Spring Equinox 2023 [Ostara]
In our conversation at the end of the Ostara Grant Period, Rebecca spoke of a time in which they followed connections without coherence, holding no destination in mind. They told me about a cloudy, slow intensity, wandering through the liminal spaces that exist between the dreamworld and wakefulness. Hypnagogic streams poured forth from a neuroqueer bodymind.
I am grateful to Rebecca for sharing some of the work that they created during the grant period.
Influenced by Bosch’s Cutting the Stone, ‘cut the stone out fast’ is a companion to a reworked piece, ‘My name is lubbert das’. These pieces intertwine and layer softly upon each other, muttering texts that follow winding, weblike paths, visceral broadcasts from dreamy stony places. ‘cliffs’ returns to stone, teasing us with incomprehensibility and familiarity - ‘something is wrong’ outside the prefabricated building, a half remembered memory of my own.
The accompanying drawings capture the mood of the writing, staring out at us with intensity and depth. Drift into Rebecca’s work for a little while, and awaken as a different kind of thing.
You can find Rebecca online at rebeccajagoe.com and @r_jagoe_
Drawing 1 (Ostara Grant Period, 2023)
Drawing 2 (Ostara Grant Period, 2023)
1 My name is lubbert das
today the pebble shifted slightly
and i could not get out of bed
it grates against my soft lobes still
sometimes i feel it next to my eyes
we dont know how it arrived there
something to do with a raw piece of bacon i ate once
or did i tell you i was dropped on my head as a baby you know before my skull had
the soft parts of my crown still pliant open why do they make babies like that
no kneecaps A FALSE NOSE FALSE / TEETH FALSE HAIR ENAMELLED HANDS FALSE FEET
stone crept in the hole
i was crying in the job centre and asking
why am i not normal i just want to know why i am not normal
i want to know why i am broken
shard of flint lodged in my stupid little brain
a natural fool
why am i always falling behind
an ever increasing backlog of emails to send
8 months, i tell you, 8 months is my limit, my giddy limit !!
hold still we can remove it quickly
the time it takes for the flint to orbit my mind
i cannot hold a job for longer than 8 months
another orbit of the skull
solar return of the flint folded into my cerebellum
a curdled milk
help me to remove the stone
master,
cut the stone out, fast.
this next bit must serve for me,
there was a period of time where i only ate broccoli and salt
a time where i only ate toast
another time where i only ate porridge
a time where peas and eggs were all i
and then another where it was chicken and spinach
rocks may seem like slow actors and yes
the stone will outlast me but
the poison they leach out can happen in a human timeframe in a single lifetime i tell you
those things are toxic !
microparticles blending with neurons hard little carapaces forming around flakes and
shards
gristle
help me to remove the stone
cut the stone out, fast.
a doctor asked me if i was afraid i had damaged my fertility and i said
thats a two part question
a doctor asked me if i really thought i was gay and i said
a doctor wrote on my referral i was an attractive looking 17 year old
a doctor told me that for the purposes of his study i could not receive additional diagnoses or it would impact his data
and
more fool him!
i have collected 10 separate madnesses like pokemon cards
there are more, a new one for each orbit the flint takes
no wait
do we believe in diagnoses? the stone says no, there is no essential truth
this bit I my self eate now
he had residues of food on his tie
gravy, etc.
and wore new balance trainers, which was impossible to reconcile with the rest of his attire
HE MUST HAVE TAKEN AN EXTRA GLASS OF MADEIRA OR THE / DEVIL PLACED HIS FOOT ON HIM
if fools rush in then i cannot be a fool
[always moving far too slowly]
occupying deep time and travelling through generations i was
sitting in the waiting room
my shins covered in bruises my next diagnosis pancytopenia
you have no blood !! silly billy
you will outlast us all, desiccated husk
the art of persistence is to be dead
you have to help me dear louise,
i wish i could be normal
cut the stone out, fast
my name is lubbert das.
DAUGHTERS HEREDITARY LUNATICS
if my throat is a cathedral then why do i seek to destroy it
or maybe time is just scary, idk? and here i would insert a shrug emoji
i am sorry you feel the treatment is not right for you but you have to do it
or
gynaecologists will keep telling you to eat donuts
and everything is because youre mad so really its your fault !
you really want to be the victim dont you all you want is sympathy
eat the donut, lubbert das
its the test for sanity, lubbert das
which I'll eat apace
wait so you dont want blood
you dont want to bleed
are you afraid of growing up hoho! i think we’re onto something
they learned from a manual that joan of arc was a disease
my body interfered with for so long
take that how you will
it could be the expected interpretation but it could also be
small things
being forced to remove your clothes in front of a nurse and stand on a scales
as for other avocations of women there are plenty of other women to perform them
I MISS LORINA BULWER WAS EXAMINED BY DR PINCHING OF WALTHAMSTOW
ESSEX AND FOUND T
O BE A PROPERLY SHAPED FEMALE
you need to take care of this one they are so trusting
sit on the edge of the pink bath and cry
i am not good
anymore
i heard somewhere that a spider’s web is their external brain so
i made a list of my ten diagnosed madnesses
tore it into strips and ate them whole
this too is a way of externalising things - -
master, cut the stone out, fast.
the stone is doing this to you and
you failed the test
we proclaim you mad
you carry the stone within you
and so
it is time
to remove it
you will not feel any pain and afterwards
you can be normal ! you will not be broken ! you will be able to work ! which is what we all
want
is it not
you will be a right angle a set square you will line up on a grid
lubbert das, we will drink to your entrance into the workforce
yes yes, from my funnel hat! red wine straight from the hat
whats that
meester snyt die keye ras
myne name Is lubbert das.
2 cut the stone out fast
i know you are there
damaging our brain which damages our sodium which damages our kidneys
there are not enough languages there is not enough time there is also too much time
the back of our throat is tender meat
is it time to be alone again
are we ever alone no of course not [the stone]
we are googling our symptoms again such a cliche
‘feeling we dont exist’
this could be an existential question it could be philosophical google decides it is medical
our emotions are
did you know there is a song released in 1997 that starts to warp time when it comes on
they only play it on certain nostalgic radio stations
& a plant falls two flights of stairs - no,
is pushed
it is unclear if this is our fault
they are trying to see through the blinds again
& the person who originated our fear of windows tells us that we like darkness
which is funny because
we don’t !!
we tried to write about it by pretending to be mythology
it didnt work because
we did not turn into a tree
and after all you are still there and what we do not know is when you arrived
were you there at the start and if you were
were all the windows and doors violated like we thought, or did we
always
have
an active imagination
we dont know which is worse
coming into our house and stating he will smoke then -
or the smaller thing from the more significant person
scritch scritch scritch
we truly thought the failing was our own
i hate men actually
no its a joke theyre fine!
asterisk i hate RICH men
putting out a cigarette in the teacup we bought in a charity shop
it was a nice teacup bone china green leaf pattern
we smashed it up and sent it in the post to him
no we didnt
have his address actually
i guess its the thought that counts
two weeks later looking guilty in the novelty pancake cafe
what the fuck kind of name is harry handharry will not sleep in the other bedroom and this is how it begins
or ends
idk
one day we wake up and our landlord is entering our bedroom says oops and walks out
one day we wake up and a cop is in our face
regularly we wake up to the sounds of the circus [not a metaphor]
we cannot see them
the angles of buildings et cetera
do you remember the time our cousin kept us awake all night drumming on the walls pretending
to be a mouse
no not getting dressed up like one
no !! [scritch scritch]
where is your head i ask you
anyway where - were - we - w
arriving at my house with a beer can in his pocket
an open beer can no less !! and that was when it was all reduced to one apple and a slice of toast
walking furiously along the canal
tyme is an unlefliche priuelage
is this what you want
[ingests plant material]
dont tell me you havent thought about it also
red spots on the toothbrush
/ so bright almost pink
scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch !!!
idk what to tell you
a mucus plug!
yes really
it all comes down to a mucus plug
an oily, green-black line of putrescence, what do they call it - epigenetic trauma
we dont feel good right now
1. cliffs
hoo of speykyng
hoo of sylense
a clud of ston in oure minde
hoo of sylens
2.
something is wrong
they have told us
something is wrong
we are standing outside the year 2 classroom a prefabricated building
&lisa is wearing a take that t shirt
it is 1994
we do not know who take that are & it is unclear how she does
lisa tells us a word and we are told that it is wrong that it is dirty that we should not say that word
something is wrong
a thought that must be cut out
excised
it will not hurt you will be unconscious at the time and oh afterwards
the psychic pain will be so much - - -
why is it that video in blockbuster video
with the two women kissing
on the back
so - - -
our grandfather told us that everyone goes through a phase
& when a friend drank a smoothie
3.
it hurts us to speak
sometimes
yes sometimes it actively hurts
can i tell you i dont always know the right times to speak
silent when sounds are expected words noises when silence expected et cetera
a cascade of crumbs fall from the desk drawer why can you not say
your own name out loud
shes very old i know
ancient
and im not the first brain oh no not
4.
the stone makes everything flat today
the stone makes everything flat
everything is flat today
the stone makes everything flat
we ate some food and felt sick and then sad
it did not fill us in the correct way
there is nothing to be done
About Rebecca
A Sicknesse, A Ston [Coral] (2023). [Still] Online work. Starring June Lam, DOP Jos Bitelli. Chapter 1 of project A Sicknesse, A Ston. Acting: June Lam; DOP: Jos Bitelli; editing: Sam Williams. Available at https://www.sitegallery.org/rebecca-jagoe/
Laurie
Rebecca expresses a [shared] desire to forgo coherence and rationality, refusing the demand for legibility expressed by the intrusive neuronormative gaze. [understand: we demand to be misunderstood]. Non-rationality is positioned as a rejection of an imperial myth, a method of decomposing the Human. From the putrid remains a monster crawls, dripping with queer, feral eroticism. [bathe with us in the faint new moon light, ecstatic bodies interlocked]. Animal madness becomes a curative potion – may we all drink well.
Rebecca
Writing lies at the core of my practice. Each project I undertake has a core text from which performance, sculpture, textiles, drawing, costume or sound work will emerge. Using nonlinear narrative, my work is a material memoir which examines how my own experiences of illness, madness, and gender are informed by specific Western, Christian narratives around the ‘human’, and human dominion over the earth.
Against this I use the figure of the monster, the animal, or other-than-humans to consider other forms of subjectivity and agency. Queer eroticism is interwoven into all of my work, and much of my deconstruction of the human explores the possibility for erotic or sexual encounters with other-than-humans. Madness is not just the subject of my work, madness is the context and position from which I make work. Through my recent writing and object-making, I want to consider how language and objects can be incoherent, non-rational, non-productive acts of refusal.
Right now, incoherence seems the only form of resistance against a system that seeks to rationalise and reduce all beings into parts of a capitalist chain of production, whether those beings are resources or workers or lovers. I hold onto the intrinsic unknowability of the world, and meaning-making as always provisional: language is formed intimately in the landscape, created with and in conversation with other-than-humans, it does not exist a priori or apart from it.
