To Kiss on a Battlefield / Act 1
Gallery D301, CalArts, Santa Clarita, CA, USA
MFA Thesis Show
March 18 — April 16, 2023
Exhibition and performance including synthesized sweat, aluminum, microcrystalline wax et al., 62h sound recording and mix.
from the intro to to kiss on a battlefield / act 1 / texts (p. i):
"How can something be made (or make itself) while unclaiming capture? How can something, rather than formally assuming some type of relation-ship to its own idea, radically unclaim that connection and work solely as a sacrificial, oblique return system to the very pulse of that idea? How can something enable something other with the constancy of a life that isn’t death? How can something be a bankside, to a river/field that is continuous, and continuously opening?" [note to self, March 14, 2023]
Pivoting through such paradoxical questioning to eventually develop as a material, performative, and theoretical methodology, To Kiss on a Battlefield revolves on the creation and iteration of a ground of formal abandonment. It is a cut running through the exhibitional dynamics and perversions that embed seeing. In Act I, these are at once exacerbated and neutralized in order to acknowledge, expose, and relegate trauma (followed back to its Greek root τραῦμα, 'wound') as the dominant contemporary paradigm, and informally imagine kissing as its inverse.
The project’s backbone is entrusted to an open material, an indeterminate medium, The Spread. This is at once a process and a custom-assembled, semi-liquid solution presenting the same chemical composition of human sweat combined with a heavy sodium imbalance. [...] An odorous slurry, spreading on the floor, crystallizing as it dries, covering surfaces and entering all crevices, turning them into a ground of continuous growth and enrichment.
My deepest gratitude and devotion go to all that have made To Kiss possible. In particular Act 1 moves in, as, through the overflowing, invaluable collaboration and contributions of artists and performers Kayla Dobbs and Aviana Glover. Blushes and is honored at the daring documentary brilliance and dedication of artists Yun Gi Ahn and Logan Wolfe. Grew in conversation, in friendship, in love and through various forms of artistic and intellectual encounters and contaminations with Gloria Galvez, Myour Gape, Boz Deseo Garden, Aviana Glover, Herry Kim, Michael Ned Holte, AK Jenkins, Wes Larios, Steven Lam, Poodle Moran, Lena Martin, MPA, Isabel Riedling, Logan Wolfe, Julie Tolentino.
to kiss on a battlefield / act 1 / texts
(digital edition, 18.3mb)
