DUBAIS: past meditations on future presentations. a manifesto by Nadia Buyse

DUBAIS was formed in a bathroom in Antwerp as homage to all past representations, meditations, or predictions of future utopias, states of being, and technologies. The city of Dubai stood as a metaphor or representation of what the new modern Middle East could be; a place of great economic wealth, abundance, culture, and futuristic architecture on land or in sea (palm island.) Now, 45 years after the discovery of its rich oil fields, Dubai still stands, but is demystified of its past expectations.  It is these moments of expectation that shape our understanding of time and development. How do these moments morph as time passes? What once was a mystery is now a memory, even if the mystery was never solved.

My original intent for this project was based in a series of rules and regulations, reflective of my conceptual concerns. First of all, no instruments could be used. Only drones,blips, beeps, generated by my cell phone or consumer grade programs like Garageband, and samples taken from either Space disco of the late 70s or break-beats from the early 80s. Now it has expanded and changed. My interest is still in not exclusively using instrumentation to write/arrange songs. I also use video clips to generate the arrangements and tempo. I use memories, Billy Strayhorn, psychoanalysis and cultural heart ache to determine lyrical content. Although DUBAIS exists as a band, it really exists more as a vehicle in which I can explore multidimensional compositional strategies through a displaced cultural lens.

I often think of the state of music now. I think of what my expectations of music, especially punk music, were. When I was young, I saw it as a way for me to feel comfortable in my own skin. I projected punk into some utopian realm where I can say, be, look, do, whatever I am/want. I was always aware of my differences and tried to conceal them. Tried to pretend that my frizzy hair would eventually turn blonde and straight.  Tried to pretend that eventually my skin would lighten and I would get taller. Tried to pretend that someday people wouldn't notice or comment on my differences. That I would B L E N D into my white-washed rural youth. When I discovered that I wouldn't and didn't want to B L E N D I turned to music, to this subculture of punk to give me permission to be different, to not compromise or submit to some sort of homogenized ideals or expectations. It all felt very revolutionary at the time.... but that time is gone.

Now, years later, where am I? I've been in countless bands, (well, actually about 30) toured various places, made records, music videos, etc. and at the end of the day I've come to realize what is at the heart of what I love about music. I love the community, I love the activity of playing and composing, I love combining music with politics, I love teaching kids to do it and being a positive role model for them, I love using music to express social change, I love the healing effect it has on my soul, I love that I can incapsulate all that I feel in one song.

I am also faced with the things that I hate about music. I hate the way capitalist ideas of commodification has so much influence in the presentation of the music/musician.  I continually am searching for ways to challenge this and to take myself out of that context. This video below is for a song I wrote called TUNISIA SPHINX. The song is originally sample based and heavily effected, as is the performative aspects (ie. video, costuming,etc.) I wanted to strip all of this away to see what was left. For this video I reconstructed the song into a minimalist keyboard arrangement and wanted the video to be unaffected. I also wanted myself to be not in costume or makeup but to be as I am in a rehearsal space. I wanted to see what is left after removing these elements.


thank you for being here.

ANIMATION EXPERIMENTS #1

EAST END IN NOVEMBER

"The degree to which we see to it that we women are participating and developing the revolutionary struggle is the degree to which the female perspective will be dominant in our struggle and in the future society." 

-Roxanna Dunbar-Ortiz

PERSPECTIVES AND PERFORMANCES

feminist art, community, and performance in portland. 

VISUAL

Lauren Barret 

Ellis Burnheart

Joseph Derouselle

Allison DeWilde

Pooooorincess

Victoria Reynolds

Samantha Wall

Molly Wolfe

SOUND

Tombstalker

Jewels of the Nile

Cat fancy

PERFORMANCE

Fuck Relational Aggression

a performance/ workshop/ panel discussion

led by 

Lydia Schmidt

Nadia Buyse

NOV 4th

 East End 203 se Grand Ave

 6$ all proceeds go to RNRC4G portland www.girlsrockcamp.org

SCHOOL SHMOOOOOOOL

Do I still have time to blog?

coming soon WHAT TO READ/READ....

at night I become yoko

Wizard is my favorite

The newest in the puppet profiles

PUPPET PROFILES

I've been doing some serious mental inventory these days...

There's a book that I read a long time ago by a director/performance artist by the name of Anne Bogart entitled  A Director Prepares. It was literally one of the most life changing books I've ever read. I recently re picked it up and I'm so happy I did.  The thing that makes this book so special is that Ms. Bogart writes seven different essays based on emotions and emotional acts; Memory, violence, eroticism, terror, stereotype, embarrassment and resistance. Its personal, but it's applied to her practice. 

In this day and age of politically motivated art and  social practice, I feel its a rare thing to see art that is focused on and based in the artist's personalized emotional state that is successful. These emotions have been felt and expressed time and time again. It seems sophomoric. It seems like something you should have made as an undergrad. When I go to an opening or a gallery and see that you made portraits of your ex girlfriend that I don't know, or painted a picture of your grandma who just passed away I don't care.  It doesn't effect me and I can't relate... even though I DID just break up with some one and my grandma DID just pass away. Self expression can be so ALIENATING because even though we are familiar with the emotions, were not feeling them in that moment and were not seeing our interpretations of it. Were not seeing our dead grandma or ex lover, it's some stranger. The key to successful art is making it personal for the audience, and guess what....I don't know your life, so how are images of your ex girlfriend going to relate to me?

That being said, art is a form of self expression. Everything we create is subjective, everything we make is based out of emotions and personal experiences. I like to think that, even though we are all little shining unique snowflakes, life is generic at best. We ALL went through puberty, we all work at jobs, we all poop. Some of us will get married, and some of us won't. Some of us smoke and some of us don't. The experience of life is generic and accessible to everyone. The emotions you feel people can understand and relate to, your dead grandma they cannot. Thats what makes this book so powerful. In the Essay about embarrassment she talks about how every time she's in production she feels like a sham! Like a fraud, like she's not a real artist. Anything we do in life there's always that experience of feeling like you have no clue or idea how to live your own life. Its the life experiences that we can all relate to. 

During the course of about four years now or so I've made at least fifty short videos featuring this cast of sick little puppets who all live in a closet in my apartment.* I like making puppet videos because you can create a narrative around them and, even though they do play a role, they kind of act as an empty vessel in some ways. When people are viewing narrative film they automatically identify themselves with the lead protagonist of the film and live vicariously through them. When that main character is played by a ghost puppet, the audience has a harder time accepting the narrative through his/her terms. Thus, creating their own interpretations of the narrative as it happens. I feel that this was the most successful idea I've come up with for sharing my personal emotions through accessible art.  who knows if its working though.

Like Ms. Bogart,  I've recently started cataloging my own emotions. I've been feeling really overwhelmed by them, to the point where I'm not even sure what my reality is. I have no sense of who I am or what I'm feeling and all I wanna do is detach. Sometime last week, (after getting fired from this shitty shitty job I hate and drinking heavily about it) I opened the closet and pulled out Edgar the baby puppet and instantly I knew... he and I both needed a cigarette really really bad. 

Nobody really knows the puppets, they don't have prescribed attributes and personality traits. Like I said before, they're considered empty vessels...SO what happens when I let them tell their own stories and express their own personal emotions?

The Puppet Profiles is a series (so far consisting of 2 1/2 videos ) that examines the puppets autobiographically. All videos are under five minutes and have been shot on location and also in my apartment. During the series I will use the combination of improvisational "on the street" interactions with scripted scenes. I am hoping to make a profile for every puppet i own by the end of summer. These profiles will be available on this blog and also on my youtube channel  .While their stories may be extreme, they are relatable... because we live in America and life is generic and I'll eat at McDonalds whenever I want. Thank you.

*they all used to hang from my wall but they scare the shit out of my room mate