We are what we do
(again & again & again).
The repetition of something
is what makes its solid.
To undo, unbecome, unbe
(deshacer) —
unmake oneself back into
pure particles —
that is the repetition of not doing.
I rediscovered this little video on my camera roll recently, which I wrote and recorded in the park one Saturday morning, watching both light and children play, back in February of 2024.
This awareness is central to my creative practice as both artist and human: just as children enact during play, I make something and then atomize it back into its original parts, ready for making again. Except each time I put back into parts, the nature of those parts are slightly different because of what they have absorbed and taken on. My materials now have more meaning and are more alive. This is the miracle of the creative act — of being so deeply involved with it, awake to it.
Re-reading my writing in the above video, I had to think a bit about what I meant by that last phrase: that is the repetition of not doing. And it is about this: sometimes the way we “put back into parts” is not by breaking or actively deconstructing something, but by simply resisting the habitual recreation of the thing. By not selecting the habit and by choosing a new path, the parts shift, fall out and then fall into a new configuration.
Try it:
When you shower today, wash from feet to face. Wouldn’t that be wild?
Or that thing you always do? Just don’t do it. Just stop. Something else will come. The gap always gets filled.
