Lºyly Ikebana

Several years ago, I squatted a former bread factory in the city of Helsinki.
The porous walls of the factory had absorbed millions of yeast cells that had been used by the bakers for leavening dough. The yeast, in conjunction with various other fungi, such as mold and native mushroom species, began to sculpt the wooden infrastructure of the factory. Also, as a result of my cohabitation with these organisms, my lungs underwent a similar process of decomposition.

The fungal infestation of the building became so extreme, that health officials condemned the building due to its toxicity and I was forcibly evicted. Workers in aseptic, plastic suits began removal of the infected wood. The dumpster where the refuse was deposited began to resemble a massive ikebana arrangement. The fungi had carved and repositioned the cellulose into spectacular, transcendental tumors that resembled fallen clouds. I could only imagine the splendor of the mycological manifestations within mine lungcaves. Alveoli transmogrified into pulsating cherry blossoms on shimmering mucus fields...amber bronchioles, in the key of hibiscus, french-kissing one another at the thoracic cavity twitch party.

Time passed.

Summer, upon a sojourn at an isolated cabin in the Finnish wilderness, a peculiarity involving mine respiration transpired. Whilst meditating during one of my nightly sauna sessions, I felt løyly enter me (Løyly is the steam composing eighty percent of the heavens that rises from the rocks in the sauna's stove). Magnificent Magmatic Massage. Afterwards, I swam in the lake next to the sauna, letting fish lick the sweat from mine skin. My breath was visible as it often is on chilled, boreal nights...except now it did not dissipate as usual. It hugged the surface of the lake and rode waves to the shore, where it clung to driftwood. The wood began to morph. The bell of a new school of ikebana rang clearly in the twilight.

Since this initial lesson of Løyly Ikebana, I have discovered that it is in fact steam that reanimates the dormant fungal cells within mine lungs and for several hours after exposure, my exhalations are laden with spores specialized in arranging organic materials into macrocosmic versions of the eternal orgy occurring within mine bags of wind.

Near Rome, betwixt sea and mountains, I have inhaled the superheated vapors that a sulfuric spring spewed. IT HAS BEGUN.

L

SARAKURA

SARAKURA

(An attempt by the artist to capture and contain energy from the summit of
the eponymous mountain and tele-transport the photonic sound melange into
the cities below...unwittingly, the artist recreated an empress's revelation
as she descended the same mountain centuries ago...near dusk, the sky
suddenly shifted from a deep plum into a black violet and then moments later
to a black black...sans shadow, she exclaimed, "Apparently it can get even
darker." The name SARAKURA (EVEN DARKER) stuck.

They both witnessed the same phenomenon... she, after surveying her kingdom
at the golden hour...and he, after extracting photons from the air.)
_______________________

"A concatenation of jackpots has led me here: Aboard a boat above migrating eels.

Now: Drinking machined tea with the crescent moon peeping through a porthole.

Okay. This is a press release for a picture show about a mountain named Sarakura.
It's a study of movement...a series of disparate images, aural room tones and
scrawled rune tomes: Heuristic ushers in the nuevo romantick cinema.

Let's back up a bit...the eponymous Sarakura was my muse...
this show was composed in its shadow.

Picture a ball of rancid blueberry sorbet spinning in a static waffled cone
that is dusted with cinnamon. Oh! And now, look, a willow leaf of an eel
is emerging from the sorbet and now is winding up and around the cone
and there, now it croons in a cradle in a crack in the crest.

So, here's the deal: I was that eel...stumbling around that conical pedestal...

I, in my photonic toga, was time personified.

Here, may I present; A folded earth.

The energy of one equinox teletransported to the other."



AA, 4:43 AM, April 2, 2008. Somewhere on the Pacific.


____________

To be explicit, I spent 7 months in the town of Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan in residency at the Center of Contemporary Art. The CCA lies in the shadow of a mountain named Sarakura that defines the sleepy town of steelworkers.

3 or 6 times per week, I walked up and around the mountain before returning to my studio at the base to transcribe the process in words, paints and sounds.

I envisioned myself as a bow (in the form of a migrating eel) drawn slowly across the strings/paths of the mountain. A song strung out over Autumn & Winter and played in Spring.

My works deal with inter-connectivity, and I was fascinated with the fact that the water I used for my aquarelles, my hojicha and my baths at the onsen all originated within the aquifer within/beneath? Sarakura.

So, the actual exhibition included elements from this process:

1) A dossier consisting of 100 pages of text and sketches that anthropomorphize the mountain. Dusted with cinnamon and placed upon a brick covered in lace.

1) 10 aquarelles (@120 cm2) referencing pages from the dossier.

1) A piece of the mountain's apex reclining on a couch resting upon the towel I used at the onsen near Sarakura.

1) Two (30-minute) soundtracks (one composed in Autumn and one in Winter)(presented via separate, portable headphones).

Transcendental Terrestrial Trephine

A 1:135 scale maquette of a Victorian-age, crystal skyscraper-greenhouse. A gigantic trephine to reintroduce the spiritual back into the earth's crust. Capable of feeding 5.000 souls per annum. Urban Sustainability.

LESDUTA

"The Lesduta live in the mountains at the northern end of Lake Como. They are half- Bombyx Mori & half- Homo Sapiens. All members of the community are required to spin silk for commodity rather than cocoons. However, once per year, a lottery is held, in which one woman and one man are awarded the opportunity to complete their life cycles by becoming moths and mating. For the following year, the aerial lovers hover above their terrestrial cousins and shadow the daily commute to and from the village of Como, where the worms exchange silk for their dietary staple of mulberry leaves. The beating of the moths' wings is the source of the tivano: the northerly, morning lake winds; and the breva: the southerly, evening lake winds."

A myth was composed for the people of Como, Italy and presented to the mayor. I assembled a sculptural portrait of a Lesdutan couple in courtship. Following the exhibition, the Lesdutan sculptures were disposed of and now if one visits Como and looks closely, one can see red & white silken bird nests containing chicks with beaks agape, awaiting their mothers to drift home upon the breva or the tivano with a worm.

Materials used:

Silk & Invasive, non-indigenous weeds that have thrived upon the excrement of squatters residing in a dilapidated fabric warehouse located behind the exhibition space.