◊ Can you tell me what are your most important desires?
Could I name them? I could but I’d rather not, because putting them in order would mean, that inevitably, I’d categorise them hierarchically and that is not serving my following fascinating-to me-hypothesis.
I have the suspicion that there is truly only one desire that manifests itself in uncountable ways, often appearing under disguise seeking ways for physical/intellectual/emotional etc. pleasure and fulfilment. Could I name it? I want to but I can’t.
The way though I’m treating my desire, apart from revealing for the nature of desire itself, is what in my opinion makes all these different manifestations of desire important. Through that prism there is no such thing as one desire more important than an other.
Once upon a time two people fulfilled their sexual desire and life has been created. Another time someone seeking for auditory pleasure composed an extraordinary piece of music. In some place else someone desired to taste human flesh, he invited someone he met on the internet for dinner, he cut off his cock, cooked it and then they enjoyed their dinner together. (This is the true story of Armin Meiwes known as “Der Metzgermeister” who had his victims’ total consent by the way).
Seeking fulfilment, pleasure in all possible ways through all of our senses could be the impetus of our very own existence and aren’t we all in the end the product of someone else’s desire? Very powerful, huh? There comes responsibility, I’m shocked!
My pretty charming existential crisis. I think, the importance we’re giving to our desire is highly linked with the realisation of our mortality, it is linked with motive, desire would have infinite possibilities to be met but it would probably fade in an endless repetition towards eternity. How a religious belief promising the afterlife shapes the way people perceive and treat their desire is a good example, I think.
Does the realisation of my physical death change the way I’m treating my desire? Obviously, but can I bear it, do I accept the inevitable of my physical death or do I rebel against it and driven by a false sense of control I self-destruct? And what about the echo after my disappearing?
The way I’m treating my desire will determine my very own experience of life (and not only mine). I can be completely neurotic about it, anorexic, adopting a stoic way of living, denying my own nature, refusing to feed my self/desire until I starve to death, metaphorically and/or literally. And isn’t it anyway the desire not to desire a desire itself? I could be bulimic as well, I could shove desire down my throat only to throw it up back. Guilt is very acidic and addictive, I have been tasting it a lot, my stomach has been through a lot. And it’s not about morality, it is a very bitter feeling of regret. You can not pretend that consequences do not exist and that time is not limited. You consume your desires uncontrollably until in one point you get consumed by them.
That doesn’t mean of course I don’t allow myself to be dragged on a leash by my desire, metaphorically or not, but I am trying to keep a balance. There are times I’m struggling between depression, apathy, anhedonia and being extremely overwhelmed, hyper-sexual/active and hypo-manic. I don’t think the answer lays only in discipline. Though I find great interest in testing my discipline, I can be as disciplined in fasting as much as in drinking to death.
Sometimes I feed myself with raw vegetables, some other times with mud. Eventually it will all end up in shit and poetically speaking, using a literally shitty metaphor, much like if I was gardening, I want pleasure to be a good nutritious fertiliser for the garden of my earthly, and as well unearthly, delights.
◊ How does your desire relate with your dear ones?
In numerous different ways and I’d say mainly by contradiction and/or in synthesis. As an object of someone’s desire, as if I’m the one reflecting my desire upon someone or an observer. If we share the same I can sense the power and I am trying to be cautious in terms of how I’m projecting and receiving this energy.
I’m trying to be careful of the extremes, If I’m attached (attachment=suffering oh, dear) or in defence. The energy produced of desire’s circulation can be transforming in an evolving creative way and as well in painful and damaging ways. I am learning a lot by putting or failing to put boundaries. It is extremely revealing what people want from you, for both sides.
Somewhere I’ve read that (romantic) love is the need we have to give our desire narration, I would agree until a certain point and I could use it to create this paradigm, a love story could be a cheap erotica novel, a cyber punk masterpiece or a study in narcissistic personality disorder. What kind of story do you want to write with your desires? Like when writing a book, I suppose you have to be very clear about your theme, not that in the process, like in any creative process, there won’t be surprises and changes, but you could save some paper and precious time if your intention is clear.
Same approach I’d say more or less in an other occasion when your desire relates with others in a creative way, which is within an artistic process. Apart from common aesthetics, views, ethics, disciplines etc. when all these concrete identities and references can occur often as limitations in an artistic process, a mutual understanding and awareness of our own personal and each other’s desire set the requirements for a more intuitive thus more creative and challenging approach. What do we want, and why? These questions lay at the core of any artistic process.
An other big topic, how your desires relate with others is how they’re being or not being met within the bigger frame of society. According to culture ethics, politics, religion etc. we can be manipulated by our desires, consuming them while consumed by them, we could be alienated if we follow them, productive but miserable if we suppress them. There is also a link between privilege and being able to fulfil desire. Race, sex(ual orientation), class, educational status, neurodiversity, disabilities etc. shape the way we (are being) perceive(d) and therefore treat desire. Then the responsibility that we carry towards nature, that unbreakable bond which is probably now clearer than ever, while facing the consequences of a destructive irresponsible parasite-like lifestyle, we have caused so much harm and pain, to animals, humane and non, to nature itself, to ourselves in the end.
◊ What bothers you?
Getting bothered really bothers me but there are some other times I’m really bothered that I am not being bothered when I should be.
◊ What can you do to contribute to the future of the world?
I’m not familiar with the concept of the future so I don’t really know what to tell you.
◊ What are your limits and what are you absolutely against?
Because every time I’m checking on my limits I find with great surprise they’re changed, I’m beginning to think they’re constantly changing (for good or for bad). Against? And absolutely against!? I can’t find an answer to this. If I place my self against something I’m losing the ability to observe it from 360 degrees, seems that I am limiting an already limited spectrum.
◊ What are the conditions for the realisation of your artistic practice?
Intuition. Mutual respect and honesty, or a curious experimental approach on lying.Trust.Space and inspiration to be absolutely ridiculous, yet completely serious about it.
◊ What do you produce?
Small hurricanes and dust. Unsuccessful metaphors, as you may have noticed already. Noise created with intention only by accident. A lifelong personal study on provoking and overcoming failure. Poetry performances with poems I wrote my self but I refuse to read. Everyday life pseudo-psychotic dance spectacles. Aesthetically astonishing bruises, bad jokes and unused potential.
◊ How do you make money?
How? Oh, by giving my precious time of course! And my approach is acting pretty much like a bear in hibernation. I wake up and go to work only when it’s necessary. I’m working for an amount of time, I collect some money for the things I need and I want to do and then I stop working. I haven’t found yet a way to make a living the way -I think-I would like to. But working irrelevant jobs, all these different environments and people, has given me lots of interesting views regarding my self and others.
I have worked as a waitress, a lot, in bars, in shitty or expensive restaurants, at the bar/reception of a brothel, 3x hotel, as a cleaning lady, help for the elderly, modelling for fine arts, assisting movement in theatre workshops, worked with children, washed cars, gas station, delivering food, singing with a band, giving dance classes. I also tried escorting once but I forgot to get paid so I thought that maybe it’s not for me. In whatever environment I found myself into, exciting or excitingly terrible, I have always been firstly an observer, I didn’t get attached to any kind of identity, I was just playing a role. And I was learning (by/from) people, the dynamics of our interaction, their behaviour according my position. I have witnessed waitresses serving tables that are so physical aware, sharp, offer the most skilled choreography without knowing it. What people keep in their cars is still haunting me. I never get bored by the human grace and/or ridiculousness.
I am not romanticising underpaid labour but I have to keep my sense of humour, you see it’s my coping mechanism. And though I’m not suffering of any type of class neurosis this is definitely a very deeply rooted issue that has given me several existential and identity crisis in time.
◊ What do you want to do with others?
It seems that using pleasure as guidance to navigate our selves through this world creates inevitable bonds. Now that you’ve mentioned, I’ve been noticing the presence of others quite often lately but not all presences make me wanna do something with/to them, sometimes my inspiration gets triggered by their absence as well and sometimes I feel like asking these others what the hell they wanna do with me for fun, but I usually don’t.
Since we’re meditating upon THE SUBJECT there is something I find relevant to this question. So, I think people identify and trace each other by the way they treat their desire. Their paths cross, at times without planning it, they attract each other, they meet and the intention sometimes exists already. So from the moment I meet the other I know what I want to do with them. In case I don’t, I welcome the frustration.
◊ How does your day and week look like?
I’m (quite) unstable when it comes to that. I’m not as much in war with time as I used to be and I accept change, I actually provoke it. So, my routine can differ from day to day or from week to week. Sometimes how my day looks like depends on the night I had before, sometimes my week by the score of energy I’ve put in my planned activities and obligations – or I didn’t – and the position of the moon. They can involve people, but definitely, always, lots of alone time. Lots of movement, the aimlessly kind as well, daydreaming, music, a struggle to perceive and digest information wisely, entertaining and training my self.
At least a hug, a good conversation or a kiss if I’m lucky. I could answer that question most accurately when I lived with animals, now I act on impulse and according my mood (which is changing per sec).
◊ Other comments and thoughts?
Thank you, wholeheartedly, for the all the questions you’ve raised so far, in the questionnaire and through our interaction and our conversations. Reflecting upon this questionnaire simultaneously while preparing my performance in Berlin, has given me a lot of inspiration, it became in fact the theme.
P.s The people I had conversations with around this topic, most of them when asked what is desire for them, they replied that is something that remains unfulfilled.
{EPITHYMIA}
“I’m coming back from where
all my desires have been met
In my joy I became overjoyed
and through the sound and the taste
of an hysterical laughter
I got a glimpse of the eternal
You wanted realness,
you were seeking
for this holy moment,
to witness in my eyes
my disappearing
in ecstasy
I gave you that power,
I gave away my secret,
the impotent and divine
nature of my desire,
my weakness
Now it’s you and I
and we can never meet
any place other than there
Heaven or Hell, you shall name it”