Guising SERIES: ARTIST'S STATEMENTS

The Veil Recedes: The Voice Emerges  was created for the January 2018 production of the Southern Exposure New Music Series. By invitation only, artists are challenged to create brand new work in response to the evening's scheduled program. The Veil Recedes: The Voice Emerges was directly inspired by If Only After You Then Me (or, Litanies) by Amadeus Regucera. 

A note about Southern Exposure:  

Award winning Southern Exposure is an event held at the University of South Carolina School of Music. Consisting of four concert events per year, experimental musicians from around the globe are invited to perform and a local visual artist is curated by Sara Winsted to create new work inspired by the scheduled selection of music. The January 2018 event featured musicians Duo Cortona (Rachal Calloway, mezzo-soprano and Ari Streisfeld, violin). This piece was a part of that event and the information below relates to the particular composition used to create it.   

Artist's Statement:  

This was one of the earlier pieces in this series where I concentrated on sound more than lyric. The story I listened to in my head was that of an individual buried deep under layers of all the many things that can bind a life up. Slow it down. Drag against happiness and progress. An entity that, through intense struggle and personal sacrifice, has managed to start breaking free from the constraining veils of fear, frustration, confusion, and past traumas - shredding them in the process. A soul on the long journey to find emancipation and early attempts to begin to scream their truth. The voice is still low and fragile - only a faint sparkle in the throat (the viewer can catch a glint of the light that is there if they look for it). But it grows each day. Perhaps they are still awkward and stumble about like newborns (which in some ways is what they are), but their voice is worthy. They are freeing themselves, though some struggle remains as indicated by the enveloped eyes waiting for the clarity of time and experience. The features are intentionally simple and blank so that anyone can recognize their own stories of struggle within the art. We have all been there at some point, at some time, and can perhaps see others still in earlier stages through kinder eyes.

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Composer's Statement:
"The text for If only after you then me is compiled from works by: William S. Burroughs, Jean Genet, George Bataille, Antonin Artaud. My interest in the literature of Burroughs, Genet, and Artaud (leading me to the philosophy of “base materialism” propagated by Georges Bataille) stems from a fascination and love for transgressive thought, critiques of accepted norms, and expressive forms of immediacy and contact. I place considerable import on first reactions and initial experiences, through which further exploration can take place. The text for Litanies, as the title implies, is merely a list, collated from different pieces of literature. What begin as symptoms of either drug use or dope sickness become a list of stream-of-consciousness words beginning with the letter “e,” perhaps in the mind of the addict who is swiftly moving towards transcendence/oblivion." —Amadeus Regucera 

If Only After You Then Me (or, Litanies)

Amadeus Regucera

every graphic thought narcoleptic fantasy//in my memory you're a rare creature jagged

apparition swollen body desperate predator//If only after you then me//I wake I breathe I wait

I want I need I watch I sleep I dream I kill I'm born I die I eat I watch I touch I fuck I feel I feel I

need I want I feel I need I kill I kill I fuck I want (cut, my mouth my tongue my lips my face my

neck my skin your) Memory, like a deep wound carved into my mind; I remember, you, like a

scar. Running my hand over the dead flesh. our lives, an abattoir. meaningful. lying there,

awake. sitting.//here//I can see you sleep eyes turned inward I can't join you so I watch//so

close you are too far (sweetly towards a dream I feel your eyes on me you are too far)//if you

don't hear from me send help//don't promise//don't choke//your memory like a scar//a

destructive love airtight co-temporary periodic chaos//a memory, a scar, your memory, a

scar//your mouth and eyes your skin your skin your flesh wet flesh a rare creature a jagged

apparition swollen body desperate predator gorgeous teen flesh a black cigarette blood red

razor blades mouth eyes eyes face eyes face lips flesh a rare creature gorgeous teen flesh

every fiction every collision a composite disaster love is a fashionable emotion eyes mouth

lips eyes face eyes your mouth our lips your mouth our eyes your face my hand your eyes my

mouth your neck our skin your hair our lips your sweat my mouth your ear our skin your

hands my mouth your neck your mouth your skin your sweat your room your city your city

your your body is our bodies bodies are we are bro ken we we bro ken we are we we are help

please every graphic thought don't help send don't hear from me send help if only don't don't

don't CUT CUT CUT CUT CUT CUT CUT you're too far so tell me your words one text message

at a time me please your body is bodies are we are me please//[litany]//screaming head,

clenched teeth, white knuckles, sweated brow, bloodshot eyes, exhausted and empty,

effeminate, endlessly eradicated, Elysium, emasculate, emphallic, embolism, encephalitis,

eviscerate, extirpate, entropy, ephedrine, enuresis, excrescence encyst, eternal return

I Am Mountain represents an ancient being of nature - an elder elemental that lives deeply rooted in nature. Movement is slow and mostly internal. Ponderous. Unconcerned. It is Mountain. Mountain is. I wanted to use some of my favorite subjects to represent this idea - European Wild Men/Women figures combined with Japanese Yokai and Bunraku. Winter trees on the surface of Mountain bend toward each other in protective empathy with and pity for the innocent wolves that live there. The "horns" on the mask can be seen as antlers of beasts, or branches of more trees. But they can also be read as the vents through which lava flows. The ghillie suited canvas, which is often seen in European and Celtic guising festivals and could represent the fur of wild things, is touched by new heat over falling mountain snow. The eyes in the ash coated face are barely open but glow with fire underneath. Mountain has been asleep in its chaste and genteel Autumn hued wimple... but Volcano has started to awaken. Volcano moves.

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First movement:   Fabula   ( Fable )

Poem by Sándor Weöres.

(Hungarian)

I. Fabula
Egy
hegy
megy.
Szembjon a masik hegy.
Orditanak ordasok:
Ossze ne morzsoljatok!
En is hegy,
te is negy,
nekunk ugyan egyremegy. 

(translation)
 

I. Fable
A
mountain
walks.
The other mountain comes toward it.
The wolves howl:
Do not crush us!
I, am mountain,
you, too, a mountain,
we are indifferent to that.

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Juror's Notes from Showcases:

Jane Nodine: "This wall sculpture is well crafted and creates a sense of ritual and mystique. Harking back to a time when we relied on hunter/gather techniques to survive, this could be a modern response to mysteries of the natural world that have been lost to high-tech gadgetry. The forms and figures are well made and contrast with the texture and surface of the fiber and shredded panels."