WATCH OUT #7: Sonia GonzĂĄlez on Lou Hoyer
Charlie Hodgson
Leaves Turn Inside You
An opening scene with a grand stage. Holding our story is a vessel, proposing we have an eventâwhat kind of event? Here is a gesture frozen, silently watching, like an eye or a buttholeâ an attraction to something so immediate. We have arrived joined by a certain set of historical signposts, jagged and slightly off, with a theatrical grubbiness making me wonder if weâve been tricked! A noble presence testing my limits of both fear and curiosity creating a historical creep with flair. History and authority made uneasy with proximity to a sharp edge and public sumptuousness. Apparent disregard for a brutal deterrent and pathetic measures of control. A living breathing life looms and says no. Laser vision clocking distance lurking on the edge out of sight. The monolith of mythology, and various appearances throughout. Iâve been told it basically boils down to the shape of a head. I vibrate colour like a screen or the backdrop of my 90âs school photoshoots. The crisp line of your edge keeps drawing me out of my kaleidoscopic anus and toward a prior perfection. Iâm in and out of destruction. Machine violence and eros tangled in a confusion about our bodies morphing and capabilities getting mixed up fragments of parts smashing together. Milky material of baggy softness, rigid turned pupae. Something gone wrong in the day-to-day. Replaced with a lattice that invites a pause and, despite not being able to see myself, some time for reflection and a place to sink into. Now it has an impression. Heavy transparency somehow also slumps. A weight cemented in unfamiliar territory. Not a tree Iâve seen before, mottled camouflage glistening. Poised, lengthening while melting. Tiny screaming faces trying to get out. An almost office-core quality takes me to government forms. Filling me with an anxiety specific to a fear of authority. Bureaucratic greys and a brown so thin it could disappear. Maybe it is dissolving? I will tell you about the ghost gum. Especially at night, it looks like a ghost, wildly gesturing. Stretching limbs, bends filled with wrinkles that look so much like human skin. Gathering in a corner smooth and dimpled pot marked texture. The most beautiful one I have seen was in a carpark. A disconcerting intimacy between the edges of two disparate things, touching. Frivolity and horror rubbing together clinking. The foam from a fire extinguisher takes a long time to clean up. Self-embrace, youâre making do. You have skin touching on the idea of disaster. Precariously teetering on the edge of embrace and self-consciousness. Thirdly, suggesting we might get fucked up tonight. Crouching in a spontaneous moment of exposure and a refusal to let this stop me. Inner worlding becomes even more necessary. Apparent nonchalance acting as a border, making way for the possibility of coexistence. Suddenly, your vulnerability pulls me from the apparent concrete permanence and into the wet mess of flesh. The sadness of an inner thigh exposed to be just as human as the next. Bodies press on cold surface bending to repetitive architecture your desire playing out in the distance on a grid of a, b, c and how to get there. The possibility of warmth and want, pursuing yourself through an alienating structure. Baring yourself to recalibrate a new face. Iâm all in front of you wanting to know what youâll do next. Youâre turning to show yourself to yourself checking on your status as shown from your own perspective. Sometimes you just have to notice when youâre looking really good. Some things just are. Take some time to arrive and take stock of how you are and how youâre meant to be. If it was complete abandon we wouldnât be watching, so I take these things to indicate a vigilant eye. One eye open, on the ass, to make sure a you got it and b youâre here. The architecture of the body is no match for these walls. You open endlessly and where does that get you. Stepping up to warm yourself. Before it was an announcement now it has become impressed.
Kate Power