Posts Tagged 'LTLYM'
and I recently started a Yahoo group dedicated to executing various assignments from the amazing and astounding . Learning to Love You More is the brainchild of artists and Harrell Fletcher. The project exists both as a website and as a series of traveling exhibitions. The premise is relatively simple: “assignments” are posted to the site, and anyone who wants to can accept one of these assignments and submit the results back to LTLYM.
As of today there are 68 assignments, which take the form of everything from “” and “” to “” and ““. The instructions for the assignments are all very straightforward and specific.
I think LTLYM is an example of just how beautiful the internet can be. It’s totally open and democratic- anyone who wants to participate can. There is no target demographic. Each assignment is like a gentle yet penetrating question about who we are and how we relate to the world.
I love what Miranda July had to say about “connecting” online: “There are so many opportunities to put a picture of your face online, or write what your hobbies are… But at a certain point, it’s like- who cares? That’s somehow not doing the job…” And it’s so true. We have all these ways of reaching out to people online, but somehow it’s still so sterile and distant. You can look at someone’s Facebook page and see a picture of them with their cat and read what their favorite movies are and where they went to high school, but it’s all there in that cookie-cutter template. It doesn’t leave much room for exploration or imagination or…warmth.
Here’s an interview with Miranda July on LTLYM…
I think the part of that interview that really strikes a chord with me is this:
No one’s making an archive of these “unimportant” things, like pictures of parents kissing as taken by their children. And it’s such an uncomfortable thing- of course there’s not going to be a coffee table book of that. But now we have an archive! And the second there’s many, it becomes proof of something- something that is so unspecific that it’s lively. To me that’s really alive- that kind of half-nauseous, half-beautiful feeling.
Because often times the way things are, if we really look, is rather nausea-inducing. We get so caught up in maintaining this veneer over ourselves and our lives, that when someone holds a mirror up to us and allows us to see ourselves, warts and kissing parents and all, it can be fairly disconcerting. LTLYM, in it’s own subtle way, offers up a gentler kind of mirror. By being carefully prodded to step outside of ourselves in order to dissect and examine the very guts of our lives, we are suddenly given permission to embrace our idiosyncrasies and our imperfections. They become something to study and learn from rather than something to be ashamed of.
LTLYM celebrates our collective curiosity and the very act of making. The “reports” are only proof that you’ve gone through the process- that you’ve participated. The emphasis is not on polish and perfection but on following our natural creative instincts and how, when viewed as a whole, we really do have more uniting us as humans than we do keeping us apart.
The first assignment our group chose to complete was . This is mine…
1. I do this exercise every day with my baby. It works your stomach, your arms and your thighs! First, get a chunky baby and sit her on your feet while you're seated on the floor. Hold on to her waist.
2. Next, start bouncing her up and down by lifting your feet up and lowering them back down. Keep your stomach muscles flexed.
3. Bounce her up higher and higher...
4. Lower her down to you and give her a kiss. I usually repeat 5-6 times, or until my stomach gets tired.
P.S. I would love to somehow integrate LTLYM into a library program. I’ll think on that…
