Other People’s Bliss will exhibit as an immersive art experience at Lume Studios in NYC
September 29th at 2pm
This collection between myself and painter Tania Rivilis, titled Other People’s Bliss marks our tenth collaboration together. This project animates Tania’s evocative paintings, fusing them with my poetry narration to create an immersive experience that guides audiences through a narrative of self-discovery and the transcendence of ego. The animation breathes life into Tania’s already dynamic brushstrokes, making her figures move through time, drawing viewers into the world of sensation and emotion that we have crafted together. At the core of this experience is the idea that we, having once been trapped within the confines of our own ego, now step outside of it to fully see and celebrate the joy and bliss of others.
This partnership between Tania Rivilis and myself is an artifact of its time, asking us to reconsider the relationships we forge within the art world. It serves not only as a reflection of our individual practices but also as a compelling argument against the rigid frameworks that have historically governed artistic creation. Does knowledge of the process impede on the experience of Bliss? And is this knowsledge counterbalanced by authenticity at its origins?
The poem, deeply inspired by the Romantic poets, ties the themes of nature, unity, and legacy together with an ethereal touch. Lines such as “The mountains they are all / From one side of the moon, / The other the sun” reflect the Romantic era’s preoccupation with nature and the sublime ~ where the vastness of the world mirrors the depths of human emotion. This merging of art forms not only calls upon the spirit of poets like Keats and Shelley, who sought transcendence in beauty, but also channels Peter Fuller's aesthetic philosophy, in which art's emotional power connects us with others, binding the personal and the universal.
Fuller believed that art has the capacity to unify our fractured world with the “aesthetic dimension.” In Other People’s Bliss, that dimension is a complete sensory experience ~ through the animation and soundscapes of my poetry, the paintings become an expansive field of collective emotion. Rivilis’ classical figures, move like spirits between our world and the next, embodying both personal and communal forms of bliss.
The union of painting and poetry dates back to the ancient Greeks, where ekphrasis ~ poetry about visual art ~ was born. Romantic poets furthered this tradition, drawing inspiration from the emotional weight and symbolism within paintings. Our work builds upon this lineage, fusing animation with poetic narration to create a sensual experience, a space where the language of the visual and the poetic intertwine, and art no longer exists in static silence. The motion in the paintings is brought to life with the help of cutting edge AI tools ~ echoes the movement of life, of relationships, and of spiritual awakening. The sensory world becomes a portal to empathy, where other people’s bliss can be truly felt, shared, and celebrated.
The exhibit at Lume Studios in New York City will transform the space into an all-encompassing environment, where the audience can live inside the artwork, surrounded by the textures of Rivilis’ paintings and the bliss of my poetry. Immersively, we invite our audience to touch the bliss that extends beyond the self.
This collaboration marks a moment of unification, where art transcends the barriers of ego, medium, and individual experience to celebrate the beauty found in the collective joy of creation. Through this synthesis, Other People’s Bliss becomes not just a work of art, but a living legacy, an aesthetic experience that calls upon the spirit of the Romantics to evoke unity, love, and the deep bliss of being human.
From one side of the moon,
The other the sun,
And in the middle we will watch all,
The cat, the pig and the owl,
To all the sea, we watch and see,
And never shall we run,
What is now, laying on the towel,
By me, that we cherish now,
An angel’s wings,
Flutter all the things and what we promise to our vows,
My love to this, we wonder in bliss,
A hundred notes unto us kiss,
The poems we allow,
A beautiful collaboration,
What we create,
Will be the port at every station,
What they say on this date,
And bring unity ~ unification,
Above the nations,
To make the whole world great,
Our family, our gardens dwell the trees,
The woods, the mountains and all the rocking seas,
Waterfalls through the night,
We love this life,
The books and art and poems we made
It was all for future generations.
Find my son,
Find my daughter,
What we left for you,
In the sculpture park,
In the library,
And in the dark,
It matters not what they say,
That day,
For the legacy was left for you,
The ringing bells,
The fables they tell,
The questions of our legacy,
For when we climb the first and last wrung,
Where they reach the top?
What do you see my love,
The world in an ocean’s drop.
~ Laurence Fuller, 2024
The doctrines of their marching orders,
In the halls their sons and daughters,
A hold on the flags in our fields,
The way I see you,
Like reading the deepest book on the shelf,
My hand slips between the cushions as I recite silk around my shoulders,
And no fear of growing older,
A life now lived much bolder,
I’ve been thinking about my life,
From beginning to end,
Trapped behind my eyes,
Unknown to all my friends.
Could this shell know,
Are all around the manifest of my thoughts,
Do people grow?
Or are they often caught,
How can I know this,
But it was written in omens,
The tumbling crowds,
Rioters we love and fall,
The good, the great,
Have we lost romance?
In our world, not in our hearts,
It raises from our doubts with open arms,
And beckons to its calling (all of ours)
The same arms we used to build this house,
The same arms that nurtured all of ours.
That we are angels on the beach in a sultry summer.
That he disappears upon a time,
When the world’s agendas all compete against his wishes, the magicians box of tricks,
Only full of springs and napkins and empty wishes,
All the artists just puppets in the puppeteers closet,
To cut the strings that kept them tied to his fingers.
At last a man to peg all our ideas to a pinup board of psychological reelings,
The dust on his vest, evidence he’s earned his afternoon,
With paper and pen,
At last the nightingale’s friend,
A candle not here for long,
But here for the ascending comes above time itself,
We are caught between the notes of this beautiful song,
And his tones the strings of Endymoin’s violin
Dreaming in the shaded walkways of even beneath the summer’s heat,
Inspires in the poet, the most beautiful dreams.