7 Acts of Love in 7 Days of Boredom
*for collaboration with Katia Kameli

Act 1
The Declaration (Stolen Lines):

He gets off his seat, walks to the door.
“I love you.”

“Next stop, Greenpoint Ave, stand clear of the closing doors.”

Halfway out, one foot each on the train and platform

He jams his arms between the closing doors,

“I LOVE YOU – you make my life more than it could ever be.”

She eases back into her seat
tucks a private smile behind her ears.

One stray brown curl.

Sep 28 2007, G train between Nassau Ave and Greenpoint Ave

Act 2
The cusp of the sun recedes,
Rays behind an old church, silent chimes like pins
tilted towards cloud cushion and wordless sky:

Inside, a young African-American boy sits
waiting for no one
He highlights Scripture from a Bible,
Waiting aimlessly
For the mouth of God to move
but

once.

Oct 9 2007, Manhattan Ave, OTT Thai Restaurant, Brooklyn

Act 3

Overslept

So Tired
If late
Get Fired

Why bother?
Why the pain?
Just go home.

Do it again.

Norman B. Colp
‘The Commuter’s Lament / A Close Shave’

Subway Art – 42nd Street/ Port Authority Bus Terminal
18 November 2007

Act 5

Half-drunk and close beside
another perfect stranger.

One arm on a bare, blue chest.

Let me recite you, stranger
a bedtime story in my
awkward Mandarin:

The poet Li Bai was held for treason by a tyrant Emperor who for no reason loved beheading Intellectuals. He was given grace enough to be granted clemency but only one condition. That he would compose his own pardon in 7 paces.

One pace a day, each pace made 7 days, 20 words and 4 lines of verse.

Let me translate it into a
Sonnet you can understand,
Its title:

‘Thoughts on a Quiet Night’
Or Corcovado:

The moon is bright above this bed
A sheet of frost covers the ground
I raise my head, glance to the light
Lower my head to dream of home

This is but a game – of substituting words,
For people, and people for words – of
Mixing stories and different poets

(Was it Li Bai or Cao Zhi,
Frank Sinatra, Antonio Carlos Jobim
Or Everything But the Girl?) :

Um cantinho, um violao
Esse amor, uma cancao
Pra fazer feliz ja que se ama

E eu, que era triste
Descrente desse mundo
Ao encontrar voce eu conheci
O que é a felicidade, meu amor

~

At dawn the pigeons
betrayed my verse
with their cooing of nowhere:

lovers are able
to find a home
most everywhere.

For that, for this, for you –
There is neither
confession nor pardon.

Undated and Going Nowhere

Act 6
Lost and listening to Chopin

Nothing to do but to keep walking
and walking

: 2 nights past our separate ways

A speck of rain breaks and blushes
on a perfect cheek

a hairline crack on porcelain

26 nov 2007, E14th St to 8th St, NY

Act 4

Nothing to desire.
Something to recall.
Nothing to regret.

Vera Pavlova:

14 Nov 2007, M23 Bus service from W23rd St, Chelsea

Act 7

Amore….I

Infinity, Drift across continents

Eliza Tan
7 Sept – 3 December
New York, 2007

“Draft” is a cartographic installation. It is the preface of a larger project whose end result is a palimpsestic film. In line with Debord’s theory of “Dérive” –the early situationist practice of urban drifting– this “intermediate” installation presents itself as a non-definable urban map that includes video, audio and text inserts, as well as photographs. Scenes where cartographers, writers, poets, musicians, cinematographers, scientists are scribbling notes and writing potential scripts overlap with other images also shot by the artist. Kameli then reinterprets these texts by operating a double dérive. Shifting feelings of excitement and anticipation run parallel with anxiety and caution, combined with the realization that there is nothing new to discover but the limitations of one’s own experience and understanding.

16 posters 60×40 cm, tirage numérique en 10 exemplaires.

Une pièce sonore de 12:12 mn, en boucle et 16 posters 60×40 cm, tirage numérique en 10 exemplaires.

Festival de l’Oh, Joinville-le-pont, 2006

En Algérie, Katia Kameli a remarqué que l’espace hybride du taxi, mi-public, mi-privé produit un espace de paroles libérées, une sorte de caisse de résonance. Cette réflexion a provoqué une expérimentation, une navigation sonore et visuelle traçant le maillage abstrait de flux urbains et humains qui renvoient à l’histoire de cette ville et à sa contemporanéité. Elle utilise le procédé de maïeutique pour accoucher d’une forme de vox populi, mixée à la ritournelle universelle du radio-taxi. Cette dérivation sonore, écoutable sous le pont de Joinville est augmentée par un affichage aléatoire d’images prises lors de ces déambulations dans la ville d’Alger.