Berlin Tourist Monument Yoga series

Just did my tourist series today - doing yoga poses (often as a spectacle seen as sacred or sexual & appropriated from india) in front of various Berlin monuments and asking tourists to photograph me in my red costume (which seems to be becoming a through line) ... which was highly interactive and interesting, could go a lot further. very cold today! but got some great shots and interactions.. responses. 

The photos are hilarious, once again I am reminded that my ideas are actually quite ridiculous while also serious. I am interested in playing the line of comedy/parody and earnestness, I don't think it needs to be set in concrete either. I really felt at moments as if i was 'disrespecting' some kind of institution (playing the tourist line but subverting it) and at other times like I was bringing something loving to it, bringing life/the suppressed feminine back to it, which was reflected back at me in responses from 'you look like a flaming flower growing out of the building' to 'ein bißchen comisch'... :) all good! 

A tour guide interrogated me and took a pic for me and himself about what i was doing.. which he understood and offered his card- saying he could take me to some really good places (he had a small riding cart) which is a different turn again, me 'paying' him to take me around.. and photograph me at these sites. Was it a come on? I noticed that men were fairly fascinated by what I was doing, but in the photos many people are also watching me as a spectacle. I am interested in walking the line between tourist and artist as a woman, the money related issues around this, spectacle, site, women's body as inherent monument unsacrilised in the same way as these monuments, like reinstalling the live female body not as an object so much, but as an identity, a presence amidst such rigid masculine structures. The humour as well for me could go even further though I like the on the edge is this for real or not? I don't know if i'm achieving it .. & its a beginning point.. particularly in Paris- i noticed a lot of the golden statues are of 'women' representing this notion of freedom (a bit like the victory statue in Berlin) - yet its a highly sexist culture.. seemingly. 

Ritual at Teufelsberg: Devils Mountain: Berlin: Destroying my rejected Health insurance policy for my rejected visa inc Pregnancy cover amidst rubble from WW2 moved by women

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teufelsberg

On friday I did a ritual performance on Teufelsberg in Berlin within the Grunewald Forest, which is one of many 'mountains' in Berlin created by rubble from WW2 dumped within natural landscapes. Victoria Park in Kreuzberg is another. There are 2 mountains at Teufelsberg (Devils mountain) and we climbed this first one, which has the former American spy base on it. You used to be able to enter here illegally, but it currently has squatters residing in it who have sealed all the holes in the fence and are charging 7 euro to enter for one hour on a tour! 2 of my friends jumped the fence to have a look but the rest of us went to this other mountain from which this distant photo is taken of the spy base.

I brought with me my rejected health insurance policy for a rejected german/artist visa (as in the post below at http://burnandsurrender.blogspot.de/2012/10/pregnancy-healthcare-me-and-german-visa.html) in response to a friend of mine whom I emailed my project letter to who I suggested us going to Teufelsberg thought me doing something to this policy would represent this injustice of having to pay twice as much as a woman immigrant/foreigner to get a visa for Germany. I thought that this could be destroyed on top of the mountain and contributing to the 'rubble' of German history. With an axe bought for a performance 2 years ago from Berlin from men who asked me what the axe was for and I said "mein mann" laughed heartily (my husband) and I had made Germans laugh in german for the first time realising the humour was dark. When I said it was for a performance/dance they thought I was just weird. Then the idea was to pour water over myself and the insurance document, to 'cleanse' us, and the situation, then plant a plant within the soil with the destroyed insurance to create a new beginning. This is suggested by Jodorowsky, whenever something is buried something also needs to be planted, to bring forth the new.

Melody Watson

• definitely the whole pregnancy healthcare thing would be an interesting angle....it still totally pisses me off that i have to pay for the fact im a woman here!

I have since discovered that the rubble from the bombed city of Berlin was coincidentally all moved BY WOMEN from the city of Berlin. These women also endured horrendous sexual violence by the Russian forces taking over whom Stalin said they had 3 days to 'do whatever they wanted' to - to the city, which went on for 3 months. This is a synchronicity I found out after doing my performance ritual (that it was rubble moved by women), documented by a male friend from NZ who invited me to perform in Frankfurt, Matthew Ward. I am having trouble transferring the files from my camera to computer currently.

As seen in the first photo above there are natural human made tracks carved out of this second mountain unlike the first which has concrete paths and going down the mountain on then there is obvious rubble protruding from the dirt, bits of building, full brick walls from a bombed part of someone's house. I changed into my black tutu bottom from my performance Weg A-way, a solo about Berlin/the 'axe dance'- for me this represents the Russian 'ballet' love stories (often of tortured women, ballet itself tortures the female erotic body) as a 'dance' between Germany and Russia, plus the health insurance is from a British company Axa and the reason I didn't get the visa was based upon language difference and 'outsiderness' somehow residue of the war also. I wore an "I Heart Berlin" t-shirt and my blond wig, to satirise this identity- the Aryan child- I used to be blond also, so this movement from child to woman. Forced pregnancy healthcare costing twice than for a man is not only sexist but also definitely controlling of the erotic female body in relation to money. The healthcare is not even valid for one year, I suggested they create a discount for this to the woman I signed up with, as you're paying money for nothing for a year just to get a visa. An axe for me is from the Little Red Riding Hood story, a german Grimms Fairy tale about the safety/non safety of a girl coming into womanhood venturing 'off the beaten track'. Somehow being filmed/photographed by a male friend on this path seemed healing.

I got asked by an olderish couple in german what i was doing with my axe and I said 'dancing' ! who thought this was hilarious. I got changed, in the bushes, waiting for men to walk passed.. then began the ritual on a path leading to the other mountain on a sunny day in autumn. The document chopped well in the soil on the bricks and dirt. Somehow I had images also of this 'institution' the bricks as a broken institution.. and this visa/immigration/healthcare as an institution, fragmented. The water was heavy to carry there and it was a relief to pour it over myself and the document, which then cut even more easily. This ritual got dirtier and dirtier as I started to with my fingers dig earth to make a place for the plant and to bury the paper with the plant on the hillside with the bricks. Water and dirt was flicking all over me and I continued to use the axe to dig. The plant was from my flat balcony, symbolising my peace and goodwill to return here to this flat and to Germany/Berlin. I felt that I was somehow addressing the destruction of Berlin too and the torture of women during war within this but unconsciously. The piece addressed the past but the present more specifically, how to heal wounds of immigration for a single woman trying to travel through this world, how to find peace with a difficult place- despite and because of money and the erotic female body. Turned into art.. The couple on the hill asked "have you danced" (hab du getanzt?) to which I said 'yes of course!' and they laughed..

I was also interested in the blur of 'nature' and 'culture' in this ritual, the fake hill and fake costumes, wig, the real axe, dirt, plant, document. The fact that culture so often 'dumps' onto the female body, onto the Earth, as metaphors. This subversive and Ana Mendietaish.. ritual in 'nature' dealing with persona/political notions of money systems in relation to the female erotic body and its control. Turned into art through very much a 'psychomagic' action, combined with and supported by friends, both male and female.

https://vimeo.com/52297679

CURRENT AND FUTURE ACTIONS

As mentioned at the post http://burnandsurrender.blogspot.de/2012/09/interactive-psychomagic-actions.html  some of the actions to come yet are suggested, today I am actually going to Teufelsberg- which is an old spy base and a mountain of rubble from ww2 and east Berlin burying a nazi training school to wash and plant a tree with a group of friends. I am also going to lie in the street in my sleeping bag at Alexanderplatz civic area as if a street performer/busker/homeless dreamer/occupy protester with a small box asking for people's 'dreams' to be inserted into the box with paper and a pen tied to the box. Above is me at the Brandenburg gate doing a yoga pose, but actually as a tourist, something inextricably bound to money and culture as an example of something I will do- yoga poses on the matt infront of the Reichstag tourist line. Below is a time I attempted to do Tarot readings again in the tourisic Mauer park during summer to no avail and also did about 10 readings for friends and strangers at Tempelhof (left) at the guerilla organic gardens, which is something I will be doing- on the trains and in the street. These things are suggestions of 'private' actions regarding the female erotic/body in 'public' spaces- inherently a vulnerable action to take. 

Sleeping, dreaming, washing, tarot, yoga, meditation, in public, as an artist, as a tourist, a woman, a performer, busker, healer, in front of banks, shopping malls, on trains, at monumental tourist sites, these things are tied to money systems and identities which resist objectified and cliched notions of the female erotic body in relation to money systems. As outlined in my project, they become psychomagic actions - initiated by my communities/friends/myself and remove or question the exchange of money instead replaced with the idea of giving and being for its own sake. Reclaiming this. Not wanting anything, not buying into a relationship which is bound up in the consumerism of the female erotic body via money systems. Present and visible in private/public actions. In private, documented, publicly interactive. Also documented. I am about to really begin having prepared a lot... 

EURO LIGHT SCULPTURE FRANKFURT: SACRI/$/BODY 1st STREET ACTION: INFRONT OF EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

This is my first "psychomagic" public performance action photographed in Frankfurt. All photos are by Elsa Thorp, my photographic collaborator whose "suggestion" this psychomagic action of being in front of the Euro light sign was in response to my letter and concept for this project. She is from NZ, but based in Berlin. We combined our ideas together, my idea of meditating/dancing/begging in front of a bank and also the Oracle of Delphi performance in Frankfurt, with her Euro sign in Frankfurt photo idea, as this is in front of the European Central Bank. We combined my performance trip to Leonhardi Kulturprojecte with this, which she also documented (post below). These different performances are all forms of the MFA project. I discovered that this site is the site of the Occupy Frankfurt began as a worldwide movement in 2011 and still exists to the right, also it is a site for where the 'Roma' (Romanian gypsies) beg, which I also did not know until I arrived. My imagery was morphed together prior to this, but seems to relate. Reclaiming feminine sacred power/bodily and intuitive wisdom is present here. It is also meant to have humour. It is a meditating protest dance performance on a saturday night. This idea of 'giving' has come up already a lot in relation to the female erotic body/power of the feminine and sexuality as something which subtley subverts and eludes money systems. Giving freely of this body in a way which uses but does not exploit female sexuality is something which directly opposes money systems, though women's/people's unpaid labour is ever present in capitalism also. Performance art psychomagic becomes an offering, something for party goers and tourists to think about, I am not busking or asking for anything here. I am not exploiting my body, I am implying something different I hope in morphing together a variety of gestures and performance actions. This has been the culmination of studio actions and concepts derived through the process, as explained in posts prior, red is the colour of the root chakra: money/sexuality/survival/community. I wanted an outfit which covered my body, protected it, which was also open to readings on many levels, across cultures. I am sitting on a yoga matt I use daily.

 

STAR: ORACLE OF DELPHI: FRANKFURT LEONHARDI KULTURPROJECKTE

 https://vimeo.com/51595229

Photos by Elsa Thorp

This live performance integrated my work 'The Star' - a development through the year with 'Oracle of Delphi' which integrates many of the studio actions I discovered in an interactive performance which asked the asked audience to asked me questions to which I responded in 'psychomagic' actions or administered 'psychomagic' actions to the audience. I sat upon my yoga matt which a range of objects used in my studio rehearsals which are discarded from my life or used as part of the project. 5 actions were performed to questions "you said the wall has the power- why?' (I asked him to write his family's name in spray paint on the wall) "what is the meaning of Frankfurt?" (I put my rose quartz on my chest and put a handy towel used roll in my mouth, made animal sounds through it and tried to light it, then threw 1 cent pieces at the window) "what about love?" (I asked the man to take a tarot card from my animal pack, he chose whale- souls path, honour your souls purpose) "what is the book you have written?" (I picked up Bataille showed it to the audience and said I did not write this book) "will we be ok?" (I put on my hair dye plastic gloves and took a toilet roll and gave it to the man who was sitting at one end of a semi circle, then took it around the group, I then took off my dress, put on my collaborator lucy beeler's music, did flapping actions, took off my underwear and singlet and danced a tai chi like routine, also slid my obsidian crystal to the man asking- which is absorbs negativity") I concluded the performance by joining the question mark the first man had drawn on the wall into a heart and wrote END. Bowing.

I was interested in this format within an art gallery/fine arts performance context- playing with things from my rehearsals and testing out in a public audience space this idea of 'female wisdom' (Oracle of Delphi) within the Book Fair week as an extension of the female erotic body, but also again tying ideas of this 'giving' and the administering and performing of 'psychomagic' actions in a reasonably controlled environment. Where does the idea of 'sexuality' or the 'female erotic body' begin and end when it is generally so bound to money, so to include all associated with female embodiment is challenging to cliches.

Bathing in bureaucracy/money=sacred body cleanse & erotic paint job

Revised question: How can the un/sacred female erotic body subvert, resist or transform oppressive relationships to, in and around sacrilised power systems of money through 'psychomagic' actions?