WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS FOR?

SO // WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS FOR?

Me, writing.
You, reading.
Us...
Breathing?
Do breathe. It helps.
Makes the blood go round.
Are you going to read all of this?
Or are you cleaning out your inbox?
Do you keep a clean inbox?
Sorry…
where are we.
What am I doing this for?
I’m writing, for you. For me.
For this.
And what is this?
This is a thing.
A thing I’m trying instead of...
Resenting how shit the internet has become (?)
- Not quite -
It’s coz I want to link and I don’t know how (?)
It’s coz I tried the instagram but I couldn’t hack it. Respect to those who know how but when i'm there it brings me down.
Plus it gives me the creeps working under our maniacal technofundal overlords AKA the tech bros.
I prefer the Mario Bros.
So do they I imagine.
So I'm doing this to share a newsletter come blog come ‘not just me telling you what work I did and what I will do but also some words inbetween that go WOOSH like Mario with the Mario star.’

WOOSH BIT // (Digital Spit)
At a time when I've redone my website (more of an archive now, have a butchers!), I think I do agree that yes the internet is enshitifying itself and I am feeling nostalgic for my Myspace days, when I think I liked the internet. It was futuristic and weird and made squeaky noises. I just tried to find my Myspace profile page and all I found was a drum and bass message board post (DOA) from 2006 where I ask how to put a picture in someone else's comments.

How quaint! A vintage 20 year old post asking for social message tech advice! From a more simple time when Myspace was - oh dear - owned by News Corps. How sad. Even when I enjoyed the internet, to gather strange images from its cobwebbed corners to amasse an online persona, I was already offering up my free labour to our fuckwit global bullies.

So in this search for digital hygiene - As I try to wrestle free from Media-ing the Socials, am I also going to stop Streaming the Videos? Or Engining the Searches? Or Mailing the Es?! (not those Es dear). And who owns this company that Chimps the Mails? Oh gawd don’t look. And yes I also confess to Inteligencing the Artificials for some writing tasks (not this, obvs). And as I understand it carbon wise: One AI prompt = one light bulb being on for a year. Come to think of it I do remember getting really annoyed at a bakery in Graz, Austria that left its display window lights on every night. And now 'tis I! Oh how the worm has turned... Or auf deutsch "das Blatt hat sich gewendet" // “the leaf has turned” or "der Spieß hat sich umgedreht" // “the spit has turned around”. Oh how the spit has turned around. I think it’s spit like kebab, not spit like saliva. Oh how the saliva has turned around! Oh how as I try to spit on a tech bro another fires flob back into my mouth like a Mario fire ball and lights me up.

YUK!!

THINGS I MIGHT SHARE HERE
I am doing this to have a S P A C E to write other thoughts, experiences, moments that I’m storing up which may have a higher level of profundity than the babble above. Like how things went down on the INTERVAL retreat at Chisenhale Dance Space – A weekend away for Finnish and UK based artist looking at artists’ & longevity - A place for questions and drawings you see above and below. Then there’s reflecting on how graduating as a practitioner in the Feldenkrais Method has been influencing my output, and also there's the experience of going to OUT:RA music festival in Portugal at the end of the summer. I recommend!

A sadness - Our Butoh teacher Tadashi Endo passed away this spring. He was 78. My butoh dancing comrade Natsuko Kono and I gave our annual workshop in Berlin and talked about him a lot during and after the studio time. There’s a lot of things about him & his teaching to share.

Likewise the legacy of my time learning from Phillip Zarrilli continues to nourish us. I’m been working with force of nature Kaite O’Reilly (known affectionately as Spoony Mc Spoonerson on a recent R & D with mega new theatre company Same Hat) in the Tyn Y Parc Kalari Studio. We've been making a new work for Future Flares Festival in Manchester (Jan 21st) called What Am I Doing This For? There's a 2 day workshop too! Free too! And Peader's doing something too! I might like to reflect a bit more on that work's making process here through writing. The sharing at the festival is gonna be work in progress, a show about the absurdity of our polarized society, wondering how we do or do not understand each other, asking over and over...What are we doing this for?

DJ MIX FOOTNOTE
A testament to my fortitude is I am still on that message board and still a drum and bass nerd SO I still wanna share my mixes. Usually a new one each xmas but I’m off kilter. I know each of you usually play my fresh selections at full volume seated with your family around your xmas meal in silence holding hands eyes closed but you will have to wait till Feb. Although last summer I did do 2 mixes (13th Way & 14th Way). So perhaps you can still blast away any troublesome (racist? misogynist? ableist? anti-trans? - send me your favourites!) xmas dialogue with bass heavy frequencies from those two as required.

Blessings, W

p.s - Send a message & buy this single for Palestine so it can be no.1 on the 25th. It's this or Kylie...