the in plain site companions had something to say
crying in public January 25, 2021 Downtown Eastside Vancouver, BC
Image description: facade of a grey cement building. A little bit lower than the centre of the frame, there are two black doors with silver handles. There is watermarks on the outside of the wall that contrast the grey cement, looks like tears.
first date September 28, 2020 Commercial Drive, BC
M watched the bouquet of flowers on their lap wilt and sweat in the heat of the packed bus on the way to meet their date. The two had been IM-ing on Tinder for a week, it was flirty but shy on both sides. Walking up to the park, M thought about tossing the flowers but there was B. B looked up from their phone and smiled. M knew it was too late to jettison the bouquet, so they continued walking. With their heart racing and face flushing, they handed B the flowers. B without missing a beat scooped them up and thanked M for the thoughtful, all be it kind of old-school gesture. When M apologized for the wilted flowers, B said, “To be honest, I’ve been really into drying flowers, so I was probably just going to flip them upside down when I got home. It must be kismet.”
Image description: two tall green bushes equal distant apart in front of the facade of a house with two tones of grey paint. There is a a dead tree branch that is light brown propped up against the bush on the left. Foreground there is the cement of a sidewalk.
I have included in this entry a selection of the plain site companions that called out to me. Something about their shapes elicited something, sometimes a narrative, sometimes just an invitation to witness them.
It got me thinking about a phenomenon that I am not an expert in but something I have observed and am playfully using the term “accidental” aesthetics. I categorized things as “accidental” by either being something observable in the natural world or public spaces which reference / draw parallels to aesthetics of something else and by coming upon them and capturing them with little intervention or devising (other than framing / proximity). I must admit my favourite observation of this is through an instagram account @accidentallywesanderson, where folks from all around the world submit images that reflect Wes Anderson’s iconic aesthetic of symmetry, staging, colour and eccentricity.
I invite you to see these beings and if so inclined take a walk to these destinations to see them in person and see if you stumble upon them. I am curious about how they are doing these days.
reaching back November 30, 2020 Gastown, BC
two words… back space
Image description: branches poking through sporadically through screens on the facade of a building. There is a warm light cast on the building, resulting in a random shadow pattern.
reaching for you May 26, 2020 Strathcona, BC
I can close my eyes and I know that you are within reach. I know I can extend my elbow and my palm will rest upon your back. Your breath steady. I blinker my eyes open just to start at your pale flesh. I let them fall closed, one way my body knows how to organize around you.
Image description: green leafed vines with small white flowers hanging in front of a light grey surface. There is bright light on the top half of the image and the bottom half is in shade.
casual Friday, date unknown because of repeat visits Strathcona, BC
I take the long route home just to catch a glimpse of you, like a girl with a crush.
Now I am a woman and nothing has paled about my adoration.
Image description: in the foreground to mid ground, there is a stop sign with morning glory covering the length of the pole. The stop sign is located on a street corner and the background is a park that is slightly blurry. The light in the image is low, sunrise or sunset feeling.
choice June 22, 2020 Granville Island, BC
You can yield without stopping but you can’t stop without yielding first. The dynamic in this friendship has helped them learn from the other. One learning softness, the other learning boundaries.
Image description: in the mid ground there is a large bush or structure covered in foliage that is on a mound with other plants and flowers and a grey pole spanning the whole frame vertically. There is a stop sign on the left and a yield sign on the right, completed surrounded by the foliage of the large structure. There is a yellow and red building in the background that is slightly out of a focus.
September 28, 2020 Granville Island, BC
Are you of this world?
Image description: flag shaped cement bricks with a storm drain in the upper left corner of the frame. There is an iridescent oily substance spilled on the bricks that look like they are heading into the drain. The substance has a sheen and the colours are a range of blue, green, dark purple and dark yellow.
go together January 10, 2021 Richmond, BC
Image description: foreground to mid ground there a tall bushes lining a cement side walk, starting from the left side of the frame to just past the centre. There is a bright yellow people crossing sign poking out of the bushes and the pole cannot be seen. The sidewalk continues into the background where there is a white truck parked, another crossing sign and overcast sky.
fence hopping, June 25, 2020 East Vancouver, BC
Image description: mid ground there is a rusty fence of varying heights. There is a bush or ivy mass growing on around the fence in the direct center of the frame, where two portions of the fence meet. In the foreground there is grass and yellow flowers in shade. Mid ground is basking in warm glowing sunlight. Trees and a tennis court in the background can be seen through the fence.
half hearted hiding January 15, 2021 Downtown Eastside Vancouver, BC
Image description: centre of the frame in mid ground there is mid sized metal structure with a set of two doors with a padlock and another smaller door on the right side of it. It is light grey/blue and has a variety of bright spray-paint on it. Most of the words cannot be made out but one reads “PXQS” and the other “LiDA”. It is on grey cement of a side walk and in front of a building with green paint. There are a couple green branches of a plant propped up behind it on it’s left side.
not really hiding at all January 15, 2021 Downtown Eastside Vancouver, BC
Image description: alternate pov of the last image “half hearted hiding”. Side view shows the metal structure, awnings that are attached to the building that were out of frame from the last image and the branches popped between the structure and the wall of the building. This side perspective reveals that branches are not attached to anything. There is a white car, a street, an apartment building and white overcast sky in the background.
This is a moment for a tangent.
As I was typing, I wanted to use the word “eccentrism” when I went to use the word eccentricity. I had a feeling that it wasn’t a word and it kind of is and isn’t. I did a google search as I often do and clicked on the first entry which was this Wikipedia page on the Eccentrism or Ekstsentrism: “an avant-garde artistic movement in the Soviet Union active during the 1920s.” (‘Eccentrism’, 2020). This felt like a funny thing to come across when I was thinking about how I think this being(s) in plain site project is very low intervention in the composition, to then come across some new knowledge about this moment that focused so much on multiple layers of intervention, contrived-ness and look to “tricks” from the circus. “The December 1921 manifesto of the eccentric theater “Ekstsentrism” pronounced: “1) for the actor—from emotion to the machine, from anguish to the trick. The technique—circus…. 2) for the director—a maximum of devices, a record number of inventions, a turbine of rhythms. 3) for the dramatist—a composer of tricks. 4) for the artist—decoration in jumps.”[8] In true Futurist fashion the manifesto demanded the abandonment of the old culture, and was handed out on the streets of St. Petersburg.” (‘Eccentrism’, 2020)
This felt like an opening for the other part of my practice which can at times be comparable “on paper” to parts of the manifesto of the eccentric theatre. I thought that this project would be solely focused on this practice but with many things, the complementarity, the two truths, the two (and many more) aspects of my practice inform all the rest.
To describe the other project I am working on in tandem to Being(s) in plain site, I will use the manifesto of the eccentric theatre to show you what it is.
4) for the artist—decoration in jumps. Next week I start an experimental durational live-stream performance that will take place over four days, with a performance moment on Feb. 5. Jumping through time, space and the digital sphere for PushOFF.
1) for the actor—from emotion to the machine, from anguish to the trick. The technique—circus…. The circus per-se in this is the performance anthology I am working on called Making it up. The idea behind an anthology is so that work created under this umbrella won’t have to be limited to a single medium in order to express the conceptual and thematic underscore of looking at my mixed-race personhood. It allows for multiplicity — heartache and levity, truth and fiction. Each “chapter” takes a new look at these themes, sometimes abstract, sometimes tragically personal.
vibrant beings
Image description: variety of bright multi-colour mixed media small soft sculptures. They are arranged in a cluster on a mirrored surface. A light is illuminating them, with shadows in the background on a wood wall and ceiling.
2) for the director—a maximum of devices, a record number of inventions, a turbine of rhythms. Interventions rooted in DIY approaches. The DIY-ness to my approach has created a rhythm. My incessant need to do something myself, learn a software, get my hands dirty and be willfully a non-expert does create a rhythm to the pace in which something manifests. So for this chapter, The Meeting, I use live stream video software and scenography, both of which I have been self-teaching myself. Maximalist in nature and so much composition/intervention but with a similar non-hierarchical lens to question, who or what is a performer? There are many non-human performers in this work, beings, manifestations of my imagination. I’ve been calling them vibrant beings but cycled through these before landing on vibrant: cosmic, celestial, ancient, ancestral, alien, effervescent, giggly, brilliant.
3) for the dramatist—a composer of tricks. A microcosm, a world, a puppet show, a collection of trinkets, materials manifested into vibrant beings, transportation through time and space. And the wildest trick of them all, generating dances, movement created from following impulses, desire and pleasure.
I wonder if one day someone would describe me as eccentric? I think my ears would burn with pride. Maybe at that time I would have actually created something that refused to conform, or that someone else thought was “slightly strange” or that really was the truest form of it’s self. I’m sure I will find kin there.
Back to aesthetics…
I as I think through this further, I wonder if what I described earlier could be described as “referential” aesthetics. It makes me wonder harder about the accident part of the accidental aesthetics being key? But then, on the other hand through repetition the aesthetics of the thing can emerge? But then also, talking about aesthetics is a slippery subject for me, with infinitesimal tangental threads of how aesthetics function.
The narratives and themes that emerged from looking at subjects I deemed as being in plain site resulted in an inherent aesthetics which evolved over repetition into eventually seeing beings that were hiding, attempting the plain site vibe but failing. Kind of like myself, being in plain site, not being able to hide or not being able to hide well? And who did I think I was hiding from? Was I just hiding from myself? (I laugh out loud to myself at how moments of profundity for me, end up being articulated with a layer of oozing cheese over it!)
How are you hiding?
Are you in plain site of someone or something?
Do you feel seen?
Eternally yours,
Erika, in plain site
I’d like to acknowledge that this digital performance takes place in the digital sphere and on the land where I am. I am located on the traditional, ancestral and unceeded territories of the of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. I am grateful to the these nations who have cared for this land since time immemorial.