Relational Art
Zurich artist, Regine Walter, has provided the graphics and I the text for a series of works we call "relational art" - text and graphics both concerned with relatedness, and which work together to create a relationship. The works have been displayed at various sites, including the Texas Association for Marital and Family Therapy, and the Family Networker Conference in Washington, DC. They have also been featured at an APA symposium in 1995 on Performative Psychology. Exemplars have also been published in Psychologie Heute (October, 1994), and with an accompanying text are in press with the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Here am I.
Standing before you
Singular and solitary.
But don't let appearances fool you.
Each word from my mouth
Each gestureis borne of others.
You see singularity
But reality is in multiples.
As we talk
You enter this world.
And I into another
The eternal sounds of the internal voices...
Mother...father...brothers...sisters...
Listen carefully when I speak
and you shall hear them.
And when they speak, their words will carry countenances
of mothers...fathers...brothers...sisters...
As I speak with you now
You will hear the echoes of distant times.
You are my delight,
And your laughter celebrates my being.
My pleasure inhabits your heart,
And my smiles are those of adoration.
Joy resides in the resonance.
Your fear is contagious
Your anger spread like weeds
Your joy moves with the speed of good news.
As you speak with me you create the world.
