Textura de Sombra

"NÓMADA EL LABERINTO DEL TORO" is an urban art festival that took place every weekend from the 31st of July to the 21st of August, Maracay, Venezuela. I performed on the second weekend of the event.

Textura de Sombra translates as Texture of Shadow. It consists of three main elements; my body dressed all in black, a scissors f0r cutting and food substances: sugar and yellow corn meal; both are a powdery texture. This piece aimed to make visible something personal and corporeal. I returned to the theme of showing the marked body as I first did in Marked for Life.

However I wanted the cutting to be as far removed from the idea of pain as possible. I wanted it to be more of a symbol, a memory, a line, a way of marking. I did this by making the act itself very hidden, slow and minimalist. I used the sugar and cornmeal the way colored powders are used to make mandalas using colors, line and repetition to create a composition that ended on my body. The lines were imitations of my way of marking myself; straight parallel lines. Through all this repetition I am drawing my lines out of myself and on to other surfaces.

I started the performance on the ground in the center of a design of concentric circles; this made my actions very site specific. I sat in the middle of the hills of cornmeal and sugar. I chose these substances to represent my dual Identity. Sugar historically coming from the sugar industry in Trinidad & Tobago and Corn Meal being the main ingredient for the traditional Venezuelan daily bread, Arepas. I used both substances for their texture and poured them like sand within the lines of the circles I was sitting on. All around myself I poured them to create numerous parallel lines.

Sugar

Corn Meal

When the hills had disappeared in this way I proceeded to cut open my leggings to reveal my naked flesh which similarly shows repeated parallel lines from scars. With sets of staples concealed in my hands I caressed my legs until old wounds reopened and new wounds were made. Once more I recreated lines; in each different way that I draw it, it is a mantra. The cuts bleeding in the same pattern I made on the ground; my blood mixing with the sugar and corn meal.

Photos by Narvis Bracamonte and Morella Cuba

Below is the video footage from the performance. It starts off very shaky but nonetheless I am always grateful for the people I meet willing to help me preserve these moments.

Taking Part in Territorio Desdibujado: Self Portrait/ Autorretrato

I am the T.V. / Soy la Televisión

Stare Like a Junkie/Parado como un drogadicto
Because Tragedy Fills me/ Porque eso me llena

Tragedia, violencia y sexo

Después del original performance de 'Niña en la Caja' hecho en 2007, este autoretrato (intervenido por la tecnología) fue parte del proyecto Territorio Desdibujado por Eliseo Solís Mora para la XI Velada de Santa Lucía, 4-6 Marzo 2011.

After the original live performance of 'Girl in the Box' made in 2007, this self portrait (intervened by technology) was part of the Territorio Desdibujado (Blurred Territory) curatorial project by Eliseo Solís Mora in la Velada de Santa Lucía.

Rodell Warner and I both took part in this project with self portraits. While there Eliseo, Rodell and I decided to also perform together. Below is the video; it is called Silencio/ Silence.

This performance had to with the difficulty and tension of communication as faced with differences. The piece was repeated randomly through the night. As visitors came in the house of Eliseo's exhibition to view his work we would engage in what may seem to be an aggressive argument. But it was not an argument only a simulation. We communicated in the most basic of ways; facial expressions, gestures, different tone and pitch and only one word- Silence/Silencio - as a contradiction/ contrast to our chaotic action. Like the Tower of Babel we spoke different languages to each other but the more we spoke the more heated our interactions got as there was no message received through the communication. Instead what happened is that we became emotive and unintelligible; we shout, we repeat ourselves, and we laugh at each other to retreat/ return once more into our different worlds.

For More information view the following links:

The beginning of the 'Girl In The Box Series'/ 'Serie de la Niña en la Caja' can be found on this link and also here

The website for la Velada de Santa Lucía:

http://www.velada-santa-lucia.com/

Video about la Velada de Santa Lucía

Links for Rodell Warner:

http://www.rodellwarner.com/

http://freepaperblog.blogspot.com/

Links for Eliseo Solís Mora

http://espaciolevintanteapuntesdearte.blogspot.com/

http://territoriodesdibujado.blogspot.com/

http://eliseosolismora.tumblr.com/

PerfoChoroní V

Photo by Alexander Escalona
Hablando Sola: la tecnología crea personalidades múltiples/Talking To Myself: Technology creates multiple personalities

Como parte de PerfoChoroní V, hablé sola. Es una performance que trata de la manera en que la tecnología ha moldeado al ser humano. Es una autotransmisión o una proyección de mi misma. Con la tecnología puedo multiplicarme y con esto también plantear las preguntas existenciales:

• ¿Cuál es la verdadera yo?
  

• ¿Por qué estoy aquí?/ ¿Donde estoy?
  

• ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre la vida virtual y la vida real?

Aquí está el video de la performance



Above is the video of my performance at PerfoChoroní, in Venezuela.

Hablando Sola: la tecnología crea personalidades múltiples/ Talking To Myself: Technology creates multiple personalities. It deals with the way the self can be moulded by technology when the human being is transmitted via the internet. Once we are interacting with the internet we are engaging in an act of self projection by placing of ourselves within; on the outside we are also receiving. This interaction become so casual that we are not always conscious that we are both moulding the virtual space as much as we are being moulded by it. It becomes a social experience that blurrs the lines between reality and virtuality. With this form of (social)technology I can modify myself; such as through self multiplication and thereby also pose certain existential questions:

• Which one is the real me?

• Why am I here?/ Where am I ?

• What is the difference between the virtual and the real life?

Below is the video I used during the performance to find myself and then talk to myself. Both videos are one conversation between my three selves. Both videos are each a self and the self that I was when I performed it live is yet another.

It is called I am Too Happy To Tell You. The video is a spontaneous reaction that sometimes occurs while consuming virtuality and loosing the ability to distinguish what is real from what is not. I know I have lost my capacity when I react in very real, visceral ways like crying. I had a combustion of tears that I did not want to loose because it can be evidence to prove my suspicion that technology can manipulate us, so I hit record. Like a confrontation meant to accuse I gave it my tears. It is a gift; the product of our interactions and so I feed the machine the way it has fed me.

Arriba esta el video que use durante el performance para encontrarme a mí mismo y después hablar sola. Entonces los dos videos son una conversación con tres versiónes de mí mismo. Cada video son una versión y cuando lo hice en vivo fue otra versión.

En español, quiero decir, Soy Demasiada Feliz Que Ni Te Lo Puedo Decir. El video es una reacción espontánea que se ocurre a veces cuando consumo a lo virtual y pierdo la abilidad de diferenciar que es real con lo que no es. Yo se cuando eso pasa porque tengo reacciónes muy fuerte y visceral como llorar. Esto sucedio cuando hice este video y yo no quería perder el momento, entonces lo grabe. Yo quería preservar mis lagrimas y regresarlo al internet como un regalo para el dueño, porque desde allí se vienieron. El internet es el responsable y el culpable, y yo lo alimento como se me alimenta también.

4th Red Earth

For Red Earth2010: Running Water I collaborated with Jemima Charles to recreate a shared memory we had at Blanchicheuse beach Trinidad and Tobago.

Death making its journey from the river to the Sea/Everything returns to the Ocean's embrace.

We witnessed a dead leather back turtle impossibly move through the river while it was shallow and narrow to go back to the ocean. Jemima made the water element in the form of the flags placed on the perimeter of the river and I created a floating form to represent the turtle on its journey.

More images can be seen on my Flickr photostream

designed by Tanya Marie Williams

3rd Red Earth

The Heart of my Alter

For Red Earth 2009: Dream time I sought to transform the wall of shelves from the Mystic Masseur house into an altar; it is spelled Alter to signify that it is about process/change/transfiguration. I used natural objects, found objects and personal objects for the transformation of the space.

Red Earth is an Eco-Arts festival celebrated every year in Trinidad & Tobago since 2007. This is the second time I took part; last year I was in a group piece choreographed by Sonja Dumas. Her piece was about the preciousness of water.