Le Lapin

First a question, and then sharing a short email (I asked permission first). Then requesting a donation (if you enjoyed anything you found on Le Lapin), and sharing with your friends. Anything and all is appreciated, even nothing, but something is usually better than total abyss.

The question is: would you like to know the personal stories behind the artworks? Several people have asked me to tell the story of how I made each artwork. The request feels immense to me because I feel like I shared too much already…however, the request continues and maybe if I shared the personal story telling aspect, it might help? Maybe? I would like to hear from you.

A letter that gave me pause and some sense to keep going even amidst the feeling of futility. Thank you Brainard.

Dear Mari,

Thank you for sharing your work, I listened to poems of yours and loved them, feels like a prayer to the earth in someway, at least that’s how it felt to me.

Best,

Brainard Carey

he/him/his

https://about.me/brainard_carey

Sorry I couldn’t figure out how to remove the Share button 3x…so bear with this imperfection if you can stand it.

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Click this text to view the video with translations in Italian on YouTube

Read about this work at: https://mariamman.net/memoria-technica/

Send a note to view the work in person at Luca Pasquarella Exclusvie Technologies.

Luca Pasquarella Exclusive Technologies.

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Having landed in Campania Felix, I begin to recover my life and work. Combined with support of my Italian ancestry, friends near and far, and my artistic research with Aesthetic Resonances involving Geological Empathy and Sublime Rheology; I shared an introduction to these ideas on air with Storytime Radio Canale Italia. My speaking goals are going to take awhile to reach, so I invite you to view my work and writing at https://mariamman.net/ Connect with me on WhatsApp or Email to collaborate. I look forward to welcome you someday soon to my studio in the south. Until then <3

The text in the following audio is below in Italian and English:

💠 1. Mari, il tuo percorso unisce arte, filosofia ed esplorazione interiore: come si è formata la tua visione creativa e quali esperienze ne hanno influenzato l’evoluzione?

È una domanda profonda, a cui è difficile rispondere. In parole povere, mi sono sempre occupato di comprendere la natura e di come l’umanità, con tutti i suoi comfort e orrori, sia arrivata a questo punto della storia solo lottando per gli stessi problemi secolo dopo secolo. Domande esistenziali e filosofiche come: perché c’è ancora così tanta sofferenza e perché siamo tutti incoraggiati a essere così soddisfatti di noi stessi?

Ciò a cui le persone si riferiscono come “natura” è spesso inteso come l’ambiente non mitigato dall’uomo. In realtà, qualunque cosa sia la natura, è qualcosa che fa parte e che funziona insieme all’implacabile invenzione umana. E in questo modo, la natura ha una struttura, ma una struttura costruita per supportare la maggior quantità di vita, il che è molto diverso dal controllo.

💠 2. Il tuo lavoro esplora i temi della sinestesia, della memoria e della percezione del colore: come traduci queste dimensioni sensoriali nei diversi linguaggi artistici che utilizzi?

mia convinzione che tutti siano nati con la sinestesia e che questa ci sia stata tolta, vera o falsa che sia, mi ha portato a comprendere il valore di coltivare l’alfabetizzazione visiva, ad aprire un interesse per il pensiero critico sui risultati delle idee.

Il colore, il suono e la maggior parte dei sensi umani dipendono fortemente dalla fisiologia, dalle tolleranze culturali e dal regno dell’immaginario. Il mio lavoro offre l’opportunità di liberarsi dalla cromofobia, ovvero la paura del colore, invitando al contempo a uno spazio di pace per contemplare non solo i nostri mondi interiori ed esteriori, ma anche i modi in cui gli strati della nostra realtà si fondono.

I pesi climatici, emotivi e mentali che l’umanità sta attraversando sono osservabili sia dai grandi guadagni che dalle perdite di grande valore. La grave perdita di professioni, libertà e gli effetti incessanti della tecnologia alimentano i transiti da una forma di dipendenza all’altra.

L’arte è uno strumento per creare un modo per contrastare l’ascesa della violenza silenziosa e per incoraggiare qualcosa che persiste nonostante le convinzioni o la mente.

💠 3. Hai lavorato e studiato in molte parti del mondo. In che modo le diverse culture hanno influenzato la tua poetica e la tua comprensione dell’arte come linguaggio universale?

In ogni parte del mondo, l’arte viene troppo spesso usata impropriamente per segnalare una classe sociale. Invece, l’arte è meglio utilizzata per migliorare il pensiero critico e la connessione. Mentre gli effetti performativi dell’arte in diverse culture stimolano la consapevolezza e i ricordi inconsci, l’arte presenta una sorta di richiesta di attenzione, non molto diversa dalla partecipazione a funzioni religiose. Quindi la domanda che mi pongo in ogni luogo è: a cosa servono l’arte e la cultura?

C’è sofferenza ovunque io sia stato. Quindi arrivo in ogni luogo, un po’ come un bambino, cercando di notare e apprezzare le sfumature, nonostante alcune tendenze simili in crescita.

La politica dei sistemi fa parte del fare arte, poiché si dà per scontato che essere definita un linguaggio universale dipenda in realtà da moltissimi fattori. Un po’ come i film hanno fatto immaginare alle persone come sono i luoghi e le persone in culture diverse, finisce per ricapitolare e l’immaginazione, l’arte nell’era di Internet tende a creare nuove allucinazioni.

Ora che ci viene chiesto a tutti cosa stia realmente accadendo, credo che la richiesta all’arte di aiutare l’umanità sia aumentata, che lo faccia davvero o meno, ed è forse per questo che spesso sembra profondamente precaria.

In realtà devo dire che qui c’è più umanità. Sono solo le persone. E con qui intendo ogni posto in cui vivi in ​​Italia.

💠 4. I tuoi lavori recenti includono poesia, fotografia e ricerca sul mito femminile dell’acqua. Qual è il collegamento tra questi elementi e la tua attuale identità artistica?

Stranamente, Mari Amman è una misteriosa divinità indù dell’acqua, della fertilità, che può guarire le malattie. Pur non avendo poteri speciali, trovo che le coincidenze siano uno degli aspetti più confortanti della vita. Si dice anche che Mari sia stata citata come un luogo della Mesopotamia sumera, Tell Hariri.

La mia comprensione dell’Identità è che si tratti di un costrutto basato su realtà fisiche e ricordi immaginari. Quindi una persona, o nel caso del modo in cui la società odierna guarda al mito di un artista, è soggetta al potenziale della memoria pubblica come un aggregato di opere d’arte contrassegnate da un nome; quindi un’Identità in vita è una sorta di tentativo di performance della memoria, ripetuta e quindi subordinata a informazioni ricercabili.

L’idea che l’acqua o la natura siano in qualche modo femminili preclude qualsiasi realtà vissuta, poiché la natura sulla Terra esiste a prescindere dai concetti. Le storie ripetute possono fingere di essere vere, ma l’acqua si presenta in molte forme e densità e quindi è in qualche modo sempre soggetta alla mente e alla volontà umana, finché esistiamo.

Le storie su luoghi ed entità, reali o immaginarie, sono rilevanti per gli effetti traumatici dell’idealismo tecnologico. Le conseguenze della vita a partire dall’integrazione di Internet hanno creato inutili camere di risonanza che rafforzano le idee sul cambiamento del nostro rapporto con la natura – un cambiamento che non arriva mai – una sorta di apocalisse perpetua con opposizioni forzate che si rafforzano a vicenda. Questo cambiamento nello stesso, perpetua sia verità che miti, disconnettendo contesti, soggetti e oggetti, con il risultato di condizioni di confusione in perenne mutamento.

💠 5. Guardando ai progetti futuri, quali direzioni desideri esplorare attraverso il tuo lavoro e in che modo l’arte può contribuire a creare consapevolezza e connessioni autentiche tra le persone?

Oltre dieci anni di ricerca e sviluppo sono stati dedicati ai concetti di Empatia Geologica e Reologia Sublime per dare priorità alla comprensione. Nel modo in cui le impressioni visive e sonore emergono dall’ineffabile, la metafora geologica del cambiamento lento nel tempo attraverso una moltitudine di forze rispecchia il modo in cui concepisco i concetti come forme malleabili e ricercabili.

Dopo essermi stancato delle grandi teorie del tutto, ho deciso di orientare la mia pratica concettuale nell’arte verso il mondo dei materiali tattili. Credo che siamo tutti sopraffatti dalla quantità di spazzatura che ingombra internet e il pianeta, creando a sua volta una tentazione apatica verso la malinconia intensificata dal fatto che i sistemi e le intelligenze artificiali ci guidano. Mi sto muovendo in modo più collaborativo e a un ritmo diverso rispetto a prima.

Per approfondire il sentimento e la connessione umana, oltre al modo in cui l’arte funge da mezzo di discussione per riflettere sulla granularità della differenza, i progetti sviluppati attraverso la mia ricerca generale, Risonanze Estetiche, coinvolgono Pozzlana (cemento romano), i Campi Flegrei, la Solfatara. Questi e altri siti servono da riferimento per i residui magnetici e le risonanze registrate nella Terra, continuamente sottoposta a forze note e ignote. La ricerca, sebbene scientif…

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Rose Petal Installation, 2024, Oslo, Norway.

True story warning: if the anecdote of personal experience isn’t your favorite way of relating you will find your pupils at the back of your head here. If the strangeness of someone’s lived experience opens the possibility of discovering a detail, interests you, you’re in the right place. Either way, welcome to Le Lapin, share your thoughts, toss some coins in the technocratic version of a street performers coffin, cough cough ahem, Stripe, account. All feedback whether kind is fine and perhaps better than the annihilating non-echoic chamber of isolated thought. And if this internet vessel is really working as it’s claimed to be recovering every keystroke, then all can be transmuted in time whether machine or mankind.

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While art doesn’t really have to offer an explanation to be so, here goes: I offered dried flower petals and documented their drifting outward from Aker Brygge in spring, as a sort of closure ritual to their blossoming. This action followed nearly 6 or 7 years after offering red roses to the Akerselva, as imagined in Incarner des Roses.

Some time after offering the white rose petals, I walked a normal route to Bygdøy Sjøbad to find roses driven into the sand along the shoreline. The tilting of the world feeling of wondering if someone or something was watching was always with me in life, and such events, related or unrelated, are but several patterns that have emerged throughout Time.

In a separate story, perhaps better left for another time but woven here: finding a baby doll atop a very deep screw in a stone…that took quite an effort during Easter-time to remove the screw, following the writing of officials and institutions in charge of public safety and the area to take it out...because someone could fall and hurt themselves…I eventually borrowed some pliers from a friend to remove the screw (even though I did not think I could) and celebrated with a swim at HUK after.

By the way, I don’t really believe in rituals, and often wonder if believing or not has anything to do with the seeming obvious fact that they (rituals) do something. Perhaps even if everything we do, does something to us and life we may or may never meet. Sort of like whether or not one believes in a higher power, or various concepts circulated about karma; maybe something exists that has the desire to keep life going.

So what does this all mean? While I don’t think I have any special powers on or over life itself even if I believe there are things about reality that are ineffable and that action made with care and attention or not-actions made with care and attention is still an action performing the ritual or belief of choice that does something to the formation of the future we have no clear picture about but maybe are experienced as deja vu as they pass through our sensory field.

So while I do not give much power to belief itself, it is my suspicion about beliefs and ideas that are continually met by miraculous experiences offered along my path…these things that just seem to occur, whether or not I have asked or prayed for it afford movement through some of the most unmovable experiences. When I pray, miraculous things do seem to increase, but I still cannot reduce such things to reason as that I asked or prayed and received- even if I hold the lack of abundance of meaning/not meaning in my mind at the same time. The evidence of being alive seems to be evidence enough of the inevitability life as art and the art of life living through me is the closest truth to uncover in this story.

These true stories create a strange surreal feeling if one imagines them as related or having significant meaning or outcomes, but can be also experienced as totally unrelated and merely chance. Either way, the encounter of experience remains just as mysterious to me, and so I am concerned by the impetus to choose either way: everything as magic or nothing as magic, no meaning and open meaning.

Further, I am concerned by someone else deciding for another the content of their interpretation, or mind, as evidenced by what I like to called Imagined Sciencing, which is not science at all…because to approach living as science would be to not draw a conclusion but continually test hypothesis.

This has to do with organization of relation to the concept of Nature and the current dominate hierarchy humans have placed themselves in relative to perceivable Nature, which is also related to the unperceived Nature.

For example, the sensitive one I am called to be by those around me felt the quieting of human activity during Covid as a sort of relief. I had personally thought of the word co-vid as meaning co-video or the coronal plane…which is the surface or front part of the body…and looking at the surface or image is not really taking into account the whole body or constitution of the image itself. So as we witnessed the animals coming back to live where was once their territory placed us in a reflective state I had ached for (quite actually) in my body.

The loss of biodiversity, such as laid out as a call for empathy and reevaluation of values in Call of Life, has a relation to the order humans continue to impose and are forcefully plunging ahead on with A.I…which is to claim a form of intelligence is THE intelligence, denying forms of sensitive intelligences that can be cultivated within each of us.

The quieting, as I would like to not name it but refer to the feeling I have long reached for, is a kind of knowing that is related with, but should not rely on the super structures and systems humans are imposing on themselves in a race for God-like status.

This is to look at but not name the difference between The Web That Has No Weaver and a Ideological Global Surveillance State. For it is in our state of wonder and curiosity we can continue to ask and receive answers that are unique to our interrelated way of life that can be more quietly and intrinsically directed instead of forced about as a corrosive loss of trust in the process of life itself.

The joke floating around these days relative to the organization of human behavior and the validation or invalidation of evidence or documentation suggests an imposition of another concept: karma. Karma is one of those fuzzy ideas to me that suggests a human can understand and direct their understanding to a direct outcome. And in this joke floating around: this difference between a theory, a conspiracy theory and a result in reality is supposedly measurable around 6 months.

Sages of the past might say Karma is just a fact of life, and humanity is waking up to realize the power of the mind. I question what we think we know Karma is or is not. For who says we are reaping what we have collectively sown? and how much does that chorus end up making itself true or not?

I, for one, cannot say anyplace I have experienced to be the same as the other, but have witnessed the similarizing of summarizing through economics. And that if this pattern of reducing and aiming to point canons of thought is true…then are humans really interested in inviting a globalist communism to being? As if we did not witness from history the bloodiest of harms done by collective thought? And if that kind of Karma is a thing, then perhaps we can look to the Nature again, as a force of energy movements inward and that self immolation actions are absolutely dangerous and plausible: albeit natural. Such as in Tabes…the digital arrangement of analogue images was not made to be illustrative, but at this time serves so:

This image was made during a time my body began to waste away. No one knows for sure why, but after several years…

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Think for yourself. Be careful around people who say you think too much. They may want to think for you.

External advice can confuse your internal compass in a similar way magnets on either side of the compass can make the dial spin around. To recenter in stillness and go where you want to go, doing what you want to do: find out what matters most to you by thinking about your perfect day alone.

There is no perfect person out there for you. You may see a projection of your desire on a person (this is sometimes called rose tinted glasses). Instead of trying to fill a role, which will make your partner feel confined or trapped, find out who they are by smelling them.

Body chemistry changes with age. Someone who does not smell good to you (unparfumed) is likely a bad biological match. Do not force yourself to be with someone that smells bad to you when they sweat no matter how funny, beautiful, charming, or otherwise perfect for you they seem. They can be a great friend. If you doubt the biological match, get a blood test. Rh factors weigh in significantly during pregnancy. Using the whole brain-body system when considering your 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 year plans.

Be careful of people who claim to have everything in common with you. They may have studied your posts on the Internet and want to seem like the perfect person for you. This does not mean to be paranoid. The odds of there being someone out there who likes the things you do is statistically quite high considering the population of people on the planet.

Everyone knows lust is not love. Lust and love can coexist. The number of times you are intimate does not mean anything when it comes to love. Love is, and doesn’t go away no matter what you or the other person does.

Love forgives, but may hurt your ego sometimes. Sometimes people who love someone hurt the person they say they love. That is because they forgot their heart and went someplace else in their memory, mind, or projection.

Sorting out things is not always hard but requires listening. No one can make anyone listen, see, feel, think any particular way without your permission. Certain people are easier manipulated than others. Knowing this about yourself, you can feel inside when you are out of internal congruence, over time.

For various reasons in the moment, the gut reaction is sometimes but not always correct. Since the body is totally connected within and without, trusting your gut instinct alone can also lead to trouble.

People behave out of character, more often than not, because they are seeking something outside of themselves they already have within, and forgot.

Many unconscious behaviors become conscious over time.

Giving people time is not the same thing as forgiving inexcusable behavior.

Inexcusable behavior is probably documented somewhere within your state or governing body.

Heartbreak can be deadly. If you survive it, then you can love again. Pain is not the end. Pain is an opportunity for learning. Pain should not be prolonged nor band-aided. Pain needs proper attention and care for successful healing.

We live in a time where violence is not permitted unless you are the government. Remember this when dating. You may or may not be eligible for certain types of employment if you date someone who works within the military or government.

No one can tell you how long to date before making a decision. Decisions do not have to be forever. People break promises, contracts, items all the time. The only thing that makes forever happen is a continual decision to commit to individual and shared growth.

If your growing is hindered, you might start to look like a tree at Versailles. It’s not a bad thing. Know that class governed by formality has codes for where you can let yourself be wild.

Everyone is wild inside still. We are part of the animal kingdom and can choose to behave with our executive functions alongside our sense of humanity. One or the other, wihtout the other will turn you into a sort of robot or some kind of avant-garde expressionist. Along the spectrum, you can paint yourself, the world, whatever you want-but at the end of the day, we are all naked, human, bones.

The truth doesn’t always set you free, but it will set you on your path. The question is are you afraid or loving of the unknown?

Fear tends to create violence. Therefore Love is what we all know is required for creating. And since Love is imagined to be not enough, though we live in times of plenty, if you think back to that day alone, to the air you can breath, the water you can drink, is there anything other than Love that exists within peace?

Feel free to share your thoughts, add to the list, share with your friends. And remember, this is not medical advice. Keep in mind, images are copyrighted. If you like the images, then think about offering some kind of support for keeping this entertaining apparatus alive?

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As weathered skins grow paper thin

the weight foreshadowed

could only be for night

To hide shocked currents of contrition

Flowing from eyes drowned

By deep wells bent into bones

The sea waves salted command:

lay loss, within the land

And so the story

Of rocks stilled by souls

Grow to become faces

Forming wind whispers

By those, stranded

From a birthright to love

Too many attempt to feign

Or resign to living without

Opening up to knowing

The land offers her arms

When cold, or hard hands

Remain absent

In the violence of man

Without end to the depths

of conceit or contempt

The land

Offers a place

To break free a space again

To face the heavens and see

Our bodies remain floating

Dropped arms upon land or sea

Allows the heart to be.

* Mari Amman, 2022

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The idea that art is an elitist activity is a commonplace attitude. I’m not sure which is more dangerous, the idea or the attitude. Attitudes seem to change with greater ease than ideas, so perhaps the construct of the idea can be the culprit to the follied results of making art for a special class. Of course, I can be easily dead-wrong, as I have been on the premise that anyone could make art. Yes, everyone can create things - the differences are the varying degrees of mind, skill, and care. This requires a sort of brutal honesty found more readily in particular settings. Though the once gated doors are more open to the ofte-selfie duck face making public documenting their proof of "being there,” the deeper matter of this idealolgical claim can be proportedly a stew of time, attention, and willingness to engage.

I have always thought art was and remains for everybody because of a separate idea that even if someone does not understand something immediately, whatever is to be understood goes to work in the background of the mind open to learn. Imperative to not read/take/digest things as an imperative, and instead remain reflexive, not static.

Looking at art, in particular, has always given me a tremendous feeling of love, engagement and understanding of various perspectives on every aspect of life than I found in my culmination of other activities of work, study, and experience. Yes, the notion of nature is often aggrandized in art today. If we can take interest in coming to terms with what understanding nature means in practical terms, then when combined with an openness to learn, forges a pluralistic path of simultaneously indvididualized and collective discernments.

I understand the attitude towards art has become increasingly less engaged— which is not the arts’ fault, but what is permitted to be collectively believed what art is or is for. This is not to narrow the definitions but to face the reality that the time of the Emperor Wearing No Clothes is now. I do not have to wonder if anyone can see how barren things are among the excess, because I hear people from all over the world singing this chorus. I try to get them to meet and know each other with little success.

The one thing I can say to each one is we can be more honest about our thoughts, understandings and misunderstandings of what Art IS and what it is FOR. In today’s conditions, the “I” can be seen as a symbol of an idea: therefore the primary idea growing mold has become the “idendity” of the artist instead of the contents of the artwork itself. This is-ness of who the artist is versus what they are contributing to the spectrum of art making relative to history, I reasoned grew from the steadied abdication of individuals’ acquiesence to systems, in particular now artificially intelligent systems. This is not to poo-poo on A.I., as several people have animated this new system with hilarious and useful results. The thread and needle eye here is: while I (in mind and perhaps as a defense) remain enthusiastic about art being for everyone, this idea can still remain entirely incorrect, and that social behavior performs contingencies with survival, law, and ideological policies that are largely invisible lest the populace be accused of believing in conspiracy theories or magical thinking.

This is where I find the loss of meaning for words “right” or “left” and prefer to find something that is at a core, upright and mobile. The visual expression of that mirrored by the A.I. generations, but these are again outsourcing through systemic layering…sort of like a first pass of writing, instead of going over and over per Nietzche’s notion of eternal return through repetition. This is where the rarity of something original can be found. The idead of more-more-more, or new-new-new, nor necessarily of the ancient or nostalgic, nor technologic, nor this nor that…that makes making art almost nearly impossible. So, I think we all have to be incredibly honest to note there are a great number of attempts at art, but very little art being made. And we all suffer for this, plus the beloved myth of a suffering artist. This societal ideal leaves artists to die and then be appreciated as a means to maintain a status quo. The great myth of the internet opposed this, and so the imaginary conflation between myth, story, and lie simmer together. To not get lost here, the point is to find out, together, what the truth is, but not arrive at it and nod along, but keep things open and flowing too. Why this remains so difficult, could be the rising museum costs? or something as simple as the absense of Visual Literacy or interest in history.

The relation to the imaginary realm within visual art, particular to the device of a film camera captured my attention awhile ago for the way an image makes the perception of our bodied life in space an animation of an invisible space: animated by color, symbols, bodies, forms otherwise known as visual stories. This Visual Literacy, unfolding the films we watch before our eyes. These visions made of dreams, with eyes open, with eyes asleep.

We may believe we “see” with our eyes, yet in the first layer, we know our visible spectrum varies from person to person, from animal to insect. Further, these perceptions of what is objectively there are informed by memories in the body, conscious or below conscious awareness. Accessing what is really there relies on a complicated structure of genetics, attention, stress, and presence. Simatically, each person has likely walked past the keys when they’re sitting in the same place they were, or looking for lost eyeglasses on top of their head.

Giving greater pause to consider reality itself as having several layers, to which I had and still assert, we can grow greater sensitivity toward feeling and seeing at a distance can become deeply overwhelming-as it always already was for me and has only grown increasingly so. Instead of blocking out, I have accepted the curiosity to find out what happens when letting the information go in. A professor called this type of automatic and subconscious behavior: sifting reality. The theory of subjectivity is loosely based on this. The sifter could be the diaphragm muscle relative to the central nervous system. This means, that even if something makes it past the filter of awareness of the body, there is an objective or observable change to the matter itself.

In this way, I came to the hypothesis that the imaginary realm can absolutely alter the physical realm whether a person is aware of it or not. This theory was further evidenced by a brain scan that led me to learn ways the brain can be impacted by traumatic events. While the physical is obvious, the emotional and mental are invisible but result in physical consequences as well. A physical proof with the use of Magnetic Radiation Imaging that invisible things do in fact impact matter.

More recently the concept of Genius loci came to my awarness, which is not quite the same as the zetigiest but surely gave a great deal of philosophical probabilities to test out in futher projects such as Aesthetic Resonances and Pozzolana.

While often located by the word-ideas: Subconscious or Conscious, the imaginary realm is often described as “not real,” or “fantasy.” This attitude, among other difficult to describe expeiences led me to lose faith in my own understanding of reality and allow myself to be subjected to what I learned from a world view in the Scandinavian countries is called violence. Admittedly, I can see now how my mind and body used survival tactics to not confront what I was experiencing because it was too painful. Given the involvement of my heart, the rest of this experience, I made it into art, not only for personal cathartic gain, but to share something that has increased in popular psychology on the internet: the games people play.

Given that I have never reall…

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If we cannot have peace in the world, perhaps love and beauty can save us.

Remember evil is real. To deny or misname evil as human allows anyone to embody it. It allows the distortion of a lie to become animated by the hatred in the heart making blind eyes to beauty.

Through the wetness of crying eyes, the lashes upon our lids become sand beaches aching for the warmth of sun in this persistent eclipse.

People whisper that only when we have nothing left, the value of poetry, music and art will return to our remembering.

Was not the streets littered with waste made from haste, and rightful rage for having been taken advantage of enough to ask deaf ears to hear? Is the denial of the origin of terror as vengeful action a buttress for indignant abdication of the rights humans have had to fight for? The apathetic abusive attitude of karma renders those with the ability to aid, to sit back in avoidance, asking the heaviest task of change upon the each and everyone of us….

As if we did not already feel, I no longer want to rest upon the poverty of hope, but ask each of us to dig deeper into a faith in love. For in love, is where beauty springs forth again.

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What kind of reality do people want to live in? This question surely rests in an increasing number of minds.

Relative to culture production, the advent of new systems permitting or butressing stews of cultural values calls a critique, or at least, an examination of how ideas and visions play out in reality. I should rather call this: Reality Therapy.

Starting from the end, is usually where I like to begin, and work backwards. This is different from brain storming, and allows forms to emerge, to be chiseled and critiqued instead of the liberous ways I had been instructed to try: just make a lot of work or work hard which may or may not be working…the jury really is out on that one.

That kind of process had its virtues and follies: experimentation costs, not only money as well as a lot of time. The Golem-like painted word art popular in our present time has drawn the frequency of production to a still-pool, feeling like a dead-halt to me now, evidenced by the frequency of the Le Lapin publications.

There’s a different kind of work to be done which relies on knowing people- which has revealed in truth even people I thought I knew well after 10 or 12 years, showed the condition of their mind to be absolutely different than I had percepted. This means those near me had to bear the eye-rolling agony of watching a grown woman cry, time after time. The blessing being in a new cultural perspective: it’s human to cry, and it’s good for the body for the eyes to flood when pain is received. The idea that one is more wise and clever for having no emotions seems to invoke a robotic or zombie-like existence about as appealing (to me) as:

First, I had to really sift through a great number of experiences to see how I had done in them, and quite often tolerate behavior that I think is intolerable and find grace and forgiveness, as it’s absolutely proven true that bitter water can sour a heart, evidenced by the dry-eyed Stoic or the shoulder shrug of apathetic indifference.

Experimenting with feeling, which is our most easily bio-hacked system, is what I have dedicated myself to through the feeling of images, then water, then stones, and other materials. Turns out…caring is cool, way cooler than playing cool.

I imagine water as the first closest record (of truth) due to the types of density water exists in various forms, including geological formations. While the impossibility of knowing everything produces irrational and followed actions, evidenced by the collective curiosity of A.I.’s sparkle, the experience of being surrounded by water, gave a physical embodied experience of what is necessary for life - making me realize the source of the anxiety and fear I used to have was based on another idea gifted to me: a man will protect and provide. This is justified and rationalized by the labor a woman has in life: often unpaid. The measure of charity and gratitude for getting to be alive puts males at a difficult intersection with their Y chromosome. The internal genetic structure of humanity showing a transit in form indicates the human is changing, and is this the kind of change we want to see? Or can we adapt new or older ideas based on the evidence we have gained from previous generations' ideas, now?

Grief as an experience in life has often been formed by an idea and certainly by attachment, which I find to be something not to discard but learn to navigate. Other times, expectations, and a few scenarios bewilderment at painful behavior, I received. As a therapist said, and I do believe in active cognitive behavior therapy approaches, even if I have found the direct feedback from friends more solidifying: why did I think it was necessary to tolerate intolerable behavior?

The answer took years to find through a slow examination of my contextual upbringing to reveal the root of ideas, or beliefs, I had previously (unconsciously) held onto -which are what we can call culture…that which is permitted or not permitted. 

This meaning of ‘background’ is that which can be called natural in tolerating the emergence of form (or results in real life/real time). 

In the abstract, which would be a formative expression of relational pigments and forms to see before the eyes, that which is happening within the psyche provides an image that has taken several years to contend with. The tragic (dark) comedy of the story coming to closure spans back 32 years to asking ‘God’ what the purpose of my life was, and the idea at that time, around 8, that came to mind, was: let go. The context of that answer is just as important as the answer, but I won’t go into that story now. 

Ideas and beliefs are what I approach with caution and skepticism now. I am pretty damn tired of the experiments I’ve made as I question where things are going (in the broader context) and where my job and construction of life is headed. Amidst the glorification of the process of heavy artwork and cultural production, which I had rationalized to point directly toward the person creating towards validation for their person-hood and thought process, which was something I had supported them on- I realized I was absolutely wrong. While there is very little new under the sun, there still is the possibility to create something interesting and useful. That’s what keeps me going when I would otherwise quit. Instead of throwing in the towel, I’m going to wash, dry and try again. 

Each day these last years has felt like a trial. And this kind of approach to life has benefited me compared to the gamified approach I find myself interfacing with others in. I have to watch myself closely, even if tempted to play a role cast by others, which is immensely difficult because of my relationship to the concept of Identity.

The truth of finding out what someone is, goes back to the question of essence, the invisible, and doing that inner work to find out. Authenticity, or the real deal, or the real thing…means finding out what one is not. And though I have adapted to several roles, I still do not really know who or what I am, aside from being absolutely sure I am a woman. Then looking around to see reality, it seems like I am a hermetic woman, who has a lot of images, designs, and plans which to work with others to carry out. This is not the reality I had imagined for myself right now (probably relatable, which is the idea here). Each and every single one of us has these imaginations for ourselves and the question of letting go and finding out what we are with or without those imaginations seems to be the very thing running against the brainwashing I subjected myself to with meditation and yoga. 

The cultural stew I found through discussion in various contexts throughout the globe has called me to quite literally to step outside, a lot. Pushing the body and the field of imagination to its limits while witnessing the death and decline around amidst the newly built grey environments in Oslo seems to signal a ship about to depart a port. The same ships that bring with them a lot of garbage.  

This kind of closure is made after a great deal of time learning the way I was allowed myself to be lied to for the promise, which was a fantasy of a man who really took my life for a spin. And I let it happen, even in the face of reality, because it was so close and around me, that the consequence of loving unconditionally was an absolutely horrific choice- a wrong choice that taught me everything I had wanted to learn about the world. 

I had been warned by my family, graduate professors, friends, and therapists, who also encouraged me to go for it though. The cost of my naivety was nearly my life, and so I get to live, then I want others to get to tell their story and share their thoughts and ideas too. Because I know I’m not alone in what …

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe

The Earth Sings to Us, a title by friend and curator, became When The Earth Sings to Us. The Artistic Research is at https://mariamman.net/aesthetic-resonances/

Here we gather, perched

atop the world naming privilege

as badge of honor

for not we be heard

but our ancestors appreciated

for the courage to make risks

to love

and to endure

betrayal and good meanings

gone wrong

we stand here, not only to be strong

but to first question, then long

before sagacity be performed

paying diligence to, the power of contemplation

be had with a geological empathy

and firm tenacity

for the concept of those

never met, the boundary

between excessive and righteous tolerance

an eternal discussion surfacing

as we face hearing

each and an other wholly

for the policing of the mind

we must embrace an open-eyed, fully-bodied truth

the simulation card

embedded in each of our interfaces

must be challenged

by the knowledge

of the subconscious

our bodies receiving

that which our eyes, can be deceiving

a fuller and more cautious

altruistic meaning

has a calling and duty

to drop arms, expressing inconveniently

how our actions can be

complicity enabling, the worst in us all

we walk not with guilt nor shame

but self-reflexivity, knowing there’s no one to blame

for those conjuring an improbable stew

for those trying to define a brave world order

a type of grand theory of everything

through technology this time —

and for this I request

we stand in pause

agape to question such

imaginary cause

for the origin of violence

begins in the mind

by removing the plurality of choice

shall we continue speaking

to concepts of diversity and inclusion

knowing certainty a history of ideals

can perform as delusion?

the fabric of our shared reality

careening

toward a memory we all have beating

a pulse

to be enriched by

the beauty of doubt

and of this hallowed sound

I ask more from

that which is named nothing

so that we

place our ears

upon the ground

to first learn, from this earth

this sublimely beautiful realm

in places marred by char

carved by brutalist blocks

or painted amber lilies

by both golden giggles and wailing howls

resplendence, plenty, cooperative activity

amongst poverty and apathy

the words are empty

unless we find

the way to apply

the imaginary mind

toward a tune, not raping but understanding

our excavating requires veracious care

for all

that is

already here.

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe