Enrico Lunghi
wrote this for the 52. Venice Biennale

“So here I am in an indistinct place filled with strange sensualities. I abandon myself to feelings that are welling up into my consciousness after obscure stays in the depths of memory. Shameful desires reverberate in the indefinable scents that surround me.

And yet the approach was vague, around the back of a courtyard full of promises. Venice makes so many of them, and keeps so few. Then, without warning, a corridor indirectly puts me on the threshold of a sense of deja-vu. Here, a fan breathes air that has come from afar. The colours and materials also seem to have become stranded in the present. Sounds, again, remind me of elsewhere, of evenings, of other evenings.

I move forward. I can feel my heart pounding. My skin brushes against an atmosphere charged with possible touches. The rhythms interlace like lovers’ sighs. Outside, the daylight, the water, the boats. Maybe I don’t even see them, but it is enough that I am imagining them.

I let myself be carried along by the passing time. I open up all the pores of my being to what is reaching me from outside. I trust in what I am, in what I want, now, in this place. On the other side of the wall, across the windows, work follows its course, as does the day, and the water, too. Lives pass. But it’s on the other side.

Then, as desire at last pushes me further, I find myself in front of two door leaves. there, the presence of the other, although inaccessible, becomes palpable. Like memory of a sweating body from an unforgettable film. I remain, for an undefined moment, the perpetual desirer, while the disturbance that permeates the walls moves away like the foghorn of a ship leaving the misty quayside.

Now, another, different story begins, for me and me alone.

A narrative, humorous and maybe semi-tragic tale and live art performance piece that resonates with some poetry and Cumbria’s faded clay industry.

The project takes a sincere/humorous look at the life of a dungbeetle placed in parallel with the mythological, eternally punishing, futile and hopeless fate of Sisyphus. (Alluding to questions about meaning in life, but light-hearted in presentation. The ball of clay, the act of rolling it as life’s task and purpose/dharma.)

(Sisyphus : punished in Hades for his misdeeds in life by being condemned to the eternal, futile, hopeless task of rolling a large stone to the top of a hill, from which it always rolled down again.)

Live Art / sculpture: The artist will be the dungbeetle, will be Sisyphus and roll a giant-human-sized ball of clay (dung) around sites in Cumbria and conduct interviews with passer-byes.

Films :
Performance: (live art, as described)
Interviews : involving local volunteers (chance street passer-byes & recruited ones), telling their versions of Sisyphus, mythologically correct and flawed, volunteers will be encouraged to elaborate… (I have conducted tests and people are surprisingly easily engaged in telling tales and reminiscing on further interpretations.)

Motivations other than existing interests:
Lost industry- changing industry / lost identity-changing identity.
The lost and changed clay industry of Cumbria.

Memories of january are lingering in the air, just as I should be working on an important application form…

Below is the “New Mosque”

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better. -William Shakespeare

… yesterday I read a photographer’s interview in which he pointed out that only 20% of his time is spent taking photographs, the rest on administration and research… Well. it is much the same with making art work. At the moment I am in one of those uncomfortable transition periods where projects are coming along, but where there is no sign of their realization yet. So at the moment satisfaction levels are very low, but inspiration is beginning to ferment, a little more sugar and ideas should rise ready to become solid and tangible..

One problem is that I have produced so little in the past 6 months that now the internal need to leap and explode into action has grown disproportionate to time, finances and energy available.

I will make one more list and throw the coals into the fires and get some of these projects going. The urgency is only increasing daily.

The hunger for making art.
Relationships should nourish one’s energy resources not deplete them, should they not.
Well I am in the final throes of making my way back up from the depths of life’s muddles, this week sees 2 more deadlines for projects that I really want to be involved in and then I can begin to make direct plans for the “A Dungbeetle and Sisyphus”. And get my camera out for “Idioms” and advertise for Artist Assistants for May, and plan my performance for Cologne.

Come back in a while, I will edit this entry and it will be more eloquent.

In the meantime I recommend that you take a look at: http://cressidakocienski.blogspot.com/
That will give you inspiration and things to think about.

…
my procrastination activities taste good…
(made when I should have been filling in an uncomfortable funding application form.)

Now this was a roller coaster of a fortnight!

Interviews for postgraduate programs at both the Royal College and at Goldsmiths, art worries, stage fright in relation to the invitation to make work for St. Luke’s / Bombed out church in Liverpool.

Thinking, thinking, and rethinking, finally being met with an epiphany whilst in the bath last night. “If the mountain isn’t coming to me then I will just go to the mountain” Or something like that…

So I shall let you in, into my cryptic thinking in the next days. In the meantime I will try and formulate it all and edit it into a manageable size.

The bad news: the RCA sent me a rejection letter on deceptively hight quality stationery.
The enormous, massive relief: Golsmiths invited me unconditionally to come and study on their Masters Program from this autumn.

Unconditionally has to be my favorite word, if I would be offered same terms in romance then life would be complete.
Unconditionally is just such a character and life affirming attitude. And most gratefully received.

Enjoy your Easter Holidays, with or without beautifully hand colored eggs. Unfortunately boiled eggs make me nauseous.. What a shame.
Good Day and Good Easter. Aim high…

(Perhaps I need to curtail my life-coaching advices.. Before I turn into Eckhart Toll, or some other such similar lifestyle Guru. But I can’t help myself: Don’t be lazy!)

…children underneath tables should definitely be left alone.
I always thought that.

.. you must know that the Muse is most easily caught in the small hours of the night, then there are negotiations to hold before she will submit her charms and leave us with some inspiration. She is getting moody these days, perhaps the long working hours no longer suit her…

… the distance between lovers is not always the measure of miles between their geographical locations.. the distance between lovers is not explained by different cultural heritage.. the difference of countries is nothing much more than the difference there always is inherent between all coupled units.

I am trying to say that place is only an outward signifier of inward geography.

… why is it that within a group of 12 plus minus a few, every other artist has a backstabbing device aimed at the rear surface of a fellow artist? …
.

In a state of application overload… with myspace, facebook, blogger this and that, artreview.com, artist newsletter’s artist’s interface, flickr, youtube, axisweb.com and I am sure there are more that I forgot…
………

And does the man have to do that, the one with the ear and the other one: so serious, whilst slowly turning blue….?
Do they have to do that? Really? Oh, I wish they would go away.

… drizzly weather outside and small rocks on my heart weighing it down a bit …

Other than that:
…taking winter photographs of a nearby forest, before the crazy weather jump-starts a far too early spring..
…buying a flower today and making a stack of drawings to sell…

…remembering freedom and seagulls…

… absence of eloquent and organized thoughts…

…shape-shifting and soul-changing

…trains through snowy landscapes, passing friendships that last as long as the time to the next destination, many night-time border-crossings, feeling timeless, feeling at the mercy of fate, feeling the wild bandits lurking in the forests and I am sure they watch me from their hiding places, from their spots just behind the dark foliage of that dense pine forest wilderness…. Bandits posing as border control, my final disappearance only prevented by someone’s last minute change of mind, but of course I have no proof of any of this.. After all they pretended to be border control, didn’t give away their bandit identity with passes and formal introductions…

I arrived in Sofia, “Time present and time past, are both perhaps present in time future and time future contained in time past..” ..”..all time eternally present..” , yes T.S. Eliot, I agree, time past was there with me in time present… We shook hands when I stepped off the train onto a, communist grey, communist imprinted, now democratic new European Sofia central station platform…. and still the scent of the past is so strong, it is more present then the air of a fresh 2008 we would suppose, would expect to smell like. I couldn’t smell 2008 but a lot of 1988. So again I found myself time traveling… See I am living proof time travel is possible, and it does leave a lasting effect on one’s heart and bodily tissues, but not the effect that an astronaut might experience, somehow it’s different. One’s soul changes. A nip and a tuck on the tissue here and there, not performed by skilled surgeon’s hands but by time, by traveling from this zone to another, by crossing human realities, intangible forms, shape shifting as I go along, leaving me changed irreversibly forever…

… walking in knee-deep snow with heavy luggage, putting a wild dog in his place, making decisions, making not enough decisions, looking for answers, finding more questions, chance meeting with mystical figures from the past, unlikely arrivals in hidden places just in time for most beautiful rituals, finding needles in haystacks and I wasn’t even looking, standing for an hour in a ceremony that told me I was in the late Middle Ages, perhaps the 16th century or so, learnt that 4 is 2 and that friendly helpers have motives I never understood, the only woman on this carriage was me and so I received special treatment and a compartment all to myself, the sink froze shut that night, much maneouvering of the train, back and forth and back and forth four times before all the carriages were re-connected in the correct way, where would mine go..? Did they get it right or would I wake up in Greece instead of en route on the tracks to Istanbul?? Careful glimpsing out of the windows not wanting to provoke a border-patrol as I had inadvertently done somewhere between Serbia and Bulgaria, resulting in sharp bangs on my window and mean looks worrying me if it was an imprisonable offence, uncomfortable registering of the deep snow in which I could just disappear until the big thawing in march or so, blue, deep frozen, freeze dried and who would ever know?

… eventually arriving in Istanbul two hours after the first onset of train-fatigue, beautiful sunshine, spending time, weeks, too much bread, not enough tea without sugar, eyes opening to the realities of our world of differences, East and West so bloddy far apart, cultural gaps greater than diplomacy perhaps… The deep discomfort of the new understanding, some hopelessness for the first time in life, maybe the populations of the world will never unite harmonically, feeling disturbed by the divide that faith causes, would one god allow his creations to be so pained in discord? Can I believe that?

…Whirling Dervishes, grilled fish sandwiches, a lot of walking, some art, friendly independent cats, over-friendly employees trying too hard to recruit our custom, some late sunshine, sad departures, return to flooded kitchen and broken fridge, how come breakdowns don’t come in individual packages, 2 at the time of one… lots of disinfectant and now I am here, gazing through my window, into a sunny world. Time to re-join that life here.
I discovered Roibush and Vanilla tea, my inexplicably huge comfort. Welcome home to me. How is the world from your window?

… I have been invited …

…pending final confirmations I shall be showing my work in Turkey this year.

..after 4 days of travel, arrival in Sofia, under snow, snow everywhere, pulling a heavy suitcase through sludge and ice and snow, across wide streets, no pavements, too much snow.

..I have my train ticket to London, the Eurostar is booked,
and the interRail ticket is in my suitcase.

It is 80 minutes from the end of 2007 my hair is greasy and will stay so until next year.
There is unnecessary screaming going on outside and I am running late to attend a party.

Still not packed, of course not….
Still only half way through two more applications.
Staring at the clock, wishing it would slow down.

Leaving the desk behind now to return at 1am.
No sleep tonight.

..but I have decided on a hostel

and now just hope that there will be room on such short notice..
(I am due to arrive at about 9pm on the 1st of january.)
They sound rather stern and strict, but I suppose that’s what happens
when one spends years accommodating teenagers.

I am sad to leave my christmas tree, it looks so cozy..

…but only for the matter of slight overindulgence of alcoholic content…

I have finally seen sense and will go to buy a copy of Thomas Cooks
European Rail timetable. What was I thinking when I didn’t do that sooner..?

And I will also book two hotels, the first one for Belgium
on my first day of travel and the second hotel for my point
of arrival in Istanbul.

Still too much to do to get ready, too little prepared,
and the borrowed car was broken into.

The suitcase containing too many kilograms to ever stand a chance
at even the first train change.

… the suitcase half packed, questions fluttering in my mind
wether I may be crazy to embark on an ill prepared journey.
But since I am stubborn I am going, ill preparations or not.

Hesitation is never a neutral statement is it?

Taking a slow means of public transport to snail-pace my way closer to the point of unavoidable decision.
Fleeing and invading simultaneously.

..the meeting at the cathedral this morning went well, I met 4 of the stuarts who are now lined up for filming and helping with the project.
And because I get them when they least expect it I also just got hold of a couple who I should be able to film during their morning puja. (Hindu faith).
I have a volunteer for jewish faith practices at home and it is looking less frightening than it did this morning…

Tomorrow I am up at 6am to get ready to go to a morning prayer at the cathedral and then to see two musicians who I am beginning to do some work with for an overlapping but actually seperate project.
I think after that the afternoon is free to prepare for London (buy a tripod, make sure I have the camera and changing bag and whatever I may need..!!) and source more volunteers/collaborators for my project here and in down there, too.

Since I will be down there on Palm sunday I think it would be good to at least attend a mass and know what I am missing (filming wise)..