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transiency_maja_kuzmanovic [2017-01-29 12:05] – majatransiency_maja_kuzmanovic [2017-02-05 10:55] – maja
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 This page is the informal log of my transiency process, in reverse chronological order. This page is the informal log of my transiency process, in reverse chronological order.
 +
 +==== February 2017 ====
 +
 +=== Week 52 ===
 +
 +I’m enveloped in darkness. The darkness of the pre-dawn hour while I write this entry. The darkness of early February, the in-between time of Imbolc and the inception of spring. The darkness of the fallow land and the fallow year, teeming with vigorous yet bitter energy of life below its surface. The darkness of a crumbling cocoon, too tight for the creature craving to emerge from within. "//Not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb//" ([[http://valariekaur.com/2016/11/a-sikh-prayer-for-america-on-november-9th-2016/|Valerie Kaur]]). 
 +
 +{{::schiphol_bladerunner.jpg?600 |}}
 +
 +On Thursday morning, when the flight from Singapore landed in Amsterdam, the first announcement I heard was "//Watch your step when you get off the aircraft, there is a technical problem with lighting in parts of the airport.//" Under the watchful eyes of the grim security personnel, we descended into a dark corridor, pulsing with emergency strobe-lights. A river of flight-dazed passengers walking slowly in a disordered line, up a rickety escalator, people’s faces glowing eerily green. I felt as if we stumbled onto the set of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner|Blade Runner]]. Cyberpunk incarnated. The colour faded into bleak shades of greys and browns when we stepped off the train in Brussels… 
 +
 +
 +A stark contrast to the cheerful pinks, reds and oranges of the Chinese New Year that illuminated our last walk along Marina Bay only half a day earlier. The first days of the Year of the Rooster heralded interesting opportunities for the nomadic FoAM studio in Asia Pacific. We spent several tropical evenings in the company of [[https://twitter.com/honorharger|Honor Harger]] (and Co.), discussing times of transition and complexity, technological and social innovation, consciousness and religion, and a myriad of possible futures in Singapore as a temporary outpost for FoAM’s nomads.
 +
 +<blockquote>//We are curious about the changing relationships between human and non-human worlds, in what Whitehead calls “mysterious reality in the background, intrinsically unknowable". We’re particularly interested in exploring ecological connections between worldviews, including kami (shinto), viriditas (christian mysticism) and panpsychism (philosophy). How can we translate animist or mystical attitudes towards interconnectedness of all life into worldviews compatible with contemporary (or future) techno-materialist societies? How would such perspective transform our relationships with humans and non-humans? What parallel arts, science or technologies become possible? Our focus is on creating experiences to convey or encourage a sense of wonder. Our media include Romantic Machines, the vegetal mind, meditative environments, rites of passage, human scale systems and non-human technologies...// - Excerpt from a letter Nik and I wrote in Singapore
 +</blockquote>
 +
 +{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/31907128593/}}\\
 +
 +This was a week of contrasts and crossroads. From 33 to 3 degrees Celsius. From a city that buzzes with seemingly effortless efficiency, to a city that seems to struggle with blockages of all kinds. From an optimistic sense of lightness and possibility to a sense of drowning in mud. From distilling insights for the future to unravelling the convoluted commitments of the past. From connectedness to separation, from offers to demands, from abundance to scarcity. From thriving to surviving.
 +
 +<blockquote>Brussels is a city for those who have patience, time and imagination. It is for those who question the increasingly frenetic pace of urban life and work. It is for those who appreciate understatement and refuse homogenising labels and manufactured “hip” concepts. Perhaps, however, what keeps Brussels attractive is its latent sense of expectancy, the promise of a perpetual becoming which is never fulfilled.
 +- [[http://theartnewspaper.com/comment/comment/why-brussels-is-not-the-new-berlin/|Katerina Gregos]]
 +</blockquote>
 +
 +I’m not going to dwell on my frustrations with circumstances in Brussels again. Suffice to say that I find the phase of re-integration quite difficult. The process of transition necessarily results in change - often manifest as finding a new role in an existing context, the transformation of the context itself, or a move to a completely new context. The only approach I haven’t yet tried with FoAM in Brussels is the latter. What I find difficult at the moment is that the direction and pace of my personal transition seems to be at odds with the place where I currently live and work. So much so that I don’t see any way back. It feels like I’ve outgrown the cocoon that has sustained me for years - if I don’t break out, I will suffocate and perish. I’ve seen this reaction with FoAM’s transients in the past. Our advice to them was almost always to stay close to where their renewed energies lie and to find ways to let go of the unsustainable ties to the past, no matter how painful the cutting of ties might be.
 +
 +During the past year I have glimpsed my preferred futures and experienced resonances with new places and people across the globe. Yet there are forces of friendship and commitment that keep pulling me back to Brussels and into old habits, behaviours and situations. It takes a lot of energy to resist, especially when paired with feelings of doubt, guilt and shame that I’m letting people down. It’s painful to cut ties to a place and a context, when there are people I care about who will remain. I don’t want burning bridges to light my way, I want to leap off the bridge into a bioluminescent sea…
 +
 +<blockquote>The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm (…). On the Offshore Lights you can live any story (…) and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind.
 +- M L Stedman, The Light Between Oceans
 +</blockquote>
 +
 +{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/32597315871/}}\\
  
 ==== January 2017 ==== ==== January 2017 ====
 +
  
 === Week 51 === === Week 51 ===
  • transiency_maja_kuzmanovic.txt
  • Last modified: 2017-04-08 08:48
  • by maja