2020march

Hey friends! Here's the March edition of Live Art Club, and the first of our online gatherings.

An online space to host live-art experiments into the digital, and responses to our current political and artistic climate/climaxes, is something we've wanted to do for a while. The world going into states of lockdown, isolation and quarentine in unison somehow gives it a more urgent framing.

It's important for us to quickly say, even though many people have elaborated on this much better than we ever could, that this state of isolation isn't new. For some artists and queers living with chronic health conditions, physical disabilities, mental health disorders or who are neurodivergent, staying at home isn't a novelty, as so many spaces (including queer/art venues) in the physical world aren't accessible and our ability to candidly speak about health and illness is as strained as our national health systems.

We hope that when our curfews are lifted, those of us for whom this is a temporary state can get together to radically transform the way we approach physical space as a community. We also hope that open-access online spaces for community gathering and art sharing continue to multiply beyond the pandemic.

The works in this page are labelled, most with links to social media/websites, and we really encourage you to look deeper into these practices and support the work of queer independent artists now more than ever.

Have a nice time and we see you next month, online or (hopefully, maybe) in flesh if we're back at OTO.

All our love + solidarity,
LAC xx

Minnie Monotone

Minnie Sings Downtown

The Night Shift I
The Night Shift II
The Night Shift III
Appears Sleeping, Breathing Observed

Katy Dye
@katydye1
www.katy-dye.com

DEADLOCK

Performance & Poetry:
Iris Colomb
@iriscolomb
www.iriscolomb.com

Video Documentation:
Ilya Tikhonov
@Ilya_tikhonov

Hair Dance 4

This dance is part of a series of dances Tom has been doing and will continue to be doing.

Tom Cassani
@tomcassanistrangeboy

heyuwearingthoselittletightblacklatexglovesbaby?

Phoebe Patey-Ferguson
@ppateyferg

HeavyReadyGettingMetal

Andrew Sanger
@seraphaun

Hyem

Dani Surname
@danisurname
www.danisurname.com

Content warning for nudity, self-injury, and minor blood.

Instructions:

Starting at one end of your bookshelf, read the titles, but not the authors, as a list or continuous line.

Punctuate each title with the word becoming and follow the books along the shelf, or shelves, up or down as you wish, until you reach a natural end.

Follow the first direction your instinct makes for you.

Do not be tempted to jump around the bookshelf or you’ll miss out on the shelves inherent logic.

Emeralds around the World becoming When the Word becomes Flesh becoming Hatred of Capitalism becoming The Aesthetics of Resistance becoming Deep Listening becoming Sister Outsider becoming Evolution becoming The Foundations of Judo becoming The Mysterium Lectures becoming The Fact of a Doorframe becoming Paris becoming illuminations becoming The Mimes of Herondas becoming Anarchic Sexual Desires of Plain Unmarried School Teachers becoming My Mother Laughs becomingThe Sophie Horowitz Story becoming Pond becomingLes Contemplations becoming ABC of Reading becoming Procrastinations becomingThe White Goddess becoming Seashells of the British Isles becomingDells of the Winconsin River becoming Berlin Childhood circa 1900 becoming The Pattern Under the Plough becoming Sappho - A New Translation becoming The Thousand and One Nights becoming Three Banquets for a Queen becoming In the American Grain becoming Modern First Aid becoming Poesies becoming Une Saison en Enfer becoming Kitchen becoming Trouble with Lichen becoming Miracle of the Rose becoming Silent Spring becoming Thrush Green becoming What is History becoming Transactions of Desire becoming Jacobs Room becoming Our Gang becoming Tender is the Night becoming L’Ombillic des Limbes becoming Theory of the Young Girl becoming Ida becoming Under Milk Wood becoming Decreation becoming Agua Viva becoming The Homecoming becoming Sufism becoming La Joissance-Cinema becoming The Great Wall of China becoming Novo-Almanaque-Fantasma becoming The Colossus becoming Rememberance of Things Past becoming Incidence of Travel in Poetry becoming Letters Home becoming In Love and Trouble becoming Wide Sargasso Sea becomingThe Analects becoming Envelope Poems becoming Roman Poems becoming Wild Flowers becoming Don’t Wait to Cultivate becoming Bodhisattva of Compassion becoming Elen of the Ways becoming Nowhere Ending Sky becoming Cities of the Red Night becoming Song of a Thousand Names becoming Questions in the Sand becoming Friendly Algorithms becomingThe Book of Folly becoming Electric Light becoming On Lies, Secrets and Silence becoming Democracy May Not Exist (But We’ll Miss it When it’s Gone) becoming The Emancipated Spectator becoming Howl becoming Acts of Worship becoming L’Amant becoming Tours Promis becoming Physical Geography in Diagrams becoming Animism becoming No Medium becoming Dot Dot Dot becoming Here to Go

becoming Shelf

Charlotte Law
@charlottewendylaw
www.charlottewendylaw.com

it only hurts when i look

Amber Sloman

26th March 2020

Fritha Jenkins
@frithajenkins
www.frithajenkins.com

Something to

Yarden Gur

MOONFACE

Meg Hodgson
@meghodgsonn

The world I want to fight for
Is not so unlike this world in which
We’re living
(if that’s what the kids are calling it these days).

Upon entering this carnival, we see reality
As a Funhouse mirror.
I see what appears to be a world,
But is really a warped version--
One that confronts me every day--
Of the world I truly want to fight for.

So here I am.
Here I stand: confused.
Which side is warped?
I wonder.
Is it the reality or the reality’s
Dream?
(And is the carnival a dream too?)

On one side of the reflective screen
Called the Funhouse Mirror
Sits an image:
Crystal clear,
Bright and shining,
Full of softness and sharp edges and contours and contrasts
All conspiring to create
A playground of experiences
Which delight the senses--
Touch and Smell and Taste and Sight and Sound--
The commerce of experience between human and nature.
(Between the mortal and ethereal.)

On the other side
Sits the same image.
But it is blurry
And twisted
And confuses the Senses.
It’s contorted--
Uncomfortable--
And doesn’t make much sense at all…
Unless...
You

S

T

A

R

E

At It
For a long
Long
Long
Time.
Unless you try to make the letters align.
Unless you convince yourself that what you're seeing
Makes sense.
Unless you force yourself to make shapes of all the bluriness.
Unless you really
Really
Really
Try
This reality becomes harder and harder to see your own reflection in.
And if you do happen to see yourself there--
Do you see where the lines between you
And the contorted world
End
And
Begin?
Or is it all a blur?
Are you a participant in the optic confusion as well?
(I think I am.)
((Damn.))

If you think so too,
Then draw up your shield and sword.
I have a vision of a world worth fighting for:

The World I Want To Fight For
Is one of horrifying beauty.
It’s bare and brash and doesn’t come with a safety net.
Because when you fall--
And you will fall--
It’s strong softness always catches you.
And reminds you that falling is how we learn to stand back up.
And teaches you that nature’s way is to heal--which is to grow,
Like the succulent cut from it’s mother and repotted in new soil--whose nature is to nourish.

The World I Want To Fight For
Is one in which no one is seen
As everything.
Rather, you will be seen entirely:
Entirely for what you have (naturally)
And can give (naturally)
And what your unique contribution--
To this great experiment--
Is,
Naturally.

The World I Want To Fight For
Is a world is which uselessness does not exist,
Because worth is not valued
By numbers in a bank.
Or by giving your time--
Your energy--
Your love--
Your power
Away to those who are fearful and insecure and must hoard what is not theirs in order to feel protected by the size of their own sword.

The World I Want To Fight For
Is one without labels--
Because they are unnecessary
To be.
A zoo void of cages,
Allowing its animals to run free.
With no plaques explaining their nature,
Their eating habits,
Their naturally undisposed dispositions;
Simply: them.
In their natural habitat.
A true human zoo.
(The animals can come too.)

The World I Want To Fight For
Is slower than this one.
It takes time to enjoy sunrises and sunsets.
It lives in the present.
And understands that the past is past.
It lives knowing that the past is either a lesson or a gift of nostalgia.
It lives without worry of the future.
And understands that trying to force an outcome--
Worrying about what will come before it has arrived--
Is the only way to live in true limbo,
Because you are not past--
Nor present--
Nor future.
You are just worried.
But the world I want to fight for says you don’t have to be.

The World I Want To Fight For
Has no economic value,
Because humanity is not an economy.
Care, nourishment and personal power are not prudent reserves:
They are human rights--daily rights--which come before any of that other
Extraneous human business
Which is still warping the mirror’s image.
The world I want to fight for knows that nothing gained in this material life
Will be transferred to the next one
(If that exists)
And thus does not waste it’s time blurring up the beauty of what already is.

The World I Want To Fight For
Is one in which fear is met with love.

The World I Want to Fight For
Is one in which “should” does not exist.

The World I Want To Fight For
Is one that is truly free,
Because it does not rely on:
Money
Power
Property
Prestige
A Friend’s List
Likes
Subscribers
Or Certainty.

The World I Want to Fight For
Is full of unsureness.
Full of inquisitiveness.
Full of wonder and awe and inspiration
That feels both Good and Bad,
Bold and Meak,
Strange and Familiar,
Reminding us in our confusion that life is lived best in a state of wonder--
In exploration.
(Of ourselves. Of each other.)

The World I Want to Fight For
Does not have 9-5 jobs.
Does not have factory lines.
Does not have branding.
Does not have pre-existing conditions.
Does not have contracts or taxes or corporations.
Or a waiting room for basic human needs.
(Or window shopping, while you wait.)

What it has, is what it has.
And that is: simply, enough.

Have we experienced all the glory of this world
On the other side of the fun house mirror
We call humanity?
Or have we blurred it all up by paving parking lots and staring at screens instead of at the leaves?

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
YES.
Ecstatic, I orgasm,
From the depths of my womby soul
That
THIS
Unblurried,
Unwarped,
Pristine image of a
Dirty,
Delicious,
Glorious world,
Which houses the the life of the uncaged human--
THIS
Is the World that I Want To Fight For.

The World I want to Fight For

Lindsey Greer Sikes
@sikesyart

No Delivery Slots

Vijay Patel
@vijayrajpatel92
www.vijaypateltheatre.co.uk

Zoom on me

Mystical Femmes
@mysticalfemmes

BREATHE
(self-portrait photography)

Nico Pazzaglia
@niko_pzaz

Dear Gender

Niko Wearden
@nikowearden

Shadow Work: March 25 2020

Clay A.D
@pastacomplex

Within Tree's Reach

Milan Kozomora & Tess Martens
Edited by Howard Hamilton

Dear Laura, this is a letter for the one you once were.

Growing up is a tough thing to do. Your body changes, your ideas transform
themselves, you don´t even recognize your world anymore, the one you claimed as your
own. To grow up is to realize things you were running away from. And that´s tough.
Because unconsciously laying peacefully in the arms of ignorance is more bearable than
to be blinded by what is real. However, it is necessary. Not only once, but multiple
times. Growing up isn´t more than a continuous process.

You will be let down. By yourself, by others. You will end up finding out that,
underneath that cold heart is a person that loves Love among any other thing. Which
means that you will live everything in a more intense way. But I should warn you: not
everybody will deserve your intrinsic intensity. The disappointment will come from
where you least expect. In some cases, there is a cure. In others, there is a lesson. Life is
like a train track and if a person leaves your carriage, don´t question it – they simply
have a different destiny. Enjoy the travelling with the ones that compromised on sitting
next to you. And remember not to forget to value them.

Laura, you are going to suffer. And that´s exactly when you feel your growth. You beg
for the Big Change, but when you have no choice but to face it, it isn´t as simple as you
imagined. Let me break it down to you, in the sincerest – and raw – way. You will get
to know loneliness, even if you are in the middle of a crowd. You are going to learn
how find comfort in your own company, just because you are stuck with yourself. You
will laugh, cry, scream, fall all in the same day, but you will never feel sick of the
amount of emotions that you opened your chest to. Because, by this time of your life –
that is the one I am living now – you will already know that all of this is necessary and
sufficient. By this exact phase of existence, you will not turn your back to growth; by
this phase you will keep company to your own transformation.

Growing up is a challenge. Loving yourself is a bigger one. No, you are not the most
beautiful girl in the world. No, you are not capable of doing everything. No, you are not
exempt from making mistakes. But you are you. And you are yours. You were your first
real love. You are unique, like a fingerprint. You leave your mark in each person that
crosses paths with you. You have a smile that may someday change the world. Because
even if your teeth are “not as usual”, your smile is real, honest. And you prefer to live a
happy life than any other – you have that value. Even if sometimes you feel trapped by
your very own fears, you do shine. And, as days go by, your light gets brighter and
brighter. Stop questioning your sufficiency – or lack thereof – when I am proud of being
you. I am so proud of you, Laura, and you will be too. Give it time.

Therefore, yes, growing up is both the hardest thing and the most gratifying thing of
being alive. And it is full of wonders waiting for you, craving to be discovered. For
example, in spite of you thinking that it is quite impossible, you will fall in love. It is
going to be strong, the best thing you ever felt. You are going to come to the conclusion
that, nowadays, to love and to be loved is a gift. You will feel so lucky, because your
heart – that precious crystal pretending to be an iceberg – will be taken care of by a guy
that looks at you – and through you – as if you were the only person on earth. A guy
who will support your aspirations, who gives the tightest hugs and who makes the best
hot chocolate ever. And, mainly, you are going to give all your dedication to someone
who doesn´t feel tired of reminding yourself how beautiful you are, even when you
insist on forgetting so.

Growing up is a tough thing to do. But you are going to be so happy, Laura.