new material about crying
We are a band. Unlike anyone before. We cry perfectly imperfect tears. Our cries can be soft, angry, or emphatic. Laughter, sadness, grief. A cry for us alone or those we share with others.
This week we call ourselves: “Crying on Thursdays”
But this changes. What shall we call ourselves next time we meet?
God made us in the picture of him, and so I wondered whether god also cried / cries because “freely crying” is such an ability that you can only find in human.
And soon I found there is a sentence in bible which said directly Jesus cried, it happened in the context that there was one dead brother from Jew and the sister of him cried for him and she asked Jesus to save her brother to keep from death. Jesus cried as he saw his grave. Jesus cried for other’s sadness. This empathy is also deep in our humanity. We tear down when we saw a sad movie, listen sad music or listen to other’s stories. But these tears are usually associated with our own experiences. We cried for the sad love movie because we had similar experiences before, so that’s how our understanding is built up.
But there is not so much positions where writes Jesus cried.
And so does it make sense for our human being that we repress our crying emotions?
My thoughts jumped out really quickly. As we all knew there is an old message that “Real men don’t cry.”, nowadays the culture encourages us again to show the true feelings and let tears out. It’s actually healthier to release the tear.
Crying lows down the pain and pressure. Why do we have so much pressure or pains? Why do we feel hopeless from time to time and we need urgently crying?
There is a show that I watched before, it’s about why we need the belief and hope even if sometimes it comes from deepest doubt of life.
if there is no video showed on website, please click on the link!
An endless tearing.
Crying Under the Shower. An endless tearing.
A2 POSTER SERIES.
By Gabriela Parra Sánchez.
2022, Weimar.
performative research happening
*** Für die deutsche Version bitte nach unten scrollen ***
We invite you to join us for a performative evening hosted by the Crying Institute in collaboration with the PhD Programme Art and Design at VdV, HP05, where we will chop, cry and cook an onion soup together.
The research happening will begin with a performance lecture by Nadja and Be. We will reflect on crying as transgressive act, onion cutting as encounter between two bodies, and the materiality of tears. This will be followed by a collective ritual, at the end of which there will be an onion soup that will be shared with everyone present.
Please bring your own cutting board, knife and onion if you want to participate in the collective action. We kindly ask everybody to self-test before the event to minimize the risk of infections.
In excited anticipation,
Be Körner and Nadja Kracunovic
on behalf of the Crying Institute
***
Wir laden Sie und euch zu einem performativen Abend ein, der vom Crying Institute in Zusammenarbeit mit dem PhD Programm Kunst und Design im VdV, HP05 veranstaltet wird, wo wir gemeinsam schneiden, weinen und eine Zwiebelsuppe kochen werden.
Dieses Research Happening wird mit einer Performance Lecture von Nadja und Be beginnen. Wir reflektieren über Weinen als transgressiven Akt, Zwiebelschneiden als Begegnung zwischen zwei Körpern und die Materialität von Tränen. Es folgt ein gemeinsames Ritual, an dessen Ende eine Zwiebelsuppe steht, die wir mit allen Anwesenden teilen werden.
Wer sich an der gemeinsamen Aktion beteiligen möchte, bringt bitte ein eigenes Schneidebrett, ein Messer und eine Zwiebel mit. Wir bitten alle, vor der Veranstaltung einen Selbsttest zu machen, um das Risiko von Infektionen zu minimieren.
Vorfreudige Grüße,
Be Körner und Nadja Kracunovic
für das Crying Institute
I’ve been on antidepressants for years. And when I wasn’t taking them, it was because I was having a soon to be regretted “I need nothing and no one” phase. The good news is that they keep me alive and well -well, kind of. Depending on how charitably you define “well” – The bad news is that I haven’t had a good cry for ages.
I do tear up, occasionaly. And over really mundane things (IM OUT OF HAIR CONDITIONER AGAIN) I might also have a mini panic attack here and there. But those cries where your whole body shakes and your eyes get all red and then you pour cold water into your teary heated face and it feels like you’ve been born again? Nah. And I miss them. And more than just missing, I need them. Sometimes I feel like my body aches from all the cries that my brain refuses to acknowledge. And where do they go, the lonely cries? Just circulating in my veins over and over, trying to find a way in, or out? Will they eventually decide to just conquer an organ all for themselves to settle down? Is it how sad kills people? Maybe it’s not the alcohol abuse, or smoking, or drugs – all the good stuff – that people die. Heart attacks, kidney failures, strokes. Maybe it’s just all the trapped cries going insane. “Enough of this”, they think. They’re being threated like ghosts. The brain ignores them, the heart pushes them away. And you walk around feeling like a time bomb. And you take your pills. And eat healthy food and do skin care and style your hair and read good books. You might even find yourself a few friends. And you’re alive and well. Just if you could figure out where the tick-tock sound comes from. That would be great.
Instructions in English:
Putting the reasons for crying aside for the moment, we might concentrate on the correct way to cry, which, be it understood, means weeping that doesn’t turn into a big commotion nor proves an affront to the smile with its parallel and dull similarity. The average, everyday weeping consists of a general contraction of the face and a spasmodic sound accompanied by tears and mucus, this last toward the end since the cry ends at the point when one energetically blows one’s nose. In order to cry, steer the imagination toward yourself, and if this proves impossible owing to having contacted the habit of believing in the exterior world, think of a duck covered with ants or of those gulfs in the Strait of Magellan into which no one sails ever. Coming to the weeping itself, cover the face decorously, using both hands, palms inward. Children are to cry with the sleeve of the dress or shirt pressed against the face, preferably in a corner of the room. The average duration of the cry is three minutes.
Text: Julio Cortazar
Performing the text: Nadja Kracunovic
Language: Serbian
The book: published by the library of the magazine ´´Gradina´´, Serbia *Given by an extraordinarily dear friend
Outfit: Crying Insitute
03.11.22, 5:26
I can feel them coming in the night: A warm force within my closed eyelids. Each and every time, I hope they will subside before the pressure is high enough to release them into my sleepless night. I am terrified of what will happen otherwise.
So often in the past two years, a single drop would lead to hours of crying. A silent sob, barely recognizable through unsteady and pressed breathing might build up to an open cry with soft moaning which may then escalate into a panic attack, depending on which images and thoughts well up in the outpouring. It would leave me empty, embarrassed, and exhausted, a mere shadow of my former selves. With each of these crying sessions, I would sink deeper into the darkness, awakening the ghosts of older wounds that would accompany the recent ones on their way to the surface of my eye.
So when I feel them coming, I try to suppress the transgression with breathing techniques, a softening of the face muscles, an adjustment of my posture to make more space for the wet disaster lingering on my eyeballs. I turn to discipline to force the immanent loss of control back into the realm of the unconscious. If I succeed, sleep may find me again.
Tonight, it’s just two tears on my pillow.
As I begin to write this, my heart beats faster and I cannot recognize what’s this hesitating feeling I have. It should be understandable the using of medicine to heal some inconvenient aspects of your body but the guilt I feel comes with the memory of my not so understandable reasons.
So here comes a confession shaped as an assignment: I started getting medicine to be able to stop crying. And because crying means to be weak, then to have to take medicine to stop doing so makes me the weakest of all.
But what I learned researching on my body is that it could feel very freeing to be weak.
Research in art history and art theory has so far dealt with crying rather marginally. We want to research and compile theoretical and historical key texts, significant terms and terminologies, suitable methods also from other disciplines and already existing artistic works/practices on this topic in art history and contemporary art.
And we want to set ourselves up with the development of workshops, mediation tools, manuals, services, coaching, maybe products in a way that we could become operational as an institute and crying experts.
Because: “Sharpen your tears, it is going to be a long one.”*
Mit dem “Crying” hat sich die kunsthistorische und kunsttheoretische Forschung bislang eher marginal beschäftigt. Wir wollen theoretische und historische Schlüsseltexte, signifikante Begriffe und Terminologien, taugliche Methoden auch anderer Disziplinen und bereits existierende künstlerische Arbeiten/Praktiken zu diesem Thema in der Kunstgeschichte und in der zeitgenössischen Kunst recherchieren und zusammentragen.
Und wir wollen uns mit der Entwicklung von Workshops, Mediationstools, Manuals, Dienstleistungen, Coachings, vielleicht auch von Produkten so aufstellen, dass wir als Institut und Crying-Expert*innen einsatzfähig werden könnten.
Denn: “Sharpen your tears, it is going to be a long one.”*
* Nadja Kracunovic 2021: Voicing displeasure #2 The Professional Cry >>