first of all :: if havent already donated $5 to the red cross regarding the earthquake in haiti, i would recommend you do so immediately. the survivors need fresh water and medical supplies more than you need that latte.
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moving on to even more personal things.
today is tilted.
as if my eyes werent acting funnily [not funly] enough, i took some photos of my helmet and now my vision is slicing slow diagonals.
has the sun only just risen? its 1034 and i woke up at 9 in almost complete darkness. what day is this? have i been wearing the helmet all this week and only just now removed it.
this piece is a continuation of the migraine and swimmerman themes. inspired by pyramid head and my association of him as the ‘king of pain’ i was encouraged to make my own version of his hedronized self, sans machete, of course. [but maybe next project i'll crochet / knit weapons of sorts? actually i just made that up now but it seems like an interesting continuation]
i love swimmerman’s hands – i really do – but they represented something else entirely. something that had nothing to do with hands. they were the archetype of self inflicted pain – they were the source tearing at the soapy soft waterlogged skin. in making the helmet, i wanted it to have an immediate physical reaction. inside is lined with black [polyester?] and stitched gold thread and silver sequins. the sequins in such close proximity to the fase and eyes reflect light [from the open top] in all directions making it almost impossible to focus at all. one isnt supposed to be sure if what theyre seeing is very close or far away. it is in some ways both, and neither.
the sequins on the outside – a carefully selected and meticulously organized and minimal red green blue act as the grill in which one is supposed to see through. only there is no vision, and very little capability to hear. RGB [for me] is an extremely intense migraine trigger. looking sidelong at data projectors is like a slicing slash of vision, a diagonal glitch of thought processes. my entire brain stops, its like this nanosecond of kryptonite. seeing general idea’s AIDS wallpaper at the joliette museum was a glimpse of hell – the entire room starting vibrating and sliding. just thinking and writing about it pulls on my optic nerve, slowly draining my brain.
in essence, ive attempted at making an apparatus that blocks out the viewer of the wearer’s reaction to the inside. it is a means of escape but once donned, disables the wearer of any solace or ability to communicate. if they cannot properly see what is in front of them, how can they explain it? im not entirely sure if this part is successful in doing so.
but the light still gets in, however alienated we are from it.
regarding the theme of uncertainty – i am uncertain about communication. my ability to perform it properly and interpret what other people are saying [or in my case, not saying at all]. i cannot force people to communicate with me, however necessary it is to my ability to process a dissolving relationship. i spent a lot of energy in trying to understand WHY it happened, and instead received the exact same message several times, and proceeded to be ignored completely. i should have given up long ago, i never should have given up. toggling between these 2 extremes, i just needed to get away from myself. why am i always fighting? why does it always end in surrender?
hiss hiss.
so, wake up. go to sleep.
