As many DM readers know, Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin, who is a very dear friend of mine and Tara’s, has recently been treated for breast cancer (and she is doing GREAT. Expect her to be back at Boing Boing fairly soon, I’d imagine).

I just got an email from her alerting me to this and I am absolutely speechless…

“Time becomes plastic. Your experience of time morphs… And when you come out of it, on the strong days right before the next scheduled infusion, all of that time compresses into blurry waves of noise.”

—Xeni Jardin

Time is defined by and within the human experience yet the dominance of ‘linear’ time prevails. We are inextricably linked with time, ‘Life’ is measured in time.

Depending on particular situations our experience of time can be elusive, appear stretched, accelerated, and on occasions all too specifically in synch with defined parameters. Audio recordings, film, Internet, and photography are some of the means by which we choose to mark ‘times’. Such documentary methods signify our need to externalise particular events and also to activate memories.

‘Bioschismic’ is created solely from audio and photographic documentation of Xeni’s time spent receiving chemotherapy. The repetitive drip drip rhythm of the toxic chemicals measured in precise doses over a specific period of time provide the prospect of extending (life) time. Time is the dominant force yet the effects of the drugs change the experience of time to a space that is other worldly - a different time zone - a schism within and for life itself.

—Cosey Fanni Tutti

‘Bioschism’ - inspired and made possible by Xeni Jardin.

This is THE.NICEST.THING.EVER.

So sweet. Such a moving gesture of solidarity from one of the hippest, coolest women on the planet to another.

Wow. Just wow.

(I should probably add that it’s a really great piece of music!)
 

 
Xeni and I interview Throbbing Gristle backstage in Los Angeles, for Boing Boing Video in 2009. A lot has changed since then.