samhljóm

Harmony celebration, Reykjavík, 9 ágúst 2011

a new spirit was found. the west fjords uncovered the silence. the tranquility.
this spirit and i bonded on an incredible level; communicating through speech, through our eyes, through our nerve endings. you understood me, you read me like a book. you were so tenderly open and honest with me.
we caused enough friction to tear a chasm in the film around the world that was holding me back from fully exploring and perceiving. with your presence, your inspiring spirit i was able to tear through that surface and go deeper than ever before. like the depths of the fjord and the height of the mountains i came closer than ever before in reaching both.
one friend lost.
one stranger leaving me to find a new roof.

but despite all the people turning me away, I still love Iceland. I am still in love. nothing can crush this.

and by the light of the moon, which i haven't seen since arriving here 24 june 2011, i walked back to my current bed for the last time ready to embrace the next step on this path. on this beautiful path that i have just started to uncover.

Ísland

(Hrafnseyri, Arnarfjörður vestafjörður, Íslandi)

Ísland, farsældafrón
og hagsælda, hrímhvíta móðir!
Hvar er þín fornaldarfrægð,
frelsið og manndáðin bezt?

Allt er í heiminum hverfult.
og stund þíns fergursta frama
lýsir sem leiftur um nótt
langt fram á horfinni öld.

Landið var fagurt og frítt
og fannhvítir jöklanna tindar,
himinninn heiður og blár
hafið var skínandi bjart.

Þá komu feðurnir frægu
og frjálsræðishetjurnar góðu
austan um hyldýpishaf,
hingað í sælunnar reit.

Reistu sér byggðir og bú
í blómguðu dalanna skauti,
ukust að íþrótt og frægð,
undu svo glaðir við sitt.

Hátt á eldhrauni upp,
þar sem ennþá Öxará rennur
ofan í Almannagjá,
alþingið feðranna stóð.

Þar stóð hann Þorgeir á þingi,
er við trúnni var tekið af lýði.
Þar komu Gissur og Geir,
Gunnar og Héðinn og Njáll.

Þá riðu hetjur um héruð,
og skrautbúin skip fyrir landi
flutu með fríðasta lið,
færandi varinginn heim.

Það er svo bágt að standa í stað,
og mönnunum munar
annaðhvort aftur á bak
ellegar nokkuð á leið.

Hvað er þá orðið okkar starf
í sex hundruð sumur?
Höfum við gengið til góðs
götuna fram eftir veg?

Landið er fagurt og frítt
og fannhvítir jöklanna tindar,
himminninn heiður og blár,
hafið er skínandi bjart.

En á eldhrauni upp,
þar sem ennþá Öxará rennur
ofan í Almannagjá
alþingi horfið á braut.

Nú er hún Snorrabúð stekkur,
og lyngið á Lögbergi helga
blánar af berjum hvert ár
börnum og hröfnum að leik.

Ó, þér nglinga fjöld
og Íslands fullorðnu synir!
Svona er feðranna frægð
fallin í gleymsku og dá!

Íslands hjá Jónas Hallgrímsson.

cemetery

(cemetery, Reykjavík)

Cemeteries in Bohemia are like gardens. The graves are covered with grass and colourful flowers. Modest tombstones are lost in the greenery. *When the sun goes down, the cemetery sparkles with tiny candles. It is as though the dead are dancing at a children's ball. Yes, a children's ball, because the dead are as innocent as children. No matter how brutal life becomes, peace always reigns in the cemetery.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, p. 104

(* but here the sun doesn't go down, for now)

ransaka og skynja

(husið á Isafjörður, vestfjörður, Íslandi, 2011)


Intimate Immensity

... Daydream undoubtedly feeds on all kinds of sights but through a sort of natural inclination, it contemplates grandeur. And this contemplation produces an attitude that is so special, an inner state that is so unlike any other, that the daydream transports the dream outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.

Far from the immensities of sea and land merely through memory, we can recapture, by means of meditation, the resonances of this contemplation of grandeur. But is this really memory? Isn't imagination alone able to enlarge indefinitely the images of immensity? In point of fact, day dreaming from the very first second is an entirely constituted state. We do not see it start, and yet it always starts the same way, that is, it flees the object nearby and right away it is far off, elsewhere, in the space of elsewhere.

When this elsewhere is in natural surroundings, that is, when it is not lodged in the houses of the past, it is immense.

Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, p. 183-4

"Life is an icy palace of language, the breeze of heartbreaking experience passing through it."

Dr. Birna Bjarnadóttir, A Book of Fragments, pg. 71.

"Aesthetics is the most faithless of all
sciences. Anyone who has truly loved it
will in a way become unhappy; while
anyone who has never done so is and
remains a pecus [ox, or blockhead]."

Søren Kierkagaard, Fear and Trembling

“The Swan, a picaresque novel about childhood, breathes the Icelandic landscape from every line. But please: do not read it as an “Icelandic novel”, as an exotic oddity. Gudberger Bergsson is a great European novelist. His art is primarily inspired not by some sociological or historical, still less a geographical, curiosity, but by an existential quest, a real existential insistence, which places his book at the very centre of what could (in my view) be termed the modernity of the novel.”

Milan Kundera, "The Secret of Ages of Life (Guðberger Bergsson: The Swan)" in Encounters, pg. 28

“ ‘Townsfolk,’ she said, 'have no conception of the peace that Mother Nature bestows, and as long as that peace is unfound the spirit must seek to quench its thirst with ephemeral novelties. And what is more natural than that the townsman’s feverish search for pleasure should mold people of an unstable, harebrained character, who think only of their personal appearance and their clothes and find momentary comfort in foolish fashions and other such worthless innovations? The countryman, on the other hand, walks out to the verdant meadows, into an atmosphere clear and pure, and as he breathes it into his lungs some unknown power streams through his limbs, invigorating body and soul. The peace that reigns in nature fills his mind with calm and cheer, the bright green grass under his feet awakens a sense of beauty, almost of reverence. In the fragrance that is borne so sweetly to his nostrils, in the quietude that broods so blissfully round him, there is comfort and rest. The hill-sides, the dingles, the waterfalls and the mountains are all friends of his childhood, and never to be forgotten. They are a grand and inspiring sight, some of our mountains. Few things can have had such a deep and lasting influence on your hearts as their pure, dignified contours. They give us shelter in their valleys and bid us give shelter, too, to those who have neither our size nor our strength. Where,' asked the poetess, 'is there bliss so bountiful as in these tranquil, flowery mountain glades, where the flowers, those angels’ eyes, if I may so express myself, point to heaven and bid us kneel in reverence to the Almighty, to beauty, wisdom and love?'”

Halldór Laxness, Independent People, pgs. 32-3

“It was a work of art, put there by the unnamed master for people to look at, so they would become more spiritual in character. – In fact it was almost an abstract mountainside.”

Þórberger Þorðarson, Í suðarsveit pg. 163

Ísland í fjórum dögum!

Ég er að fara í ísland í fjórum dögum!

þetta er mjög floht!!!!

That's all I can squeeze out of my limited Icelandic language skills for the moment but just letting y'all know I'm headed to Iceland via Halifax in only four days! and I can't wait!!!! Hopefully I'll have time to post some photos of the incredible land I'm about to experience finally after waiting for so long!

við sjáumst!

5 23 11

What was life *BG?

Furthermore, what was life **BTW?



(* BG = Before Gaga)
(** BTW = Born This Way)

Judas Kiss / Gaga Kiss

In her new video for her second single Judas from her third album to be released 23 May Born This Way Gaga reenacts the story of Jesus and Judas, modernized, with a middle Eastern aesthetic. There is so much happening in this video but I think the most provocative moment is the Judas kiss/Gaga kiss.

The Judas kiss is known to signify the betrayal of Christ.
Gaga inserts hereslf as a median between these two oppoisites - Jesus/light/goodness and Judas/darkness/evil. She not only inserts herself between them but also gives Judas a deadly kiss perhaps cancelling out the effect of his kiss that signifies the betrayal of Christ. She 'kisses' Judas wi th a gun that shoots lipstick as a bullet that Gaga smears on his face. The gun appears again in this video as a symbol of the phallus that Gaga herself is wielding, robbing Judas of his power.
Perhaps all of this also speaks to the need to abolish stereotypical dichotomies - light/dark, evil/good, the I and the other, activity/passivity - and recognize that in fact opposites are one.

Ergo, Gaga is not merely playing the role of median bringing opposites together, she is abolishing them completely demonstrating the Christ and Judas are one in the same.

le visible et l'invisible

... Le présent visible n'est pas dans le temps et l'espace, ni, bien entendu, hors d'eux: il n'y a rien avant lui, après lui, autour de lui, qui puisse rivaliser avec sa visibilité. Et pourtant, il n'est pas seul, il n'est pas tout. Exactement: il bouche ma vue, c'est-à-dire, à la fois, que le temps et l'espace s'entendent au-delà, et qu'ils sont derrière lui, en profondeur, en cachette. Le visible ne peut ainsi me remplir et m'occuper que parce que, lui-même, moi le voyant, je suis aussi visible: ce qui fait le poids, l'épaisseur, la chair de chaque couleur, de chaque son, de chaque texture tactile, du présent et du monde, c'est que celui qui les saisit se sent émerger d'eux à eux, qu'il est le sesible même venant à soi, et qu'en retour le sensible est à ses yeux comme son double ou une extension de sa chair. L'espace, le temps des choses, ce sont des lambeaux de lui-même, de sa spatilaisation, de sa temporalisation, non plus une multiplicité d'individus distribués synchroniquement et diachroniquement, mais un relief du simultané et du successif, une pulpe spatiale et temporelle où les individus se forment par différenciation. Les choses, ici, là maintenant, alors, ne sont plus en soi, en leur lieu, en leur temps, elles n'existent qu'au bout de ces rayons de spatialité et de temporalité, émis dans le secret de ma chair, et leur solidité n'est pas celle d'un objet pur que survole l'esprit, elle est éprouvée par moi du dedans en tant que je suis parmi elles et qu'elles communiquent à travers moi comme chose sentante. Comme le souvenir-écran des psychanalystes, le présent, le visible ne compte tant pour moi, n'a pour moi un prestige absolu qu'à raison de cet immense contenu latent de passé, de future et d'ailleurs, qu'il annonce et qu'il cache.

(Le visible et l'invisible de Maurice Merleau-Ponty)

Iceland

Summer approaches. Two weeks left of this term. La fin de session is almost at it's final fin.
This summer holds an incredible adventure for me: Iceland. I've been dreaming for many years of exploring this intriguing place, since 2006 in fact. It's high time I made it all the way there.
My summer adventure will begin with three courses taught through the University of Manitoba: Conversational Icelandic, Medieval Icelandic culture and Contemporary Icelandic culture and art. These three courses are taught through UM's Field School - all taught on site in Iceland. I leave around the 22nd of June which means I'll turn 28 in Iceland or on an airplane headed to Iceland - what a great birthday gift! We spend about three weeks together in Iceland, until the 15th July. At which point I will fly to Paris for the remainder of July to see friends, be in Paris, and go see a Claude Cahun art exhibition, another dream come true. August 1st will bring me back to Iceland where I will spend the remainder of August galavanting around, exploring, researching, reading, writing, swimming i hope, surrounded by mountains and sea!

So, to inspire me, and you too I hope, here's a selection of photos of things to look forward to in Iceland!

Sea and mountains. Reykjavik, Iceland.

(photo courtesy of http://waipio.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/crateworthy/)

Natural wonders. West Fjords, Iceland.

(photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetadventure/254417968/)

Icelandic ponies!

(photo courtesy of http://www.horsesdiaries.com/icelandic-ponies-pasos-of-the-north/)

Puffins!!!

(photo courtesy of http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g612424-w2-Skaftafell_National_Park.html)

Icelandic Sweaters!
(photo courtesy of http://www.eglifarm.com/index.php?cPath=41)

ART!!!

(Rainbow by Rurí, Keflavik Airport. photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/langsx2/2120664833/)

random s**t

It is so amazing to me the weird stuff people make and buy in the world, and that we look at it on the internet.

These were too amazing not to share:







now... back to Rancière land and Merleau-Ponty sea.

gagamagoria

Wednesday night W.J.T Mitchell came to give two talks in Montreal. One at 12h30 at UQAM - Idolatry: Nietzsche, Blake, Poussin, and one at 18h30 at MAC - The Historical Uncanny and the War on Terror. In the second he talked about cloning terror, the phantasmagoria from the 19th century, and the viral effect images now have today - spreading like wildfire across the internet, being instantly accessible, even encoding time and place stamps on images to retrace where and when they were taken - which was the case of the hooded man, thought to be a terrorist who became the staple image for the war on terror and the ending of it (which will never happen). He said that it was thought this image could end the war on terror - are images so powerful that they could in fact end an entire world?

Transpose all this onto the mega pop queen transforming identity politics - Gaga. Her new video is literally a gagamagoria.
phantasmagoria is defined as: a sequence of real or imaginary images like that seen in a dream. in the 19th century there were phantasmagoria theatres where images of ghosts were projected onto smoke - they seemed to hang suspended in the air creating a dream like reality.
isn't it just this that gaga is doing? creating a race empty of prejudice, modeled after herself, the mother monster.

we live in gaga-magoria.


(image from Lady Gaga's new release "Born this Way")

Ísland. þetta sumar.
fyrír nám á Svartárkot.


Bárðardalur, Norður Ísland

Islanders always return to the island

- Shary Boyle projection drawing projects
- also Shary Boyle in the flesh conference at UQAM this week
- conferences to come: Nietzsche, Daniel Barrow = ohhhhhh yes!
- Queer parties + beer on the metro + little viles of liquid + beer on the street + talking heads and discotheques disco lights
- meeting Odile, Dounia, Amine, Vincent and most of all Angela
- adventure to St-Henri with Odile + chili + diamant perle + i heart this new life!
- petit rupture to discover the truth
- The Landscape in our Bodies
- Islenska
- Persona last night at Union Française - so very very amazing.
- experimental geography and better world books
- so much icelandic iceland ísland íslenska

Long ago my families left their islands and I have returned again and again to different islands. it's in my blood to be surrounded by the sea.
England
Corse
Montréal (yes, we are on an island)
next, Iceland.

Islensku

Iceland. Íslande.
Land of fire and ice. Land of eternal darkness and eternal light.

My golden white beacon.
My grounding.
My perspective.
You are what I hold onto, what I look towards and what I move into.
I look forward to you.

Never let me go.

Rökkurró - Sólin mun skína from Rökkurró on Vimeo.

A New Religion

In Le Gai Savoir para. 125 Nietzsche, for the first time, pronounces God is dead, and that we have killed him.


(Giuseppe Sanmartino, Vieled Christ, detail, 1753. Naples, Cappella di Sansevero)

N’avez-vous pas entendu parler de cet homme insensé qui, ayant allumé une lanterne en plein midi, courait sur la place du marché et criait sans cesse : « Je cherche Dieu! Je cherche Dieu! » - Et comme là-bas se trouvaient précisément rassemblés beaucoup de ceux qui ne croyaient pas en Dieu, il suscita une grand hilarité. L’a-t-on perdu? dit l’un.

S’est-il égaré comme un enfant? dit un autre. Ou bien se cache-t-il quelque part ? A-t-il peur de nous? S’est-il embarqué? A-t-il émigré? – ainsi ils criaient et riaient tous à la fois. L’insensé se précipita au milieu d’eux et les perça de ses regards. « Où est Dieu? cria-t-il, je vais vous le dire! Nous l’avons tué – vous et moi! Nous tous sommes ses meurtriers!

Embrace the new religion.
Follow the revolution.


(Lady Gaga, posing with veiled ensemble)

Re-incarnation.
For the love of little monsters, fame, bad girl meat and free bitchez.