Eaven and Joseph
Les Esprits Ephemeres de la Nuit I am Eavan. I work for Tim. I am a supervisor at Cinematheque. I was one of the original core group of Cinematheque Boys. I work with HIV/AIDS boys, some of whom will be your Show Me Your Life mentors. You might work with one of these guys as a team. I made this video with Joseph, who lives with me at Cinematheque. We are attempting to show you something of our inner lives and something about how we are connected as friends. The way I see the video, there is a top half and a bottom half. Both sections constantly change, and yet there is some kind of interaction where the two of us connect even as we both evolve. Friendship is really hard to find a way to describe. But as we did this, we felt our friendship growing. SHOW ME YOUR LIFE means the people in that life, too. When Tim Barrus says, “Show me your life,” he does not always mean the room or the squat you sleep in, or even where you might hang out with other kids not unlike yourself. You should film these places, too. Because no one knows how you live but you. This is all on you. Even the camera is on you. People are donating their time, their money, their talent to make SHOW ME YOUR LIFE work. So people can know how and where you live; how you survive. Film it all. But especially film YOU. The inside you. The you only you know. You will hear Tim call these your second selves. Tim has been making video, film, and doing photography all around the world for a long time. You guys will be from all over the world as well. I am looking forward to visiting this art program. I think it’s going to say a lot and it’s going to show a glimpse of life that most people know absolutely nothing about. It’s time they saw that world with your eyes to guide them.
Michio(Cinemateque Mentor, Joseph)
"Mizu" (water) Michio is a 12-year-old boy from Japan. We have recently been talking a lot about the idea of struggle and the idea of survival. Michio has been working with Joseph from Cinematheque, and they have put together this video Michio calls “Mizu.”
Konol
Born to Be Wasted — Blood to Fire
Tim Barrus/ It took Konol and I eight months to construct Born to be Wasted — Blood to Fire. It represents many aspects to Konol’s existence living with HIV in Australia. No. No. Yes. Yes. From blood to fire. Show me your life. *** Oh the beat’s gonna bash gonna break it up This car’s goin’ fast gonna speed it up The night’s not gonna last so let’s keep it up We were born to be wasted
Oh the rock’s not gonna stop so let’s rip it up The beats are gonna drop you can trip em’ up Your mind is on fire but it’s not enough We were born to be wasted
This gun’s blowin up it’s just a warning shot This plane’s takin’ off on a terror run This night’s gonna end like a missile drop We were born to be wasted
Baby out loud Knew that it would come to this Ain’t worth livin’ If you can’t get your kicks Shane
Shane Ortega is a New York City high school student who does sex work in Soho. He describes himself as “low on the food chain.” Shane has asked to become a part of Cinematheque. It’s not up to me. It’s up to his peers; the other boys already in Cinematheque. They will decide. What Shane doesn’t understand is that the boys of Cinematheque will challenge him to show them his life. I have major problems with this adolescent. The problems are mine. The kid is probably a musical genius. He wants to join Cinematheque but he doesn’t want to give up sex work because — he says — he needs the money. I do believe him. He could be a very gifted filmmaker. He is quite talented. Has a great eye. Has a great ear. But he’s at-risk. Big Time. I am not even concerned about his tricks. I have so little empathy when it comes to tricks. I am concerned about the kid. The kid is AT-RISK, and I have big problems investing in him because I just don’t want to inhabit another world of hurt. I am hoping that if given enough time to work on it, and some positive peer interactions, he might see advantages in not feeling compelled to do sex work as I can see very clearly it is eating away at his person and his soul. This video is his first shot at it.
Moise
(Cinemateque Mentor, Raymond)
Loin d’être (far from being)
Sur la rivière (on the river)
refuge cage de bande errantes de soldats rebelles
Moise was our first Show Me Your Life student. He was eleven years old. Before he died, Moise disclosed. He had been raped repeatedly his entire life by soldiers from adjoining countries who continue to use HIV as a biological weapon of war. The United Nations estimates that the number of people who have died as a result of HIV/AIDS infection in the République Démocratique du Congo alone, to be in the millions. It continues to astound me that men and boys are being raped. Raping a boy will easily perforate his bowel, and he’s as good as dead, and we pretend it’s not happening. It is happening. Rape is being used as a mechanism to conduct biological warfare in the form of HIV. I would argue that it is a crime against humanity to rape either men or women and use HIV as a biological weapon. The medical personnel who facilitated Moise in contacting us explained that Moise was the one forced to rape and kill his mother in front of the family. Moise was then gang raped and cut with machetes in front of his family while they were forced to watch, or be shot to death. They were shot to death anyway. Moise sought medical attention for his wounds after he was left for dead by the males (some were boys themselves) who committed this crime.
This is for Moise who lives in the République Démocratique du Congo. I am Raymond. I am your video mentor at The Studio. The video you have sent me is shocking. I have never seen a human being beheaded before. At first, I did not know what to say. I do not see how we can show a human being beheaded by soldiers. I am sorry. I am sorry you had to see this. I am sorry you are trying to run from these soldiers. Here is what I think we can do. I think I can try to get some still photography from this video. I will do that and we can still tell this story that you are fleeing soldiers, who are raping and killing people village to village. I am praying for you to live. You need to know that I will always tell you the truth. This project was designed for something less than this. But we need to know this is happening in your part of the world. That does not mean I know how to make what photographs we will come up with important. But I will try. Please be as safe as possible. I am in awe of your ability to survive this. Your friend, Raymond. Raymond was mentoring Moise, who died from his wounds. He might have lived, but his HIV status rendered him at-risk for infection. There were no antibiotics available that might have been able to deal with the infections. Moise's VideoArt spoke of soldiers who were raping women. I was the censor on that one and the images I deleted were of a young girl being raped by the same soldiers who would kill Moise. These two boys living thousands of miles from each other were brought together through Show Me Your Life. As mentor and student, they shared a profound acknowledgement of each other's desire to survive and tell their stories of the trauma experienced by young males, who are subjugated and infected with HIV as a direct consequence of the violence perpetrated by the choices adults make within our communities. The boys are reaching out to state clearly to adults - while we try to find safe houses, please go through your medicine cabinets and send us antibiotics and antiretrovirals. The boys are reaching out to lead the way, to state clearly to each other - I believe YOU and I care about YOU.
Moise is missed by his Show Me Your Life friends around the world, some of whom responded with VideoART:
I am always feeling cornered. By death. By the life that encircles me with walls and cubicles and boxes and the weight of history and the gravitas (translator’s word) of definitions and old dead bones. I feel trapped in languages and with Tim translating; Tim writing it down as we attempt to work together and bridge what is human to the two of us — Tim, what does this mean please write it down I do not understand — what death means and what life means now and me hearing but I do not know what anyone means anymore. Moise died. Why, Tim, why. And not from AIDS but from his infected machete wound so in the end it was AIDS that became a warzone. I know he felt trapped. By the virus that is violence. By his survival and running. By seeing his family killed like that. By soldiers on one side and soldiers on the other side. This video is for Moise. I learned a lot from you. Tim says learn one. Do one. Teach one. This is the doing. I do not know what “Cornered” says. The video is my voice. The images themselves are only stories. Narratives like the Russian doll inside the doll inside the doll inside the smiling doll. It’s all a prison. We are imprisoned. We all have bars that keep us caged. I grew up disassembling all those dolls. Now, I only want to reconstruct them so I can understand what was actually on the inside. It doesn’t really matter if Tim screws up with translations. It’s only important that we see what was on the inside of the doll is the doll. There are no answers to a Russian mystery. That is what HIV and AIDS are to most Russians. Another mystery and maybe it is not real. We suspect everything. To only reveal a litany of dolls that that are pulled from my bad dreams of being chased and scars and outer shells. I told Moise he would have great scars when he healed. But then he said, “They will kill me.” Yes. I have searched among the ragged sycamores. I have pushed the memories away into the forgotten blue room. The real war is to learn to cherish whatever moments we have whether we are running from a group of soldiers or escaping the prison inside the prison inside the prison’s walls. It is all a trap. There is no escape but one. I do hope Moise found his.
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The United Nations took the firm position that genocide and slavery were world crimes, and should be eradicated and those engaged in it should be put on trial by the world court in The Hague, (Resolution 260 (111 A), UN General Assembly). Convention on the Rights of the Child, two optional protocols, two superhighways for the transmission of HIV and human rights violations:
We would like to thank friends of Tristan's Moon & Show Me Your Life for their professionalism, ingenuity and courage; whether they happen to be well or ill.
Cinematheque Films / Arts Education: Students are allowed access to fair use art materials and mixed media in the teaching of iconic manipulation in photographic, video and film production. Representations and facsimiles posted here are presented as teaching tools and instruments employed to instruct students in the techniques and application of mixed media art and collage. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows art-teaching entities the fair use of such materials in classroom and teaching-research applications.
the chaos of his solitude
"there are as many stories in a dance as there are dancers to tell"
Sucht der Junger
Tim Barrus/ In the constricted universe of the at-risk kid, addiction and the issues of addiction, both socially and medically, are hard realities no one in this context can escape. They are ubiquitous to culture. Addiction in Germany is still addiction. Addiction in Texas is still addiction. The only variables are the degrees to which criminality is misinterpreted. Sucht der Junge is not at-risk for addiction. He’s an addict. That is not how he sees himself. Does it matter how the kid sees himself. This one sees himself as a dancer. In order to understand what the term at-risk means, we’ve frequently taken what already is, and we put a “might happen” tag on it. When, in fact, it can be a done deal by the time we get there. At-risk for school failure cannot be applied to kids who have already failed at fitting into the system. Educational systems do not accommodate. They are inherently designed to discriminate. At-risk for sexually transmitted disease cannot be applied to a kid who has HIV. That train left the station. As long as we fail to appropriately identify exactly who the kid is, we get to put his failures on him. At-risk for suggests that the kid can turn this around by himself, and when he can’t we can shrug and wash our hands of it. At-risk for addiction cannot be applied to a kid who is already incarcerated by a court to a drug rehab program. The kids are already there. By throwing around the term “at-risk,” we are perpetuating a denial the kid is already aware of and the adult wishes could be treated and shoved under the rug. It’s not that simple. It is the stuff of adolescence to question everything. To create their own tribes. I have been working with Sucht der Junge for eight months, now. This is the video we have to show for it because at some point with a video you have to be able to put it down and say: this is the best I can do. Adults won’t like it. The testosterone level alone is off the charts. In real unconscious ways, adults will feel threatened by the muscular assertiveness in the dancing. It’s stylized, but not in ways adults are used to seeing dance. It’s not exactly the video I would have made. I can have some influence. But the fundamentals belong to them. It’s not about me. I am sick and tired of people assuming it is about me. It is about THEM. Get a fucking clue. It’s not about my world. It’s about kids at-risk. It’s about the challenges they face. It’s about the kid constructing a picture that speaks to the story that is his life. I don’t know what Sucht der Junge is at-risk for. Maybe everything. There are quite a few people who would like a piece of it. I would argue that it’s the culture that is at-risk. But no matter what, the kid simply seems to keep on dancing. Show me your life.
Liu
Liu Floating In Life Tim Barrus (Artistic Director, Show Me Your Life; Founder, Cinematheque Films): Liu is a 19-year-old Chinese student who attends university, and who spends time every day swimming in a pool. Liu has HIV and is at risk for AIDS (a CD4 count of 100 or less). Liu feels as though all of his movement is slowed down and he’s being pulled under the water. He has taken the Kodak PlaySport, and has made some stunning clips. Liu is very cool, and I enjoy working with him very much. The soundtrack is a poem written by the sixth Dalai Lama. The background voices are Liu’s friends singing a folk song.
Liam"the lions lived alone"
From above, we see what appears to be perhaps a family walking along an Irish beach beneath the sea cliffs that tower over them. One of those people would be Liam. The lions lived alone. A witness. To torture. To anarchy. To the violence of a church. To a plunge he takes to disappear. Into the darkness running like a train. We see someone, perhaps it is nothing more than a shadow, in the background following Liam. If you do not see it, you do not see it. Liam calls it the lions live alone. But there are no lions. You say. Liam and his lions. To lay down among your many deaths. We see boys throwing Molotov cocktails from rooftops. The smell of gasoline and sweat And fear. You do not see the lions so it cannot be true. Liam is not alone. Oh, Liam, I am with you. Every step. Every disappearance. Every plunge. Every glance toward every horizon. Every escape from every candle. The lions live with other lions. I have seen them. I see them now. Lions everywhere.
MYself
the catastrophe of my personality Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again And interesting And modern
The country is grey And brown and white and trees
Snows and skies of laughter are always diminishing
Less funny, not just darker Not just grey
It may be the coldest day of the year What does he think of that
I mean, what do I And if I do Perhaps I am Myself again
Lusala
Dear Tim Barrus, You do not write enough. When you write, I listen. Sometimes I grow very dark inside in order to listen. But I listen. When you said show me your life you had my complete attention. I have never believed that white people wanted to know anything about my life. You white people were the teachers, the lawyers, the doctors, and the law. All my life. We were there to shine your shoes, and kiss your white ass. You don’t need to know who I am. Know this, white boy. I could have been up there with Spike Jones. I could have made it as an artist. That is not the point. I do not believe and I do not know anyone who believes that if you just work hard enough, it’s going to happen for you. It probably won’t. My work will never be anywhere near the center. It will only happen at the edges. The edges where slavery is no abstraction, and abstraction is exactly that. I will send this and wonder. Exchanging places. Is it about how I made this as a black man who has no access. Or is this about what story is being told and has been constructed as metaphor and images. White people won’t like it. Black people will not like it anymore than white people. Or maybe it is not about race at all. I suspect it is far more about voice than anything. I feel like my voice is always dancing in the darkness and the best I will ever do is called just barely hanging on. You are not going to want to hear this, and please do not send me the contest rules, but could I be a part of Show Me Your Life?
Diego
"La danseuse se dishabille" (The dancer undresses) I'm Diego. I am 19 years old. I live in the City of Barcelona in Spain. I was a dancer. The disease AIDS is killing me. I am dancing in this movie. I have nerve damage. The medicine has hurt me. I cannot dance anymore. I can only make videos of dancers.
Raymond
Raymond Fils (Cinemateque Films, Mentor/19 year old art student): Tim Barrus and I were looking for ways to create video shorts that would give kids in Show Me Your Life ideas and options as to what they might do in video to create visual metaphors of their lives. But Tim has taught me that if your ideas take over while you are filming, then you have to follow them to see what artistic shadows they are about because they are the images that tell the story of our lives. This is almost nine minutes long where the shorts we were originally going to do would have been a minute at the most. But once you get the camera in your hands, you have to at least try to understand what it is trying to tell you. I know that HIV has put my life at risk for a lot of things. But sometimes I forget that HIV is happening to a body. I am a human being whose story is about times, and places, and other people, and I am more than just a body. Human beings have layered stories. We are more than one story at a time. Our stories unfold on top of one another and within one another. We are different people to different people. HIV or no HIV, I am still someone who is in the world. |
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Tristan's Moon VideoART
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| (William Cleveland, Founder & Director, Center for the Study of Art and Community) | ||