invitation to the transgression: an open closed circuit

Dear Ones,




I’m writing you to invite you on a journey into your very own Meat Space. That is, the space between your inmost self and the limits of your skin. Not the ‘you’ I can pull up on google; not even, in some cosmologies, ‘you’ at all; rather, the real-time flesh container you live with and through. The space that is, for most of us, the only one that truly belongs to us.  A space which is changing from the moment of our conception until there is nothing at all left that can be called by our names.




This  space is not usually deemed a space at all, but considered an object, a subject, animal, earth, visceral, ephemeral, sexy, too big, too small, too heavy, too light, too much; fantastic; orgasmic; vital; inescapable; as rich as bone stew, as nourishing as mama’s milk, as elastic as the milky way herself; a layer cake. a fondue. a labyrinth.




I invite you to join me in re-discovering this space. If you accept, you will be given a spool of wool yarn. You may use as much or as little as you wish. Your task is to build yourself a fort with invisible walls. In your house. In your garden. Above the toilet. Deep in Overton park. Make it in a place you can visit easily. And please only make one, because you are invited to commit to that space, with all its imperfections and specificity.






Spend time in your space fort, either briefly and frequently, or take some longer sessions on a weekly basis. let it be a space fort which defines your range of movement narrowly but does not punish you for overreaching or under-sneaking. Let it be a confine that suits your proportions but which walks a fine line between captivity and frame.




My questions for your investigation are as follows:

who are the various ‘me’s’ that dwell inside this fort? Note the personae, the attributes, perhaps the emergence of a ‘presence’ not quite you, not quite other than you.

what kinds of movement are facilitated by this container? 

what kinds of movements are limited by this container? 

What desires and urges arise in me as a result of being inside this fort?




when you leave your fort, what is the very first thing that you do?

is this fort an enlargement of your meat space, or a diminishing of your meat space?




what do you see/smell/hear/feel?




Invite a friend to join you just outside your fort and see if you can maintain a conversation with your friend as you work inside and they work outside. Allow them to ask you questions, prompt you, or describe through active noticings. You may take turns and ask your friend questions, prompt them, or describe their actions through noticings.




My request is that you harvest your research in the form of your preference: my website has a blog where you are invited to share the babbling brook of your stream of consciousness. But you may draw, make audio recordings, write in a journal, have a friend snap photographs. Whatever your mode, please harvest. You need not share all of your harvest, but some would be greatly appreciated.




The second layer to this process will be group practice sessions, to which you are invited but not obliged. If you rsvp YES to this second layer, you are automatically invited to participate in the works in progress showing in April. But again, this is optional and not obligatory. The first, second, and third layer of this process are all investigation and research, so the works in progress showing will be a kind of inclusion of witnesses and observers into the research. 




I sincerely hope you will consider where you are at and what is realistic for you, and I hope your reality includes a bit of meat-space-time. But no matter what, I cherish and respect you! Holler if you have thoughts/questions/doubts/inspirations to share.




Yours ever,

Sarah