It was also nice to have two guests who would traditionally give lecture to us as an audience, followed by Q & A, instead be equal participants who operated as sparking the discussion. Nothing, whether it be talk of what defines a community or the philosophical ramifications of Bartleby, ever got tied down, all ideas and questions became triggers for more ideas and questions.

When apologies were made that the conversation was leading late into the night, I argued, “You underestimate our commitment to this project!” I felt thrilled that everyone was there and open to such an open forum of discussion, one that seemed belated, as if everyone had wanted to talk about this kind of stuff for quite some time. Book clubs and discussion groups are anything but boring, especially when there’s drink and snacks to fuel the mind and talk. My favorite times were when people argued. I think it’s important to be confident in one’s ideas and make bold statements, even if your ideas are organic and contradicting.

Reminded me of Edwin A. Abbott’s \Flatland\ (1884) and how math can be so easily mixed with poetry and humor.

The session of origami with Yasmil’s discussion of abstraction was well paired. I thought it particularly successful of Haegue’s efforts to unearth resources (Yasmil’s extensive research and knowledge, the Walker’s art collection and secret meeting rooms) within the institution and utilize them towards the productive functioning our micro-community.

During break, I taught Haegue how to ride a bike! And I wondered as the conversations flowed late into the day, whether different areas of abstraction throughout history are, philosophically, incommensurable with each other.

It was fascinating to look at different ways the people of France and South Korea moved in different directions, politically, in order to find a sense of national identity and spirit. I was “singled out” as the kid from Hawai’i, where everybody is “hapa” or mixed race, and the melting pot of cultures and ethnic backgrounds is simultaneously celebrated and made for fun. My own family hails from Guam, a U.S. Territory in Micronesia, owned for strategic military concerns. Many native Hawai’ian people pursue sovereignty from the USA. I was most interested in how South Korea became divided into two, and how it affected the Koreans’ ways of defining themselves as citizens of their country and communities.

I remember everyone was falling under the weather at this time and it made me very paranoid about our delicious snack platters.

At a later gathering, I asked Na-Rae about different ways South Koreans conceptualize the moon (feminine, mysterious, powerful… There is a word for every phase of the moon, and old-school Korean calendars were based on the lunar cycle). I am at the beginning of an artist project where I hope to interview people from many different academic and other backgrounds, about the moon. It is a project in which I am pursuing a self-directed “masters” in cultural studies of the moon.

It was debated whether the audience has to be physically present in order for a performance to take place or be relevant. We talked about different modes of positioning the audience, in front of a performance, circled around a performance, or one step removed such as observing video documentation. Since finishing the lighting workshop, we had established the feeling of being comfortable on a theatrical stage together. I thought of the ways Haegue’s work surrounds the viewer to address them as not a spectator but as a participant. One’s positioning as a viewer quickly slips out of place in Haegue’s installations, her mechanical sensory tools producing moments of doubt and perplexity.

Is a performance always an output that the audience receives, or does the audience have a more dynamic relationship with the work? Can robots be actors in a play? Someone asked what a certain philosopher (or was it a playwright? I can’t remember now) would have thought of YouTube. I thought of YouTube videos I have seen of Balinese “Kekak” chants being performed in Bali. The videos are extraordinary because the image of men circled together, chanting loudly, is constantly alight with the crackling, bright flashes of tourists’ cameras. The audience is present as having live experiences of the performance but also constantly documenting for an even broader audience (including me, sitting at my computer).

A viewer has eyes, ears, a nose, mouth, and skin.

The most thrilling moment for me was when I asked Ben how to shine a small bright light on an object as small as a mouth (as operated in Samuel Beckett’s play, “Not I”). With a few shifted toggles and adjustments of metal flaps, the theatre was dark save for a shocking white light on my own mouth. Ben was great at demonstrating the capacity of light as a useable material, both mysteriously ephemeral and yet having touchable properties. He showed that light can be used as a sculptural material and not just something that shines on a more concrete form or action. He refused to tell us the stories that he invents to help him operate lighting cues during theatre performances. After the workshop, I wrote a short essay about fireworks.