GM ~ Paradise Reigns 🥀🔥 Do you feel it?

Paradise Reigns 🥀🔥 3 Eth Reserve ~ Now Live

I want to tell a story. It is about the big parade ~ @NFCLisbon 🥀🔥 My biggest thanks for all that transpired in Lisbon must go to these pioneers in live digital art @johnkarp and @bygrida My first discussions with John were all about where this medium becomes most compelling, when it pulls out the dreams of our subconscious into being & surrounds the audience, we’re all seeing the lights shining of this new medium.

Cinema, poetry, fine art, and live performance. The first opera was coined by pulling together these disparate art forms into a synthesis that lived aesthetic experience beyond a solitary screen, perhaps beyond the still painting which sits idle though beautifully instigating the imagination of the viewer as it may do. John and I discussed for weeks the power of the live experience, in the arena of digital art  that has become NFC Lisbon ~ where artists go to battle in that Amphitheatre of art that surrounds us all. And for that moment on the stage, five screens surround, one voice is all that matters ~ one voice is all there is. 🥀🔥

The commanding presence of live cinematic poetry performance, lives at that stage in Lisbon just once a year for three days. The stage is a home I spend too long apart from. She is the bow of my soul, my heart & I stand with her traversing the most fervent oceans. On the day of “Paradise Reigns” those were fervent seas indeed ~ stepping on the stage, the poetry memorized and layered images embedded in my subconscious the dream of paradise swirled around my mind and feeling, the poetry was ready to express itself outwardly through my vessel and instrument. 🥀🔥

It was the ancients too who taught me to memorise ~ those orators that stood on street corners in Ancient Greece reciting whole sagas and epic myths through various memorisation methods. As there are many problems with the prevailing methods of acting and those of the past which dealt with the subject of memory in misguided ways, working against the natural course of human subconscious thoughts and associations. Many practitioners and self-proclaimed Kings of the craft have overlooked this ancient wisdom. That to learn from one’s own imagination and not by motor memory denying the feelings that rise up from the core of our being. That even those that Romantics could see and the likes of Lee Strasberg touched on himself in poetry; “I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion kindred to that which was before the object of contemplation is gradually produced and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on.” Though that is sadly largely where both Lee Strasberg and Stanislavki’s pursuit of poetry finished, favoring more trendy techniques in psychoanalysis which suppress the human will, that have since been outdated. For there are many parts of the spirit in human beings that cannot be coded, nor predicted, but are pursued by greater depths than theories and exercises which barely scratch the surface, let alone unravel threads to make a parchment, and not nearly enough still to write a well crafted poem. Both men acknowledged the beauty in art and in poetry and touch on the truths and depths of Romanticism but for reasons unbeknownst to me left it alone at surface level ~ when it came to pursuit of study or an integral part of the craft and practice. And no amount of time spent in the latter’s study could remedy this missing link in the method, but to pursue art wholly and fully, not just to study it, but to feel it, more-so to know it. The pursuit of art and poetry should never be finished. 🥀🔥

Standing in front of the room filled with digital art lovers, the talk and preparation was done, the time to realize this vision was now. Though after a stellar introduction by @museframe as I stepped on stage though the right, left and centre screens unraveled ~ the screens in front and back were off. I looked over at Grida, her raised to her ear as she spoke directions urgently into her microphone. I know if there was a possibility for the screens to come on at the time that Grida would make it happen. And yet I was compelled by that wind in your eyes and ears, staring up at the brightest stars at night, propelling me to bring to life this poem. All of us experiencing the dream in a collective being. I saw @basileus_eth in the audience, one of the beloved patrons of digital art ~ the passion in his eyes and the vision he has for our community, the strength and search for beauty. 🥀🔥

The show must go on ~ I read the poem with half the screen blaring Paradise to a room full of fauns. My memories arise and I could feel those poetics blooming. As those giants of the soul bounded through the room on hind legs that raised them in the air. When I came off stage John & Grida walked up to me and said “we must go again”. “Let’s play it again” they bellows to the technicians and audience alike. A microphone was plugged into my ear again and an announcement for a second screening to be played. The screens lit up all around and we were all pulled in now. A second time, it reigned in Paradise, and we ran through those battles once more, the battles for beauty. Though the old King lay defeated on that stage that day, the long march to paradise has only just begun. A story of satyr and soldiers of beauty, those great Romantics who came roaring through the forests to conquer Elysium. 🥀🔥

A King whose old ways had concurred and calcified into a dry pile on the floor. Time had passed him by and what once worked for a moment in time, turned out to be the snake oil of yesterday. And that King fell to his knees by my feet. As I held his head in my hand and removed it with my blade, like Oedipus before me, I saw in slow motion he sank to the floor and it was the end of his reign. I would like to say that’s where the story finished, but it is not finished, rather the beginning of a new era. Even the eternal truths of the human spirit, those things that are resistant to the changing winds. That last the test of time, and time is on their side. Those who cannot accept the oncoming reigns of paradise as their vines take root in the souls of its people and their minds and voices spoke with truth. Until next year my memories still will cherish NFC Lisbon 🥀🔥

Auction started by none other than @basileus_eth !! 🥀🔥

@NFCsummit @SuperRare Love love loved the performance Laurence! Captivating and immersive in every way! Was mesmerised by your voice as always, and totally surprised by the up-and-close attention of one of the magical fauns 😅🖤🍂🫶🏼

@NFCsummit @SuperRare And they loved you Maria 😂🖤🥀🔥