montréal QC 2012

montréal QC  2012
Montréal, December 2012
With Catherine Lalonde
 
17/12/12  day 1
(Miranda’s exercise)
Curtains framing a concrete space.
Une espace concrète.
Faites de lignes horizontales oxydées et verticales; l’infiltration de l’eau.
It reminds me of Tobia’s oxidised space that he decorated with his calligraphy. It took him months to finish the work.
In the middle a spy hole. A crater. An outside eye.
This is a space of memory where we are intrigued by the sounds and shadows outside. The doors that never open but always have the potential to.
3     5/8     48     3/8
Measures for a strange rhythmic dance.
All the different surfaces of brick and concrete, like geological layers of our memory.
Moving bodies leaving tiny traces. Always circular.
While the water always runs down in almost straight lines.
Reminding me of Manon drawing straight lines down the backdrop of Là ou je vis.
The shadow of my hand on the paper moving as I write these lines.
How we shape things? How we think in patterns?
 
(Fragment from inside the practice)
Vibrations
Etranglement de mots
Permis de réunion
Date of Delivery
A magnetic door pulling everything into its force field
You trying to catch with calligraphic marks the movements of my shadows
Rhythm is a question of time
Triangulation is a matter of lines and angles
J’ai soif! Un soif bifocal pour des mots bilingues
 
18/12/12  day 2
On vient de voyager dans des états d’énergies extrêmement différents.
My energy has been very low today, but then Lin started, being very ‘bavardoise’ (bavard et bavarois). Maybe because of the dentist forcing her mouth open too wide.
So I got stimulated to join and tell my stories about From Rome with Love or William’s failing funnels or the advice of an 80 year old porno star to younger women always to moisturize.
Mummie. Mummie. Egypt and Motherhood.
All the time trying to remember a lullaby. And coming up with a soldier’s song  instead.
The beauty of things silencing down again. Lin at the table. Catherine sitting behind her. Two backs similarly curved and shaped. Having a conversation about being afraid of aging. How it affects the skin and also the gaze of others. While sometimes the latter is also a relieve
To fill in the holes that others leave behind, …. for you.
Catherine’s clarity, tearing the paper.
How to escape melancholia when we age?
Embracing the liminal.
Trying to draw the shadow of your hand writing.
At what age do you reach the top of the hill? At 28? At 35? At 49? At 77?
Downhill is always easier, smoother. And it is down in the valley that you have your dwelling and can rest.
Let’s start all over again.
I will just sit down and write.
 
(Fragment from inside the practise).
Score 1
I will just sit down and write
While you do everything but writing
Move the space
Taste the words
Fulcrum
Remember cities you have never been to
Measure the space with your body
1   3   5    7
My word today is liminal
Liminal space
Liminal time
There is something about oxidation
A ful-filling funnel
To Rome with love
Trastevere
An opera singer under the shower
An architect falling in love with an actress
A clerk becoming a media figure for one day
Dinner parties being a dying breed
A master of etiquette
 
Score 2
To moisturize
Burst of chatter
And eventually I will leave
The measure of my moving hand’s shadow
 
19/12/12  day 3
Surprise!
She is approaching.
She is disappearing.
Même le corps est en état de disparition. The title of a drawing by Sylvie Cotton. It is a drawing of a female body on two separate sheets of paper. She offered me both, the whole. But with a title like that, it felt I could only accept half and leave the other half with her. As a token. As a bond.
The more we practice, the more I start enjoying the conversational nature. The chatting which appears and disappears and is embedded in a larger story that our bodies draw in the space.
“There is much more writing happening out there, then what appears on the paper.” (Catherine)
Why do we have this strong urge to leave our marks on the walls of the places we visit or dwell in?
Is that the origin of writing? Of drawing? Of Art? Leaving one’s marks?
I am here! Surprise!
With the movement of our hands we catch the attention of the eye of the other to tell our stories, while our feet listen to a more personal rhythm for us to dance upon.
The paper is much more than a surface to write upon. The unrolling of a scroll creates spatial continuity. It establishes touch at a distance. It allows to unveil the object and the bodies behind through the diffraction of their shadows. It has a sculptural quality. It allows us to be messy, to tear it apart, to create holes. To erase. To scratch out.
The practice is about combining listening and writing simultaneously.
 
20/12/12  day 4
(Fragment from inside)
Dear Guy,
We are having a wonderful time here. The weather is fabulous and the atmosphere in the class room is very enjoyable.
Wish you were here!
Sincerely,
The class
 
Tu viens d’éveiller
Des méridiens profonds
Et anciens dans mon corps
Une acupuncture graphique
Des lettres perdues
Mais jamais oubliées
Ruisseau d’os
Cri d’oiseau
Je veux apprendre à écrire
Juste avec tes voyelles
E  a  i   Épiphanie
Silencieuse de mes désirs
D être là ou tu es, je suis.
 
Wish you were here!
If the practice is the white sheet, we invite others to write upon, how do we give them permission to leave their own marks?
To slow down the thinking and the writing to such a rhythm that long forgotten letters may reappear.
How to condense blurriness? How to condense slow time?
 
21/12/12  day 5
 To wrap up the week in front of an audiences of friends.
To revisit the space and all the previous writing.
To make a mess and clean it up again.
To become a fulcrum super hero to be drawn.
To let the practice be.
 
Guy Cools