everything I do and I still don’ t feel I have found my kind of….you know…
- Because I don’ t belong. because I am an outsider.
I want it to stop being a problem.
- But maybe if I am still an outsider it is because I never had the guts to kind of belong enough or comit myself enough to anything.
- I am still thinking or feeling that I am lying to myself ..
- This…. this eternal feeling that I have, that I always fall short of my expectations. Maybe My expectations are too high for what I can actually do with myself and with my life.
- That you always set out to do things that are almost impossible so that you will always fall short. So that you will never see wether….. you can carry them through or not.
4
- Definetely when I make a piece of work, I have got…
I want it to be thought provoking…..I want to make people think
- I find it cheating because…
- rather than triggering thoughts in other people I should trigger thoughts in myself.
- I should be more involved in it….. I should become the work.
- How do I deal with the day to day routine of my life?
- I make a piece of work about the boredom of life.
it becomes a beautiful metaphore. You are carrying your load, your road endlessly and that becomes the point of living.
- That is not dealing with the actual issue of it.
- I feel that it is the same attitude I have through all my life I can talk about being an outsider but I can’ t live with the idea of continuously being an outsider, because
I desperately want to belong in a way…....belong to what ? I don’ t know…..but to belong you know.
- I can analyse but I cannot solve. I can question but I cannot find the answers.
- You know….I feel I haven’ t reach the harmony I was looking for and I am still at the starting point in that term .
5
- But I don’ t think you know, I don’ t think questionning work or why I make work or whether it is good or bad, you know…. This is irrelevant….
- I think the problem is beyond that.
- When I make a piece of work and the piece of work is finished, you know it has been to the best of my ability at the time and the best I could do.
- It has lived up to something which is alive until the
moment it is completed and it is there and then it almost collapses on itself.
- I concentrate on the limitations and on the weaknesses rather than on the strength of it.
- you know…. it is the ultimate fantasy…
I stand up slowly and undress
- You expect your piece of work to be lasting and living and to have a life of its own.
- You start questionning you know the kind of…....hmm…. you know…. the point of making anything.
or more the…... the practicality of survival if you want to keep on
making things.
6
I wish I could act violently towards myself.
- The kind of liberating act of seperating from all the dead weight you carry, whether it is guilt or self pity or insecurity or lack of confidence.
- but I don’ t think I could ever be violent to anybody.
- Violence and the cult of the warrior I think….. You know being a warrior is…..
- You are active, you have some kind of ideals or visions, that you fight for.
- The warrior is one step ahead from the survivor which is a more passive situation.
- One is a conscious decision, it doesn’ t mean you need to do it, you are just, you are it. You are the warrior.
- Where the other one is a more receptive attitude, where you react to thing that come to you and you can bend to adapt to situations.
One is heroic the other one merely practical.
- I am feeling low because I’ ’ ve lost the rage
- I have lost the will or the stamina or the…....
- This sense of vision that makes you…......
- It goes back to desillusion. I go and sit down
- Rage, violence, desillusion it all becomes the same once it’ s gone.
- I don’ t have a better way than …. you know…... anybody else.
- Well because I have lost the sense of you know of the warrior…... you know of what I am worth and what I am fighting for.
- Everything I compare myself to…... you end up falling back to the kind of values of society.
- I am a woman, a foreigner, an artist and living in a council flat.
- I used to think I was …......you know…..if it makes sense…
- Everybody is out to look for a solution, for a clue to the riddle of life, you know.
- You are not in a way better off or you haven’ t found a solution or…
- yes you are in the same fucking stupid boat basically.
- why….
- why should I ?
7
- If I can compare myself …
- to a few women who are in their 50’ s or 60’ s now
- I can see myself…. in each and every of their situations now
- whether they are successful or not successful,
- They had children or didn’ t have children.
- When I see what they went through , I am really questionning….. can I do it ..or…. is it worth it ?
- I cannot see any of them having had… an easy way in terms of choices they had…or…
- In terms of what they had to give up or what they had to put up with.
- and you know the prospect of being a kind of 60 years old eccentric woman with tons of work behind her, who is proud to have stuck to her guns but probably end up being bitter, lonely or just pure mad because it is the only way to deal with it.
- Well I think it is easy to be mad or eccentric and to stick to your gun when you think you can still rely on your charms or….. what you look like… or ….you know….your youth.
- Being able to be the same when I will be a fat old cow or… a skinny little wrinkled thing….. you know…..
- The prospects of that is not very inviting.
- You know….something to do with the sense of time and the sense of place that I see…..
- When you start dealing with the idea of..you know…..
the public and the private
- The difference there. I need them to be in harmony. When they are not in harmony it becomes a problem, it becomes a sense of low.
- Ithink it is this sense of weakness… When you feel weak, when you feel…vulnerable, when you feel…. not in control.
8
- I mean work is something which has a dual purpose as well
- I think if you manage to work and keep your vision and keep your aim in life….without succombing to the pressure of society…... This is real freedom I stand up
- But when I think of work. The first thing I think about is the isolation.
- The way Society works. You are either in or out. It is very hard to remain on the edge of it.
- If you are in, you have to have a progression on the social ladder, a progression of what you consume or what you own. And then you have to go from one step to the next, to the next to the next…..
- If you refuse to do that, it is very hard to sustain and it becomes a problem of isolation.
- It goes back again to being an outsider. I am an outsider.
And who relates to outsiders ?
I turn to the audience
- I need to find or to feel a sense of….hm… of sharing, of communication, of support.
- But the only image I can have of myself is more the kind of….
- The old eccentric lonely one living somewhere in Mexico, in the mountain…....It sounds familiar.
9
- Well of course I’ ll keep on trying.
- I wish I was violent enough to say that’ s it, that’ s enough, never again.
- .... I can’ t. And that is the only thing I can do. So I probably continue doing it.
I finish next to her
- The cycle will continue and continue and continue again.
- That is…you know….. providing I still have something to say.
- I can’ t say.
THE END