Background image: Kira O’Reilly, WAKE, 2017. Photo by Luke Jones.
]ps[ Collaborates
Guest curating, hosting & partnership.
Rocio Boliver. Promotional image courtesy of the artist for Decrupting Performance Art 2022
recent
︎︎︎ invited guests: Pretty Doomed at Ugly Duck 2023
A co-production between Queer Art Projects and Ugly Duck, inviting ]ps[ to exhibited live & documented work, and participatein the symposium, ‘How Do We Archive Performance Art?’.
︎︎︎ guest curating: Intersect: Kelvin Atmadibrata + in conversation with selina bonelli 2023
A co-production between the Live Art Developement Agency & ]ps[ for L.A.D.A’s Intersect Series at The Garret Centre in Bethnal Green.
︎︎︎ guest curating: Intersect: SERAFINE1369 & Daniella Valz Gen: an oracular sharing 2023
A co-production between the Live Art Developement Agency & ]ps[ for L.A.D.A’s Intersect Series at The Garret Centre in Bethnal Green.
︎︎︎ seminar: Rocio Boliver - Decrypting Performance Art 2022
A one day seminar convened by the legendary performance artist Rocío Boliver reflecting on themes of pain, excretions, sex, old-age & politics. Sunday 9th October, VSSL studio, London.
︎︎︎ workshop: FUTURERITUAL - Mythic Time, September 2021
This residential workshop, hosted by VestAndPage and Joseph Morgan Schofield, explores the (re-)invention of spiritual practices, the sacred, rites and rituals through performance art.
︎︎︎ ]open s p a c e[: Eleanor Dalzell Jenyns and kate stonestreet, May 2021
Eleanor Dalzell Jenyns and kate stonestreet are recipients of ]open s p a c e[ and will undertake a shared residency towards the realisation of their project collective attentions, anarchist actions.
︎︎︎ screening: Ekdysis II - Niya B 2021
Ekdysis is an ongoing project, which is displayed through live actions, moving image and installations. In this iteration, Ekdysis manifests as a single-channel video following an autoethnographic journey in the land that holds the mythological events of metamorphosis.
Coming Up:
]ps[ is in a development phase.
Continuing throughout 2024 we will be maintaing an administraive home out of VSSL Stuido in Deptford, while nurturing longstanding relationships - and development new ones - that support our current mobile organistaion structure.
︎︎︎ full statement on organisational developments
In the meantime, check out documentation of our most recent curatiorial projects:
︎︎︎ 2022 - Tiding
Continuing throughout 2024 we will be maintaing an administraive home out of VSSL Stuido in Deptford, while nurturing longstanding relationships - and development new ones - that support our current mobile organistaion structure.
︎︎︎ full statement on organisational developments
In the meantime, check out documentation of our most recent curatiorial projects:
︎︎︎ 2023 - Pretty Doomed at Ugly Duck
︎︎︎ 2023 - Intersect Series: Kelvin Atmadibrata + in conversation with selina bonelli
︎︎︎ 2023 - Intersect Series: An oracular practice sharing by SERAFINE1369 and Daniella Valz Gen
︎︎︎ 2022 - RocíoBoliver: Decrypting Performance Art
︎︎︎ 2022 - Tiding
︎︎︎ 2021 - PSX: A Decade of Performace Art in the U.K.
online
Our online offerings are currently closed, although we invite you to look back through documentation of our most recent programme: PSX: a decade of performance art in the UK.
Image: Ash McNaughton, Salvage, 2019. Photo by Manuel Vason.
Image: Ash McNaughton, Salvage, 2019. Photo by Manuel Vason.
Writings
]ps[ has always worked to foster critical and poetic contexts for performance art and its’ documents. We are in the process of publishing catalogues for the programmmes; PAUSE & AFFECT (2018), SALVAGE (2019) & PSX (2021) - We currently have 23 essays and 1 publication made available online for free + 3 publications available to purchase.
Index
2022: TIDING: Horizonless Hopes by Sara Sassanelli
2022: TIDING: f**gt by Madinah Farhannah Thompson
2022: TIDING: and still I by Madinah Farhannah Thompson
2022: TIDING: A Tiding from Lynn Lu by selina bonelli
2022: TIDING: A Tiding with Kelvin Atmadibrata between Ivalice and St Eanswythe
-
2021: PSX: 10 hours // words of witnessing by Lateisha Davine Lovelace-Hanson
2021: PSX: On live anthologies, memory and dreamscapes by Daniella Valz Gen
2021: PSX: by Zack Mennell
-
2019: SALVAGE: against wet memorie by Francesca Lisette
2019: SALVAGE: The Entity of Water by Rubiane Maia ( + Portuguese original)
2019: SALVAGE: Vaida Tamoševičiūtė - Reflection by Joseph Morgan Schofield
2019: SALVAGE: Clēofan by Joseph Morgan Schofield
2019: SALVAGE: Chinasa Vivian Ezugha - Reflection by Lubna Gem Arielle
2019: SALVAGE: A spiral dance around the dead by Daniella Valz Gen
2019: SALVAGE: text in response to Alicia Radage - Bitter Seize by Helen Davison
2019: SALVAGE: selina bonelli - reflections by Helen Davison
-
2019: (re)collecting (f)ears: selina bonelli
-
2018: PAUSE & AFFECT: A Pyramid in the Wildnerness by Lewis Church
2018: PAUSE & AFFECT: Keioui Keijuan Thomas - Reflection by Lewis Church
2018: PAUSE & AFFECT: Ria Hartley & Máiréad Delaney - Reflections by Ash McNaughton
2018: PAUSE & AFFECT: Holding: America’s Golden Boy by Madeline Hodge
2018: PAUSE & AFFECT: Rubiane Maia: Finding ground by Madeline Hodge
2018: PAUSE & AFFECT: reflecting, remembering, imagining by Ang Bartram
-
2017: WAKE: (States 0f) Wake - Ed. by Diana Damian Martin
-
2016: DRAWN: Drawn - Reflection by Charlotte Wendy Law
-
2014/15: PERFORMANCE ART FACTION: P.A.F. Box Set + Digital P.A.F. Box Set - Ed. Bean, Daniella Valz Gen & Benjamin Sebastian
-
2012: ALIENS IN NEW YORK: a letter to Poppy (Miracle) Jackson (on the occasion of Aliens in New York) by Benjamin Sebastian
Madinah Farhannah Thompson
f**gt
This text is a response to I’d rather be a fag than your bird, Léann Herlihy’s performance at TIDING (April 2022).
TIDING was a day of performance hosted by ]ps[ at two historic sites of worship in Folkestone and Romney Marsh. ]ps[ invited three writers - Madinah Farhannah Thompson, selina bonelli and Sara Sassanelli - to respond to the six works presented at TIDING.
︎︎︎ about TIDING
Léann Herlihy. Photo by Manuel VasonYou build a platform of deep red church cushions
Carefully checking the alignment as you go
it's a love letter.
the red for me
the blue for you.
make yourself a platform
A soft place to land
or lounge
recline.
regal.
The build.
(create)
(make)
It's 18:32
They say "I'd rather be a f*g than be your bird"
And I ponder the etymology of that word f**got
bundle (a bundle of sticks)
f**got soldier (a dummy soldier)
f**got women (a women who picks up sticks)
f*g
and spit is not my reaction but something more moist loving.
It's 18:32
We're building something here for you and me
A platform to recline on
regal.
I'm looking at you
thinking that your recline is arresting
Could this be a love letter?
(Léann slowly builds a platform of deep red church cushions
Carefully checking their alignment as they go
Travelling along nicely as the platform grows)
Carefully checking the alignment as you go
it's a love letter.
the red for me
the blue for you.
make yourself a platform
A soft place to land
or lounge
recline.
regal.
The build.
(create)
(make)
It's 18:32
They say "I'd rather be a f*g than be your bird"
And I ponder the etymology of that word f**got
bundle (a bundle of sticks)
f**got soldier (a dummy soldier)
f**got women (a women who picks up sticks)
f*g
and spit is not my reaction but something more moist loving.
It's 18:32
We're building something here for you and me
A platform to recline on
regal.
I'm looking at you
thinking that your recline is arresting
Could this be a love letter?
(Léann slowly builds a platform of deep red church cushions
Carefully checking their alignment as they go
Travelling along nicely as the platform grows)
selina bonelli
A Tiding from Lynn Lu
This text is a response to The Impossibility of Return,Lynn Lu’s performance at TIDING (April 2022).
TIDING was a day of performance hosted by ]ps[ at two historic sites of worship in Folkestone and Romney Marsh. ]ps[ invited three writers - Madinah Farhannah Thompson, selina bonelli and Sara Sassanelli - to respond to the six works presented at TIDING.
︎︎︎ about TIDING
Lynn Lu photogrpahed by Manuel Vason.
held in crumpled newsprint,
i am led to an enclave at the side of the church overlooking the field - bright unfiltered light locks onto glittered greens, blissfully unaware of the phantasms that inhabit the broken cracks of these cherished objects.
(yet these are the fissures that open the space for you to come closer.)
The crack is a trace that haunts the fixed stares of absent ghosts: their spectres glow with crooked flattened halos, some dusted in gold, one dusted with brass.
(was this break too deep, too long, too much?)
Unable to be mended back to its original function, its brass tipped edges are not food-safe. The plate, irreconcilable, still glows through the crack - stronger for it despite restrictions - still a
plate
becoming,
(fools gold on the river bed shines papa’ - but as your memory fades I can only hope your ghost will meet the fissures and sulci that fracture your negation of my existence.)
“When utilitarian things become 100 years old, they take a geistan and start playing tricks on people” -Tsukomo-Gami Emaki ª
In the mid sixteenth century Japanese household phantoms began ‘stalking the streets’ and, according folklore, these Tsukumogami, or tools that have acquired a spirit, become self aware, a yōkai - an attractive calamity.
This idea that they acquire a spiritual nature when they become old and thus an agency to change, to haunt, to grieve and take up action against those who threw them away carelessly, also poses questions about the type of spirits that can emerge when, instead of violence, they have been held, mended and carried close to a persons’ heart.
Is the nature of the ghost released relational to the the way the object was treated?
Can they also become our lovers, that together through a collective dreaming of entwined bodies and uninhibited desiring reach beyond the boundaries of our imposed liminal norms?
Will we allow ourselves to be held by phantom limbs and pressed hollow chests?
was it a fall or a throw that hurt the most?
or, when you were laid to rest forgotten, invisible, of no use,
that the smallness of the dark cupboard engulfed your breath and voices whimpered like winded echoes through the phantasm you have become?
will the metal hold (y)our breaks the way we wish we could mend ourselves?
As these objects come to life, with healed gaps of a century of passing, with marks of use, need and feeling through actions and placements - where do their meanings accumulate and how does their haunting penetrate the layers of indifference and consumption that we are accustomed to?
In this stone church, where are the Ichiren-bozu (animated prayer beads) hiding?
Perhaps the Kyōrinrin (possessed scrolls) enshroud the book of stories that we were asked to write in, giving context to the objects we presented for mending.
Yet i wonder if the Menreiki, a spiritual creature formed out of 66 masks, is kneeling behind us as we sit in pews whose wood has seen more than a century of 九十九神 ninety nine kami .
the church is haunted by the story of death and resurrection. covered. in(your)side. at the grotto -
how deep do your fingers run, will (t)his side split from the digging into the wound for signs of life?
And then, to remend - as an act of re-ending, a re- imagining, leads to a peculiar type of haunting: the inability to go back - to un-block - to cross over into the loyalty of scars that pull at the wound with a tension unprecedented and unfamiliar to the elasticity it replaces.
the break scars my beard as it grows around it, never through,
honouring the hard white fibrin that glows in the clearing,
a scar is formed from complete healing.
Behind me, inside the church, i hear the thuds of a mallet carving out a surface tension of shards that peel back the processed. exposed. flattened. tree.
The knocks harden the blow and the wood cannot go back to the field where it channelled both sand and sky.
you peel onto the floor - and we are floored with you.
The inflexible scar that holds the emergent gap will be fixed through the brush and dust of the semi-precious metals chosen to replace the fragments lost in the break.
the longing to be seen for the sharp edges that remain, after the event,
after the disaster, after the pain,
is embedded into cells
that re-organise into layered fibrous tissue and defy their original elasticity :
strength gained at the cost of malleability.
An action, an active touch through a place of holding
is interrupted by
the cold breeze pushing open the door:
Ariel pushes past, travelling through shivers of current, shuffling between forgotten
statuettes of venerable final fantasies.
When does our feeling of safety depend on our ability to be distracted?
Will these broken edges scrape the tingling skin spanning the borders between sensation and pain? Can the scrape sense (y)our trepidation and fear?
Are these the phantasms/ghosts of objects held in our hands, between our knees and thighs, ones that caress our perineum - just before we tear?
Eyes open to receive headphones that offer instructions to mending through gold-dusting and polishing:
and yet this neo-violence is violet.
my eyes stare at the flickers of light behind my blindfolded lids.
fluorescent purple and magenta lines form retinal aliases:
an after image of short swirling vertical lines.
she brushes lavender branches in circular sweeps around my head: the smell of turbulence is anticlockwise,
my senses swish with waves of experiential unknowing.
keeping in the circles of histories,
of being,
the prosthetic violet-budded hand points towards that which was lost.
mother mary binds the breast to her chest as her sacred heart turns into the purple suffrage of passing
re-bound again
in a displaced pattern of longing
for what was before the moment of knowing when you were not whom I thought you were
FRAGILE
sits in front
DO NOT
a flesh statue on wood that longs for wheels is heading towards the pews - and then, before the fall, jesus’ stiletto gets caught in the grating.
_________________________________
ª from Ghosts of 99-Year-Old Objects
i am led to an enclave at the side of the church overlooking the field - bright unfiltered light locks onto glittered greens, blissfully unaware of the phantasms that inhabit the broken cracks of these cherished objects.
(yet these are the fissures that open the space for you to come closer.)
The crack is a trace that haunts the fixed stares of absent ghosts: their spectres glow with crooked flattened halos, some dusted in gold, one dusted with brass.
(was this break too deep, too long, too much?)
Unable to be mended back to its original function, its brass tipped edges are not food-safe. The plate, irreconcilable, still glows through the crack - stronger for it despite restrictions - still a
plate
becoming,
(fools gold on the river bed shines papa’ - but as your memory fades I can only hope your ghost will meet the fissures and sulci that fracture your negation of my existence.)
“When utilitarian things become 100 years old, they take a geistan and start playing tricks on people” -Tsukomo-Gami Emaki ª
In the mid sixteenth century Japanese household phantoms began ‘stalking the streets’ and, according folklore, these Tsukumogami, or tools that have acquired a spirit, become self aware, a yōkai - an attractive calamity.
This idea that they acquire a spiritual nature when they become old and thus an agency to change, to haunt, to grieve and take up action against those who threw them away carelessly, also poses questions about the type of spirits that can emerge when, instead of violence, they have been held, mended and carried close to a persons’ heart.
Is the nature of the ghost released relational to the the way the object was treated?
Can they also become our lovers, that together through a collective dreaming of entwined bodies and uninhibited desiring reach beyond the boundaries of our imposed liminal norms?
Will we allow ourselves to be held by phantom limbs and pressed hollow chests?
was it a fall or a throw that hurt the most?
or, when you were laid to rest forgotten, invisible, of no use,
that the smallness of the dark cupboard engulfed your breath and voices whimpered like winded echoes through the phantasm you have become?
will the metal hold (y)our breaks the way we wish we could mend ourselves?
As these objects come to life, with healed gaps of a century of passing, with marks of use, need and feeling through actions and placements - where do their meanings accumulate and how does their haunting penetrate the layers of indifference and consumption that we are accustomed to?
In this stone church, where are the Ichiren-bozu (animated prayer beads) hiding?
Perhaps the Kyōrinrin (possessed scrolls) enshroud the book of stories that we were asked to write in, giving context to the objects we presented for mending.
Yet i wonder if the Menreiki, a spiritual creature formed out of 66 masks, is kneeling behind us as we sit in pews whose wood has seen more than a century of 九十九神 ninety nine kami .
the church is haunted by the story of death and resurrection. covered. in(your)side. at the grotto -
how deep do your fingers run, will (t)his side split from the digging into the wound for signs of life?
And then, to remend - as an act of re-ending, a re- imagining, leads to a peculiar type of haunting: the inability to go back - to un-block - to cross over into the loyalty of scars that pull at the wound with a tension unprecedented and unfamiliar to the elasticity it replaces.
the break scars my beard as it grows around it, never through,
honouring the hard white fibrin that glows in the clearing,
a scar is formed from complete healing.
Behind me, inside the church, i hear the thuds of a mallet carving out a surface tension of shards that peel back the processed. exposed. flattened. tree.
The knocks harden the blow and the wood cannot go back to the field where it channelled both sand and sky.
you peel onto the floor - and we are floored with you.
The inflexible scar that holds the emergent gap will be fixed through the brush and dust of the semi-precious metals chosen to replace the fragments lost in the break.
the longing to be seen for the sharp edges that remain, after the event,
after the disaster, after the pain,
is embedded into cells
that re-organise into layered fibrous tissue and defy their original elasticity :
strength gained at the cost of malleability.
An action, an active touch through a place of holding
is interrupted by
the cold breeze pushing open the door:
Ariel pushes past, travelling through shivers of current, shuffling between forgotten
statuettes of venerable final fantasies.
When does our feeling of safety depend on our ability to be distracted?
Will these broken edges scrape the tingling skin spanning the borders between sensation and pain? Can the scrape sense (y)our trepidation and fear?
Are these the phantasms/ghosts of objects held in our hands, between our knees and thighs, ones that caress our perineum - just before we tear?
Eyes open to receive headphones that offer instructions to mending through gold-dusting and polishing:
and yet this neo-violence is violet.
my eyes stare at the flickers of light behind my blindfolded lids.
fluorescent purple and magenta lines form retinal aliases:
an after image of short swirling vertical lines.
she brushes lavender branches in circular sweeps around my head: the smell of turbulence is anticlockwise,
my senses swish with waves of experiential unknowing.
keeping in the circles of histories,
of being,
the prosthetic violet-budded hand points towards that which was lost.
mother mary binds the breast to her chest as her sacred heart turns into the purple suffrage of passing
re-bound again
in a displaced pattern of longing
for what was before the moment of knowing when you were not whom I thought you were
FRAGILE
sits in front
DO NOT
a flesh statue on wood that longs for wheels is heading towards the pews - and then, before the fall, jesus’ stiletto gets caught in the grating.
_________________________________
ª from Ghosts of 99-Year-Old Objects
selina bonelli
A Tiding with Kelvin Atmadibrata between Ivalice and St Eanswythe
This text is a response to A Knight No More, Kelvin Atmadibrata’s performance at TIDING (April 2022).
TIDING was a day of performance hosted by ]ps[ at two historic sites of worship in Folkestone and Romney Marsh. ]ps[ invited three writers - Madinah Farhannah Thompson, selina bonelli and Sara Sassanelli - to respond to the six works presented at TIDING.
︎︎︎ about TIDING
Kelvin Atmadibrata photographed by Manuel Vason.
Aporisms of un (be)longing tug on the rope on the pew.
Scissors in hand:
open, closed, pointed
with legs uncrossed
you cut a whole in your knees:
a patellar viewing platform
capped to your joint,
on the edge of the scream: does it balance the care that your hands can’t contain?
You look through shins that hold the marks left from praying too hard for the rain to stop:
the blow of silence, no. one. notices.
“Ivalice is the region consisting of the three continents of Valendia, Ordalia, and Kerwon, with verdant natural landscapes and climatic conditions supporting a great variety of life. Regional climate trends are thought to be determined largely by the density of Mist present in the air, though this correlation is as yet not well understood. Many humanoids call Ivalice home, each belonging to a distinct cultural sphere. By far, most prevalent of these are the humes, and it is around the civilization that affairs throughout the rest of the world revolve.” ª
In this space, mist has been condensed into holy water.
Crucifixed gestures are reproduced through crossed actions, bowed foreheads and mute lips. But your hands stop vertically, revealing the blade - of grass.
What level of violence is exchanged between bodies in reverence and bodies in battle?
open flapping wings, skinned feathers,
you look into the pew of stares:
toe tipped, turned into the dark hard wood - your accelerated fixed glare gains distance.
The scissors are placed now between your legs with your hand on your thigh - how do we see you - a warrior unsheathed or one within the vulnerability of faith?
pressed, bare skinned, open mouthed, knees slide along the front of the pew. they balance on the ridged pressure of being on edge,
until, your knees slide apart, together.
you place the grass blade as far as a sound and inhale the silenced folds and sharp edges: a forced s/mother exhales, a wheeze inhales:
this tidal compression is still soundless.
A disassociated sound comes from the phone you placed on the pew: gaming echoes of algorithmic battles fill the space between your actions and our expectant held breath.
These slowed speed groans, and high pitched shrills fill the walls with wailing and I wonder if this strange keening can be heard from the gravestones.
Triggers murmur suggestions of a prehistoric birds warning that there is no frolicking before the imminence of battle.
Your guard is on edge - we can’t see you kneeling.
Your guard is on edge - we can’t feel your quivering throat between your static chords.
Your mask is undone.
Your body is a vibration of what we see: a knight no more.
It contorts to the motion of glitches and screens in this algorithm that has superseded our libinial urges.
as the still tipped blade (breaks) bends, hangs, close eyed,
your breath struggles against the greener sharp edge of lime whose opacity interweaves between your low head and bent back:
a failed battle-horn emerges.
Is it here where pterodactyls hover - exhaling their pierced notes before the flight emerging within your trembling knees?
Again I hear the the sound of creaking wood on tibial planes as you shuffle across the pew.
Reins, reigns,
rains,
of prehistoric feuds are held in the silence of interosseous cuts (you’re still knee- sliding).
with the deaf screams of a bellowing trumpet, your struggle
resurfaces,
and as the blade passes your nose, you shift along the widest length of the dark wood.
as you press it,
between your thumbs,
it shifts into a vertical voiceless flute.
cheek blown - sucked in from trapped air, your head points towards the roofed sky. strained eyes within your crumpled lids ask sightless visions to bear witness.
this silence shouts its thankless alerts.
You are over half way now
past the rope,
Your right leg lifts tapping on the floor:
this dance, this dance, who is it for?
We are silent with your voiceless shout and keyless sound: tap. tap. tap.
Joy sticks echo clicking prayer beads- this gaming takes us into the dark woodlands before the cut pews were made into sitting memorials.
What was it like when they were still formless, unaware of the loss yet to come?
The blade travels with you,
and the blade becomes
a “DISEUSE” :
a disarticulated object pulled apart from speech.
There is no battle cry other than the breath with no vibration.
Your action exposes the “...bared noise, groan, bits torn from words. Since she hesitates to measure the accuracy, she resorts to mimicking gestures with the mouth. The entire lower lip would lift upwards then sink back to its original place. She would then gather both lips and protrude them in a pout taking in the breath that might utter some thing. (One thing. Just one.) But the breath falls away. With a slight tilting of her head backwards, she would gather the strength in her shoulders and reman in this position.” º
I hear your breath
but your tongue is
still pressed into double fists:
the blade sticks,
forward faced you reposition the hollow for a better silent note.
Creaking on one knee
ligaments, this tension cannot be pixellated.
The patella is spared in this struggle not to be heard.
The slow down cannot follow the spell of attack: just like the disconnect between thunder and lightning, the traces of the space widen between your silent larynx and the echoes bouncing off the stone walls of this sombre decorum.
There is no jungle here,
all is dead but the recording
and as you sit,
the marks on your pressed skin and wiped eyes sigh into the corner of the pew.
Punished bruises silence the space between your lips and our gaze.
just under the cold fold of flesh on tibial crests and straight
_____________________________________________ ª https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Ivalice_(Final_Fantasy_XII)
º Theresa Hak Kyung Cha from Dictee
Scissors in hand:
open, closed, pointed
with legs uncrossed
you cut a whole in your knees:
a patellar viewing platform
capped to your joint,
on the edge of the scream: does it balance the care that your hands can’t contain?
You look through shins that hold the marks left from praying too hard for the rain to stop:
the blow of silence, no. one. notices.
“Ivalice is the region consisting of the three continents of Valendia, Ordalia, and Kerwon, with verdant natural landscapes and climatic conditions supporting a great variety of life. Regional climate trends are thought to be determined largely by the density of Mist present in the air, though this correlation is as yet not well understood. Many humanoids call Ivalice home, each belonging to a distinct cultural sphere. By far, most prevalent of these are the humes, and it is around the civilization that affairs throughout the rest of the world revolve.” ª
In this space, mist has been condensed into holy water.
Crucifixed gestures are reproduced through crossed actions, bowed foreheads and mute lips. But your hands stop vertically, revealing the blade - of grass.
What level of violence is exchanged between bodies in reverence and bodies in battle?
open flapping wings, skinned feathers,
you look into the pew of stares:
toe tipped, turned into the dark hard wood - your accelerated fixed glare gains distance.
The scissors are placed now between your legs with your hand on your thigh - how do we see you - a warrior unsheathed or one within the vulnerability of faith?
pressed, bare skinned, open mouthed, knees slide along the front of the pew. they balance on the ridged pressure of being on edge,
until, your knees slide apart, together.
you place the grass blade as far as a sound and inhale the silenced folds and sharp edges: a forced s/mother exhales, a wheeze inhales:
this tidal compression is still soundless.
A disassociated sound comes from the phone you placed on the pew: gaming echoes of algorithmic battles fill the space between your actions and our expectant held breath.
These slowed speed groans, and high pitched shrills fill the walls with wailing and I wonder if this strange keening can be heard from the gravestones.
Triggers murmur suggestions of a prehistoric birds warning that there is no frolicking before the imminence of battle.
Your guard is on edge - we can’t see you kneeling.
Your guard is on edge - we can’t feel your quivering throat between your static chords.
Your mask is undone.
Your body is a vibration of what we see: a knight no more.
It contorts to the motion of glitches and screens in this algorithm that has superseded our libinial urges.
as the still tipped blade (breaks) bends, hangs, close eyed,
your breath struggles against the greener sharp edge of lime whose opacity interweaves between your low head and bent back:
a failed battle-horn emerges.
Is it here where pterodactyls hover - exhaling their pierced notes before the flight emerging within your trembling knees?
Again I hear the the sound of creaking wood on tibial planes as you shuffle across the pew.
Reins, reigns,
rains,
of prehistoric feuds are held in the silence of interosseous cuts (you’re still knee- sliding).
with the deaf screams of a bellowing trumpet, your struggle
resurfaces,
and as the blade passes your nose, you shift along the widest length of the dark wood.
as you press it,
between your thumbs,
it shifts into a vertical voiceless flute.
cheek blown - sucked in from trapped air, your head points towards the roofed sky. strained eyes within your crumpled lids ask sightless visions to bear witness.
this silence shouts its thankless alerts.
You are over half way now
past the rope,
Your right leg lifts tapping on the floor:
this dance, this dance, who is it for?
We are silent with your voiceless shout and keyless sound: tap. tap. tap.
Joy sticks echo clicking prayer beads- this gaming takes us into the dark woodlands before the cut pews were made into sitting memorials.
What was it like when they were still formless, unaware of the loss yet to come?
The blade travels with you,
and the blade becomes
a “DISEUSE” :
a disarticulated object pulled apart from speech.
There is no battle cry other than the breath with no vibration.
Your action exposes the “...bared noise, groan, bits torn from words. Since she hesitates to measure the accuracy, she resorts to mimicking gestures with the mouth. The entire lower lip would lift upwards then sink back to its original place. She would then gather both lips and protrude them in a pout taking in the breath that might utter some thing. (One thing. Just one.) But the breath falls away. With a slight tilting of her head backwards, she would gather the strength in her shoulders and reman in this position.” º
I hear your breath
but your tongue is
still pressed into double fists:
the blade sticks,
forward faced you reposition the hollow for a better silent note.
Creaking on one knee
ligaments, this tension cannot be pixellated.
The patella is spared in this struggle not to be heard.
The slow down cannot follow the spell of attack: just like the disconnect between thunder and lightning, the traces of the space widen between your silent larynx and the echoes bouncing off the stone walls of this sombre decorum.
There is no jungle here,
all is dead but the recording
and as you sit,
the marks on your pressed skin and wiped eyes sigh into the corner of the pew.
Punished bruises silence the space between your lips and our gaze.
just under the cold fold of flesh on tibial crests and straight
_____________________________________________ ª https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Ivalice_(Final_Fantasy_XII)
º Theresa Hak Kyung Cha from Dictee
Madinah Farhannah Thompson
and still i
This text is a response to Likkle More: A Walk, A Plot(ting), James Jordan Johnson’s performance at TIDING (April 2022).
TIDING was a day of performance hosted by ]ps[ at two historic sites of worship in Folkestone and Romney Marsh. ]ps[ invited three writers - Madinah Farhannah Thompson, selina bonelli and Sara Sassanelli - to respond to the six works presented at TIDING.
︎︎︎ about TIDING
Likkle More: A Walk, A Plot(ting), A Land, James Jordan Johnson. Photos by Manuel Vason.I reminisce.
The wind blows from somewhere
And I am elsewhere.
Homelands are home
Wastelands are here.
I chew.
Thinking of coconut husks
thinking on
these husks
Remnants
And those who were left behind
I chew.
Thank you.
(I was offered a gift)
The gift of
The wind blows from somewhere
And I am elsewhere.
Homelands are home
Wastelands are here.
I chew.
Thinking of coconut husks
thinking on
these husks
Remnants
And those who were left behind
I chew.
Thank you.
(I was offered a gift)
The gift of
pimento /pɪˈmɛntəʊ /
▸ noun
(plural pimentos)
1 variant spelling of pimiento.
2 chiefly West Indian another term for allspice. – ORIGIN late 17th century : from Spanish pimiento (see pimiento).
▸ noun
(plural pimentos)
1 variant spelling of pimiento.
2 chiefly West Indian another term for allspice. – ORIGIN late 17th century : from Spanish pimiento (see pimiento).
If you were to chew this for me
Make it ready for me
to consume
(and I am always consuming)
words
knowledge
fresh, clean air
Transported on it to
another place
And in another place this seed was gathered
Hard
Hardened
Travelled
With us
Against us
And now I chew.
chewing and reminiscing
holding onto the pressure
to respond
This, an act of responding
And response
and in a 13th century English church (who am I)
in this place
Always looking.
Around the room
At who is in the room
Wondering.
who I am in this room
and still I chew.
Make it ready for me
to consume
(and I am always consuming)
words
knowledge
fresh, clean air
Transported on it to
another place
And in another place this seed was gathered
Hard
Hardened
Travelled
With us
Against us
And now I chew.
chewing and reminiscing
holding onto the pressure
to respond
This, an act of responding
And response
and in a 13th century English church (who am I)
in this place
Always looking.
Around the room
At who is in the room
Wondering.
who I am in this room
and still I chew.