This is an exercise from the Fluxus artist Robert Filliou’s book Teaching and Learning as Performance Arts, published in 1970. Together with the artist Emmett Williams, Filliou asked the audience at the closing of an exhibition to write down the name of something or somebody they would gladly get rid of. This was then collected and read as a collective poem.
In the online workshop The Art of Thinking we adapted the exercise to a "Letting Go Poem for Art Writers". Since we were online, everyone was asked to write a maximum of four words in the chat box.
Purpose
Evenidence
Self consciousness
Bummers
Fear
Education
Battery packs
Headache
Overthinking
Individualism
Everything
Hand cramp
My laptop
Fear
Sweaty fingers
Never
Physical friction
Self-concern
Fear of irrelevance
Stubbornness
Mean people
Laziness
More
Tiredness
Hesitation
Word count
Always
Distraction
Meaning
Warm
Judgement
Fear
Structured media
Knotted up hair
Hesitancy
Language
Unrecognised cables
Self-judgement
Chaos
Post-it notes
Writer’s block
Always the same layout template
Intended
Conformity
Second guessing
Actually
Systems
Dirty oven
Understanding therefore Considering how it usually done
Toilet breaks
Need for more research
Small talks
Procrastination
Trump
Phillips head screws
Windows closing
Dis functionality
Poem courtesy of the Art of Thinking workshop participants. Image and text courtesy of An Paenhuysen.
