Tortoise ORE – BELLY OF STONE
East Village Arts of Birmingham
+1 205-833-0143
Sticks and Stones in a cave of reverberations deep inside a gorge
A cave sings its music no man can hear
Heard by crustaceans, crows and owls, there is a Silence beyond the night sky
Candles whip and flutter, perhaps a gentle breeze
Perhaps your breathing. Perhaps the breath from the crevice in the rock.
Listening for a story.
Think of a human skeleton, lying in the natural coffin of a stone cavern, a crevice in the rock, undiscovered for ages, bones still intact. Think particularly on the skull, the deep eye sockets, empty, that once held the eyeballs, now long eaten by crows. The eyeballs-that once received the embrace of outer projections and images formed by vibrations of light. The skull: the cavity that held the moist soft tissues, the trails and trains of brain formations. The skull: a bowl that held organic worm-like shapes and threads of electrical impulses, translating images born & witnessed by the superpower of an eyeball to communicate a mirage reversed, whether real or imaginary. The skull: the god goblet of consciousness. The skull, the cave, the lantern that held the flame that is known to be present but cannot be seen.
Beyond the darkness of the closed eyelid, alternate realities take place, presenting themselves as moving pictures, images and stories, illusions created by the circuits within the skull. Persisting they create. Thought is born. A knee jerks. A tongue secretes. What then?
Your message has been sent
What emerges from the great bowl of waters & light? Inner lightning, the electrical impulses fluctuating in waves of rhythmic vibrations that spark thought. The bowl of atmospheric pressures held inside this skull as pictures although no external light had been received behind closed eyelids. The interior of the skull is as darkness of a cave, holding countless unexplained ruptures, vibrations, the waveforms that birth the great soundings. As a parallel universe of emptiness ultimately created the blowhole of a giant whale that only a massive volcanic convulsion from the fire of a belly can produce, a convergence with a brilliant flame, a fiery constellation of gases blew up in a massive fart, the winds created by that event spewing a mass of metals and mineral compounds formed the first volcanic high rise, a mountain emerging from the waters of the cosmic imagination, revealing the shell of the giant Iron Tortoise which was thus birthed. It is known that the conjugal encounter of the fiery impulse mixed with the distillations of the waters of the cosmic mind created the wind that became the breathing that filled the caverns of rock with powers of life, and magically over time billions of creatures after creature simultaneously wheezed into existence.
A giant volcano breathed, spewing fire and molten rock while light forming life in the seas of vibratory waters swirled in spirals. From the whirling tides and breaking waves developing over time, emerged a giant red metallic Tortoise as a seminal goddess of creatures. Beyond the great bowel of breaking and receding wave waters new landmass was revealed and the remains of the beached monster lay beached, exposed, becoming one of the first land masses on the dense vein of mineral we now know as the magnetic vortex of the Iron Tortoise, (Birmingham), Alabama.
Reimagining the Tortoise as a Spaceship probing distant planets, interiors full of technology, mutations of what was the fragile human race now evolved into mental incarnations without bodies, a completely bizarre and misunderstood phenomena.
Are they the phantoms of our dreams?
I digress.
As the waters receded to the create landmass on earth, the Iron Tortoise remained inert for many years waiting for the next breath of life to bring fire to its belly. Not unlike this history of creation, fresh dirt will be revealed for the participants of ECHOES SURREALISTES CONTEMPORAINS
Luxor/Saint-Cirq-Lapopie/Budapest/Alabama/Toulouse/Paris
For many years, the Glass Veal Group (now Fresh Dirt) of Alabama met in the iron ore mines of the Red Mountain, which we re-named the Iron Tortoise. Red Mountain is the smallest mountain in the world. (fact) Because of the iron ore seam, the presence of coal and limestone, a steel industry was founded by humans. No longer dominating the landscape these mines are now deserted and mostly closed. In the 1970’s our group found a mine opening on the Iron Tortoise and used it for gathering, burying ritual objects, improvising music and automatic poetic dialog after our decadent soirée around holidays. We also practiced soundings and recorded in the Water Tower on Red Mountain before it was filled with water. We now convene at the Silos of Green County, the abandoned steel mills, and the natural cave openings in the gorge of Blount County. These will be the chambers & sites for our Fresh Dirt rituals and Surrealist practices, as we collaborate in the synchronous activities of ECHOES SURREALIST CONTEMPORAINS.
In the Belly of the Iron Tortoise, there will be a designated secret chamber where we will bury objects, and automatic writings as we had buried these relics in years past. The Silos will reverberate with soundings from metals, didgeridoos, automatic writings, Surrealist games and concurrent discourse. We will merge with the breathing of the igneous rock in the caverns of Blount County and create our manifestos, collective art and collaborative explorations. We will be sounding subsonic beats and tones in the belly of the caverns, exploring the landscape of dreams, asking questions of the cave. We shall chant together, play and record the answers from the abyss as a directive from the psychic resonance with unknown messengers. Should a messenger reveal their identity in the alcove of mystic vibrations, we shall keep it a hidden secret. But we will coax the voices of the ancestors ravaging our imagination while echoing our soundings and thus respond to their silent voices.
In the silos, the soundings and recitations will swirl in great ferocity, psychic monsters will be celebrated! We shall execute the great leviathans of fear and pillage and the specter of mediocrity with our noise. We will burn our prayers by fire! We will drink beer and smoke pot, and speak in our own language.
What soundings create fear or peace, turbulence or tranquility? What of unseen waveforms that dominate the subliminal dreams that penetrate our cells? The collision of Surrealist methods of intervention as cognizance and intuition intertwine to impact the moment to cancel our misery and unite our spirits. We call in the presence of our Surrealist progenitors for liberation of the creative impulse in the human condition.
LaDonna Smith
**
The above visitations to these sites, along with their activities will accompany the Alabama collaboration with:
ECHOES SURREALISTES CONTEMPORAINS
Luxor/Saint-Cirq-Lapopie /Budapest/Alabama/Toulouse /Paris
March 15 – April 26 2024
East Village Arts of Birmingham
A Surrealist reading & performance along with an exhibition of paintings, collage & postcard art will be held at East Village Arts of Birmingham along with the Exhibition at 700 Mesopotamia St, Eutaw, AL the Silos of Green County, and closing in the caverns of Blount County TBA.
Fresh Dirt Surealist Collective
700 Mesopotamia,
Belly of the Mosasaur, AL 35462
www.fresh-dirt.us
ECHOS SURRÉALISTES CONTEMPORAINS 2024 Alabama:
Are you ready to explore the depths of your imagination?
Join us for
ECHOS SURRÉALISTES CONTEMPORAINS 2024 (Alabama)
The first storm of :
ECHOS SURRÉALISTES CONTEMPORAINS 2024
Luxor /Saint-Cirq-Lapopie /Alabama /Budapest /TOULOUSE /PARIS
A collaboration between
-Fresh dirt surrealist group
https://www.fresh-dirt.us/
-East Village Arts and the Silos.
https://www.evabham.org/home
Chrysopoeia international Surrealist Group /Union /Cooperative
-Sulfur “Surrealist Jungle”
sulfur-surrealist-jungle.com
Maison André Breton – La Rose Impossible
La Belle Inutile Editions
surrealists.org
This is an event you don’t want to miss!
Dates:
March 15 – April 26, 2024
Location:
East Village Arts of Birmingham and the Silos
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gi1UAU5Shw7Roibb9
SULFUR EDITIONS 
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