deliberate elaboration

Elena Drozdova uses Mark Khaisman's tape to make me in her image, and I become a possibility, which I have always been, even before she has conceived the idea of me. Like Totally closes her eyes plunging into a deep thought. Or is it a probability, she elaborates deliberately.

alive

What you see in me is not who I am, but I want to be reflected in your eyes.
What is reflected in your eyes shows me what I am.
When I am all alone, I may be lost.
I want to be reflected in even more eyes, because it makes me even more.
When I am alone, I may be lost.
What you see is not who I am but it makes me, maybe.
If I am only the reflection in your eyes, I always wish to be around you,
but sometimes I want to be alone.
When I am alone I may be lost.
I am my mystery I want to solve.
You are my mystery: I am in you.
Close and distant, human and animal, thing and nature, I am alive!

what?

Please, tell me...

What?

That word. You know...

What?

I hear the silence but can't understand its meaning...

Leave me alone! It's you who understands the meaning of the silence, but I must sleep 

and keep disturbing you with unobstructed breath...

spoil

Don't spoil the well of life by spitting thoughts deep into it, thinks Like Totally

play

Like Totally would be just another tape dummy were it not for her playfulness. It is her love for playing that makes her alive. Life is a playground, thinks Like Totally, love, music, creativity, all the best experiences in life are real only when we really play.  God must love playing, thinks Like Totally, but games are for people.

a womb

Is it a head one lives inside of or a womb? Like Totally remembered that the Greek goddess Athena was born from the head of her father totally formed like adult. Thoughts have to develop, too, thinks Like Totally, wait… what was I thinking? Ah, right, a womb... I bet, a suicide bomber fancies return to the womb. 

bird's chirp

At the beginning there was a word, thinks Like Totally, and the word was crucified, resurrected and lived until it died again, not too long ago, when the philosopher, a creature of many words, proclaimed it dead.

We live in the world of dead words and motion pictures, says Like Totally. The birds are chirping, though…

Like Totally tries to focus on birds.

substitute and manifestation

Money is a manifestation of lack. Money is a substitute for passion. Passion belongs to nature. Humans don't run banks of passion. Thoughts like that make Like Totally grow in realization that something has to be done to earn a bit more money...

rectification

Like Totally doesn't believe her thoughts. On another thought, how can that be?
Really? Asks Like Totally, whom am I expecting to rectify me?

i-doctor

Like Totally has two ways of seeing

one with her two eyes 

(i+i) 

another with the thousand eyes

 (i+i+i+i+........+i)

with her two eyes (i+i) 

she sees one picture 

with the thousand eyes (i+i+i+i+........+i) 

another

it makes her dizzy

Like Totally goes to a doctor. I want my vision centered, she says. 

The doctor gives her a lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong look

through the lenses of multiple glasses

and asks

Which center you are interested in?

spindloaf

Like Totally dreams that she is a baker in an old village. At sunset she goes to the woods to collect  spindle tree flowers. They are bright-orange and hot-pink in color with one shiny black dot in the middle. She soaks them over night to use the spindle tree flowers flavored water for her beats and feces loafs. The grosser with the sour smile stops at her door and asks to never ever bring her loafs to the village store.
One hundred years later Like Totally dreams a highway with the exit marked Spindloaf, a well known culinary tourism destination famous for its exotic bread flavors.

between two ways

The way of nature seems to be a peculiarity whereas the way of culture is a uniformity.
Like Totally learns to resemble others. Alas, she belongs to nature!

hulai

Like Totally gets her information wherever it reaches her ears or eye. That's how she knows random stuff.
There is a tree growing in Asia whose hardwood is used in furniture and guitar making. Its texture is so dense and beautiful that nothing can compare with it. The name of the world's most precious tree is hulai. There are fewer and fewer hulai trees left in the woods while demand for it is increasing. Some  agricultural entrepreneurs take challenge to farm hulai but the trees are tricky and slow to grow and no one knows for sure if the quality of their wood matches the wild ones.
It makes Like Totally wonder if there is some wild element in Nature that culture cannot imitate. 

a shadow

Like Totally is a shadow of someone real who has real children, real relationships, real job, real life, but only to the point that Like Totally allows her, because Like Totally is destructive. She has a way of whispering quiet thoughts, so quiet that the real woman cannot hear but cannot help listening. Real woman likes Like Totally's whisper and falls in like with her

great weakness

Like Totally looks at the installation Rudolf by Rudolf Stingel, whose  enormous self-portraits hang on perpendicular walls of otherwise empty gallery space . What a powerful demonstration of power, thinks Like Totally, two powerful paintings rendered  absolutely identically with unshaken brush of the artist virtuoso! Like Totally's hands start shaking in admiration while Great Weakness overpowers her and Like Totally ardently renews he vows to continue being her unshaken voice.

powerful invisible things

Thoughts are invisible,  and feelings may hurt, but that what Like Totally is all about. 

Colors are forceful like emotions she must rein. Powerful invisible things overcome Like Totally.  

If only she could render  them!

written on mother's day

If you are a mother, thinks Like Totally, you must know how scary it is to bear a babe.
If you are an artist, you fear to bring to existence another thing, but what can you do?
Praise the mother, praise the father, praise the Creative Force!
It is strange, though, continues Like Totally, that when I am born, it seems natural, but when I am about to bear a painting, I look around for permission. Is it okay to paint a painting when no one asks? Is there a place for such things?
Babes, oh babes of all cultures, cries Like Totally, you must undergo cultivation to be accepted in societies, or they have jails for you. Please, behave, don't do what others don't and look accordingly!
Oh, my poor-poor creations, laments Like Totally, why are you so, so...
uncultivated?!

finding words

in the world where everything has names she stinks
in the world were images take place she sinks
if the world where words make any sense is a shore
and the world where images galore is an ocean
is she a surf,
a surfer,
or an option?

propagation

The sounds of music here and now disappear, neither records nor transcripts made,
fingers suffer the string’s stings,
guitar sings.
It is good, Like Totally thinks.
I don't know what I am doing, musician concedes.
It’s so beautiful, Like Totally repeats.
He slows down to demonstrate the work of his fingers.
Like Totally nods but has no clue, for music making is a mystery to her.
She paints in the concert with it; her painting, unlike music itself, stays.
What happens in the Cave stays in the Cave, Like Totally likes to think.
Technically, they can go out into the streets and become a part of a cityscape,
find an escape there: play and paint.
To become a part of their landscape one has to be a landscape, Like Totally sighs,
To dwell in their memory one has to be a memory dweller.
The music sprouting out of your head shoots roots into mine,
she elaborates turning her head towards the musician's,
it may propagate, you know…

names

Like totally wonders, in the world where everything has names what is hers?

the pile of paintings

Like Totally looks at the growing pile of paintings in the corner of the Cave, her art studio. She gives birth to every each of them, but like neglectful mother falls in love with the next Phantasy. Is it right to keep them in the dark while she gets pregnant with the new image?
Like Totally feels remorseful. She vows once again to help her paintings find their way in the world! But how? Is it helpful if she, like with her human children, loves them no matter what?

neither nor

 In this world where everyone is neither alive nor dead, being either alive or dead is equally rude, Like Totally likes to observe.