Citizen Artist

The Internal | Connecting | Creative Process

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Date: October 26, 2017

Two levels in Creative Process v.210

Mapping out a creative process to connect two parts of my research resonating with Inside the Room and Outside the room branches. Inside the room’s design is led by the Experiment thread, while Outside the room reflects the Research thread. I was compiling this information from a word bank created in the Grad Composition class with Professor Susan Van Pelt Petry and peers. We then each took the word bank and made a visual map of our creative process.

For my challenge, I only used each word one time and practiced this assignment utilizing a present-moment embodiment. Meaning, that I only allowed myself one piece of paper with no option to have a do-over. Utilizing this assignment as a challenge I was aware of my devising boundaries. This project created a meditative space for me to sit with my pen to the paper, and process my process. Which usually feels meta, however, this project was calming while being informative. Most of my reflections have happened through a stream-of-consciousness or analytical essay, so it felt good to move towards a tangible medium to flush out information.

Further noting the attention and weight of each word resonating within my body I continue to let these words reconfigure inside my body. A digital roadway on the frontier of interconnectivity pulsing, sparking, and transferring connections that re-wires and retracts information before surging it back out again.

The system is operating. 

I recognize these maps are abundant within my body, and mind and are the containers to hold, organize, and connect information used to make co-creative spaces. They are roadways of information. Living knowledge intrigues me as I delve into the internal self of producing art. Maybe the cyborg self is emerging underneath the surface below my skin and responding to the familiarity of the motherboard. While the image below relates to this emerging, I examine the depths and intricacies that are possible in overriding.

Cyborg Self Reflection | Awakening

In trying to navigate my cyborg self-relationship I am drawn to this quote by Donna Haraway a professor, consciousness, and feminist scholar, “Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not based on original innocence, but based on seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other” (Haraway 2016, 55). My journey over the past five years has sent me plunging into words, writing, and language – preparing me for my conversations, arguments, and discourse today. Sometimes my consciousness rejects my impulse to respond, and my unconsciousness delivers connectors to reconnect broken bridges of thought. Tracing the map above throughout my creative process enables me to redirect how I am thinking, feeling, and exploring the material.

Responding to a recent visit by Vida Midgelow who presented at the DSA inaugural Scholarly Conference and is a Professor in Dance and Choreographic Studies at Middlesex University London says, “Coming into language is a significant process through which experiential, material and emergent forms of knowledge can be foregrounded, processed and shared” (Midgelow 1994). Previously, I rarely spoke my stance or dared to share the perspectives that ran rampant in my mind.

The information comes to me as this digital space allows me to write about these developing curiosities that are awakening. Identifying as an “other,” I do claim the tools to unearth my potential as a choreographic researcher, scholar, and free-thinker to engage in practices that move humanity towards change. Structures, rules, and traditions can be broken and reconfigured to make manifest new ways of operating that enhance artistic ability, connect technology and humanity, and revolutionize the central core of art-making.

Free Motherboard Vector Art

The above image is how I imagine the framework for my discourse of choreographic research operating–or what it looks like to strategically choreograph, basically my mind on paper. The motherboard vector art is part – object – abstract – micro-processing –  unit –  internet integrated – modern – non-binary projects – future technological advances – daydreams.

 

Works Cited

Haraway, Donna J. and Cary Wolfe. 2016. Manifestly Haraway. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed October 25, 2017).

Midgelow, Vida. and Jane Bacon. 2014. “Creative Articulation Practice (CAP).”                                      Forthcoming in Choreographic Practices. 5[2]                                                                                  https://www.academia.edu/9956868/Creative_Articulations_Process_CAP_  (accessed October 25, 2017)

©LROD

Home Alter: Living Forward

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Home Alter: Dedicated to mi abuela Martinez y mi Tio Rubio
Design: LROD + Becky Rubio
Lighting: Meg Fox
Photo: Devin Marie Munoz

What does it mean to remember someone when they have passed on? To hold onto the memories to keep them alive means so much to those who celebrate Dia de Los Muertos and invest in a joyous death culture. My home alter has developed from my desire to connect with my loved ones. Home alters are still huge focal points of homes in southern Mexico. These spaces are the heartbeat of the home usually consuming up to half or sometimes a full room. The alters have different components to help the loved ones make their way back to the living on special occasions such as marigolds, fire, food, and candles. Symbolic meanings and religious meanings entangle in what is pagan and what is holy. Some might find this joining of spiritual and corporal morbid. However, to grieve one must celebrate the life lost by having a moment each year to share the stories of loved ones with younger generations is important and keeps the ancestry intact.

I have been fascinated with death since I was a young child. Mostly because my Tia would take me to the desert to these communal gatherings. We would meditate for 3 hours and eat for another three hours in communal gatherings. Beautiful time, she is a reiki, yogi, and layer of hands. However, I experienced my first laying of hands on someone who had passed and I have never looked back. My investment in learning about the funeral industry grew, and learning other death practices for different cultures around the world exploded. There are so many ways one can choose to be buried these days. Quite beautiful. However, I always return to the sitting with death, maybe because I have been around so much of it, grief, loss, and mourning. I understand. Either way, these moments of recalling, celebrating, returning, and honoring–cultivate a deep stillness inside my body.

The work here makes visible the deep connection and importance to those we have lost. My small daily moments with loved ones whom I can no longer visit or call helps me move life forward. I am my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and so on. I am my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and so on. Branches of love, care, and family are the ones I desire most as my lineage expands and decays.

©LROD