Blog Archive
Distantly created cont*nt. Starting in 2022 dating back to 2020, and persisting. Cont*nt of many types. Check regularly but not too regularly.
??.07.2022
on the sacred handstand-beach on a sacred island in greece - where else?
25.08.2022
10.06.2022
NARRATIVE
NARRATIVE
NARRATIVE
After the 3 weeks we had given ourselves for this experiment, which could be described in a few words as
a “home made art residency”, we decided it would be a good idea to write about it. The text that follows is
an attempt at explaining why we decided to do it, what brought us to this decision but mostly I want to
communicate the logic and philosophy behind the way we went about doing it. In a way this was more
important to us throughout the whole process than the paintings themselves. It was about the act of
doing and about testing out certain ideas. Therefor I will try and explain what this philosophy is but mostly
I will describe our experience which is supposed to be an illustration of this philosophy in the first place.
-----> didn’t really do what I said I would do in the intro: makes for a bad essay but one which still fullfils its purpose pretty well
We came to this moment both impulsively and after what seemed like a series of mishaps, and
very intentionally. We had been talking about doing something like this for some time now. In fact
we had even discussed doing it the month before, but constantly surrounded by friends and
hanging out we quickly (ish) realised that we had been overly ambitious and that we had to choose
between the hanging out or the painting. Between then and the time I will be writing about, I had
been in Athens “trying to get my life in order” and not managing because of a severe lack of
decision making. And so after a series of ups and downs I made a decision, with Peter, that he
should come back from Vienna early and that I should go to Rome late and that we were going to
paint together for two weeks, which turned into three. But we were only able to make this decision
so “quickly” (to my standards) because this was something we had been discussing in one way or
another all the time. Peter loved to ask me, in our funnest or most intimate moments, “but how are
we going to monetise this?” How were we going to share this, how could we make this useful to
others, how could we make it useful to ourselves so that we could reasonably continue to do it.
This ‘thing’ were our conversations which sometimes felt groundbreaking, our intimacy which felt
so special, the way we walked around, the way we engaged with places and people when we went
traveling around, more or less just our time together. He thought of live streaming it, I was too shy
and said it was too on the nose. But basically there was something that we wanted to say that we
felt like we were saying in the way in which we related to each other but which was not so easily
shared and then there was the more practical aspect which was that all this required a lot of time
and money which we didn't necessarily have at all times and which we wanted to make sustainable
so we could do more of it.
We also both had our personal reasons for wanting to do something like this. Peter saw it as the
culmination of the ultimate partnership; exploring nearly all aspects of interpersonal connection —
well — down to making art. Experiencing life as an “art couple” was the ultimate way of
experiencing life. It was a fantasy he had been carrying with him for a long time and saw that there
was finally potential for it to be carried out. For me it also represented the opportunity to prove to
myself that something I was beginning to think was impossible actually wasn’t. For so long I had
been wanting to, as my father would put it “sit down and do it.” I had been wanting to paint, to really
sit down and paint, for so long but I always came up with convincing excuses. It was not so much
excuses as what felt like an insurmountable inability to do this thing that I had invested with much
too much importance. And so finally the pressure was broken by having someone else to do it with
which led me to realise just how much I had equated my inability to do something I had been
wanting to do with my own self-worth. For me, as in just me, the most important part of this
experiment was to prove to myself that I could do it and for Peter it was (in his words) experiencing that
point from idea. The ultimate Duo, the dream of
making art together with my “Life partner”. An Art-Love-Life Couple Fantasy i allways pictured as the
ideal , Making it as an artist not alone. And showing this “message” to the “World”. John & Yoko
Ono as an Archetype for this (I guess). Basically the need to learn that something which is an idea
is possible and therfor to be acknowledged as good & right and to repeat & continue. Same goes
for any idea we have. Being able to run the slackline as an fantasy and then experiencing the joy of
that its more than possible. So actually same , „to prove that its possible“ in 2 different ideas.
......
The question for the
both of us was “are we able to do it?” That was the extent of my expectations. I didn't put too much
pressure on the actual outcome or on the process.
This was what was going on in my head, in the emotional side which can be so overwealhmed by
fear but this experiment was also the beginning of a material exploration of a more theoretical
thesis we had been talking about together.
The “we”
a “home made art residency”, we decided it would be a good idea to write about it. The text that follows is
an attempt at explaining why we decided to do it, what brought us to this decision but mostly I want to
communicate the logic and philosophy behind the way we went about doing it. In a way this was more
important to us throughout the whole process than the paintings themselves. It was about the act of
doing and about testing out certain ideas. Therefor I will try and explain what this philosophy is but mostly
I will describe our experience which is supposed to be an illustration of this philosophy in the first place.
-----> didn’t really do what I said I would do in the intro: makes for a bad essay but one which still fullfils its purpose pretty well
We came to this moment both impulsively and after what seemed like a series of mishaps, and
very intentionally. We had been talking about doing something like this for some time now. In fact
we had even discussed doing it the month before, but constantly surrounded by friends and
hanging out we quickly (ish) realised that we had been overly ambitious and that we had to choose
between the hanging out or the painting. Between then and the time I will be writing about, I had
been in Athens “trying to get my life in order” and not managing because of a severe lack of
decision making. And so after a series of ups and downs I made a decision, with Peter, that he
should come back from Vienna early and that I should go to Rome late and that we were going to
paint together for two weeks, which turned into three. But we were only able to make this decision
so “quickly” (to my standards) because this was something we had been discussing in one way or
another all the time. Peter loved to ask me, in our funnest or most intimate moments, “but how are
we going to monetise this?” How were we going to share this, how could we make this useful to
others, how could we make it useful to ourselves so that we could reasonably continue to do it.
This ‘thing’ were our conversations which sometimes felt groundbreaking, our intimacy which felt
so special, the way we walked around, the way we engaged with places and people when we went
traveling around, more or less just our time together. He thought of live streaming it, I was too shy
and said it was too on the nose. But basically there was something that we wanted to say that we
felt like we were saying in the way in which we related to each other but which was not so easily
shared and then there was the more practical aspect which was that all this required a lot of time
and money which we didn't necessarily have at all times and which we wanted to make sustainable
so we could do more of it.
We also both had our personal reasons for wanting to do something like this. Peter saw it as the
culmination of the ultimate partnership; exploring nearly all aspects of interpersonal connection —
well — down to making art. Experiencing life as an “art couple” was the ultimate way of
experiencing life. It was a fantasy he had been carrying with him for a long time and saw that there
was finally potential for it to be carried out. For me it also represented the opportunity to prove to
myself that something I was beginning to think was impossible actually wasn’t. For so long I had
been wanting to, as my father would put it “sit down and do it.” I had been wanting to paint, to really
sit down and paint, for so long but I always came up with convincing excuses. It was not so much
excuses as what felt like an insurmountable inability to do this thing that I had invested with much
too much importance. And so finally the pressure was broken by having someone else to do it with
which led me to realise just how much I had equated my inability to do something I had been
wanting to do with my own self-worth. For me, as in just me, the most important part of this
experiment was to prove to myself that I could do it and for Peter it was (in his words) experiencing that
point from idea. The ultimate Duo, the dream of
making art together with my “Life partner”. An Art-Love-Life Couple Fantasy i allways pictured as the
ideal , Making it as an artist not alone. And showing this “message” to the “World”. John & Yoko
Ono as an Archetype for this (I guess). Basically the need to learn that something which is an idea
is possible and therfor to be acknowledged as good & right and to repeat & continue. Same goes
for any idea we have. Being able to run the slackline as an fantasy and then experiencing the joy of
that its more than possible. So actually same , „to prove that its possible“ in 2 different ideas.
......
The question for the
both of us was “are we able to do it?” That was the extent of my expectations. I didn't put too much
pressure on the actual outcome or on the process.
This was what was going on in my head, in the emotional side which can be so overwealhmed by
fear but this experiment was also the beginning of a material exploration of a more theoretical
thesis we had been talking about together.
The “we”