I want to tell a story. It is about the big parade ~ NFC Lisbon.
My biggest thanks for all that transpired in Lisbon must go to these pioneers in live digital art John Karp and Grida.
My first discussions with John Karp regarding NFC Summit were all about where this medium becomes most compelling, when it pulls out the dreams of our subconscious into being and surrounds the audience, we’re all seeing the lights shining of this new medium.
Cinema, poetry, fine art, and live performance. The first opera was coined by pulling together these disparate art forms into a synthesis that lived aesthetic experience beyond a solitary screen, perhaps beyond the still painting which sits idle though beautifully instigating the imagination of the viewer as it may do.
John and I discussed for weeks the power of the live experience, in the arena of digital art that has become NFC Lisbon ~ where artists go to battle in that Amphitheatre of art that surrounds us all. And for that moment on the stage, five screens surround, one voice is all that matters ~ one voice is all there is.
The commanding presence of live cinematic poetry performance, lives at that stage in Lisbon just once a year for three days.
The stage is a home I spend too long apart from. She is the bow of my soul, my heart & I stand with her traversing the most fervent oceans.
On the day of “Paradise Reigns” those were fervent seas indeed ~ stepping on the stage, the poetry memorized and layered images embedded in my subconscious the dream of paradise swirled around my mind and feeling, the poetry was ready to express itself outwardly through my vessel and instrument.
It was the ancients too who taught me to memorise ~ those orators that stood on street corners in Ancient Greece reciting whole sagas and epic myths through various memorisation methods. As there are many problems with the prevailing methods of acting and those of the past which dealt with the subject of memory in misguided ways, working against the natural course of human subconscious thoughts and associations. Many practitioners and self-proclaimed Kings of the craft have overlooked this ancient wisdom. That to learn from one’s own imagination and not by motor memory denying the feelings that rise up from the core of our being. That even those that Romantics could see and the likes of Lee Strasberg touched on himself in poetry;
“I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion kindred to that which was before the object of contemplation is gradually produced and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on.”
Though that is sadly largely where both Lee Strasberg and Stanislavki’s pursuit of poetry finished, favoring more trendy techniques in psychoanalysis which suppress the human will, that have since been outdated. For there are many parts of the spirit in human beings that cannot be coded, nor predicted, but are pursued by greater depths than theories and exercises which barely scratch the surface, let alone unravel threads to make a parchment, and not nearly enough still to write a well crafted poem.
Both men acknowledged the beauty in art and in poetry and touch on the truths and depths of Romanticism but for reasons unbeknownst to me left it alone at surface level ~ when it came to pursuit of study or an integral part of the craft and practice. And no amount of time spent in the latter’s study could remedy this missing link in the method, but to pursue art wholly and fully, not just to study it, but to feel it, more-so to know it. The pursuit of art and poetry should never be finished.
Standing in front of the room filled with digital art lovers, the talk and preparation was done, the time to realize this vision was now.
Though after a stellar introduction by Dyl Blaquiere of MuseFrames as I stepped on stage though the right, left and centre screens unraveled ~ the screens in front and back were off.
I looked over at Grida, her raised to her ear as she spoke directions urgently into her microphone. I know if there was a possibility for the screens to come on at the time that Grida would make it happen.
And yet I was compelled by that wind in your eyes and ears, staring up at the brightest stars at night, propelling me to bring to life this poem. All of us experiencing the dream in a collective being.
I saw Basileus in audience, one of the beloved patrons of digital art ~ the passion in his eyes and the vision he has for our community, the strength and search for beauty.
The show must go on ~ I read the poem with half the screen blaring Paradise to a room full of fauns. My memories arise and I could feel those poetics blooming. As those giants of the soul bounded through the room on hind legs that raised them in the air.
When I came off stage John & Grida walked up to me and said “we must go again”. “Let’s play it again” they bellows to the technicians and audience alike. A microphone was plugged into my ear again and an announcement for a second screening to be played.
The screens lit up all around and we were all pulled in now. A second time, it reigned in Paradise, and we ran through those battles once more, the battles for beauty. Though the old King lay defeated on that stage that day, the long march to paradise has only just begun.
A story of satyr and soldiers of beauty, those great Romantics who came roaring through the forests to conquer Elysium.
A King whose old ways had concurred and calcified into a dry pile on the floor. Time had passed him by and what once worked for a moment in time, turned out to be the snake oil of yesterday.
And that King fell to his knees by my feet. As I held his head in my hand and removed it with my blade, like Oedipus before me, I saw in slow motion he sank to the floor and it was the end of his reign. I would like to say that’s where the story finished, but it is not finished, rather the beginning of a new era.
Even the eternal truths of the human spirit, those things that are resistant to the changing winds. That last the test of time, and time is on their side.
Those who cannot accept the oncoming reigns of paradise as their vines take root in the souls of its people and their minds and voices spoke with truth.
Until next year my memories still will cherish NFC Lisbon, from that first night I drank and dined with the Cult Of Crypto Art ~ Jaen, Olgar, George and Arthr. Jenni Pasanen, Rachel T Wood, Pronoia we all basked in that tranquil evening by the lake where swans and sculptures gave shade to the last cool shadows by the palace.
To hug and to see the shining face of my dear friend Tania Rivilis, to see her canvas depicting Val Kilmer. To stay with my dear friends Cemha and AL Crego as they worked late into the night on their immersive rooms and feel that presence of Xcollabz and Animus.
To see fellow performance artists Befe, Oona, Souline, Cyber Yuyu and Irin Angles.
Fidel’s brunch brought me closer to old friends and new, and to Leo Crane, Clare Maguire, Jean-Michel Pailhon, Blakeney Sanfrod, Ender Diril, Arthr, Nygilia, Yucai, Hannes Hummel, Trevor and Violet Jones, Ricardo Alves, Maria Fynsk Norup, Richard Masa, Medved, No Creative, Gabe Weiss, Rutger Van Der Tas, Wim, Lady Kristina, Rachel Suzanne Tien Wood, Ogar, OMGiDRAWEDit, toomuchlag, Gul Yildiz, Kika Nicolela, Roya, Jaen, Zhannet, Patrick Amadon, George Boya, Ender Diril, Arthr, Irina Koksharova, DVK, Hannes Hummel, Merve, Sanqueira.
PARADISE REIGNS
I descended the stairs of Paradise with all my brothers grasping roses by their side,
Stepping through the halls and drowned at last in light,
It was none-other than the transcendent glow of paradise,
Some fauns were lifted by the rapture,
We were all surrounded by this encounter,
I know I was one step closer to his chamber.
For those soldiers of beauty who danced down steps of gold like they were skating on heavens tiles,
Ivory chalk, they clap and clasp the reigns or tearing war elephants beneath the thunderous skies of Elysium’s stormy clouds,
The mud makes way their hoof and foot
As satyr’s claimed the sky,
and all the land was light,
Ancient and divine,
Freedom, pleasure, euphoria,
The constraint of goodness cast their chains, locks and cracked iron did not remain,
Left those burdens, like morality’s restraints.
Sat all above the elements command,
Elysium Rex sat troubled by an addled countenance and sat upon a throne of roses.
A Babylon before him of endless gardens,
Vines wrapped around ornaments of worship,
Though the old King knew what once filled merchant’s coffers with plenty to harvest.
The vines began to dry,
And clay did crack with time,
Eroded the castle walls with rust that breached Paradise falls.
The mind can rot like broken pots,
And the scepter melts into a trough,
Filled with shells.
The body dried like sticks,
And the dance of life hardened broken promises and a picture frame of a lost queen beneath.
The King’s private songbird nipped at his grey beard and hair.
As he purveyed his crumbling kingdom like the tablets he once held so tight,
Beneath that hardened grip of might,
Fragments hanging from the gardens over the balconies.
He stares out of the window
At all the beauty now fallen to shadows
Falling irises collected by the pond he once plundered,
And lavender swayed in the breeze of war,
For they will not be seen,
Beauty captured, cataloged and owned,
Laid before the throne
Only the finest…
Only the best.
Making my way to the castle
I climb the walls and talk
“Do you feel it?
Brothers that is Paradise breathing in your bones,
The petals blooming like our hearts in arrest,
Can you feel it,
Burrowing in your soul,
It’s like all of life is dancing in the air,
The smallest sound feels like a melody in our ears,
The bugs and birds fly in synchronicity,
Higher and higher, the wind may never stop,
Rise so high they graze the clouds,
The green parade in the sky,
It was the first sign, the year had changed, forever,
And this was marked by a single falling feather,
It’s bronze reflection landed on a statue,
Dancing on marble;
Inscribed,
“Dance with me,
With your baddest electric energy,
Your arms those falling feathers,
The night moves upon your feet,
This life passes once before us,
And never again we shall meet.”
Beyond the gardens and all it sees,
Seeds from figs and fruit sprout new beginnings from every part of paradise’s soil,
My brothers bounding through its ruins, like giants of the soul.
Draped across the steps were Elysium’s daughters one and all.
I walked up to his chamber,
Each step it struck a chord,
Like climbing a harp to heaven.
He heard my footsteps on the floor
“So it was you after all”
I clutched his hair and with my blade removed his head from his shoulders,
His body fell to the floor, by my feet,
From the corner of my eye, there stood the seat,
Adorned in gold and bone,
Perishing petals in the heat fell by my feet,
As I ascend my rightful throne,
And there for the first time,
I set my hands upon the crown.
Just then the Queen appeared,
Shining like the Sun,
A new era had begun.