Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.63.0508050412500.8309@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Live Performance: No Audience: Recorded Screen for Playback
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 04:13:07 -0400 (EDT)
Live Performance: No Audience: Recorded Screen for Playback ### First try (not really satisfed with this): open for business, this performance is open for business. this is or is not a performance. this is a moment in the history of western art. this is the distortion or social distortion of the movement of culture or cultural movement. hello hello out there can you hear me. i can't see you. i am blinded by the beauty of the united states of america. i am blinded by you. by your beauty. every day the world soars aloft into the sky. the sky is welcoming, the sky turns sound into chaos. hello, i'm tired and hiding out in this corner of the world. can you see me here. hello hello (this is what one can say in the corner of the world.) come in and stay awhile. come in and stay awhile. you might be aware of this as an improvisation. i am writing this just about at the speed you are reading this. now we'll see something. moving up and down affecting the atmosphere. you are seeing the atmosphere under effect. you are seeing just what - just what is that woman doing in the upper corner of the screen. it gets harder to hear things as things compress, join uselessly together, as if there's a message coming from the upper atmosphere. i am afraid there is, this is the message. something there is that does not fear the flesh, highspeed and in motion, this is the furious gaze of the onlooker of america. you get what I mean? we're twelve minutes into the _thing_ and it's hardly clear yet, neither to you nor to me. Degas' dancers have always disturbed me... something there is that does not love the flesh, yes yes, what is the world but a series of emanations? the world is indefinite, the world is a series of emanations, things in constant motion, nothing fixed, nothing present but in the imagination's temporary hold on you. and you'll disappear soon enough. hello, are you enjoying this? I hope you're watching this (personally I think it's terrific- but why wouldn't I?) - large and electronic manipulation. God, I'm trying to entertain you - I hope you can at least appreciate that? the sun sets furiously. no, the black sun sets furiously over the islands of greece. This is the running of all forms of emanations, atmospheric sounds, ghosts, wraiths... I AM MEDIOCRE! NO, I AM NOT! NOR AM I PERFECT IN THIS PERFECT WORLD. later that night, they considered this a sombre moment, something unthought-of in the history of human culture. "It was the machine in them that did the talking, it was the machine in them that did the talking." Hello, please come in, join us. We are PRESENTING at the moment. everyone is watching the train-wreck of the twentieth century. the world horrifies in the wreckage. Come in, please be my guest, you're welcome to sit and watch the videos for as long as you like. Thank you for coming! I'm glad you're here, I really am. Ah, perfect, how we stumbline through our beautiful lives. one might say, "We're really "meandering" through the twentieth century?" or not.... Somehow these images seem incredibly sad... one, I gathered, nothing was heard. but here, that proved to be impossible; in fact, sound was everywhere, one just had to At this point, the room went silent. Nothing made any sense, certainly not now. He had nineteen minutes to go, at least that, before "the world ran out." Samuel thought, I'm being suffocated and I'm not sure why. The mah-jong game burned itself into his memory. Time and again, he'd go over it, but to no avail. It was all the same. The world! How beautiful! Only... something was missing... The mountain doubled back with tremendous fury, driving all other landscape into oblivion. I AM HOLDING MY BREATH. Now, I WILL RELEASE. I know that when they entered the space, they knew that something was going on. HI THERE! PLEASE COME IN AND BE SEATED! The show's maybe 2/3 the way over, but it will begin again. Thanks so much for coming! I know, it's not the same thing as if you see me here typing live, but that's the beauty of Okay, I know you saw the car-wreck. It's late at night, I'll just, I don't know, LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR A MOMENT, and SLIP INTO SOMETHING comfortable... Every movie has another movie... How long can I hold your atention? Really, thank you for staying; it's been wonderful. I hope some of the more... risque offerings didn't offend you, believe me! There are more risque offerings that I didn't dare show, with the open window and all. Still, one can breathe deeply, can't one? Late at night... Was anything happening... in the darkned studio... Hours passed... they didn't know what was happening to them... On the left, it's almost as if... as if ... as if ... as if .... the dots were getting away from him. all right, there are three minutes left. I want to end with... I'm not sure, really, I'm not, almost just about two minutes now... Of course thank you very much for coming. ### Second and Final Try (quite satisfied with this): Welcome Welcome Welcome! This is my friend, he is a very great dancer. Please don't be shy, please come in. Take a seat - over there, there should be some room, hardly anyone has shown up at this point. Maybe, ah well. In any case, I'm beginning, this is the world of emanations - you can CLEARLY see something is happening here, something... extraordinary, almost one might say, supernatural, the whole earth is full of radiations.... You can hear them, preternatural perhaps would be a better world, they're just beyond your pleasance... I record these, these emanations, these ghosts, there are more of them than are alive, more of them than are here in this room, right now. This woman is dancing to 'em. She is listening to the ghosts and making the ghosts appear. It is the saddest thing, as as the ghosts, as the ghosts, the ghosts, witness the disappearnce of their kindly earth... Such things as are destructive, as are deadly, for example the electronic substation across the street, what is that all about. More and more we are dominated by electronic emissions. LOOK AROUND YOU! THERE ARE NO MATERIALS OF ART HERE! THERE ARE ONLY RADIATIONS, ONLY NOISE, NOTHING ELSE THIS IS THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD. I HAVE BEEN THERE. please please come in and sit down, have some time, spend some fun time with this, enjoy yourselves. You are witnessing, you are witnessing, the chaos of the world, what the world was like when ghosts roamend, those were times. They are furious, these ghosts. They are furious with us. They are sucking us dry. WE, WE, WE, WE, WE. Eliminate the comma: WE WE WE WE WE - we join together in our flight towards destruction, our personal best / fury: We will become THESE MATTERS. The machine in them is writing this. Or writing these, every writing is plural. The body is its own machine. The tendency towards repetition... "is the greatest force for good in this universe." Please, I beg you, have a seat, stay a while, there's nothing frightening here, nothing untoward, whatever was sacred is still sacred. And WELCOME! Please join us in our project. Look carefully, examine the interstices of the composition, what goes on before, and what comes afterwards, when least expected. These are times when it is almost dangerous to remain alive. We must We must bear bear these consequences We must We must Measure TO HONOUR AND TO OBEY YES YES YES PLEASE DO PLEASE DO COME IN We are calling for help, these ghosts, they they, DESCRY us late at night late at night Surely if they are coming for me they are coming for you. Surely if they are coming for me they are coming for you. PLEASE PLEASE COME IN, make yourself at home as if this were YOUR HOME and these were YOUR THOUGHTS SOMETHING IS VERY BROKEN. please please pardon me you were you were not meant to see this. ah, you are wondering perhaps - Wait a minute, I'm sorry, give me a second - You're perhaps wondering (that's better) what happens, what is the story? There are a man and woman in the room. The man holds up the woman. The woman falls. The man has contact with the woman. The man begins to fall. Someone is watching this. (You can hear the sounds of the future.) If we remain on this planet, after the nuclear war, this will happen. And this. And this will happen as well. A black sun will illuminate the sky and the sun will fall down over and over again. How sad it is to see the dusk. As I was saying (before I interrupted myself), this is the time to come on in, no, "Come on in!" and make yourself comfortable! How sad the world is! How comfortable! Now Hello, Hello, to the weather. Each will swell in turn and disappear. You will know "the weather." See how foreign planets tell so little when they have, have more than enough time, more than enough chance. This is no. 1. This is number 2. And this is "The Stormy Day" of number 3. And this is Titan, a very distant moon. Which is number 4. And this is number 5. "In the Water." You are hearing, honestly, very low frequency (VLF) antenna coupling with the metal strings of a musical instrument. It's enough to raise the dead. The dead are being raised. There are lessons to be drawn from this. "Nervousness is no excuse for the innocent, just as calm provides solace for the guilty." Once a pon, no, once upon a time in America. If you don't love this country, please leave it. Thank you. WELCOME! Come in and watch the show. I am making this show ESPECIALLY FOR YOU. I am not making this show FOR ANYONE ELSE. This is your special show. LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT. A momentary interlude while you contemplate.... This appears to be an armageddon moment. I honestly wish you would stay, I would give you something worth it, honest I would. Don't go away! I'm working on it! I'm still working on it! You can see how the ... emanations... the machinery of the universe... all at work... all at once... Yes, yes, yes, I want to thank you, I want to thank you for coming. "I think we have all learned something here." (Exeunt all as the plane crashes in for a landing.) ##