livingdatabase

[livingdatabase]

dear audience, 

the following letters will be read aloud during our performance. nico will read  first, then zoe. 

these letters will be accessible on this Tumblr during our piece. if you want/need to intake information visually, please feel free to read along in your own browser as we read aloud. 

- nico + zoe 

___________________________________________________________

dear zoe,

thank you for being in this with me. for sharing yourself with me.

to embark on this journey of friendship with me. 

for holding me and allowing+encouraging me to open and trust. 

I hope it is reciprocal.

letting go has been a constant practice of mine throughout this. (and always is)

sometimes that feels good sometimes it doesn’t. I have no idea what we are making, but I am getting to know you better through each addition to the database. I stare at your drawings and imagine the moments that they were created. I try to listen to each stroke. I like being in conversation with you. I like the lack of polish here. 

I dont exactly know how to share this database with people, I worry that its too slow paced to hold, that we’re unfolding something magical but the constructs of time and performance haven’t made space for us yet. I hope im wrong, but im letting go (again) of any thoughts around this landing, being interesting, being anything.

it is because it is. right?

it is not a product It is not a product It is not a product It is not a product 

to be bought and sold

this has become a mantra as we actively stray from the capitalist commodification of art that I have known and worked within my entire life. this is easier said than done, hence my urge to onto the phrase: it is not a product. 

I am fascinated by the timeline of our process, but I also feel that it is circular, and sometimes all of the data floats around and talks to each other, and sometimes it lies out flat, corresponding to dates in an order. 

I think about how we got here. in my body, it’s a wizard of oz moment, like various happenings swirl around, high above the ground, the gentle tornado makes its way around California, and eventually it spits us both out.

It's not scary, its playful. we are sitting and it’s almost funny the way everything was spinning and now we settle in in stillness/ left to our own devices. left to actually get to know each other for the first time. thats how I see it anyways. we are gifted time and space along the way. 

i have decided to share two videos after this.

the first video was also the very first piece of data on the base. haha

I just wanted to share my early morning with you, the title (good morning zoe) was a default that came about when I forgot to give it a title. It feels accurate.

i’ve shared some other clips of my life with you, some that feel so mundane, so regular. none are finished products. It takes a bit of courage to let those be, to not come back to them. 

The other video im sharing today was made in my mother’s shower in my childhood home in the San Fernando Valley. It was made with the intention to heal. Out of necessity. It is reminiscent of our first video together, but SO different. The denotative, complex implications of a shower stand, but the experience of this video is one of self-nourishment. a process of lighting myself on fire and putting myself out. of working through. and allowing water to work through me, and I emerge, not squeaky clean, but in a new layer of flesh. still warm/raw, but definitely new. 

september totally feels like a beginning to me.

_____________________________________________________

dear nico, 

how do we make something without trying to have it be something, other than what it becomes? such a question engages the inherent presence of unknowability in making. how something emerges as it is listened to - heard. 

we began this database project recently, and it feels important to acknowledge the history of how we got here. Having separated from a third collaborator and our initial plan of action, and having met each other through this third person, we were left with the question of what connects us? of who are we, as nico and zoe.  

where to begin other than in saying hello. 

the archive situates our making in conversation with our daily lives. we wanted to practice depressurizing product, or rather, getting rid of it all together, if such an act is even possible. we wanted to untangle ourselves from capitalist values that we have digested as artists. 

in other words, we wanted to practice listening to our own bodily senses of time. to make at our own collaborative pace. to acknowledge that everything now is different with the turbulence of multiple pandemics going on. such ruptures in the world, in oppressive systems, have potential to open up spaces for imagination. within such spaces of imagination, can we offer ourselves the pleasure of knowing we are exactly where we need to be? can we ourselves the pleasure of stillness? 

because i so often find making to be a relationship with stillness. of course, making is frustrating, hard ,uncertain, and causes me to have some sort of existential question about my purpose in life every day, but even with all of those negotiations, it returns me to a conversation with myself. and such a conversation needs quiet and stillness [ and by quiet i don’t mean a lack of music or sound ]. they need space to be unexpected and unknown. 

the world is big and overwhelming, but this project of archiving and sharing small moments of thought, movement, curiosity, of trying to not worry so much about them being polished or perfect, offers our daily lives stillness and forgiveness. we share the unfinished with one another. share our unfinished selves with one another. yet, the idea of finished implies an end, which implies a segment, which implies a breakage in time, a separation of time from itself. in emphasizing the unfinished, are we not opening ourselves up to fluidity? 

right now, i am in my one bedroom converted garage, in the back of my family’s house. with quarantine and raging fires, i live all my time in this room. i am writing to you from my bed, the puppy snoozing beside me, tomato plants growing outside, their final bursts of red a reminder of what once was. soon to become an echo of itself, soon to die and return. 

i am writing to you from a space of domesticity, which feels like two lives of mine merging. 

against the backdrop of my living space, actions such as waking, sleeping, eating, making, and working catch me unawares with a repetition i know has always existed. it is a different kind of meaning making. these small but luxurious tasks of dailiness ground me to the smallness and gratitude of my life, which returns me to the expansiveness of my body. 

there is an intimacy that comes with being seen unraveled. it has been hard to not overthink, not worry about producing something good enough. but with you, it also feels like growth. making together is our form of friendship building. 

i appreciate all that you share and give. and how you receive my messiness with care. 

i trust that we are finding our language together, and i hope to keep sharing our half thoughts, full thoughts, unedited versions, questions, complications, desires, and labors, for as long as feels good. 

The video that follows is a little study - - of light and color, pacing and time. Editing footage allows for the expansion of something that can at first, be so small. It makes me think of how you wrote to me in a letter: “ … items that are mostly still, until they come alive.” 

i am honored to work with you and learn from you. 

love, 

zoe

[livingdatabase]

dear zoe

i dont have many words

this is inspired by your travel to the past, a look into my body in two very different moments, traveling together

stills from something bigger that i hope u can see one day,

bedroom footage | i return to all of our discussions on this private exploration 

[livingdatabase]

September 17 

Dear Nico, 

your latest video was exciting for me to watch. how was making in the shower for you different/similar to the work we have collaboratively done in that space previously? 

i imagine your dance in the shower + water as a healing breath. i watched after reading your letter, and the video felt like much needed alone time after intensive family engagement. 

this piece feels like what you needed, both to make + to embody. 

thank you for sharing 

- z 

[livingdatabase]

Dear Nico, 

pulled out some older drawings,, playing around with bringing them with me through time 

[livingdatabase]

September 16

Dear Nico, 

some drawings / paintings of late ,, 

[livingdatabase]

September 13 

Hi zoe

thank you so much for your gift of words. I cant promise an answer to all of your questions, at least in the form of words. I had no space for myself last week.I was consumed with family, consumed with the idea that it is so hard to be together these days, a desperation to give them all of me, just in case. The weight of a week. One week. 

i am 

t i r e d.

But as i recharge, I feel the words and parts of those i spent time with this past week, rebuilding me, keeping me safe.

today i have found stillness. Of body, mind (this one is hard for me). I slow down time by looking at

items that are mostly still. Until they come alive.

I cried too | lit myself on fire, found some drama

then i said a prayer,

and put myself out.

[livingdatabase]

September 12

Dear Nico, 

danced in an old bedroom yesterday. 

from my notebook

“

  today i cried for stillness 

to return to the body is also to register how far away i was

i cried because it felt so good 

inherent in drawing is the question of control. how do i make something that is both in and out of control? 

how does power function in my drawings? in my movement? 

what is the opposite of control? 

”

[livingdatabase]

September - 10 

(transcribed from notebook) 

Dear Nico, 

I came into my studio today to draw, only to realize that first, I needed to return to my quiet, my slow, my stillness. my nervous system was all jittery. 

Recently, ive been trying to “produce” work, which, in a sense, increases the distance between the work and I, decreases the intimacy. 

i have these chunks of time when the puppy is asleep, when I can paint, draw, move, clean, tackle my email. within such a structure i have found it hard to welcome a certain spaciousness i am more and more craving, and learning is integral to my practice. 

how can i reframe “i need to make something” ? how do we value that which can not be measured? how do we have a relationship with it? 

i realized last night that i want to play with making big, messy drawings. do away with all of this containment nonsense. 

i wanted to write to you because of the conversations we are having around the ways capitalism has infiltrated our processes of art-making. 

if we were to make a list of what we want to embody, what would it be? 

ideas: 

un-rushing, which is to say, listening to our senses of time 

change 

“making” as a relationship with the world, rather than a product of it 

foundness w/ in lostness 

forgiveness w / of self 

desire [ what are your daily desires? ] 

play/playfulness 

imagination and imagining 

collectivity, togetherness, care

relationship with history, history as present 

loving + caring for nature 

curiosity, questions 

trust

Z 

[livingdatabase]

September - 9 

Dear Nico, 

watch only when your eyes are ready for some dizzying jolts , guess that’s how my body feels these days 

[livingdatabase]

September - 2 

Dear Nico, 

Does September feel like a beginning to you? 

A study, 1.0 

[livingdatabase]

8/26/2020 - this date is an anchor to something that doesn’t exist

nothing in particular

if i were

[livingdatabase]

dear nico, 

if i were to become bird, or water, might the freedom of my movement come from the memory of when i was landlocked? to become wind is to become movement, which is to become always and never still. sitting on the beach, i am with, and only with, the passage of time. the people walking by, dogs playing, waves arriving and leaving, light breaking open, light slipping through - it’s nice to be returned to time, to be with time taking it’s time, which is to say, listening. all a sand-bug knows is this beach. how infinite, how ever-dividing, how endless, if life keeps breaking open. i have been thinking a lot about the past as a present living entity. growing older is the extension of the lifeline of the past (?) 

z 

[livingdatabase]

[livingdatabase]

[livingdatabase]

this is how it feels to exist sometimes

[livingdatabase]

August 18 2020: 

pswd: little inches 

[livingdatabase]

Monday August 17th 

dear Nico, 

i tried writing you a “cohesive” letter but i got overwhelmed with myself. instead, how about a list, of no particular order: 

•the other day i accidentally froze two small cucumbers because the fridge was too cold. 

•it is so hard to write something to you without judging every word of it. especially knowing it will be available for the public to view. even when i set an intention of process, that “process” can so easily become its own form of product. 

•today i painted with water color with just the color blue 

•your video made me feel like i was in the sun. it feels in alignment with our shared intention: an ode, of sorts, to the simplicity + expansiveness of dailiness?

-z