A text by Ryan Eykholt

CRYING
SIGNALING CHANGE
DO ICEBERGS CRY?
WHAT ABOUT MONUMENTS?
WATER INTO WINE
MY HEART IS LITERALLY MELTING
POWER POSE
PORTABLE SPIRITUALITY

I went on a quest that took me nowhere.
Perhaps one story culminated with a tangible object, something you can hold.
It’s called Communionicate, a new process facilitated through a board game that transforms individual memories into a collective story.
But this object is not so much a place, a destination.
And it’s not only one story that led me there.
On my quest to learn about gatherings and to develop rituals that challenge empathy into action, I decided to regard every person I encountered on this journey as a teacher. To not discriminate by someone’s perceived value and relevance.
Diverging from straight paths makes for messy celebrations, but may offer contrary definitions of an institution as accumulation of happenings over time.
What you will read below emerged from a writing of stream of consciousness during a particular phase of stuckness in the creative process.
Over time, I may solidify thoughts from this stream.
Memorialize, crystalize.
Still (or not), I wonder – is there strength in fluidity?
Where is the destination within a river?

—

What does crying have to do with anything?
I started thinking about fluid.
It feels like a departure, but I enjoy the connection with gender fluidity.
The music artist ANOHNI said that this fluidity is counterproductive to the political mobility of (future) feminism.
So we seek strength in binary.
However, if we look at the value of fluids in society, we can see a lot of conflict.
The mixture of various fluids in a sexual context brings up inherited anxieties relating to AIDS.
Crying feels more safe in private, even though as an activity it enhances social bonding or an expression of vulnerability.
In Amsterdam, water is highly regulated and held at bay through the canal system.
What does liquid modernity have to do with this?
Maybe nothing.
Why do I enjoy departures?
What am I attempting to leave?
Or am I embarking on a pilgrimage, without knowing the destination?
A person tried to consume the body of Christ like a cannibal and then vomited.
The women threw the host onto the flame and it would not burn.
The miracle eucharist inspired a design of the city that would best support this pilgrimage.
No one mentions why he vomited?
There are holy ways of disposal, and unholy ones.
People believe that crying makes you feel better, and in extremes, that it releases toxins from your body.
L’Intruser by Jean-Luc Nancy, the refugee as heart transplant.
What role does fluidity have in the club?
Fluid defies the solidifying gaze that aims to (what’s the opposite of sublimate?) the dancing body into a still one that can be fucked.
This has nothing to do with crying.
I can cry at something beautiful, I can cry at something horrific.
Yet when we watch the same performance of an explosion in different contexts (the challenger or fireworks), our emotions vary dramatically depending on the relationship to the object, the carrier.
There is a critical distance involved in the mass-production of catharsis.
How does VR satisfy Silicon Valley’s investment in greater empathy?
What are the stakes?
As social media grows, are we becoming more disconnected from each other, even though we have increased interaction?
I use emojis and “haha’s” that contradict my facial expressions.
How would I communicate a vulnerability through text message?
How can I show my pain?
One of my facebook friends posted a picture of herself with a puffy face after crying and received a lot of support.
A photo is important for this emotional attachment, and so is sound.
This doesn’t always work though.
Sometimes we don’t forget, we can’t wipe away.
Crying shows weakness in professional contexts, as well as political ones.
An audience can cry at the storyteller.
Can the storyteller cry at the audience?
What is given, what is taken away?
This may be a techno katastrophe, an interruption of the human into the mechanical.
In Kenya Hara’s White, ‘Suiko’ responds to the anxiety and the irreversible error, the teardrop on the immaculate page.
One is expected to care for themselves, to heal themselves, to inspire themselves, to meditate themselves, to experience god themselves.
The state or religion or other institutions will not do it for us.
Perhaps businesses or entrepreneurs will. Perhaps we will find solace in the warm embrace of our own hands on our own skin.
Maybe we need to be baptized.
Some people need tear transplants.