Last Flow of the Divine

'Last Flow of the Divine' 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. Last Flow of the Divine  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:

"Focusing on the music rather than lyric, this piece is about a life event that most women must experience - the loss of fertility after a lifetime of possibility. The Great Change of Seasons. Menopause. A subject that is often seen as uncomfortable for polite society. Beyond the discomfort of physical and psychological change there is the social change which can be equally difficult.

On the canvas, the red, twisted ropes of menses side by side with the pale veils of subtle shame mixed with the many colors of knowledge gained, but ignored because it no longer stems from the "prettiest package". The red ropes  strap her behind her walls, both while they flow and after they cease... the white shame forms a chaste wimple to hide her features. Society sees this phase of female existence as a joke or a nuisance in some cases, while the woman is in danger of being slowly shelved as less viable. Used up. Expendable. Invisible. 

The goddess, represented here by a Venus figure (the same type as have been found in archaeology sites around the globe), sealed away by her own mortality. Entombed before death. Wished away. No longer dewy enough to have value. 

Her body bears the marks and stripes of an imperfect life: the scars, the stretch marks, the spider and varicose veins, the lumps and bumps and cellulite, the wrinkles and crinkles and dry, crepey skin. 

In the bottom right corner is a circumpunct representing the last ovum... the last of her potential children as it passes across the veil unrealized. Yet all of her years of growth in wisdom and experience as she enters Crone stage... must that be lost in a society obsessed with the chaos of youth? Can she not now have new value and worth for the knowledge she acquired over a lifetime?

On the surface this piece is filled with chaos and discord. Does it look unpleasing to the eye? But if the viewer takes the time to pause... and look deeper... and search for the textures and colors... a richer beauty begins to form from the chaos. Shapes and lines and color dances that won't be observed with a cursory glance."

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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