Ana Cristina Leonardo

 

 

In The Clean and the Dirty there are educated bodies and uneducated bodies.
There is, mainly, a joyful wallowing in the fusion between these two kinds of bodies and in the profusion generated by that fusion. That fusion which seems to make a particular place emerge, the favourite place, the precise place (a place of precision but also a place which we need).

 

[TO PUSH, TO INSIST, TO RIP OUT, TO SQUEEZE, TO PURGE, TO EXPEL, TO INSIST, TO STRETCH, TO EXPOSE, TO INSIST, TO OPEN, TO TIGHTEN, TO PRESS, TO CRUMBLE, TO OPEN, TO RETAIN, TO RUB, TO INSIST, TO PINPOINT, TO SWEEP, TO OPEN]

 

I think that the only life is actually the one of Handling the Materials of the World (and we, human beings, are also world). To handle objects, images, words, movements, intensities. To handle spaces, times, affections, desires, vibrations. To handle ghosts. To cleanse ourselves through that handling. To dirty ourselves through that handling. Handling in various associations, in intersections and couplings, a handling activated in actions, embodiments, incarnations (crossed in spaces and times). The life of another language. A verbal-less language or, even if verbal-more, at least a non-linear language. Non-linear crossings. A place of openness and possibility, the only place for intensities, vibrations and othernesses. That’s where I see richness, that’s where I see density, that’s where I see life material, that’s where I see nourishment, that’s where I see meaning. The only thing to do, the only possible thing to do, the only thing that seems to be worth doing.

 

[WHICH COMES FROM INSIDE AND CLEANS, WHICH COMES FROM INSIDE AND DIRTIES, WHICH COMES FROM INSIDE AND CLEANS, WHICH COMES FROM INSIDE AND DIRTIES, WHICH COMES FROM INSIDE AND CLEANS]

 

At a certain point I realized that what is done in Inner Transition, in order to work out subjectivities and to try to mitigate harmful tendencies, is very similar to what is done in art and particularly in the performing arts. These arts and the work into Transition are related. Practices of care of the self, practices of care of ourselves. Specific practices to reinvent ways of being. Tools to work on us, tools for several balances, for several ecologies, personal and social ecologies. I like to think of art as a Tool for Transition (to transit out of ostentation and the imposition of power, for example).

 

[BETWEEN ABOVE AND BELOW, FROM THE GROUND TO THE FOREHEAD, FROM THE CEILING TO THE MOUTH, THE HAND ON THE TUBE AT THE CENTRE OF THE BODY]

 

Rather than tirelessly implementing procedures of censorship and contention in the name of great moral principles we should learn how to promote a true ecology of the phantasm, one that works through the transference, translation and redeployment of their matters of expression. ⁽¹⁾

 

[A BODY JOLTED BY ELECTRICITY. ELECTRIC SHOCK]

 

What makes us want to live? What are we doing in life? What is a life well lived? What makes us vibrate? What brings out desire? What produces vitality? What must we remember, celebrate, point out, name?
There is a significant place for the body in these issues, being the place which provides the activation of the senses and the activation of thought, and which intensifies the relationships with everything that surrounds us. All of this is related to energy, movement, intensity and desire, and that's what creates meaning in life. ⁽²⁾

 

Vera Mantero

 

⁽¹⁾ Guattari, Félix (2000 [1989], 57), The Three Ecologies, The Athlone Press, London and New Brunswick, accessed at https://monoskop.org/images/4/44/Guattari_Felix_The_Three_Ecologies.pdf

⁽²⁾ Mantero, Vera, A body made of bones (science) and blood (art), in Cláudia Galhós (orgs.) There is nothing that is beyond our imagination, Torres Vedras: ArtinSite / Imagine 2020, 2015, pp. 176-177