February - 2018

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Today's Ecstatic tunes and mash-ups: Raag Bageshree+ thinking about Ecstatic playback, decolonia

The synodic cycle of Venus I would like to know a lot more about Hindustani classical music than I do. I want to know more about the chord structures and history of this music, how it works as a culturally specific Ecstatic technology. I would like to know a lot, lot more about the history of the Raaga and the traditions that birthed them, I would like especially to know how this history interweaves with both colonisation and the extant South-Asian Caste system/s. We can't ta

ecstatic texts : # 2 : gazes backwards into the future

A picture of VNS Matrix c. 1993 which I totally ripped off their Instagram without permission, hope they don't mind. Pictured L-R: Julianne Pierce, Francesca da Rimini, Josephine Starrs, Virginia Barratt (I think, correct me if I'm wrong). I stepped out of my residency on Friday afternoon to attend some of the Women, Art and Feminism Symposium at VCA, where I was asked by the formidable Francesca Da Rimini and Virginia Barratt* to co-narrate a text with them. VB and Francesca

A task and a question (#1: Ivan)

Question: Can achieving ecstasy be thought of as a limit experience (in the sense outlined above)? Task For me, the key to moving into the ecstatic space is repetition. Repetition of movement, when I dance through to the end of a Berghain closing; repetition of breath, when I practice yoga with intent. And repetition of intense painful stimulation – BDSM, but also long tattooing sessions. The blows that fall on me over and over take me into this space – one painful blow w

notes on the ecstatic subject: a private history, part 1 ( juvenelia, drowned girls)

The death mask of an unknown Parisienne, the so called L'Inconnue de la Seine. I’m about 3 or 4. I am in my parent’s garden. There is a bed of Dutch Irises. Most of them are open, luscious. One of them is tightly closed into a bud. I reach out and gently touch it with my finger, and when I do, it springs into bloom. I run to tell my dad that I did magic on the Iris, that me and her are connected, that I woke her up. He tells me it was a co-incidence. It was not. I’m 4. I’m

Today's ecstatic tunes: this legendary mix

I already embedded a link to this one yesterday in my intro yarn about Ivan, but I'm re-posting here because it's a great mix from one of the most sublime techno DJ's on the planet. I'm listening to it today in the studio as I'm reading, thinking-through and responding to Ivan's materials. Ivan and Boris are conjoined in my head- maybe because they're friends, maybe because they are both fine examplae of Otter-kind, maybe because Boris is arguably among both mine and Ivan's a

Detruis Moi.

The first in a series of texts (either nominated or of their own authorship) sent to me by the first of 8 critical interlocutors. This one was offered and authored by Ivan Crozier. All life-forms gather at the edge of the sea – creatures that swim, that fly, that crawl, that cling to the rocks among the seaweed. New life was born in the rock pool, scraping its way up the hard surface towards the green hills and then to the grey cities of light. To return to these littoral zon

Wherever there is power there is resistance.

I received my first packet of provocations from Ivan yesterday. In this letter, Ivan details the discursive grounds upon which his conceptual integration of own Ecstatic experiences has been founded, specifically in relation to Foucault's theory of the Limit Experience. NB: The letter is addressed to Onyx, which is my actual name (I'm only S.J for art purposes, I haven't gone by my birthname in my everyday life for some time.)

Enter Snowman: introducing my first critical Interlocutor, and while we are at it, some notes on Que

My wife's arm and mine freshly inked by Morgan Myers. My first Interlocutor is Dr Ivan Crozier. Ivan’s official bio is impressive. You can read that here. He is an esteemed historian and scholar. He is also one of the most spectacular trashbags I know, a fellow techno lover, a hard player, a gorgeous Otter and self-proclaimed Dirty Faggot who is also in a life-partnership with an equally filthy Queer woman, Charlie. They're family to me and to my wife, Cassia. I’m going t

WTF even is a "creative development".

Mate, 13 years of professional arts practice and I still don’t know. It’s been a while since I had a Creative Development- that is, a period of supported time to sit and think through the possibilities of a work from the ground up, with a Carte Blanche for wild dreamings, and no immediate expectation of an outcome. I usually work to commission, ie: I get booked for a gig, and I make the work in response to that, usually by the skin of my teeth. Furthermore, my practice has

Here we are.

This space is an open creative research journal. This is mostly for me, but you might find it interesting. If it feels like you are reading someone’s diary it’s because you are. I’m not editing things tightly because this is a process space: this is me thinking out loud, yarning up with myself, documenting my thoughts for later reference. Nonetheless, feedback and discussion is invited and encouraged. I’ll be posting from the beautiful Warehouse 2 at Arts House in Melbourne

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