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Artist - Skip Largent
Project - Ziusudra
Partner - Living Arts of Tulsa New Genre Festival
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Statement of Purpose for Project
As a project, Ziusudra began in December of 2003 when invitations were
first sent out. As of now, January 2006, there are 82 people involved
and the number grows monthly. All of these creative people come together
in the symbolic Ark of Ziusudra's Great Flood concept.
We have writers, visual artists (including painters, printmakers, sculptors,
installation artists) , musicians of all types, dancers/mimes, theater artists,
conceptual artists, 5 video-makers/photographers, a woodcarver, 3 webartists,
a mythologist, a reseacher, an architect, several lawyers, several realtors,
an engineer, several teachers, a cook, and an inventor. We can take in many
more;
the only essentials are lovingness and creativity.
It is in loving creativity that we are going to dissolve all these
limiting identities, integrate all the various artforms and lifestyles, and
have a great time putting together an evolving live event, an evergrowing
website,
and movies/books about it all. Thus far, we have created one very large
website, three major events, and 4 videos.
Ziusudra is a lightship that sails through time, carrying the best of
life; its creative energy, its creative works, its creators.
At the core of this lightship, Ziusudra is an intensely personal story ,
a story about a 3.6 billion year-old average joe. Ziusudra is
not an apocalyptic flood story in the traditional sense. It's about the
unstoppable evolution of Love and the end of Fear. Ziusudra is a surfer
of the solarwinds, a shaper of the human resonance, and a hell of a
three-point shooter from beyond the arc.
Each detail of the project is symbolic of artistic ideas, mythology, brain
evolution,
and quantum-mind physics. One purpose of the project is to use creativity
and
art as a vector for breaking down behavioral barriers, returning the artists
to the pre-art elemental force of creativity minus the cultural definitions
and limitations of what art is and is not - and minus a forced self-identity.
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Artist Statement:
Thanks for asking me for an artist's statement; it gives me a chance to
explain how integral this project is in my life. Ziusudra is a ten
year project (at least). It is a symbolic 3-tiered ark constructed to
survive the flood. It is not filled with animals, two by two. It is filled
with human creativity - creative people of all the diverse artforms.
The "flood" is not water or fire or plague. The flood is a deluge
of
social roles, mindsets, that are in the process of obliterating the surface
of the globe.
In the ark, the standard definitions of who we are and what we do is
stripped away, and the interactive creative process is invoked. The
mindset of "I am a dancer, I am a poet, I am a painter, I am this or
that"
is jettisoned - too heavy to float above the flood. Creative energy is
the lifeboat. Spontaneity is chain-reactive.
During the course of the event, EVERYONE in the space (including the
"audience," the technicians, even the guard at the door) must engage
creatively. Everyone is part of the drama, part of the music, part of the
visual art, etc. It is their choice whether they join the fun, or drown.
Whatever they choose, we focus on it as part of the dynamics of the moment.
Also discarded in this process are all the social mindset dualities,
such as them/us, american/foreigner, first world/third world, upper class/lower
class, republican/democrat, white collar/blue collar, him/her,
parent/child, etc - including "public life/personal life." We de-polarize
the
dualities by magnifying them to mythic levels - big bubble personas
that we pop to show the reality behind them. That reality is certain parts
of the human brain, each with specific functions & chemistry, which
are the origins of these mindsets.
All of this is essential for me to learn, to engage, to reshape myself, and
hopefully grow to be a more creative and loving human. Luckily, I have
found a lot of people who want to do something similar.
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Description of Project:
Ziusudra is a long-term unified-arts project with three aspects; a
website, a series of films/books, and a series of live events. Begun in
December 2003, it is both a personal project of mine and a collaborative
fusion involving around 80 very creative people of diverse focus. All
the artforms are represented in the project.
The conceptual basis of Ziusudra is outlined in some detail on the
Ziusudra website at http://www.thepaseo.com/skipsilver/ziusudra. In
general, the project processes from a quantumself/triune brain model that
I
have developed, and draws from the global mythology of Great Flood
stories. However, the floods of Ziusudra are not of water.
They are tremendous surges of solar plasma that re-write the intelligence
systems of
vertebrates, humans in particular. There have been three great floods,
each resulting in the addition of a new brain in our collective head. The
fourth is ensuing. Symptoms thus far are psychological; a tsunami of
mindsets. The Z event will feature a stormsurge of archetypes in a type
of "theater" that's never been done previously.
The Ziusudra persona comes from the oldest recorded Great Flood myth (
circa 3000 BCE ). Ziusudra was the Sumerian prototype for the biblical
Noah, some 2000 years later. Ziusudra, in our story here, however, is a
little, tattered-looking Z who is pretty average. Just your normal 3.6
billion year old person - with a boat to fill.
I know that this may be a little confusing. Let me try to give you a
brief description of what the New Genre XIII presentation might look
like. The basic script will be both modular and integral - in other words,
it will have time and space for telling the story, along with time and
space to insert works that offer richer perspective to the whole.
What that means for the New Genres event is this. The performance will take
place in a warehouse. The entire space will be converted into an art installation.
The storyline for this event is that the ark is a "fantasy cruise"
for cosmic
entities who want to get away from omniscience and do a little role-playing
on earth. The three brains of humans will be "software downloads"
to enhance
their virual reality experience. The audience " tourists " will
be the vacationers.
They will be required to undergo an entry ritual, performance art by Sky Camfield.
They will enter a space highlighting artwork by Albert Riddle, Jason &
Nicole Moan,
Sam Echols, and video projections by Ralph Petrosky - all of these artists
also
perform roles in the event.
The tourists will go through an orientation to
familiarize them with the software. This is actually 350 million years of
evolution of the human triune brain, which is personified by four dancers/actors
-
reptilian brain, emotional brain, & a hemispheric neocortex. These are
the reigning deities of this arktribe. Second in tribe hierarchy are priestesses
(PseudoDance Company) & Homeland Security Enforcer (Sky Camfield). The
third
social tier are the CommonFolks (ceramic corset models & others).
Musicians, painters, camera people are all various popgods to be worshipped.
Poets, however, are
the lepers of the tribe. The tourists are guided through a series of experiences
within this social dynamic. There will be three actor-couples embedded among
the tourists who will perform a running soap opera throughout. Art installations
by Duff Bassett, Jasmine Mullikin, Rick Rupple & Natawn Steinman will
be part of the action.
The focus of this event will be on the male-female relationship, & there
will be
a "passionplay" to conclude the evening which reveals that all great
love stories
have less to do with men & women than they do with the split of the left/right
hemispheres of the neocortex. The evening is orchestrated by Ziusudra, who
is constantly
guiding the course of action by various communication means with the artists.
That's a very brief outline of the event.
From the moment people enter this space, they not only enter an exhibit, concert,
drama & dance stage, they enter the drama of Ziusudra's storylines. In
a sense,
they also enter their own heads. We will be videotaping at all stages of the
process
and parts of these tapes will be re-incorporated into the live event as projections
- and much of it will be used to put together a movie later on.
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Commitment letter: Living Arts of Tulsa will be presenting the New Genre
Festival for the
thirteenth time in Tulsa in March of 2006. In keeping with the mission
of Living Arts, to present and develop contemporary art, the New Genre
Festival is committed to presenting the finest new art works that
Oklahoma artists have to offer while stimulating Oklahoma artists by outside
works that might not be seen otherwise. We saw a performance by
Ziusudra in Oklahoma City and feel that it exemplifies the experimental
nature of the New Genre Festival. This show is exactly the kind of
interdisciplinary artwork we look for at Living Arts. We are committed to
have
Ziusudra show at the New Genre Festival.
Another exciting thing about inviting Ziusudra to perform here is that
it helps build a solid bridge between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. We feel
that this performance can bring attention to both Tulsa and Oklahoma
City while enhancing a unified contemporary arts scene in Oklahoma.
We have a verbal and written contract with Skip Largent, and Ziusudra
is scheduled to show at 7pm on March 17th 2006.
Steve Liggett,
Artistic Director
Living Arts of Tulsa
308 South Kenosha
Tulsa, OK 74120