In 2012, we worked tirelessly with a team of artists to explode a collaborative art book by Jasper Johns and Samuel Beckett into performance. The culmination of this attempt was a one-night only eruption hosted by Triple Canopy, where many things broke, not least of all our brains. One of our main collaborators on this piece, composer Lea Bertucci, then moved away from the city, and we moved on from the project.
Three years later, Lea returned to the city and we decided to pick it up again. With very little record of what we did in 2012, but with average-sized memories, we met up again to re-evaluate our previous approach, and to reconsider the Foirades/Fizzles anew.
Revisiting the book, we came across the photo of Johns and Beckett which we had seen many times before (the only one I’ve been able to find, PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU KNOW OF ANOTHER!). Although the two impressive figures share a couch, the central focus of the photograph is the space between the two artists, which appears as a massive, unbridgeable gulf.
Three years later, Lea returned to the city and we decided to pick it up again. With very little record of what we did in 2012, but with average-sized memories, we met up again to re-evaluate our previous approach, and to reconsider the Foirades/Fizzles anew.
Revisiting the book, we came across the photo of Johns and Beckett which we had seen many times before (the only one I’ve been able to find, PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU KNOW OF ANOTHER!). Although the two impressive figures share a couch, the central focus of the photograph is the space between the two artists, which appears as a massive, unbridgeable gulf.
I recalled that this image and the bizarre circumstances of the two artists’ collaboration was the initial draw to this source material. The collaboration itself was conceived by a publisher, Vera Lindsay, in 1972, who put these two artists together to create a limited edition art-book, which now costs $30,000 per copy. Beckett and Johns agreed to the collaboration, and met, but did not necessarily…get along. Their contributions to Foirades/Fizzles were determined wholly independently of one another, both the writing and imagery having been created based on each artist's past work, rather than in conversation with each other’s works. And yet, there is a palpable resonance between the images and text which extends through overlapping themes, evocations, and even processes. Both the imagery and text asks the viewer/reader to engage, to search for meaning, and to encounter the materiality of one’s own body. Lightness and darkness exist in this pursuit, along with despair, hope, and humor.
Piehole obsesses over being human, what it means, and all the ways in which it is possible to feel like an alien robot. The strange Beckett-Johns encounter translates to the imperfect meeting of their work in Foirades/Fizzles, and cuts to the very core of the content of each artist's work. All of it fizzles. All of it promises and works to fulfill that promise, but falls short. And in this falling short, humanity leaks out, along with a great deal of bodily fluids. We aim to enlist the theatrical encounter to draw attention to all that is strange about human persons, and "the body on its way."
Having just completed a two-year project about utopian longing and communal striving, it feels a little funny now to say that we’re doing a piece about the body’s toil, failure and the steady unsteady movement toward death. And yet, this laboratory-cum-gymnasium of human existence that we’re immersed in right now feels like a natural progression coming off of Old Paper Houses. In that project, we tried to examine what allows us to experience hope and make space for doubt in the context of communal expressions of idealism. HAND FOOT FIZZLE FACE is a continuation of this investigation, but with a focus on the inner world of the body and mind. As opposed to a meeting of the minds, HAND FOOT FIZZLE FACE explores the fracturing, fragmenting, multiplying selves that make up an ever elusive object-self.
Although for us the progression from Old Paper Houses to HAND FOOT FIZZLE FACE seems more and more inevitable and obvious, we still would like to bridge the gap, from 2012 til now, by listing all the matters of note that we can recall having happened to our bodies over the last three years:
Tried, unsuccessfully, to whiten my teeth
Some kind of ear problem
Some mysterious stomach bug in England
Switched birth control brands
Lost Blood from Time to Time
Lost health insurance
Lost 35 pounds
Gained 7-10 pounds
1 instance of terrible stomach flu
1 pedicure
1 super weird sunburn on my hand
Multiple colds
100s of yeast infections
At least 8 haircuts
Many sunburns
Last week, I got three blisters on my hands. This is the only time I've gotten blisters on my hands in the past three years.
2nd-degree burn from coffee spill on my left hand
Had a bad 3-day flu
Had carpal tunnels for a few months from a freelance job involving too many hours at a computer
Had hangovers/started getting better at preventing hangovers
Had craniosacral therapy to balance my energy
Got in a car accident
Got five haircuts
Got painful inner mouth canker sores from stress.
Got a filling
Got debilitating allergies every May that kept me from leaving my bed
Got a relatively bad corneal abrasion in the left eye from an accidental eye-poking. Was blind for 2 days.
Developed a greater discomfort with my sexuality
I have a collection of new scars from mysterious hives that I started getting along my jaw
Took a handful of ballet classes
Taken to Getting Up Again
Saw an X-Ray of my hips
Picked a new eyebrow shape
Fell down and sprained my wrist but after about two years it stopped hurting
Shaved my beard three times
Skin abrasions from rubbing against the seats and seatbelt in car accident
Hepatitis A vaccine
Typhoid vaccine
DTaP vaccine
Sprained my ankle running down subway steps when I was late for work.
Grew long beards every winter and shaved them off completely every Spring.
Airbag burns on my face and seatbelt bruises on my body from being in a car getting hit by another car and flying into a wall
Broke my foot
Bruised my toenail
Burned my hand
Broke a nail
Bruised ribs
Began needing more sleep
Started finding more grey hairs
Started getting my period again (i.e. switched birth control)
Started to feel hip soreness/pain for the first time, regularly
Started to feel knee soreness from time to time
Piehole obsesses over being human, what it means, and all the ways in which it is possible to feel like an alien robot. The strange Beckett-Johns encounter translates to the imperfect meeting of their work in Foirades/Fizzles, and cuts to the very core of the content of each artist's work. All of it fizzles. All of it promises and works to fulfill that promise, but falls short. And in this falling short, humanity leaks out, along with a great deal of bodily fluids. We aim to enlist the theatrical encounter to draw attention to all that is strange about human persons, and "the body on its way."
Having just completed a two-year project about utopian longing and communal striving, it feels a little funny now to say that we’re doing a piece about the body’s toil, failure and the steady unsteady movement toward death. And yet, this laboratory-cum-gymnasium of human existence that we’re immersed in right now feels like a natural progression coming off of Old Paper Houses. In that project, we tried to examine what allows us to experience hope and make space for doubt in the context of communal expressions of idealism. HAND FOOT FIZZLE FACE is a continuation of this investigation, but with a focus on the inner world of the body and mind. As opposed to a meeting of the minds, HAND FOOT FIZZLE FACE explores the fracturing, fragmenting, multiplying selves that make up an ever elusive object-self.
Although for us the progression from Old Paper Houses to HAND FOOT FIZZLE FACE seems more and more inevitable and obvious, we still would like to bridge the gap, from 2012 til now, by listing all the matters of note that we can recall having happened to our bodies over the last three years:
Tried, unsuccessfully, to whiten my teeth
Some kind of ear problem
Some mysterious stomach bug in England
Switched birth control brands
Lost Blood from Time to Time
Lost health insurance
Lost 35 pounds
Gained 7-10 pounds
1 instance of terrible stomach flu
1 pedicure
1 super weird sunburn on my hand
Multiple colds
100s of yeast infections
At least 8 haircuts
Many sunburns
Last week, I got three blisters on my hands. This is the only time I've gotten blisters on my hands in the past three years.
2nd-degree burn from coffee spill on my left hand
Had a bad 3-day flu
Had carpal tunnels for a few months from a freelance job involving too many hours at a computer
Had hangovers/started getting better at preventing hangovers
Had craniosacral therapy to balance my energy
Got in a car accident
Got five haircuts
Got painful inner mouth canker sores from stress.
Got a filling
Got debilitating allergies every May that kept me from leaving my bed
Got a relatively bad corneal abrasion in the left eye from an accidental eye-poking. Was blind for 2 days.
Developed a greater discomfort with my sexuality
I have a collection of new scars from mysterious hives that I started getting along my jaw
Took a handful of ballet classes
Taken to Getting Up Again
Saw an X-Ray of my hips
Picked a new eyebrow shape
Fell down and sprained my wrist but after about two years it stopped hurting
Shaved my beard three times
Skin abrasions from rubbing against the seats and seatbelt in car accident
Hepatitis A vaccine
Typhoid vaccine
DTaP vaccine
Sprained my ankle running down subway steps when I was late for work.
Grew long beards every winter and shaved them off completely every Spring.
Airbag burns on my face and seatbelt bruises on my body from being in a car getting hit by another car and flying into a wall
Broke my foot
Bruised my toenail
Burned my hand
Broke a nail
Bruised ribs
Began needing more sleep
Started finding more grey hairs
Started getting my period again (i.e. switched birth control)
Started to feel hip soreness/pain for the first time, regularly
Started to feel knee soreness from time to time
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