Ego / non-ego. A form of production in tune with the landscape. Living intensely. Escape and rebirth. Getting fucked out of your head.
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Niko said he’s seen some bad things. People selling GHB pretending its MDMA. Clubs selling water at 10 € a bottle and at one point lots of people dying.
Talking with Morry about immaterial violence.
We drove and on the way to Festival Club Niko pointed out a smashed up red Jacuzzi by the road. I asked if clubbing has changed in the last few years. He said it’s all gone downhill since 2008, when they imposed closing hours. Before then the clubs ran continuously from one to the next. Now they’re all in competition.
Cleansing ritual.
Robert talked about getting to zero, that we are comprised of the mental, physical and intuition. And the realm of the mental as the ethical. As a response to a comment about acting on instinct, saying that it is instead intuition. I asked if he came to Ibiza for this. He paused, to reflect and said yes.
The extraordinary Alex and Anna. Who’d found a kitten at the end of a music festival and tried to find its mother but couldn’t and so adopted it – Michael because she is black and white. The way Anna described finding the kitten special mother’s milk and feeding her with a pipette, giving her a bath with natural soap, how Michael loved it. How they were going to spend the summer living in the van, find a spot under a fig tree, take out the furniture from the van and live in the open.
Death of self. To enter a collective consciousness, that is real and not dreaming. Multiple epiphanies during a rave in a cave. Crossing a lunar landscape to an unfathomable edge – against water sky and light. A descent down stairs carved into the rock face. A landing, a plank over a crevasse, more stairs. The rave was on an incline sloping directly into the sea, a silhouette of rocks and boulders the barrier to sliding into its depths. The majestic arch of the cathedral’s vault, to simultaneously inhabit the top and bottom of the cliff – burial, immolation and transcendence. Inside a rock touching water framing the grandeur of a metaphysical sky. A blue awash with moonlight I cannot re-create, still and moving. And as the incline turned into a gymnasium floor glimpses of parallel realities crashing and overlapping like the tide. Destiny, are we here – is this true? Trying to keep a foothold in the social realm, the physical, long enough … . Flicking between the material and my will, and the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth realities. But the pull was too strong, I gave in and entered. I don’t know if my eyes were closed, I wasn’t seeing anymore, just being and an overwhelming sense of union. Pure consciousness, though not my own. Wild, liberated. … it had no image. But I knew it was a collective place, the same place. In the chaos I wondered if I needed a shaman to navigate me. In absentia I became my own, dancing, falling, it was all the same. At one point we were dancing, being, bonded by Destiny’s masking tape, which I had earlier rescued from oblivion. In moments of coming to, I realised that the spiritual and social collective aren’t the same. That I didn’t have to dance to partake in it, by means of communal ritual or expression, that I am free. Though as the spirit wore off and I could see and feel the vibrations of the rave again, bodies and people, the words came – this is the reason for being alive.
I faced multiple deaths in Ibiza. Getting over myself, and at times dark, twisted confusion. It didn’t always come out alright. It isn’t about denial, making false impositions and restraints on one’s life, mimicking death, mocking death.
Ibiza Alex said he was going in search of the oldest tree in Spain – in an Ibecencan forest. And in what was formerly industrialised salt flats in Formentera lives the oldest and largest living creature on earth – the Posidonia. It itself has lived for 100,000 years and has grown to 8km. Sylvia told me about traditional Ibecencan dyeing techniques, using the blackened husks of the autumn carob. She showed me the tree in their backyard – Johannisbrot. She also told me how carob seeds were once used as the measure for a carat, because of their unique uniformity.
Gnod went to experience the drum master and his students – he, the mother drum; and the students, father and child. Drumming as language, synchronous and in response. You could feel how Ibiza had changed us, last night back at the Mill. I heard people saying, the Ibiza crew is back. Much more to recollect, and some darknesses that I imagine I will never write about. I still have the shells Marlene found at Robert’s from when the land was covered by sea that we dyed with beetroot and red cabbage, the stones Ying brought back for me from the north, a piece of white concrete from my piss sculpture performance at the Festival Club playing Lou’s goddess, Bill’s Prince sign for dead pop stars at the airport written on the back of a paper placemat with a map of Ibiza from our tapas place (the baby fried squid), Jo’s black earrings though I had gone dark, and my molten globe birthday candle headdress. I made a splodge on Sam’s shirt, painted a lighter for Niko, made a word sculpture from conversations at Carla’s sitting in the alcove, and the night of Video Jam did an impromptu performance whipping a strip of rubber and a plastic bag, and played the piano for the first time in 17 years – an improvised composition jamming with Lou, Neil and Robert – something I have never done before. And I jumped off a cliff into the sea.
The currents looked scarily strong, whipping against the rocks. The consensus was that it was perhaps unsafe, that maybe I should try another spot or another day. But I’d brought everyone there, some for the second time. I’d decided earlier I’d jump no matter what, to keep from using any more van time. I wasn’t sure where we were going – I thought a different place Zak knew of, close to San An. A slight panic when I asked Niko if he knew exactly where we were meant to go – where exactly to jump. He didn’t, but said Zak would meet us there. We ended up back at the place I’d scouted the day before, unable to find the spot. Fortuitously. I’d asked Leo to point it out from my photos that evening. When he pointed to the fisherman’s hut carved into the rock I was slightly disappointed, saying I’d been hoping for something a bit higher. He looked surprised. His friend recommended Sa Punto. A bit later I saw Sylvia and told her about my day’s adventure. I’d happened to take a photo of the cliff face from the roof of the hut. I was only there because Paddy and Marlene were further up the coast, and had discovered the way. I was trailing behind trying to match up the coast with the drawing I’d made of the coastline, made looking at Tom’s phone, trying to work out Leo’s point in relation to the depth of the water. As I caught up to them, Marlene said, have you seen this and showed me the stairs – like those of the cave, carved from the rock, imperceptible when standing at the cliff top, until you get to its edge. I don’t know what impelled me to take that photo. I showed it to Sylvia and said, well the hut is a bit lower than what I’d envisioned. She said, it isn’t the hut – it’s the cliff.
On Ibiza, everything happens as it happens. Even as we arrived at the Cala Bassa beach club, it still took me a few minutes to realise it was going to be a return. I still thought we were going to these other cliffs. I felt slightly guilty, as Jo and Marlene had already been to this coast the day before, on the reccy with me. I also wasn’t sure if Destiny and Ying were joining because they’d been stranded with Zak – they’d all previously been at Andy T’s. As it was, we were all there because of me. We crossed the peninsula and as we emerged from inland to the coast, I could see the point. It was more than sufficiently high. We looked at the water as we walked along; it was a colour of blue so saturated and superreal it can only be described as ecstasy. But the sea was rough and tumultuous. I asked Zak as he’d done this before whether he thought it would be okay. He wasn’t sure. Everyone had their doubts. We arrived at the hut and there was a couple lying on the roof, fully naked and sunbathing. Staring down at the vortex where the sea crashed into the rocks, I kicked into pragmatic mode and decided to test the water, to see if I was strong enough. I walked to the hut and the edge of the pier to dip my legs in. It felt like it would be fine. I murmured something about wishing I’d brought a rope. Morry went into the hut and found a white net curtain lying under some rusty metal pipes. Should the current be too strong he and Marlene could fish me out that way. In theory. I jumped in from the pier. Though the tide was strong enough I couldn’t swim against it, I knew I wouldn’t be carried out to sea. So this was it.
One last obstacle before The Obstacle – getting onto the cliff, which wasn’t continuous with the land. Zak and Niko were already on it. A slow exhalation realising I had to climb a rock. Fuck, it was meant to be serene. Does she need her shoes, someone said in the background. It was only two or three footholds to get to the top of the rock. My face against it vertical on vertical; I couldn’t pull myself over the edge. Zak lifted me up. I don’t remember much after that.
On the last day at Es Vedra as we were sitting in the cave at sunset, Niko said– that when you’re here there’s no good, there’s no bad, there’s nothing – you’re just here.
I was standing on the top of the cliff and then was a few feet away from the edge. Looking back now, I can’t remember what was going on in my head. But it doesn’t really matter. The sea was vast. Initially I couldn’t walk to the edge. Zak sensed my fear and asked if I wanted him to go first. I thought, pictured it, and said, nah – I gotta do this on my own. ‘100%’ he answered. I went to the edge. And then I just jumped.
Collecting my things from Robert’s and leaving for the last time, Robert and Leo were laying bricks at the back of the studio. I said I’d be doing the same later this summer. Just before I left I said to Leo – oh, and I jumped, from the spot he’d recommended. He said, was it high enough? I answered, fuck yeah. And then he said, did you feel safe? I stopped for a moment, I hadn’t thought about it like that. I could feel myself smile and my body, though I wasn’t tense, warm and relax – and said, yeah, really safe – and thanked him.
I’d only started writing this because I wanted to remember – everything, how I felt, because something had changed and I am afraid of reverting back to the person I was. We’re back almost a week now. I can sometimes feel myself returning to that person, almost. But as I was cycling home after our reunion potluck – after sitting in the club on my own contemplating the space – I realised how we all made each other feel safe, to be who we are, to be more than who we are. It sounds cheesy but it’s true. I keep catching glimpses of Ibiza here – the moon in daylight, Jodie and Kev getting a van, partying last night – or was it the night before, or before, or before…
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The jump was made as part of Islington Mill’s group residency in Ibiza, hosted by CanVas, in May 2013. Video filmed by Maurice Carlin.
Jen Wu 