Solace in Motion

‘The categorical impulse of modernity is: in order to be continuously active as progressive beings man should overcome all the conditions where his movement is reduced, where he has come to a halt, where he lost his freedom and where he is pitifully fixed.’ (Sloterdijk, P: 2009)

On marking yourself gently [the tattoo and it’s under/line], you put solace in motion; and even after the ink had dried there was still a bleeding of edges. Of edges, of lines, of crossing lines by making and breaking lines; with blood lines we see a flow. To cut is not to stop, is not a negative, causes a positive, an opening causes a space.

You show us the yellow thread, threaded into the performance as another line, made as it is unmade, unravelled and uncoiled. Unravelling features here through threads and body’s and still more perhaps but implicitly so. A line is made when the yellow thread is pulled taught, when put under stress. The line almost connects us to you through space but only almost. I see the haunt lines and have seen a brief history of this thread, have even been caught up in this thread with you in our action. I know that this thread is well travelled, has been to Berlin and back, has already performed us and you in our group action and so the thread has its own movement memory which makes the connection even tighter.

And then the tyre that you are not too tired to hold onto for a little longer and a little longer and we know it might burn as you tire. The tyre was not turning, was not the agent of the body’s motion, the body performed the action, the traction, the tyre stays still as the body rotates on it and you have powered the reverse. And on it stood the body majestic and ethereal as you turn slowly, very slowly, very occasionally holding the wall as the tyre swerves under.

Watching you carry the tyre and the stick, after the performance [as/is another performance] both of us lost and complaining of the cold; finally find solace in a watering hole [aptly named ‘The Hermits Cave’]. We talk about moving and staying still and the edges of the performance and your life really do bleed here; it tells me that you are not trying to bluff us when you cut and tire. Fundamentally you are asking [us] whether to stay or go, to move or to stop and so this jarring is necessary, healing not harming. But be careful [and I am full of care here] because stopping is not standing still just as stillness is still motion. Movement is still within stillness, and one would not exist without the other.

The last image of your performance, well after the performance was over is of you pulling your tyre and your stick out of the boot of a car. You look portable, holding all of your objects like a shell, looking to find the bus route [home]. You are both vulnerable and strong, lost going into an invisible battle with your tyre as shield and your stick as sword. How can we console an image like this, a vehicle without its body? Only tyres left tired and burning, still not knowing what to carry what to hold onto yet still moving.

Victoria Gray, 2010