Oblique strategies: Idiot glee (?)
Confirmation: Balance your passions
Alma: Don't exaggerate
Me: what do you mean
Alma: you have gone to excess
Me: what then, you always do that
Alma: contrasts are not the same as exaggerating
Me: repeating the same thing endlessly as you do, some may also call exaggeration
Alma: stop listening if that's what you want, the only thing I'm saying is stop exaggerating where you don't need to
Me: gluttony
Alma: exactly
Me: like when you love gumdrops and can't stop eating them
Alma: exactly, stop doing that
21. Talking to Alma 1 - metaphor
Oblique strategies: Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
Confirmation: Make me without hesitation, go straight ahead.
Alma: Do you see that it has become a spine
Me: mm, it reminds me of fish I cleaned as a child in Jämtland
Alma: is it your backbone
Me: certainly not
Alma: are you sure
Me: one hundred percent
Alma: are you an expressionist
Me: definitely not
Alma: are you a neo-materialist
Me: I am nothing, and I am what I want when I want
Alma: oops
Me: ok, I was a bit harsh, sorry, but you provoked me
Alma: why does it provoke you
Me: I I don't want to be anything specific, it always makes my skin itch when someone tries to define
Alma: as Roni Horn you mean
Me: ah exakt
Alma: It's your backbone, I see it now, it's everywhere
Me: Ahhhh
20. Talking to a painting of Alma Thomas
Oblique strategies:
Confirmation:
Me: I was so happy when I saw you
Painting: look behind me
Me: that's what I do
Painting: you see, I'm there behind
Me: yes, that's exactly what's so interesting. But did you had to to show so little of what's behind, I go crazy staring at it. I get such a strong desire that what is there behind should be
exposed a little more, I just stare, without blinking, for a long time
Painting: that is the purpose
Me: to not show everything
Painting: -
Me: not to be overly clear
Painting: -
Me: you are driving me crazy, it's like a fatal attraction. You are so vague in your exaggerations.
19. Parallel thinking
Oblique strategies: Is there something missing?
Confirmation: Forgotten agenda. You need confirmation (information and knowledge) from others.
Me: Who are you?
Tube: I'm parallel
Me: is it enough for you
Tube: maybe, but I don't think so
Me: what does parallel mean
Tube: I lie next to, alongside, several times
Me: I don't know anymore
Tube: what is it that you don't know
Me: what we're really are doing together
Tube: leave me a moment, we may need to think a little, maybe you need to talk to someone else for a while
Me: about what
Tube: about what's important
18. One way street
Oblique strategies: Tidy up.
Confirmation: You are struggling by listening to the demands and wishes.
Painting: Interesting, but really fragmented and confusing you are just using me at the moment, aren't you
Me: yes, this is not a dialog, it's a one way street
Painting: I can see that, do you think that's a good strategy
Me: sometimes i just don't feel like talking to you
Painting: that is not a good idea in my point of view
17. Yellow resting
Oblique strategies: “Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance”
Confirmation: You are going somewhere and that feels good.
Painting: I am grateful that you painted me in a slightly different shade, but I think a lot about yellow
Me: me too, we'll get there
Painting: I'm not as frustrated now, let's rest.
16. Do as I please - hidden longing
Oblique strategies: What mistakes did you make last time.
Confirmation: Make it until you nail it and don't let others seduce you.
Tube: You really have to hide my nails
Me: I kind of like them
Tube: stop painting me
Me: yes yes yes, I hear you
Tube: I saw you when you did the opposite of what we agreed upon
Me: what do you mean
Tube: you did not make the bark transparent and like a mirror at all
Me: shit, I forgot
Tube: you have to do what we agreed upon and not do stuff just because you happen to be longing for oil paint
Me: I know, but I actually long for oil paint
Tube: not me, not yet anyway
15. Paint without paint
Oblique strategies: “Take a break”
Confirmation: Don't paint, think paint and I am a painting.
Object: You don't need to paint me all the time, you could just use me as I am
Me: do you mean raw
Object: no, I am not food, I mean you don't have to paint me for me to do paint
Me :ah so you mean, to paint you can become to much, I don't have to paint you for you to be a painting
Object: yeah…something like that.
14. Annoying demands
Oblique strategies: “Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events”
Confirmation: Repeating - go against the needs.
Object: Can you try to hide my nails again
Me: you are so annoying, can you just drop it
Object: No
Me: We don't have to talk about the same thing today. I shut my ears for your diseyers.
13. Pretending
Oblique strategies: “Be less critical more often”
Confirmation: Longing to be overly clear, high-contrast and moving.
Tube: I feel a little bit too similar to the others
Me: you would like to be more unique
Tube: no not really
Me: what otherness do you mean
Tube: I am thinking about your walk in the woods
Me: is it the trees you are thinking about
Tube: I feel comic
Me: as a parody
Tube: sad comic, like a kliche of something
Me: is it possible for you to exaggerate the kliche-feeling
Tube: …maybey, what do you mean?
Me: if we exaggerate the cliché, what will you be
Tube: vulgar
Me: would you be similar then
Tube: I am not sure I like being vulgar, can I just be really extrovert and happy so I accidently exaggerating everything I do
Me: of course you can.
12. Hide my edges - needs and wishes
Oblique strategies: Disconnect from desire
Confirmation: Tired of the otherness
Tube Is it possible to hide my edges?
Me maybey
________________
Tube: I became your intestines, or is it mine?
Me: I think it's mine, do you remember, we have had this conversion before, many
years ago, at Konstfack, when everything was about the body.
Tube: It's not the same, this is not that conversation.
Me: I really don't care at the moment, I don't care what you are talking about, I am tired of listening to your needs and wishes.
11. You make me feel sick
Oblique strategies: “Lost in useless territory”
Confirmation: love the disgusting.
Tube: Repeat me, make me as a wave, I want out, but for God's sake, don't start in the middle
Me: you look like a poisonous mushroom
Tube: I will spread like a virus
Me: do you want to be a virus
Tube: today, yes
Me: I feel i little bit sick watching you
Tube: don't stop, continue
Me: I am not sure i want to
Tube: can we do as I wont today
Me: Its hard when I feel resistance to you, but ok.
10. Stop talk - work
Oblique strategies: “Are there sections? Consider transitions”
Confirmation: Infected feelings.
Painting: I start to feel like fly agaric, it began as a good feeling, but now I feel infected
Me: it will pass
Painting: can you hurry
Me: I don't know why you have to be blue
Painting: you think too much, I don't like feeling like an infection, you need to do some work now instead and stop talking.
9. Barks and mirrors
Oblique strategies: “Retrace your steps”
Confirmation: Pastiche mirror transparency.
Me: You get a little too shiny sometimes, I can saw a bit across you, you can have a different structure then
Tube: ah really, I don't want to always look so polished
Me: although I'm thinking more about bark actually
Tube: aha, you do, ah, but don't nerd into it too much
Me: why then
Tube: it can be too comic, like a parody, should you make a caricature of bark, you mean
Me: nah, just test if your transparency can make me see into the trees
Tube: aha, then I understand. That's what I want to be, like a mirror into the forest.
8. I am a city, or just a tower
Oblique strategies: “Consult other sources -promising -unpromising”
Confirmation: Big and in order.
Tube: Play me in 90º
Me: up, in, around and in levels
Tube: good enough, but can you make me bigger?
Me: not just now, we have to talk about some other stuff first.
7. Hide my nails
Oblique strategies: “Courage!”
Confirmation: The tube likes connecting with others.
Tube: I know you like the nail hammer and I like to be stuck to the MDF, but can you try to
hide my nails?
Me: yes of course
Tube: I feel like having a quilt on my body
Me: lie down here and I'll tuck you in.
6. Don´t finish then
Oblique strategies: “Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame”
Confirmation: Overload emotions and the obvious platitudes.
Object: A hole in a hole I am a hole in the hole put the ink in my hole and let me wander out
Me: I have no patient with you to day
Object: so don't finish then, I feel to much, you can just stop
Me: yea…I let you be, I feel sick watching your tentacles today, sorry
Object: I don't want this anyway.
5. I dreamt you were blue
Oblique strategies: “Always give yourself credit for having more than personality”
Confirmation: Competitive, demanding, good looking and shallow.
Tube: I told you in the dream, do you remember
Me: yes
Tube: you have to be aware about the angle
Me: I couldn't do any other angel
Tube: it's not good enough, the angel must be harder
Me: ok, you would like to be more pointy
Tube: yes, almost sharp
Me: do you want to point at something
Tube: no, I'll just want to look real sharp.
4. Uncertainty
Oblique strategies: “Only a part, not the whole”
Confirmation: Wobbling the persuade uncertainty.
Panting: I don't know what you want with me
Me: I have a plan
Painting: you say so, I am not sure if you just got a hangup
Me: maybe, I don't care, I have a plan
Painting: you may destroy me
Me: can we take that risk you think
Painting: yea…I can't have it like this, so we can go by your plan
Me: just at the bottom then ok
Painting: maybe I fall down
Me: when I look at you, I'll just see pink
Painting: I am not sure I like pink
Me: you are kind of uncertain about things
Painting: yes I am, definitely.
3. Naked holes
Oblique strategies: “Emphasize differences”
Confirmation: Impulses in order not being exposed.
Me: I dreamt that you were black and small
Tube: ok
Me: I didn't had the time to talk to you about it
Tube: I don't have anything to say, but it feels like you are walking around in circles. Can I be bigger? I also feel that things could fall down in my body. Someone could use me like a cuspidor. Can you try to plug my holes?
Me: maybey…with plastic or wood…or? I feel confused now…I like to watch inside you….must we?
Tube: it's good enough for me if you just try.