ELIZA PROSZCZUK
INFANTILE HEMATOLOGY
2008
When I was a child, I wanted to see my body from inside. I was interested in its mechanics, color, matter, shape. Pictures in the books on “environment” were not credible enough. Too flat, too pink, small, they have nothing in common with the substance of man. The most real to me was my own body, and the bodies of my mum, dad, my brother and my friend Ewelina. I was determined to check how my inner body was functioning. I had an idea to direct my eyes inside, simply turn my eyeballs and watch what was going on inside my body. I was opening my eyes wide, as much as I could. I was helping myself with my thumbs and index fingers to lift my eyelids. That way I tried to turn my eyeballs in. My parents got angry when they saw it. They told me to stop. They explained that doing such stupid things I could seriously injure myself. The eyes are for watching the world! So far, I thought that the world was inside me. I was taught a lesson. I started to read and observe what was going on. Anyway, it was dark inside there. I was not really afraid of the darkness but I felt as though I were in a deep, boring, lifeless cave. Or rather inside a pipe:
the echo, echo, echo... the echo was resounding It is empty here Where are you, where? Here — my stomach was rumbling, whew, I am alive.
Now I know that I was instinctively right then. Today, without Halloween tricks, when I am closing my eyes as for sleeping, I can see much more. I am visualizing the body; starting with beautiful veins. I am shifting my eyes to see a viscous, warm liquid owing inside. I see a hollow of a gullet, and I am falling down it.
The grass is green – yes, it is , but she likes its smell so much that she tends to forget its color — yes, it is, but he thinks about red ants. They are strongly biting when one wants to sit down — yes, it is, but there is plenty of sheep turd, I hate it, so I always take an asphalt road.
Multiple and varied approach to the same aspects is valuable for me. When materialized, such an approach turns into statements. They offer opportunities for individual creative acts.
It is very good that everyone has this kind of a private meadow, enclosed in one’s own hollow. It is a pity that most are afraid to materialize it.
Thank you for having backs and prominent buttocks, my world is ending on their tops. I am surrounded with you. I am smelling, scratching, licking, crumpling, then I am jumping into my own hollow and I am pouring and digesting, I am building, constructing and spitting to hit what I do not like, or on the contrary – to clean something or someone, to scrub till it hurts, or simply to mark my own presence.
BODY
body is: coherence, flexible, pulsating, water, sex, nudity, a dressing — gown, arise, dead body, a tongue, a had, a nail, a flesh, monkey, man, woman, little body, stature, beautiful, ugly, pleasure, future, body — work, body — language vision, cremate, a tattoo, sensuous, get one’s rocks off, touch, a mountain, a dale, convexo — concave, plain, wiry, hot, cold, print, screw out, flooding, passing, a bout, power, disease ,mirror, mother, grand mother, father, wrapping, a baggage, it hurts me!, boat anchor, consultative body, celestial body, leukocyte,
erythrocyte, corpus Christi, blessing, strange and heavy, transubstantiation, physical body, corpus haemorrhagic, globule, yellow body, substance, ideal body, black, remains, a bon, bod, bee, ping, red, neat, solid, machine, sensitive, shower, capacity, covering, skin, beautiful skin, touch, boobs, outside, everyone, show the body, different, shapes, useful, control, glance, dipper – mouth, gob, gobs, face, pose, wrinkles, moisten, resilience, tan, beauty spot, sand, cicatrix, blush, limply, face powder, dead, old age, a girl from neighbourhood, soul, die the body — I have just one. I learnt this as a teenager. More – I realized that my very “self” can disagree
with my body. I have been constantly probing this issue, and most likely I will go on with it through all
my life. My body has been changing all the time.
Hmm, what about spreading the body onto a plane, what shape would it adopt? Where would it start and end, where would be its top and bottom part, where would be its right and left side? How large would it be? Would it be possible to be checked? I do not mean here the doings of a serial killer, a legend man, Jack the Ripper, or “A Great Anatomist” by Damian Hirst. I am asking myself whether the body can be a plain. I think that a human organism - understood as an individual body housing a spirit – is a place. It can be neither spread flat as a potato pancake, nor approached as a section of a spirit. The body ― a form of the matter closing a pulsating life of human organs. Covered, veiled or unveiled in different historic periods, it has remained the most beautiful form of human existence. Innocent, sweetly smelling body of a child, young man’s body, beautiful and pure, or a creased, sagging body of an old man, beautiful in a different way.
Body – skin is that component that integrates us with outside environment. Yet it’s widely known that skin can’t work independently. For that we need functions coordination of all systems in our body. In moment of dysfunction one of the systems usual we find symptoms of that pathology in our body. Many elements of body build can be observed watching the skin. Those signs are noticeable for most of us. In my practice many times I experienced that in moment when problems with body –skin – occurred, we usually can encounter emotional and mental problems. This allows us to suppose that body is not only organs, but also feelings. Human without emotions doesn’t exists – in fact only body exists. So, we can boldly say that body is very organized institution composed of millions of cells, that are closely connected, but nervous system watches over its proper functioning. Presence of higher
if there is no body, there is nobody
activity of that system allows us to state if someone is human or only body.
The body: A conductor is a musician, an extraordinary musician. His uniqueness results from his contact with the sound source. An instrumentalist lets the sound out through his touch, makes the string move, strikes a wooden ingot of a xylophone. A singer, breathing air, makes the strings move. A conductor controls all of them, a whole singing and instrumental group... His body being his transmitter, the source of expression, the medium moving other musicians. His sharp, subtle, brisk or sparse gestures are meant to inspire, stimulate, delight, repulse... A conductor is like a mime, who achieves a result only by means his body. The result being music. The body transmits a sense of music or a lack of it; stress, the feeling of being lost, uncertainty of interpretation. The body exposes everything, as though putting it in the spotlight. We are naked and real. We show our true colors.
The body – for me, as an actor, the body is what a sail is for a sailboat... Both, voice and body are tools of sort, especially the body, since so many performances go without any words. (an artistic scene with spheres by Leszek Mądzik). The body can express a number of emotions, providing it is properly used.... Quite often we encounter falsity on the stage where an actor speaks slowly, pretending to be an old man, while running around as he were a youngster. So his legs are cheating... The body of an actor is focused on his performance... thus, his body is an image, a reflection of the processes taking place within the actor’s self as though he were a staged character...
the body – Lady, lay, Ministry, hard-core, pants off, drugs, heads off, voo-doo, Pendulum, run, smash, death, hurt, Johnny Cash.
Zygmunt Bauman says that in times of postmodernism we fight many dif-
ferent world images and what was singular in modernism became plural in
Body is the surface, which postmodernism. There is no one specific body image.
is written down by the Instead we have many different types of body. Contemporary consumption
time, when eternity is culture makes it hard to restrain temptation given by market. There is no
touching a body it dies. need of violence or to indoctrinate. Postmodern body is therefore mainly
a pleasure recipient. Efficient body is devoted to pleasure – gastronomic,
sexual, visual and audible, and mostly from pleasure derived from efficient
training in the art of pleasure reception.
Human body is probably the most perfect construction and at the same
time the most complicated we can imagine. For me it’s like a workshop.
I have to know all the pieces and all connections. Every single part is
very important. I have to operate inside the body. Sometimes you have
to remove something or to make another connection. In my profession
there is a lot of blood every time. Blood is everywhere. It is a vital fluid,
which feeds all the body parts. It is amazing how it works together. It has
body ― why should body be human! to be a God’s creation. I more prefer robot. I’m not into man or woman, just give me a robot. The guy said to me on the right
SPACE
When I was a child I wanted to become an astronaut.
space: vast, empty, can-be-gone - through, oxygen freedom, house, between things, sound, living, ufo, alien, ghosts, space ship, orbit, delve, darkness, hole, light, me, cabin fever, wide, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein-theory of relativity, shape of the universe, space–time, philosophy, farming, perception, celestial space, claustrophobia, xenophobia, personal space, space between as, spacious, plentifully, broad minded, breath, Miles Davis, trumpet, music, space man, space station, NASA, the bench in the park, surrounding, land Cowboy, junkie, XL, Beastie Boys, New York, full, artists, bomb, illusions, big, Mac, Paris, electro, trash, old fashioned, Cheeks on Speed
Every human being has been defined by a certain primeval gesture, the spirit located in the identity, in the tension, in the body, for example an extrovert: waving a hand, clenching fists, making a contraction, “giving someone the finger�, scratching a bitten spot. An introvert is considerably more oriented towards feelings of others. Not the hand gesture, but a palm print, for example: a touch of the beloved person, an enemy’s blow, an embrace, a caress. We remember the impression of our own body or the impression of a fellow human being. The impression can have the form of sensuous shudders when one recollects someone he loves, admires, or someone causing opposite feelings. It is the sensation that is important to me. A strong sensation of life, a certain matter, membrane, fluff, a product of epidermis, the skin. Sensation by means of sight and touch. I commune with this life and I have a strong need to be in it. And so I am striving for my paintings to be my space, my sensuality.
Space is a deep breath on a huge meadow while looking down, something to help you realize how much of it you really occupy.
Space ― is inside me. It is connected with my personality. It is what i create. I am the space. I dive in it. Space is infinity. “The idea is to make an object which is not an object, to make hole in the space, to make something which actually does not exist. Even more, the extraordinary appearance, loved and feared, of a piece of void, at once finite, reactivates the symbolic contact between inside and outside, earth and heaven, male and female, active and passive, conceptual and physical, thus renewing the process of knowing” Anish Kapoor “space”
A space is a room around me. It is a breathing space, between people or groups of people. It is a living space. Space can also be seen as a freedom. It is when I am unconditionally accepted. There is no conflict, complexity, diversity of thoughts of other people about myself. Love fills this kind of space. It is a pure space. People always needed to communicate with each other, discuss their passion, and share important issues. When they do so, and the needs of
participants meet they feel satisfaction. Their existence is approved. Family life or life in the clan fulfill the deepest need of each human being considering the space. Mankind can also leave its space. Then starts the greatest adventure of human kind, which is leaving the earth and living in space. What is the goal? What is the purpose of exploring new worlds? Mankind is searching for the eternity. This is hunger for God.
Italian girl two times per week goes to launderette I I I I
dog her, know her, wait for her am sitin in washer
Speed, speed my dear I know You love sport cars – sportsman Mothers belly in fun fair Nice and clean Complete detox I am twelve years old I am in school I am in wash machine Two balls lose control I am in wash machine Italian girl press program four Cotton white ninety degree Singing melody I am in church nice and clean
Cat in an empty apartment Die — you can’t do that to cat. Since what can a cat do In an empty apartment? Climb the walls? Rub up again the furniture? Nothing seems different here, But nothing is the same. Nothing has been moved, But there’s more space. And at nighttime no lamps are lit Footsteps on the staircase, But they’re new ones. The hand that puts fish on the saucer has changed, too Something doesn’t start at its usual time. Something doesn’t happen as it should.
Someone was always, always here, And stubbornly stays disappeared. Every closet has been examined. Every shelf has been explored. Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing A commandment everywhere. What remains to be done. Just sleep and wait Just wait till he turns up, Jus let him show his face. Will he ever get a lesson On what not to do to a cat. Sidle toward him As if unwilling And ever so slows, On visibly offended paws, And no leaps or squeals at leat to start. /Wisława Szymborska/
RED
red: intensity, uncompromising, alarm, Red color = a picture – Bogna Burska’s blood, I have no more associations. blood, invasion, favourite colour of my exboyfriend, dress or shoes, he colour in my body, drama, sadness, sexuality, colour of hair, romantic movie, ero“The lady in red is dancing with me”-Chris de Burg
Red color ― is the color of warning ― “do not touch ― danger”. Red color, or similar, is typical of poisonous animals;
tic alarm, fair, fear, love, commune, emotion, flag, hammer and sickle, flowers, vain, sun, sunset, stimulation, swashbuckling, truculent, expression, wild poppies, passion, heart, colour, rose
color RED is the most cliché and overused color in order to get one’s attention; it is also most seductive and most capable to shove one’s imagination to a peak... Red
is sex .
Menstrual, blood, bitch, Diamanda Galas, voice, Diva, shaman,
Mediterranean, Isis, Lynch, “you were away...when, honey, when was
I away?...I don’t know. You were though. Away in the sea of red.”
Bleed. Speed. Ranch. Break core. Silenzio. Sing. Soul. Body. Rock. Otto Von Schirach. Free. Your mind. Act. Love. Hate. Fuck. Dirt. Heavenly. Flesh. Jesus. Sperm. Blood. Menstrual. “do you know how it hurts your eyes to stare at the horizon?...
if you stare at the horizon long enough...all you can see...is
Fire. The entire line of the horizon is burning. Fire’s as far
as the eyes can see...”
Red
No!
What I see is pink or maybe orange but it’s not red. Red is completely different. The real red is hard to find. People say: This is the red.
NO, I SAY
I’m so fortunate to be red! I’m fiery .I’m strong. I know men take notice of me and that
I cannot be resisted. I don’t conceal myself: For me, delicacy manifests itself neither
in weakness nor in subtlety,but throught determination and will. So I draw attention to
myself. I’m not afraid of other colors, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How won-
derful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever
I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise and heartbeats quicken.
Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see.Behold: living is seeing.
I am everywhere. Life begins with and returns to me. Have faith in what I tell you
I’ve been everywhere and am everywhere. I love engaging in scenes of war where blood blooms like a poppies. I love illuminating the wings of angles, the lips of maidens, the death wounds of corpses and severed heads bespeckled with blood
There is not blood, white, menstrual blood does not appear more like alien or twelve years old girl There is more blood when you scratch scab or when You cut the smallest finger, small stupid finger Today I have eaten two pieces of beef , five pills of Fe Yesterday I ate two pieces of swish half raw pigs liver Raw meat glide between teeth Love meat, love that, raw meat Why I have not had not have for around half a year, You have forgotten about pleasure I need blood I want to be human, I want to be woman, not alien, raw meat, small stupid finger
RHY THM
rhy thm: takes-me-over, foundation, repetition, progressing-in-time rhythm-jazz Cuba, Africa, dance, train, energ y, music, vibration, perspective, pleasure, dance, sweat, trance, live, speed, bang bang Lucky Look, settled order of process, biorhy thm tack, timing, reflection, drumming, throb, hackneyed, metronome, music with walking, training, discipline, school, order, obedience
rhy th m is w hen w hat pounds outside, starts pounding inside
Rythm is the pulsation of Life We come to the world that is filled by the rhythms: of day and night, awakening-sleep, of life and death; We come to the world with the rhythms inside us of the beating heart, of the soothing rocking, of the body that loves; The inner and outer rhythms shape music and poetry they become living branches that carry the sounds and tunes, they become the skeletons covered with flesh of words and meanings; Rhythm is constant, yet rhythm is changing, it has volume and depth hat I feel when its mine; it may inspire and move when comes gently from outside; it may hurt when invades, when unwelcome and crude. Rhythm is what I enjoy, rhythm is what I follow and what I want to determine myself.
rhythm – it was the name of a prewar artistic group in Poland. It brings to mind music, jazz, drums or dancing. This abstract notion can refer to something repeated at constant time intervals. The rhythm of life, in other words, the physical reality, but also the rhythm of a movie.
At the beginning of the “humanity”, there were only three types of music different from “sounds”. This was a mother singing for her child, the singing accompanying religious rites and the singing to dances or other festive occasions. Each of them was strictly connected with a certain place with a specific acoustics. For example, a dry acoustics of a small room in a wooden house, where a mother “was performing” an intimate tune for her child. Or an echo of a high roofed cave, where pagan rites were celebrated. Originally, music was related to certain events; there was no background music, or music in the form of pure entertainment or pleasure. Later, music got focused to provoke exactly these feelings. A sense of certainty and love, transcendence and joy. The rhythm is slightly artificial, combined with human intellect. In the European/ American and African cultures, it has always played an important part. While the Byzantine, Egyptian or Arabic civilizations have centered around sounds, harmony and acoustics. The realm of harmony and sound requires proper acoustics; thus it is possible only within a context of architectural tradition. There is no place for the “culture of sound” in the African desert, since it needs the type of architecture offered by Hagia Sophia
Rhythm- It’s kind of ability: order, harmony. You can have it already in you, or you need to learn it. For me it is skillful way of leading the parish. I need to be also a manager and conductor, but my orchestra is not symphonic at all. Some of musicians don’t know how to use their instruments. I am stranger in Rotterdam, it is difficult for me to find , and to follow the rhythm. The opposite side is: arrhythmia or inability. Even arrhythmia of human heart depend on us. And what about
arhythmia of live?
For ex. I have my rhythm of driving the car, but some arhythmical drivers they tive scuff, they make me loose my rhythm And what about emotions? They need to work with rhythm. Rhythm doesn’t need to be flat and dull.:
Lichun was riding the bike in a particular peem, peem, peem....peem, peem.I love to show my emotions
rhythm. I decided to choose on the same because I wanted to stay at the same tack.
rhythm: First association — a symptom of primary, magic instinctive force of nature. Great, uncompromising, incomprehensible, demonic, frightening. Mother. Stravinsky, “Spring Festival”. There is the rhythm of nature, of the seasons of the year, the daily rhythm, the rhythm of a ticking clock, rhythmical sounds of a moving train, of rain drops falling down, the biorhythm, the rhythm of our heartbeat and our breathing, rhythmic moves of a couple making love... The rhythm is present everywhere. Even an electron is rhythmically circling around the nucleus.
The music: I prefer a melody. The rhythm — difficult, an artificial framework that has always been a problem for me. It limits one. On the other hand, it puts reality of unruly sounds in order, it outlines an intention of a composer. Melody is up! More beautiful, more illusory, more intrinsic to music, momentary, flexible, intuitive... I am all for the melody!
repetition of sound, held with not visible vertical line and as entirety creates some measure of constant melody
CELL
Cell is a gu that sticks t gummy bears to other gum and is involv everything gu a cell is: universe, complete, enough, uniform, undistinguishable,
a telephone, sms, brain, a cell for storing potatoes, a small closet in the house of grandparents, the smell of sausage, fatback,
something that is repeated. Pulsating, doctor, laboratory, cell -Soft, Marc Almond, Torch, fire, song, kitsch, men, boys, butt, hole, surf, dirty, sweet, smell, success, Mike Patton. a cell for rent – a chil-
dren’s play, an ovarian cell, a reproductive cell, a cell as a social
unit, coal, neutron, neuron, person, blood, numbers, a lock, waves, a group of people, conversation, yak, nucleus, life, everything I
have, an egg, roe in a fish, small, big, edifice, tenderness, sense,
mathematics, Earth, Venus, safe, small Emil, terrorist-cell , order, a single-cell organism, a chest, a brick, a honeycomb, prison ,slipper animalcule, slimy, fluid energy, affectionate, plasticity, network, a solid system, certainty, building material, protein, my small flat,
bunker, needle, hospital, tumor, lesson of biology, strange, fertilization, affectionate, imagination, start up, end, wheel
ummy bear to other and talks mmy bears ved in ummy bear.
Cell is unusually fascinating creation. If it comes to its structure, in its interior has all needed elements for independent existence. To recreate its function in macro scale, we would have to build enormous factory. In course of evolution, cells became specialized. Looking at cell that builds our human body, it’s perfectly clear that its primeval independence was disturbed. Cells make groups of precisely specialized cells and this way build organs of our body. This specialization narrows independence of cells, but helps them operating in comfort conditions. But cells are also altruist. They are elements of our body that can suicide for greater good. Cell that evolves
pathologically can do harm for whole body and lead to death of many billions of cells. Those cells commit suicide. It is common knowledge that only living cells make our bodies function, but hardly anyone knows that also dead cells are needed. Example of that are cells of epidermis, which main role is fulfilled with second that cell dies. This type of cells creates tight barrier to protect from outside environment that can be harmful for cells striped off that protection. So answering the question what is cell from medical point of view, we can say that it is element of our body and it perfectly understands its needs and tried to fulfill them for greater good — life.
In my phone In my cell In one moment... I got three sms So it is like three peoples Three different cells where in me in my cell phone My brother, Lichun, My boyfriend 11:20 Sunday
Cell- Hello hello hello hello Cello cello cello cello Cell cell cell cell
I went outside to search for a phone booth, I need to sell something. I man asked me on the street which cell a was from? I asked him What do you mean...?
When I was a child, my teacher told me that a cell is the smallest component of living beings, in turn composed of many other elements. My body is no exception to this rule. So far, I have seen only the cells of an onion, but I still consider myself a happy owner of a large amount of fractions of myself.
Vietnam
“Woman, what’s your name?” ’I don’t know” “How old are you? Where are you from?” ‘I don’t know” “Why did you dig that burrow?” ‘I don’t know” “How long have you been hiding?” ‘I don’t know” “Why did you bite my finger” ‘I don’t know” “Don’t you know that we don’t wont hurt you” ‘I don’t know” “Whose side are you on?” ‘I don’t know” “This is war, you’ve got to choose” ‘I don’t know” “Does your village still exist?” ‘I don’t know” “Are those your children? “Yes”
/Wisława Szymborska/
I would like to thank everybody involved in creation of this book, especially: Ewa Mackiewicz, Paulina Tumiel, Eliza Konopko, Natasha Dobrova-Krol, Ilse van der Laan, Students of Fine Arts School ― Kassel Germany, Annke Siewierski, Babette Kleijn, Ieke Trinks, Lichun Tseng, Katja Hadkowska, Aleksandra Proszczuk, Wincenty Proszczuk, Nina Mikołajewicz, Anastazja Proszczuk, Halina Lachowicz, Sylwester Ambroziak, Marek Niczyporuk, Adam Hermanowicz, Krzysztof Tarasiuk, Sławomir Trypuć, Filip Żołyński, Mariusz Stanowski, Sebastian Malinowski, Krzysztof Szymborski, Nikolaj Leopold Strauss, Christiaan Peters, Wojciech Makowiecki, Peter Beňo
Eliza Proszczuk, 2008
paintings & photograhy: Eliza Proszczuk design: Marta Malesińska /www.koromilo.eu/