May Chronicle by Leo Hugendubel and Tara White

| tag: Middelburg

[Koestenbaum, W. (1993): The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire. New York: Poseidon Press, p.173]. COOP study group ~ Curating Positions Voz de Tierra. Middelburg, May 2025

express what nobody, left to its own device, would care to produce.

 

Instructions for a group-echo-loop

 

All audience members stand holding hands in rows. 

One row of people briskly walk to the left, the next to the right.

The direction alternates every other row.

 

[movement diagram by Leo] COOP study group ~ Curating Positions Voz de Tierra. Middelburg, May 2025

Sit for     two hours amidst this maddening cacophony.

              two hours amidst this maddening cacophony. 

                                       this maddening cacophony for two hours.

 

Ensure everyone in the room is physically connected

 

Sit for two hours.

Sit                            amidst.

          two hours for              this maddening cacophony.

                                           this maddening cacophony.

                                amidst this maddening cacophony. 

Sit       two hours.

Sit                            amidst this maddening cacophony. 

Sit.

 

One person with a selfie stick + 360 camera stands in the middle of the room.
The others form a mosh pit.


[Chadwick, Stumpf & Associates, “Sarah Accessory Reach Positions 1&3 T/V,” 1988. From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of the Stumpf Family.] COOP study group ~ Curating Positions Voz de Tierra. Middelburg, May 2025

but I am neither        there nor here

                               here nor there

                               there not here

 

Blow a whistle softly after every sentence.

 

                               I am not from   here.    Yet here      I am.

My mother proclaims I am not from   there. 

 

Now recreate that sound without the whistle.

 

My father proclaims   I am not from  here.

 

The audience pretends they are on an ice rink and you are skating around them.

Pretend the ice rink is tilting to one side, slowly becoming vertical.

 

The person with the selfie stick stands on the mezzanine to serenade the audience.

 

                                                                   Yet here      I am. 

                                                                                     I am I. 

                                              And    here is here.           I am I.

 

Change posture, lay on the floor.

Lay on the floor, build a mountain.

 

The gaze shifts to the ceiling.




                                                                                      I am. 

                                                                       And         I am I. 

We hear foxes shrieking.

Whisper secrets to the fox. 

Share a poem via LED scroller.

 

                                                         Here                      I am. 

                                                                                      I am   here.

 

Find a partner and try to show them a part of their body they are usually unable to see, using a mirror.

 

                                                                       And                   here I am. 

                                                                                      I am I.

                                                                                      I am amidst this maddening cacophony.

                                                                                      I sit here.

                                                                                                 here I am.

                                              not there.



“here I am” is projected around the entire room, illuminating the space

Make a tunnel with your arms, until you've made the longest possible tunnel.

One person from the furthest end must slide through the tunnel on their back.


[Pici pasta inspired by Abarkas] COOP study group ~ Curating Positions Voz de Tierra. Middelburg, May 2025

→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→

→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→

 

Some questions to reflect on whilst enacting the instructions

 

What are the emotions that are felt in the room?

Are we listening to the mountain?

Does the mountain rule us?

Are we guided by the mountain?

But it’s stamped with a flag.

What mountain are we talking about? There is the flag mountain and the fist mountain.

How close are they from one another?

Is the mountain ruled by this flag?

What is on the other side of the mountain? What do the people on the other side see?

What does the mountain see?

How does the mountain feel?

Who is allowed on the mountain?

I Prefer a Homosexual Aethestic. COOP study group ~ Curating Positions Voz de Tierra. Middelburg, May 2025

[Aliaskar Abarkas, Musical Talisman #001, screen print on paper, 2024.  Courtesy the artist and LOCALES.] COOP study group ~ Curating Positions Voz de Tierra. Middelburg, May 2025




References

Koestenbaum, Wayne (1993): The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire. New York: Poseidon Press.

Rose, Sopie: The Snag in the Voice, in e-flux, issue 149,11/2024, https://www.e-flux.com/journal/149/639201/the-snag-in-the-voice/ .

Abbarkas, Aliaskar: Whistling choir, in nero 07/2024, https://www.neroeditions.com/whistling-choir/ .