It was a great pleasure to be able to setup a 3D exhibition for this series in the metaverse, I would like to encourage everybody to check out this exhibition in the metaverse and then leave us feedback here or on my Twitter: https://oncyber.io/heiress
I chose the abandoned church I suppose in the tradition of a lot of the great galleries in London which come out unexpected locations like Whitechapel and White Cube. There’s a feeling of a connecting to the relics of history with the space, time forgotten ruins that are reconstructed and contemporized, much like the way Senju and I go about our respective practices and what brought us together.
Preview available oncyber above, Full drop on Foundation
Senju’s work has become very popular on instagram because at first glance it is traditional Japanese art of the highest quality, but then the longer you spend with it you notice subtle influences of the present which begin to make themselves known to the viewer. Before long you realize you are in the grips of a contemporary artist, what still may not be evident until further inspection into Senju’s process is that he’s creating all this not with traditional Japanese brushes, but with a digital pen. Pretty astounding and hard to think of anyone who is working in this way, so successfully.
This new medium working with fine artists and adding that performative aspect to the work with my poetry would not have been possible in any other medium other than NFTs. Anyone whose been following my social media knows I was experimenting with this sort of new media on my social media for a couple years, but never to this extent and with these production values. NFTs have provided a frame for spoken word poetry and fine art to come together much like these elements come together in cinema. So all of that has been a very natural progression for me and the work that I’ve been doing.
I can probably only describe the sort of poetry I write as being Neo-Romantic. Lord Byron is one of my favorite poets, his work Don Juan was reflective of his statues as the bad boy of the Romantic poets. The great seducers throughout history, have all had in common a sense of taboo, between an obsession with the pursuit of pleasure and by contrast the appearance of restraint. I wanted for the performances to be non-linnear and not at all to feel like a poetry reading. I want the abstract soundscapes to work on the subconscious like a dream and for the piece itself to be calmly hypnotic, I’m going to continue working in this way, the goal is to see if this experiment will have a deeper and more complete experience for the viewer both with poetry and with art.
The other actor in the piece is Cynthia San Luis who did an amazing job with her voice performance. I wanted to give both characters much of the same dialogue as the power dynamics and control is passed back and forth between the masculine and the feminine although the feminine energy is mostly the one taking the reigns throughout.
Obviously as a classically trained actor its been a real blessing to have an outlet to practice my craft, but even after the theatres and the cinemas return to life post-Covid, I will continue to work in this way as well.
I want to give a quick shout out and a big thank you to NFTipi (Clarina) for hosting our drop party on Clubhouse on Wednesday and to everyone who showed up and participated in the event, it was a great experience for both me and Cynthia to take part amongst such supportive community of artists!
View the full drop here on Foundation
