something dystopian..something interesting

the other day i found myself wondering in a familiar place that I have always considered as one of my favourite buildings in London
the Tate modern--well, I went there mainly to see the exhibition of Mark Rothko and test the ways in which his work would speak to me... (would I be one of the people who sit on the benches in the rooms of the gallery, staring endlessly and desperately the works expecting from them to reveal their secret?)...and I did go, and the works did speak to me somehow in an incomplete way and it was painful but it was not bad altogether and I am glad I went.

but what was the memorable experience of that afternoon in Tate Modern was Dominique's Gonzalez-Foerster dystopian vision of London in TH.2058 in the turbine hall as part of the unilever series..not only for the concept, not only due to innumerable quotations-references to dystopian novels and films, not only due to the real interactive theatrical platform that she constructed...not only for bridging the past and the future of the building that I love in such a creative and imaginative way..

but also because I want to go back and it feels that the concept itself is left in-media res; this is not the last day of London, these are not the only survivors but just passer-bys who want to spend a rainy night..perhaps because even this dystopian vision is not entirely dystopian and has a glimpse of hope in it..perhaps because of that and for many other reasons that I will discover when I return there again, TH.2058 is one of the most interesting and sudden experiences of contemporary art I've had in recent years.

check it out until April 13th 2009:

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/dominiquegonzalezfoerster/default.shtm

no harm done..really

i'd rather think about petty behaviours
and small dramas
as slimer gum from ghostbusters..a bit disgusting but ultimately ridiculous and harmless...

laughing at what annoys you
might be the best way out

to make a note of... (3 months later)

the right to love the way that you feel is appropriate
the feeling of weakness that cannot be articulated
the need for future adventures and conquests
the importance of privacy and silence
the anger against anyone who attempts to violate private spaces
the arrogance of knowledge
the failure to convince
the fragility of information
the fluidity of circumstances
the lack of interest to convince
the possibility of change and
the utopia of all-encompassing emotions of hope
the realisation that replacement is part of the game
the uselessness of certain ideas and actions
the vanity of power
the break with the past -- at last
the ephemeral of promises
the inevitability of the end
the surprise that certain relations bring
the all-enduring love lacking any sense of pressure
the urgency of certain notes
the absurdity of relations
and the beauty that sometimes is impossible to take in

life as it happens
everyday

(painting by Mark Rothko)

yet again... (for the year in Dublin)

places are safer when you see them on a map

when you just arrive and you cannot feel

the distinctive smell

the peculiarity of the city

cannot really tell what's special about the accents

and north and south divisions seem irrelevant to you...

places are safer when you see them from a plane

or arrive at 8am, late June

and you stand by a bridge thinking

'oh what a strange deja-vu; i have lived here before'

but then perhaps you haven't..you are just about to

places are safer when you just bring in your baggage

your memories, your longing of a different place

and when your everyday walk is a bit of a surprise

looking for a flat, looking for a job, looking for a friend

places are safer when you don't understand the local jokes

or the references to names that you can't even pronounce

when you stay in the safe twilight zone of the outsider who

does not really want to learn about the inside--

but pretends that she does

and you walk by houses without knowing or caring about whose house they were

or pass by statues and read the information but they remain as irrelevant to you as before

places are safer when they just have a name

and numbers of people that are irrelevant to you and your world..

but

places become dangerous when a little cafe has become your favourite niche

and a number of buses take you to your everyday journey

and the face of the guards are getting more and more familiar

just because you walk past them everyday

and the concrete built building becomes familiar

even at 9pm on january nights

when you leave it and the lights are off

and it's cold, you shake in your coat

places become dangerous when they are filled in

by sounds and stories and memories

and corridors and rooms and pubs and drinks and flats

and names of people

first names

then faces

then bodies

then beings

then presences

yes, a place becomes dangerous when it's full with presences

here now, not from the world of before..

and soon, just as the safety net,

just at a glimpse of the second

it takes you to close and open your eyes again

the presences have become absences again

and your suitcase is full with cards and gifts to remember

and the place is gone

just like a dream, it's gone and vanished

and you cannot see its face...

you see it from above again

like before but

you cannot go back to the moment that it was just a name

and not a year of your life

and you wish you could go to that moment

when the place was a name

when the place was safe

when the place had not taken part in your story---

but yet again/you don't

when you are not around..

..i normally prefer to stay at home
or at most get a cup of hot chocolate in the best place in dublin..
and read japanese literature and admit that
am so far away from achieving any understanding about the meaning of life..

funny how voices overlap
in nights like this
and the well-known deja-vu is almost becoming past
perhaps it never actually happened
all a story, a tale to be said the nights you are cold
and so very little make sense

..and the walks that i never did
seem to come back to me now and the city offers itself to me
but i know that it is gonna be for so very little..
no, i won't take the offer..what do you think?

and i come back home,
and i turn on the lights
and i make hot noodles
and i think it's boring, cut the crap,
and i know that this is not home, home is what we make of it
and i find myself again in-between states
and i've been here before
and it's like a joke because i know that it's millions of lightyears away since you find yourself in my steps
and i take it comically and lightly
because there is no other way that you would have wanted me to take it
and i pack books and stationery and the little purple anti-stress ball that came with me a year ago
and i stop to stare at the rain fall and contemplate that everything is a mindgame
and to wonder what you might be doing now
and to decide that it doesnot really matter

and to talk to the man in the off-licence on dame str.
who is wondering how long i've been living around here
but forgets to answer the basic question: for how long still am i going to?
and autumn is almost here in a known-unknown land that used to be my home--if it ever was
and the street up to Christchurch does not seem as exotic as it did
and i am packing my bags and my shoes and my clothes and my notes from the orientation lecture, a year ago, and what is left from this process of travelling and drinking guiness and talking about theatre and human contact and
i am wondering whether this would have ever made sense otherwise
but it doesnt really matter--it's mid August and the drama, thank God is over
it's just that i see boxes around me
and i am afraid of what can happen next
and i know that you are not around
and i am not sure that you have been around before
even the night i felt that you were not some mindgame
but really there..next to me..for so little, i did..i think

'this is not theatre--this is drama, and it's different'
how funny! a stupid phrase when looked back, changes completely
it's been a year--almost
by the time it is, you will be back
around here
at home?

one of these days, I want to lose myself in the streets of Dublin--before i go, it's the only thing i can possibly do

Looking for gold

was never really easy. For example, this famous duck spent years trying to get it -- and everything started with that one little penny that he found --then he only had to find the ways to multiply this one penny. And it took a lot of patience..

now, we are all looking for gold too, i thin-not necessarily the shiny yellow gold or the black gold that Scrooze was after--especially these days with all the discussions about recession, looking for gold sounds a bit awkward and taboo as a subject. But when we are looking for other forms of 'gold', how do we look for it? How can we make the right steps that will take us all the way to finding and getting the 'gold'? And how much patience do we need to have to find gold?

what is scary about gold-hunting is that perhaps over the years we become obsessed with a particular kind of gold, and perhaps we might miss other valuable elements that we come across, just because they don't look shiny enough.

this time..

...they will have to meet
or actually they already have but nobody was there to witness the meeting
it needs to happen again
this time.properly

mess is..

..to start one thing, go on with another and never manage to finish a third..
..throwing clothes and papers all over the place
and not minding the cigarette-butts in the ashtray...
not managing to read a whole chapter of that stupid book
and leave sentences unfinished
and constantly checking your email, your facebook page, your mobile
and setting your alarm at least eight hours before you start thinking of going to bed..
and keep on saying the same things over and over again in front of the mirror
or maybe not..
not remembering the telephone number of your family
and forgetting the birthday of the dear friend..

mess is when your routine is broken
only for very little
and then restored as if it was never broken but you know that it was..
and even though you can go back to it, you simply cannot find the strength to do it
and you find yourself in a mess..
what's problematic though is that the mess at the first place
was not yours..it was someone else's..
but at the end of the day that's what mess is..
contagious..if you go close to people who are in a mess, most probably you will end up carrying one of your own

Summer Festivals 1: 7+1 Reasons to visit Greece during the summer

1. Dimitris' Papaioannou Medea 2; the renowed Greek choreographer/director reworked his seminal production based on Euripides' tragedy and opens the Athens festival (1-5 June)
2. The Wooster Group's Hamlet; Shakespeare's text in a post-modern reading--looking forward to that even though sadly I will not be able to be there when it's on (13-16 June)
3.Pina Bausch in Epidaurus' Theatre with Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice (19-20 July)
4. The two Oedipus (Rex and in Colonus) by the National Theatre of Greece; if not for any other reason, just for the interesting cast (8-9 August)
5. The Bacchae in a garage; my most favourite Greek theatre ensemble in their first performance after the closing down of the space (post-Amore) present the most challenging Greek tragedy in a most interesting space (7-9 July)
6. Heiner Mueller's Philoctetes in the small theatre of Ancient Epidaurus; if not for any other reason but for the excitement that any play by the German playwright brings (27-28 June)
7. Damage, the world premiere/adaptation of the famous Josephine Hart book as an opera; if not for any other reason, just because we did not have enough of The Beggars' Operas work with their recent Il Trovattore (21-22 July)

and..

my most favourite reason to take an airplane to go to Athens to see the world premiere of Hamlet directed by Thomas Ostermeier of the Schaubuhne Theatre. (7-9 July)

this summer, the Greek festival's programme is amazing and the festival should be considered a destination festival..
chapeau to the artistic director and the team..and I will be there..
For more, check the official website:
http://www.greekfestival.gr/home_page?lang=gr

the ship song (just for you)

night in Dublin
03.18, groups of people in their early twenties
running to catch the last night bus south..
i am walking and i feel my blue shawl getting more and more wet..
thank God I am wearing boots..
cross the traffic lights in trinity, walking on Dame street
how long have I been living here?
when am I gonna get my own way ticket?
when is this gonna be over?
why didnt this ever work out?
you are lying to me..

such a lucky bastard

03.21
a girl with black hair among other girls with blond hair
is trying to find her balance on her silvery high heels
trembling wet hair
and her silvery short skirt soak
and the sounds of people screaming
running towards me and my shawl being soak wet
and i feel the coldness of the may rain pearcing me
my skin, inside..
sirens hurling in the night
and girls and boys gathered outside the cheap chinese take-away..
ugly..
i dont fucking belong here

please show me home
'-only when i am gone, only then
-i appreciate that'

03.28
i am running back home
and feel the rain on my cheeks
and the tears
cheap as it sounds
yes i am crying
for going back home on that dublin night
and for being wet
and for screaming that i feel zero pain
while i should have
and for being May again

03.31
back home
hair dryer and the rain growing stronger
'if i dont catch you when you are over
i guess i will see you whenever'
turn on the heating
wanna feel your 8 and the warmth on the skin
and us never managing to meet
and us never having the proper timing
and you asking--really why did you ask me?

03.53
'we talk about it all night long
we define our moral grounds
but when i crawl into your arms
well everything comes tumbling down..
-your face has grown sad now..
when i must remove your wings
and you..you must try to fly..

come sail your ships around me
and burn your bridges down
you are a little mystery to me
everytime you call in round..'

03.56
everytime it rains in May
the ships lose the compass
lose the orientation...

but next morning they will sail again.anew..as if nothing ever happened
as if it never rained that night in Dublin

my angels

Some things we plan, we sit and we invent and we plot and cook up;

others are works of inspiration, of poetry;

and it was this genius hand that pushed me up the hotel stairs to say my last goodbye

to a hair as white as snow and of pale blue eyes

closing my eyes and actually praying; not to God above but to you, saying:

I'll love you till the end of the world..

(images of favourite angels, words from Nick Cave, Till the end of the world

just for the unspoken prayers of these days)

the ethics of (dis)embodiment

I cannot make up my mind about the abortion performance art project at Yale university and questions of ethics, ownership and closure of representation/reproduction/embodiment and disembodiment.

Who owns the body?
How much harm can a body take?
I am not questioning whether it was 'correct' to launch such a project-or even whether it is a hoax--even the idea is quite simply incomprehensible..but then again the materiality of the body is potentially the only thing that each one of us owns?
But ultimately I cannot help but asking a rather old-fashioned question: what's next? Have we reached our limits by now?

For more see:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351730,00.html

u-topia

thinking of belonging these days
of belonging and home
and no man's lands
Gulliver is constantly in my mind...
probably because i am in Ireland
and the days are growing longer

να μας πάρεις μακριά
να μας πας στα πέρα μέρη..
με Λαιστρυγόνες και με κύκλωπες
όπως πριν όπως πάντα

10+1 things that i learnt on my birthday

1. that the beautiful gardens in the Museum of Modern Art are not supposed to be playgrounds
2. that it comes in handy to wear a hat on a day that starts with sun especially in case you take the Dublin Bus
3. how to pronounce correctly Aran and Leenane
4. how (not) to (dis)appear
5. that certain restaurants are closed on Sundays for dinner
6.how to eat snails in a great French restaurant in the heart of Dublin
7. that it would have come in handy to have an umbrella rather than a hat when it is raining like crazy by the end of the day
8. that it's good to be back home and smell roses, vanilla and drink aromatic tea while rethinking and rewriting about belonging and imagination
9. that some friends never forget you even if they are in the far end of the world (Australia/New Zealand)
10. that I will be able to get Far Away So Close, at least in the German version
and..
11. that life is weird..but still wonderful/wundervoll...

28 ή πάμε για άλλα

03.35 says the watch--yes, of course, this is the time of the year that we go an hour ahead--and this is the time of the year that coincides with my birthday
28 now..
they just stole an hour from the 29th year of my life

but it doesn't really matter
i will go to bed and tomorrow morning i will feel the smell of white roses, planted the same day that i was born
and hear the sounds of water
and dream of an ideal sunset somewhere in my hometown
and know deep down that everything will go fine
and i will be happy in the end
against all odds
and against all methods

been there
done that
had the T-shirt
dont want to do it anymore..
turn the page
take a deep breath
and go on..
this is my birthday present to myself this year and more will come...

what's this thing with honesty?

-I want to know everything about you. Because I am insane.
-I just want the truth.
-I'm telling you the truth.
-You and the truth are known strangers.
When I get back please tell me the truth.
-Why?
-Because I'm addicted to it. Because without it we're animals. Trust me, I love you.
What?
-I don't love you anymore.

(Patrick Marber. Closer)
ps. really..sometimes why are we so obsessed with truth and honesty? for truth's sake? for our sake? or actually when we are saying we are being honest, perhaps, those are the moments that we are being the least honest to ourselves and the world?
Next time someone says they are honest, think twice? honest to whom? and for which reason?
I love Alice--'I dont love you anymore...'
and thank you for your honesty...

angels wings

and something else..

to escape from mortality and loss, can I please have a pair of angels' wings?

time to fly away..

I blame the body
not for existing
but for not being able to block the ways it remembers
what was it this book that said that the body is an elephant?
everything prescribed, ascribed there
just there..
the moments of sadness and joy and fear all put on the map of the body
and a tiny prick can make everything burst out again
revived for a moment in the sadness of silence

tonight I drink for the body
I blame the body
I worship the memory that remains unspoken, unfound, uncompromised
and yet to be remembered...

Heaven and Hell

'but the truth was that I did not believe in heaven then, and never would. And when I thought about hell, it was just very quiet.'

Anne Enright. The Gathering

on the first night of spring, what is interruption..really?

margo writes about interruption..one thing: is time ever interrupted?
the more I think about it, the more I realise that you cannot interrupt the circular pace of time..and even if you think that you did, look back and perhaps you will find out that time was interrupted in that exact same place before..
time is a bastard, a whore, a witch, elusive and concrete..cannot be owned, cannot be interrupted
it just flows and takes you with them