If I were a Boat, then I'd be a Lady ... Lady's Log
These are excerpts from a log I kept in honor of the tradition practiced by many sailors. I made ten films and two sets of time-lapses during my two weeks on the Eleonore. Each has its own character, choreography, and theatrics. I am using the camera as an apparatus to hold my conscious/analytical mind so I can be subjective and navigate my subconscious in my performances. Really it is like a kind of playing. I generally have an image in mind and then set up the camera and improvise. Sometimes, I spend many hours making a certain sequence of movements and then install it in a place. Both processes work, require research, and are highly physical and emotional. This is my first series of dances, moments, documents made in Austrian waters. The title "If I were a boat, then I'd be a lady" is a word game. I found the common metaphors of "being at sea" and "getting your sea legs" came together in the end as two parts of a larger process called something like "learning how to live gracefully without a map".
Josseline Black, October 11, 2012
Informations about the whole residency here.
Lady's Log
Log #1 September 17, 2012- 18:21
"Being at Sea" Internal sea, external land External sea, internal land
I live with half-courage, riding imagined waves of emotion, facing no fear of death out of my element/habitat.
I am soft. I am no sailor. Naiveté, we suffer and pay homage for your protection.
"Getting your Sea legs" It is the sense of being fixed and the nervous condition of wanting to cast off that turns us on.
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Log #2 September 18, 2012- 17:00
Nothing to write about "Being at Sea". Nothing to write about "Getting your sea legs. What to do about a boat that will not sail. This ship won't leave the dock. The experience of waiting, neutrality in the body. Remembrance, yearning. All very personal.
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Log #3 September 19, 2012- 21:00
translation of the word "Boot" from Das Buch der Symbole. 1)looking at land from the Eleonore: what did i leave behind? 2)looking at water from the Eleonore: what might i find? both kinds of looking are necessary to locate yourself in the presentness of your condition.
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Lady's Log
Log#4 September 20, 2012- 10:37
"Getting your sea Legs" Rivers themselves are like legs for the sea, bringing the blood or water, as it may be back to the heart of the ocean. Therefore we can choose to think that the sea's legs are actually rivers. "Being at Sea" The process by which the fresh water is absorbed into salt-water. At what point does the river water end and the sea water begin, or the leg end and the torso begin, or the blood end and the heart begin?
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Log #5 September 21, 2012- 17:38
"A Few Sentences Dear Dubenka, You're Ariadne, and I'm Theseus, you're unwinding a several-thousand-kilometre long thread, I'm in a situation described..." -Bahoumil Hrabal, Total Fears We are always somehow connected to something, even when we are floating.
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Log #6 September 22, 2012- 12:00
"Getting your Sea Legs" and "Being at Sea" have one thing in common: both states require an honest assessment of one's humanity.
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Lady's Log
Log #7 September 23, 2012- 16:30
All relationships require the following: two poles, a compass, time, and curiosity. Some things come to mind as a woman might write to a man while she is feeling the waters of undefined feeling. Maybe one has to send oneself a message in a bottle. throw some thing into the inner seas and catch it on the other side of the psyche.
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Log #8 September 24, 2012- 15:51
"Being at sea".... "Getting your sea legs" would mean finding the mechanics necessary to be at sea comfortably There are many different sea legs, or sets of responses to make something functional which was initially unmanageable. Getting and keeping sea legs can mean absorbing and later identifying with spontaneously emergent variables.
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Log #9 /Log #10 September 25/September 26, 2012-
() Silence. The swan family visited again. Two days blurred into one. Lots of thinking about the boat from somewhere else.
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Lady's Log
Log #9 /Log #10 September 25/September 26, 2012-()
Silence. The swan family visited again. Two days blurred into one. Lots of thinking about the boat from somewhere else.
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Log #11 September 27, 2012- 15:32
"Sea Legs": "Illusion of motion, felt on dry land after spending time at sea"; "Illusions of self-motion occur when one moves or feels one has moved without feeling that one has made the movement." "Sea Legs": "Is the ability to steadily walk on the deck of a boat or ship" "Sea Legs": "A metaphor for living/travelling at sea" (Websters) Ideomotor effect. body reacting reflexively to ideas without consciously choosing action. Tears are example. good information.
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Log #12-Log #14 September 28th-September 30, 2012-()
Being at sea. Being on/in a boat. Being in your body moving in space without full control. Being lost. Being carried by an invisible vessel, "soul boat". Finding comfort in surrendering. Being found.
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