Autumn Equinox
All last year and some time before that I had been busy with the archives of the Azartstichting – a newly formed foundation of sorts to inventory the activities of the creator of the Azart alphabet, Guy Rombouts as well as others who contributed to the further development and vulgarization – mainly the All-World Azart Writers Association (AWAWA).
I thought it was high time to rekindle the AWAWA after a very quiet couple of decades – and given that the Azart-creator”s birthday is on the autumn equinox, saw this as a perfect opportunity to invite him to participate in the “Same but Different” edition of the equinox to equinox series... alas he had already committed himself to be present at the opening of an exhibition at the Verhaerenmuseum in St. Amands where he will be showing early next year – an exhibition of the Chinese translation of Emile Verhaeren's work by Ay Qing, along with works of his son Ay WeiWei called “Life, Revolt, Poetry”. Guy did however indicate he would be interested to participate next year.
So, given this fact I decided to put on my old AWAWA cap and proceede without him – but retaining a duo effort with la LL, in order to adhere to the notion of double repeat, once writing drawing and erasing writing, redrawing and re-defacing in order to keep it a zero-operation with no (or hardly any) traces left. Speaking of Zero, I was also recently investigating various aspects of that movement and found that the Dutch outrigger 'Nul' was in fact more interesting than the German origin, and the French/American aspect towards Fluxus more of an inspiration for me, but nevertheless an interesting exercise which in many ways we can relate to our unnoticed or barley noticeable activities.
So in that vein I decided to simply write 'born on the autumn equinox' in the Azart alphabet in chalk and have LL follow up with a double sponge, giving the writing-drawing in fact more presence (albeit temporarily) that the chalk itself. Chalk was in fact very present this year for some reason, with the most prominent manifestation Philemon's wide swathe right across the Mayor's courtyard as it were...
This time we decided to stay within the bounds of the courtyard, square, esplanade – other times we had circumnavigated the whole block and beyond, using chance primarily, but directing it with some parameters given by the project at hand. In this instance the circularity was to be seen from one point of view, rather than, as in the other cases, multiple facets. By chance this time there was an overview by drone – sign of the times – and who knows soon AI will take over the old style hands-on feet to the ground execution of simple concepts... but until then we will enjoy getting together in real time even if just for a hour or so -
documentation by hosts 222lodge:
https://222lodge.nl/index.php/category/equinox-20-9-26/
(strange thing is - this time I decided to prepare with satellite picture of the area, and by chance this time the activities were recorded by a drone above us... must be something in the air...)
