A little Portuguese appears, which is uncommon. My mother language is usually present, but hidden behind the dated black-out poetry, where I write short diary entries about the day.
All notebooks are in English because it is the language the research is to be shared.
register of the development of a scene for the stage side of "walks in an absent city". I never performed it.
A performance that never happened. After I decided on all the details, I realized I had already investigated what I needed and performing it was unnecessary.
Charcoal seemed like a material that would hold the potention for absence.
I was very wrong about it not wanting to stay.
After a lot of cutting out, removing and glueing little pieces of paper somewhere else, I start to investigate erasing.
Notes and thoughts during the documentation course and a beautiful quote from Savas Boyraz, who was in the room.
Lost in the middle of this page a first concern with how to leave a gap open. Later I would understand that "gap" was not the word I needed.
Throughout the notebooks the writing and re-writing, editing and re-editing of this text can be seen.
Still using "gap", still not the word I mean.
First idea for the staging of "Romeo and Juliet without Romeo and Juliet"
Erasing was very intriguing. Is something that was erased absent? I investigated this by erasing a drawing I made. But not yet.
On the right page,an attempt to understand what was happening to the files of the guidebooks as they were printed.
Notebooking
At the very beginning of the project
I decided
I needed to find a place
for the research to happen
I bought a cheap notebook
black cover
cheap paper
ink, paint and paints bleed through it
It’s important that it’s cheap
because
it's important to not be precious about it
The notebooks are the place the research happen
(later the studio would also be that place)
Everything that happens happens there.
But what also happens
in this intense
daily
documentation practice
is that
very often
the most important thing
is not
documented
Maybe because on the day it first happened
it didn’t seem important enough
that came later
Absences appearing
as a documented archive is being created
The notebooks are also the place
that holds the unplanned absences
contained in them.
*Of all the notebook pages this is the only one that doesn't feel like something I wrote. I must have done it, but I don't remember, I don't recognize and the handwriting doesn't look like mine.
Blacking-out
I bring black-out poetry with me when I arrive in 2021
It was a way of arriving in the studio
of telling myself I had arrived there
“I will do this
and after I do this
artistic work starts”
I learned how to do it
after seeing a picture of it
It became part of my practice
A warm-up
A starting ritual
I cut up any leftover printed text I have
Things I wrote
Things written by other people
Chopped into small pieces
Text blacked out
Writing new text
But it’s not text
Not yet
It’s just a way to start.
Later
in Paris
when I find myself in a city that isn’t there
I black out a guidebook
Trying to remove any trace of a city I can’t touch
or walk in
using black-out poetry I try to find a new place in the absence of the city
I black out all specific details of the city where I am
and I try to walk a path without any markers
But what is hidden is not absent
and I am told the blacked out guides
look like
redacted documents
I try other things
I paint the whole page instead of blacking out lines
I white-out
and
finally
I start cutting out
while I continue to black out
at the same time
the little pieces of paper painted black
that I use to hide diary entries in my notebooks change
they start to become text
texts that speak about the things I am interested in
I use it to write texts
that talk about the things behind the paint
I use it in my first attempts to remove Romeo and Juliet from their play
that brings an issue
what is hidden is not absent
How do you remove something?
How do you create an absence?
I sit down with the play
A pdf in my computer
I turn the highlighter black
and use it to black out all the lines
said by Romeo and Juliet
but they are not absent
the computer can still find them
they are not gone
only hidden
I start cutting them out
and taking them somewhere else
Cutting out
I start cutting out when I am writing the walks
of "walks in an absent city"
I remove the text
black out
white out
and finally cut out
I want to write a text that feels like a walk
I want the reader
the walker
to be able to see what is in their future
Just like we can glimpse a tower
or a mountain
as we walk towards it
I know there is a word I like 3 pages from now
from where I am in the text
I cut a hole in the page
to allow you to see it
I save what I cut out
hopping it can become a new text
It does
On the back of the page
upside down
“you walk
you come back”.
