ALIVE:ness is writing, music, live performance, conceptual art and photography that has developed around the questions of: to what extent are we alive in each other’s lives—physically, emotionally, electronically, living or dead—taking into account our contemporary context of virtual interaction, shape-shifting and polyphysical interpretations of our own identities. What does it mean to be present when the terms of our own existence are relative to how we interact physically and virtually with those most close to us?
ALIVE:ness is about queering our understanding of self in a global context in order to be more effective activists and global citizens. The work examines how our digital context creates the possibility for engendering ALIVE:ness across borders beyond the body—to people with whom we have no “real” relationship. And likewise it examines the possibility for engendering ALIVE:ness across the borders within our bodies—to body parts and capabiilites which appear to be absent.
The music for ALIVE:ness has been written together with Jacopo Bertacco aka “The Tide” in the form of our collaboration Mad Kate | the Tide. We have performed ALIVE:ness at Copenhagen International Performance Festival with Penny Arcade and at Maxim Gorki Theatre Studio R, among other places.
“Aliveness. We are caught with the strange responsibility of assessing ALIVEness. These people that claim to be alive or dead—to what extent do they have real aliveness in our lives? Their picture—staring out at us from the annals of the internet—just as alive or just as dead? That one—I know for a fact that she committed suicide but I hadn’t spoken to her in years. Has her ALIVE-ness in my life changed since her death? My father’s ALIVEness; has it grown weaker, since his physical death? I am not so sure. My mother’s ALIVEness; is it strong? When I send a text message to my mother and she doesn’t call, or an email to my mother and she doesn’t reply, this makes me feel like she might be dead. After all, my father does the same thing, and he IS dead. Aren’t we, alive in these times, perpetually “reachable”? Reachable. Reachable. Reachable. Reachable. Reachable.”
Although I have made ALIVE:ness freely available through ISSUE, it would mean a great to deal to me and my practice if you would consider supporting independent publishing by purchasing ALIVEness as an enhanced eBook (music embedded) or hardcover. It includes all the prose, lyrics, and musical compositions that comprise the ALIVEness work.