WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.460 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.460 --> 00:00:05.230 align:middle line:90% Hello. 00:00:05.230 --> 00:00:08.320 align:middle line:84% I didn't prepare anything to show you. 00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:11.580 align:middle line:84% I thought I could just improvise, of course. 00:00:11.580 --> 00:00:15.910 align:middle line:84% And so, but it's been really wonderful to hear all of you 00:00:15.910 --> 00:00:19.270 align:middle line:84% and see how all these things are speaking to each other 00:00:19.270 --> 00:00:22.720 align:middle line:84% as equals just as you do, Nietzsche said. 00:00:22.720 --> 00:00:30.540 align:middle line:84% And what is missing from my perspective in this fantastic 00:00:30.540 --> 00:00:37.350 align:middle line:84% association of the offness and the page is the space poetry. 00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:42.630 align:middle line:90% And by poetry in space is-- 00:00:42.630 --> 00:00:45.640 align:middle line:84% I mean something that is not even an issue. 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:48.900 align:middle line:84% It's not a category, it's not known. 00:00:48.900 --> 00:00:53.010 align:middle line:84% For example, I recently published a book 00:00:53.010 --> 00:00:54.960 align:middle line:84% of which I was the co-editor of the Oxford 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:59.310 align:middle line:84% book of Latin American poetry and attempting 00:00:59.310 --> 00:01:03.600 align:middle line:84% to see an indigenous view where poetry was always 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:06.480 align:middle line:84% simultaneously happening in space 00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:10.110 align:middle line:84% as a collective experience, happening in sound, 00:01:10.110 --> 00:01:14.670 align:middle line:84% happening as well in thread, happening as well in ceramics, 00:01:14.670 --> 00:01:19.870 align:middle line:84% happening as well in infinite numbers of media. 00:01:19.870 --> 00:01:22.960 align:middle line:84% And this has been going on for a long time. 00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:26.980 align:middle line:84% For example, the quipu, the way of writing with cords. 00:01:26.980 --> 00:01:30.240 align:middle line:84% It's probably older than writing as has been 00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:33.600 align:middle line:90% developed in the Middle-East. 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:36.410 align:middle line:90% Did any one of you knew that? 00:01:36.410 --> 00:01:36.910 align:middle line:90% No. 00:01:36.910 --> 00:01:38.940 align:middle line:90% Did any one of you know? 00:01:38.940 --> 00:01:42.780 align:middle line:90% You see, I don't get the verbs. 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:45.990 align:middle line:84% You see, this has never been really known. 00:01:45.990 --> 00:01:50.640 align:middle line:84% It was only recently that a perfectly composed quipu being 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:54.610 align:middle line:84% 5,000 years old was found, it's true. 00:01:54.610 --> 00:01:56.820 align:middle line:84% And so the fact that the quipu is already 00:01:56.820 --> 00:02:00.600 align:middle line:84% completely functional as a complex form 00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:03.270 align:middle line:90% of a script 5,000 years ago-- 00:02:03.270 --> 00:02:08.550 align:middle line:84% it means it was further in time when it was developed. 00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:11.280 align:middle line:84% Nevertheless, for example, even when 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:17.280 align:middle line:84% you come to writing, when you come to think of Maya writing, 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:21.570 align:middle line:84% the idea that is a Western idea that the writing is 00:02:21.570 --> 00:02:26.100 align:middle line:84% against orality or that is superior to orality 00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:30.810 align:middle line:84% has been really used as a weapon to destroy cultures 00:02:30.810 --> 00:02:32.100 align:middle line:90% around the world. 00:02:32.100 --> 00:02:34.950 align:middle line:84% Nevertheless, the Maya had an enlightened view 00:02:34.950 --> 00:02:40.440 align:middle line:84% where orality was everything and writing was part of orality. 00:02:40.440 --> 00:02:43.620 align:middle line:84% You have to wait until Marshall McLuhan comes 00:02:43.620 --> 00:02:46.650 align:middle line:84% into Western culture and says orality 00:02:46.650 --> 00:02:50.250 align:middle line:84% is the future because morality creates complexity 00:02:50.250 --> 00:02:54.090 align:middle line:84% while writing creates linear thinking. 00:02:54.090 --> 00:02:58.200 align:middle line:84% And so after the '60s, this amazing explosion 00:02:58.200 --> 00:03:00.930 align:middle line:84% of interplay-- and I love your idea 00:03:00.930 --> 00:03:03.840 align:middle line:84% of a love affair between the page and the screen 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:07.890 align:middle line:84% really begins to explode in the hands of everybody. 00:03:07.890 --> 00:03:10.710 align:middle line:84% Now to give you, I was supposed to speak really 00:03:10.710 --> 00:03:12.660 align:middle line:90% about my installation here. 00:03:12.660 --> 00:03:16.350 align:middle line:84% But I cannot really speak about what I have been doing here 00:03:16.350 --> 00:03:20.550 align:middle line:84% in Tucson or Tucson without telling you a little bit 00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:22.050 align:middle line:90% of background. 00:03:22.050 --> 00:03:25.680 align:middle line:84% I grew up in Chile, and I never knew 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:28.750 align:middle line:84% I was an Indian until a few years ago. 00:03:28.750 --> 00:03:31.260 align:middle line:84% My mother didn't know that she was Indian either. 00:03:31.260 --> 00:03:34.410 align:middle line:84% And this was something that was probably 00:03:34.410 --> 00:03:37.290 align:middle line:84% a very good thing for us because as you may know, 00:03:37.290 --> 00:03:40.860 align:middle line:84% most Indians don't want to know or don't want to be Indians 00:03:40.860 --> 00:03:46.230 align:middle line:84% because to be Indian is to be despised, is to be an unperson. 00:03:46.230 --> 00:03:51.600 align:middle line:84% But my mother tells the story that when I began to write, 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:54.610 align:middle line:84% I would speak always to my drawings. 00:03:54.610 --> 00:03:57.990 align:middle line:84% So what I consider writing when I was maybe 00:03:57.990 --> 00:04:00.330 align:middle line:84% three or four years old was a form 00:04:00.330 --> 00:04:02.370 align:middle line:90% of song, a form of drawing. 00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:05.230 align:middle line:84% And I also was reading at the same time. 00:04:05.230 --> 00:04:10.320 align:middle line:84% So the relationship in space between the song, the sound, 00:04:10.320 --> 00:04:15.210 align:middle line:84% the reading, and the line was somehow in my body 00:04:15.210 --> 00:04:19.019 align:middle line:84% even before it was in my thought forms. 00:04:19.019 --> 00:04:24.810 align:middle line:84% And what came to be my art is that as I grew up, 00:04:24.810 --> 00:04:28.290 align:middle line:84% when I was about maybe 14, 15 years old, 00:04:28.290 --> 00:04:32.670 align:middle line:84% I came upon the concept of Dada, the concept of art 00:04:32.670 --> 00:04:35.730 align:middle line:84% as an action, of poetry as an action. 00:04:35.730 --> 00:04:40.170 align:middle line:84% And I saw the works of Miro and of Picasso 00:04:40.170 --> 00:04:42.450 align:middle line:90% done in the rocks in the beach. 00:04:42.450 --> 00:04:45.690 align:middle line:84% So I saw how they were completely entranced 00:04:45.690 --> 00:04:48.900 align:middle line:84% by what was called at the time at the late-- 00:04:48.900 --> 00:04:50.880 align:middle line:84% at the end of the 19th century and beginning 00:04:50.880 --> 00:04:53.760 align:middle line:84% of the 20th century, primitive art. 00:04:53.760 --> 00:04:54.960 align:middle line:90% Think of that name-- 00:04:54.960 --> 00:04:56.010 align:middle line:90% primitive. 00:04:56.010 --> 00:04:57.510 align:middle line:90% What is primitive? 00:04:57.510 --> 00:05:01.290 align:middle line:84% And in any case, when I saw all that, I saw myself. 00:05:01.290 --> 00:05:03.700 align:middle line:90% I saw my way of being. 00:05:03.700 --> 00:05:05.820 align:middle line:90% So my art began that way. 00:05:05.820 --> 00:05:07.920 align:middle line:84% You will notice that I have never 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:13.530 align:middle line:84% included in any exhibition of artist books, of visual poetry. 00:05:13.530 --> 00:05:15.180 align:middle line:90% I have never anywhere-- 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:18.930 align:middle line:84% Rosa Alcalá was telling me a few minutes ago-- 00:05:18.930 --> 00:05:22.830 align:middle line:84% isn't it interesting that your poetry is not included because 00:05:22.830 --> 00:05:25.060 align:middle line:90% it's not text based-- 00:05:25.060 --> 00:05:28.810 align:middle line:84% which meant is that I am working with time, 00:05:28.810 --> 00:05:32.950 align:middle line:84% I'm working with the moment, I am working with the breath, 00:05:32.950 --> 00:05:36.700 align:middle line:84% with the song, I am working with the threads. 00:05:36.700 --> 00:05:40.030 align:middle line:84% And the idea that threads are a text 00:05:40.030 --> 00:05:42.700 align:middle line:84% is embedded already in the brain. 00:05:42.700 --> 00:05:46.180 align:middle line:84% For example, now with the incredible science 00:05:46.180 --> 00:05:52.150 align:middle line:84% of neuroscience where you can go inside the shapes of the cells, 00:05:52.150 --> 00:05:56.080 align:middle line:84% the shapes of the connections inside the cell, 00:05:56.080 --> 00:06:01.430 align:middle line:84% they're calling them spinning, spinnets, because they spin. 00:06:01.430 --> 00:06:05.320 align:middle line:84% So the brain communicates with itself 00:06:05.320 --> 00:06:07.720 align:middle line:90% through a form of weaving. 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:10.150 align:middle line:90% So weaving is a cosmic event. 00:06:10.150 --> 00:06:13.630 align:middle line:84% Weaving has always been part of life. 00:06:13.630 --> 00:06:17.170 align:middle line:84% There's a student scientist called Humberto Maturana that 00:06:17.170 --> 00:06:21.610 align:middle line:84% came up with the concept of life itself was autopoietic. 00:06:21.610 --> 00:06:25.990 align:middle line:84% So when Johanna comes up with the concept of type of poiesis, 00:06:25.990 --> 00:06:30.580 align:middle line:84% she's responding to this ancient idea that comes 00:06:30.580 --> 00:06:32.350 align:middle line:90% to us expressed by the Greek. 00:06:32.350 --> 00:06:35.080 align:middle line:84% But this Chilean man has converted it 00:06:35.080 --> 00:06:39.310 align:middle line:84% into the way life organizes itself. 00:06:39.310 --> 00:06:41.440 align:middle line:84% I don't know if Humberto Maturana knew 00:06:41.440 --> 00:06:45.310 align:middle line:84% that another Chilean put before him in the '20s 00:06:45.310 --> 00:06:51.010 align:middle line:84% wrote this fantastic line that poetry is life itself. 00:06:51.010 --> 00:06:54.610 align:middle line:84% And this is experienced by people that universally 00:06:54.610 --> 00:06:57.640 align:middle line:84% in Latin America, especially people that 00:06:57.640 --> 00:07:00.340 align:middle line:90% are not so-called educated. 00:07:00.340 --> 00:07:03.340 align:middle line:84% My first film was called, "What is Poetry to You?" 00:07:03.340 --> 00:07:04.660 align:middle line:90% And you can now see it-- 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:08.710 align:middle line:84% I don't remember if it's in YouTube or in email. 00:07:08.710 --> 00:07:09.650 align:middle line:90% And what I did-- 00:07:09.650 --> 00:07:14.080 align:middle line:84% I went about with a microphone and with the camera in 1980 00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:18.440 align:middle line:84% and I went about the streets of Bogota, 00:07:18.440 --> 00:07:21.200 align:middle line:84% speaking to prostitutes, policemens, beggars, 00:07:21.200 --> 00:07:22.460 align:middle line:90% all kinds of people. 00:07:22.460 --> 00:07:25.040 align:middle line:84% And the way they speak about poetry-- 00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:27.620 align:middle line:84% when I show it here in the US, people 00:07:27.620 --> 00:07:30.380 align:middle line:84% think that I gave them a script because they 00:07:30.380 --> 00:07:35.450 align:middle line:84% speak of poetry as poetry being in life, as poetry being them, 00:07:35.450 --> 00:07:36.320 align:middle line:90% as poetry-- 00:07:36.320 --> 00:07:38.990 align:middle line:84% For example, one man in passing, I 00:07:38.990 --> 00:07:41.390 align:middle line:90% ask him, what is poetry to you. 00:07:41.390 --> 00:07:45.830 align:middle line:90% And he says, continua. 00:07:45.830 --> 00:07:48.360 align:middle line:90% That means it continues. 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:54.050 align:middle line:84% And I was very touched by Stacy Doris saying, 00:07:54.050 --> 00:07:58.280 align:middle line:84% life's principle property is continuity. 00:07:58.280 --> 00:08:03.770 align:middle line:84% Continuity in Latin means with thread. 00:08:03.770 --> 00:08:07.910 align:middle line:84% So everything that's tenuous, that is delicate, 00:08:07.910 --> 00:08:13.100 align:middle line:84% is also a thread, is the most delicate and fragile 00:08:13.100 --> 00:08:16.190 align:middle line:84% and the strongest thing on Earth. 00:08:16.190 --> 00:08:17.660 align:middle line:90% So now come to this song. 00:08:17.660 --> 00:08:19.100 align:middle line:90% How many more minutes I have? 00:08:19.100 --> 00:08:25.040 align:middle line:90% 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.190 align:middle line:90% OK, very good.