Firstly and perhaps most noticeably (for me at any rate) whenever i hear a sound it has a sort of shape, depth, and colour in my mind's eye. For instance, most people's voices are yellow and sort of rubbery; a piano key looks like a blue pearl, etc.
Letters and numbers have a sort of "assigned" colour, because of this i'm really good with names and dates; days of the week and the months of the year also have a shape and colour (i only learnt recently that i'm not the only person who has this).
i've also noticed recently that types of pain seem to have a colour as well (i have a headache right now and it's this sort of pulsating orange, oh dear.)

Laurie Anderson

I'm reading this book by Laurie Anderson, the first thing she tells me is... "My work is always about communicating." She managed to cross from avant-garde obscurity to the mainstream without compromising her ideas.
instead of shocking the audiences to change their minds (like Dadaists and Futurists in 1920's and Fluxus artists in 1960's) she used images and streams of words.
her rhythms were found from ordinary conversations or arguments.
collaged instruments from found objects. natural sounds.
film maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
scientist Nikola Tesla.
the real vehicle for her thought is language. she cuts and splices words and sentences. her songs are filled with meaning then emptied of it.
why flatten the words out as text, just say them
video lack live performance and scale.
the use of video live - video bow. a camera on her face and projected onto a big screen behind

Celibacy End

Okay so I spoke midway through the celibate week but I’m going to speak again now to try and summarise what it taught me and how it made me feel.
I guess going into the week I was a bit overly confident. I was pushing for a month of celibacy, or at least a fortnight but within a few hours I was pleased we had agreed on 168 hours.
I knew it would be hard but I thought it may teach me to love you in a new way, or at least express my love to you in a new way. But I think all I ended up doing was to treat you like I didn't love you.
I’m an affectionate person; I like to hold you, to kiss you, regularly.
But without this outlet of physical love or appreciation, I struggled to find new ways to show you that I loved you.
It sounds pathetic really and I don't think I’m proud of it.
But when we caught eye to eye, I looked away as if I hardly knew you. For me it was a defence mechanism. Your eyes are often the first thing to pull me in. I catch them, sometimes just a fleeting glance, but the softness of them I cannot escape. Dark eyes have always aroused me.
The ways the pupil and the iris become almost one, so it's just like a dark pit. A mysterious puddle. And I have to dip my toe in.
So when you looked at me, I had to look away, I had to shield myself from your gaze or I knew our game would be up within 360 degrees of the second’s hand.
This meant we lost the smiles.
In the silence of a lecture theatre, that's what we share between us to show one another we mean what we do, or sat in the middle of a busy room. These looks are all we have, all we can offer each other as a token of our love. They stand to replace the physical contact that would inevitable come if we were alone.
But I could no longer give you these looks, I simply had to turn away, or else I could never make it through the week.
But with the vacancy of these looks there arrived an air of coldness about me, and yes this is something I know you must have felt, and I want you to know I felt it too.
I was cold and loveless. Nothing was demanding I stopped acting like I love you, all was asked was that I could not show that I did physically, but I could not.
I should have replaced the physical contact with words and with ears but I had little time for discussions.
I was brimming with testosterone and this made me tense and agitated.
I could not sleep. Each night I went to bed hours after you. I just sat up alone in the front room watching repeats of the world’s strictest parents at 3.30am.
I think this was potentially one of the hardest weeks of my life. I concede, in the grand scheme of things I’ve had a relatively easy life, but this really was a touch week.
But I think that in terms of research for this piece it has taught me a lot.
I think the most important thing it has taught me is that we cannot do a piece about our relationship, or about love, without some physical outlet. I’m not saying the outlet must be sexual in a literal way, but we must, in our own way express the sexual desires we possess. If we wish to create an honest piece of work about an honest relationship, then there is no way we can shield from the physical outlet which helps to hold or to pull everything together. We must respect that the week of celibacy has been maybe our hardest week together and that this obviously presents how the need for romance of just a regular fuck is urgent.