ARTISTS TALKING

# 41 [11 October 2010]

Emergency 2010@The Greenroom

What a weekend got to participate in and see lots of new work at the Greenroom, which is always such a treat. On the opening night I particularly enjoyed Allan Taylor’s piece titled ‘Alain D’Aylour’s Affordable Art Auction’ which the main character gives the audience advise on how to make money from your art and how ultimately art is about money. His piece was very interactive and he stayed in character the whole way akin to Lloyd Grossman in a blond wig speaking amusing art jibberish. I got to meet Mandy Romero on the Saturday night, it was nice to finally meet her and talk about her experience of traveling across China. The whole weekend was great research for me and I met some new people Matt and Jordan who put on performance/live art nights at Matt & Phreds in town. Amelia Beavis-Harrison was performing ‘In/Out’ on the doors stamping peoples hands as they came in and out of the venue she also has a blog on a-n which is a good read: http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/sing...

To see video documentation from my Emergency Balloon Drop, please follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aslkjqMAdAo

To see video documentation from The Eventé, MA Fine Art show, please follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moa4BLJFLeM

# 42 [18 October 2010]

Chinese Arts Centre Residency

On Friday I met Phil Davenport before our meeting at the Chinese Arts Centre to chat about our ideas, which just seem to be naturally flowing. It’s really nice when you have that creative spark with a person and I feel our vision for the tour is developing every time we meet. Phil is eager to use his spreadsheet concept and to expand it so it can weave through the gallery creating an installation in the space. I suggested how we could cutout sections within it and how I could use the physical gaps to speak through. We are eager to use the unusual spaces, which the public usually does not have access to such as the bedroom and the store cupboard that offer smaller enclosed rooms. I am really excited about developing performances for these smaller spaces as there is no way of avoiding physical intimacy. We talked about marketing and Phil had a really interesting idea to create bank notes and intervene them in different ways into the environment. Our work has been advertised in The Chinese Arts Centre autumn/winter programme and it was lovely to finally see them, the copy reads:

Whisper residency artists, Nicola Smith and Phillip Davenport will be developing and showcasing Ghosts move about me patched with histories this November/December. Both artists have previously taken part in the artist residencies in Chongqing and will be using the residency space here to reflect upon their experiences in China. The pair will be using Chinese Arts Centre’s residency space to trace what they describe as ‘the broken edge between different cultures and the beliefs that leak through’. Their project will use smell, taste, hunger and desire to track these ideas. Nicola will act as a deliberately misleading tour guide, taking visitors through an environment created by the pair using scripts devised by her and Phillip. Ghosts move about me patched with histories will be an immersive experience filled with two of the most powerfully coded objects that human’s encounter: money and food.

I have been thinking about my wardrobe as a tour guide and I feel that I want to move away from the obvious formal look. In my recent performances I have been playing with identity by putting on an unplaced sort of European accent, which has worked well. When I have put this accent on people have asked me if I am Polish or Spanish and are unclear if I am really putting it on or if I am really foreign. I do not want to imitate a stereotypical Chinese look, however I am interested in how people judge and want to place a person simply by the way they look and sound. I bought this book in a charity shop firstly the title grabbed my attention, ‘Race’, Culture & Difference then I was taken in by the front cover image of a woman with a band of fabric across her face. The band is making it difficult to read her face, is it an oppressive or antagonistic gesture? It could be read as both.

# 43 [25 October 2010]

Collected Texts

Phil asked me to send him some text from my experience of working in China and I thought it would be a good idea to use my blog and pick out bite size phrases. In my work I like to collect written texts such as observations and actions as part of my visual research for my performances. I originally started my blog as a way of documenting my residency, which took place in February 2010 although I have continued to write about my practice. The idea that work just stops or is completely separate from that period is not so and I feel that the residency has provided the seed which has since sprouted into a succession of new performances in the UK. I feel the opportunity to participate in the residency at the Chinese Arts Centre is another chance to make new work in collaboration with Phil Davenport and raises the question of how to communicate past experiences which happened in China within the context of the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester.

Blog bites

Just one of those details that gets lost in translation

People turned up later and missed the party

I did get stuck for a moment

Uncertainty whether I could get over

Strange leaving party

Not sure when it started and ended

In-between the audience

Learning as a means to getting

Making it and not making it

We are seen as novelty

We somehow pull it together

Muffle of people speaking and traffic noise

Giving you some peace and quiet

Let go of the control

Trust in others

Feed it to all the guests

Trying to communicate

Can sound a bit scrambled

Climb the ladder and get over the top

They were very worried I might fall

Torn between two spaces

Stack, order, display

A gap between two buildings

Arriving, working, leaving

Felt like a tourist

Looked at

Not spoken to

I am not there

I am not here

He set off a belt of firecrackers

Better Life, Better People

One World, One Dream

A world of sameness

Tried to remember

Broken western pop songs

Sliding across off the edge of the screen

I can’t order my own food

When I speak 

# 44 [2 November 2010]

Reading Performance

I found this resource on the Live Art Development Agency website please follow the link below for the full guide. In this post I have taken a section of the text which questions the transference of 'experience'.

http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/resources/Study_Room/guides/rachel_lois_clapham_guide.html

Reading Performance Writing: A Guide (2010) by Rachel Lois Chapman

What is it?  Towards a re-enactment of the experience of performative writing by Danae Theodoridou. Here is its cover: matthew goulish 39 MICROLECTURES in proximity of performance How do we understand something? We understand something by approaching it. How do we approach something? We approach it from any direction. We approach it using our eyes, our ears, our noses, our intellects, our imaginations. We approach it with silence. We approach it with childhood. We use pain. We use history. We take a safe route or a dangerous one. We discover our approach and follow it. What is it? ‘The bad thing with experience is that it can’t be transferred.’ (Remember these words) 

What is it? You go back to it, you try to describe it, you try to analyze it, you try to show it, you try to tell it, you try to express it, you try to share it, you try to transfer it. What is it? Performative words. Their experience. It can’t be transferred. What is it? No need for describing words, analyzing words, showing words, telling words, sharing words, transferring words. Just words to re-enact the experience. If it can be transferred, it can be re-done and it can be re-lived. Here they are, they don’t transfer, they re-create. The experience of one who read a book and bought it twice, of one who carried a book everywhere like a personal Bible, of one who since that day knows that ‘the bad thing with experience is that it can’t be transferred’.

It was such a relief reading this text and it confirmed to me how a personal ‘experience’ cannot be copied and exactly transferred to another person. All that can be done is to re-create and allow the experience to be interpreted in multiple ways and know that this is OK. The main experiences I want to re-enact are feeling out of synch verbally with people and to re-create watching the New Year Gala TV show with translation. 

# 45 [10 November 2010]

30 years of Japanese Fashion 

On my recent trip to London to see the family I had a free day and I visited Future Beauty, 30 years of Japanese fashion at the Barbican. This exhibition is the first in Europe to show avant-garde Japanese fashion that challenges ideas of beauty, function, ultimately elevating the work into art. As I entered the ground floor gallery was divided by banners of white fabric and clothed mannequins stood on top of plinths. My favourite on this floor was Junya Watanabe, Comme des Garcons piece from the autumn/winter collection 2000-01 which I like to call the flame. The skirt piece was constructed in a honeycomb formation from translucent fabric, which appeared to be glowing under the lights. The edges of the fabric look so soft and fragile it amazed me how the piece was actually standing.

Up on the first floor the designer’s collections were individually set in their own spaces with sound, sometimes video from the catwalk shows which the clothes had featured in. I was blown away by the presentation of Jun Takahashi, Undercover, autumn/winter collection 2000-01 each mannequin is completely encased by the clothes in an almost fetishistic manner and placed in front of a wall covered in matching fabric. I love how the clothes wear the person rather than the person wearing the clothes which I feel reflects our obsession with brands and consumerism, a worrying glimpse into the future perhaps? Last but no means least was Issey Miyake’s most recent collection 132 5, which is made from recycled fabric which emerges from flat packed polygons into wearable garments. The curation and display of the work throughout was really impressive particularly Issey Miyake’s work that had the polygons placed at the front like mathematical drawings and then behind, the mannequin wears the garment. Video was used extensively from interviews with the designers, documentation of the catwalk shows and ‘how to’ animation. Large scale lambada framed prints hang on the walls of Kawakubo’s designs which have been photographed by Naoya Hatakeyama that document the bold, simple shapes in a two dimensional image. Please follow the link below for more details: 

http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=10771

# 46 [17 November 2010]

Computer Love

This week I have been researching how to create a computerized voice. I want to use this audio style and live translation of the Chinese New Year, TV Gala show video in my performance at the Chinese Art Centre. The simple way of doing this would be to pre-record my voice and edit it over the top of the video, however I feel this could be a good opportunity to create something live from the material. I have been looking at using a vocoder pedal which requires attaching a mic and a musical instrument such as an electronic keyboard. A different option on the market is a keyboard which has a mouth attachment that operates in the same way as the vocoder, simpler to use but much more expensive. It was suggested to me to use ‘text speak’ on the computer were you simply type in the words and it replays back in a computerized voice. I love this and have been playing with the voice and writing different scripts for ‘Linda’ to read. Linda is a voice I downloaded which sounds very similar to what I heard in China a computerized, English translation, void of emotion. Ideally I would like to use the keyboard as I see the potential of it as a prop which gives the impression that I may play something musical on it. However the voice sounds more like a musical instrument, which is not the effect I am looking for. The ‘text speak’ function on my computer is the right tone and the laptop is also an effective prop. I envisage sitting behind or to the side of the audience tapping away on my laptop, I could also try and lip-synch to the sound. In the video the female presenter wears a green sparkly evening dress and I like the idea of wearing something similar creating a duplicate image.

# 47 [24 November 2010]

The Golden Ticket

This morning I have been re-thinking how to plan the tours of the gallery and feel that I need to simplify the instructions. Originally I wanted to have ticketed spaces on the tour and communicate that you can also observe the tour, this is too complicated. I thought that I could bring this into the performance by giving selected individuals golden tickets to go on tour. I bought these golden envelopes in the arts and craft shop in China Town and they are used to burn in religious ceremony. I find it strange why you would want to burn such pretty paper and the man in the shop got a bit irritated with me as I kept picking things up and asking “what is this for?” and he just kept saying “it’s just for burning”. In the shop there was a mini concertinaed changing screen and small sweet like objects made from pastel coloured cardboard that I want to buy. I have been editing my video of the magic show and I am now waiting on translation. Yesterday I managed to find a green sparkly dress in a vintage shop and put a £10 deposit on it, I pick it up on Saturday. I’m feeling a little bit frustrated, as I have no money and am waiting to get paid at the end of the month; there will definatly be nothing left in the pot for Christmas presents this year. Writing the blog is giving me the structure I need to develop the work ready for installation next week. This has been an unusual way of working towards a residency as usually I am not sure what form the work will take. However as the residency is so short and we want to maximize the opportunity into a show rather than an open studio has meant developing a clear vision of what we want before we start.  

# 48 [3 December 2010]

Day 3 @ The Chinese Arts Centre

Finally I bought ‘Linda’ my friendly computerized voice today for my video piece I am slowly putting together. I got the final translation through today and enjoyed listening to the audio then had to work out how to digitally record it. Thinking as I do all around the houses I eventually recorded it on an edirole, which my friend had kindly lent me. The best audio quality with no atmos interference was in the bathroom, I had heard that a lot of musicians have done this is in the past and it worked. I am struggling to edit anything in the residency space at the Chinese Arts Centre as we are still prepping the walls and have lots of random stuff around us. We have put up Phil’s spreadsheet wallpaper on one wall and the door it looks fantastic although we hadn’t planned in prepping time and it is eating into my making time. Tomorrow I plan to work from home and crack on with sequencing the sound with the video. Phil and myself have been making up our own invitations that has taken up most of the day but I think it was worth it. People like to have something to take away with them, which an e-invite doesn't offer. I managed to give out 50 last night at the Chinese Arts Centre, art auction and everyone really appreciated them. I have so much to do next week and we plan to have the space fully prepped by tomorrow. There are certain things I just cannot do such as physically marking out my performance in the space for the spoken audio tour until we finalize the installation. We intend to have another video piece of me running through the performance without an audience, a bit like a ghost.

# 49 [8 December 2010]

Marking out the ghost

For the past two days I have been making my second video with a little help from my friend artist Andrea Cotton. I just felt at ease and happy to have someone assisting me who gets the way I work and has an eye for detail. I was filmed marking out the performance in the space with no audience. As Phil’s wallpaper is black and white I thought the video would work better if I tinted it the same colour. As usual I underestimated how long it would take to run through the whole piece, although the process is helping me remember the sequence of the performance. Today I need to install the DVD players and see how the whole installation is working. My plan is to do a full dress rehearsal and I may ask a few people to come in and watch. Usually I would not run through the final performance with an audience, as there is no guarantee how they will react. There are key sections in the performance that I need to test out such as the lights being turned out, changing over DVD’s and how to handle a chicken roaming around the gallery. I still need to prepare for the artist talk and I plan to use my blog and show some of my videos. I want to focus the talk on the development of my work, performance, the artist’s I met and the influence the residency has had on my recent work. 

# 50 [14 December 2010]

Post Ghost, Part 1

I know I haven’t been blogging as much as I would have liked however getting the work made in time was so close to the wire unfortunately this had to take a back seat. At the artist talk we had about 15 people, which was really nice to see, as I was worried that no one would come. I started the talk first as I wanted time to prepare for the later performance. I went for the more formal slideshow although I sat on a chair, as I don't like standing behind reading stands. I decided to focus my talk around the work I was making before I went, blogging and my initial research before going to China. Unfortunately I have lost my China photographs and had to use my blog, which wasn't ideal however I was still pleased that at least I had this to show. I missed a middle section in the talk were I wanted to show another video piece and make reference to feelings of absence not being unique to China but how I can have these feelings in any place. On reflection I should have had a rough script to ensure not missing stuff out although I think I did well considering there was little time to prepare. Having the artist talk before the opening was a good idea as it ensured visitors stayed for the whole event and got more information about the artist and the work.   

The performance started with me handing out golden envelopes and fake notes to the audience who were waiting in reception. I ushered people with the golden envelopes to the wall and signaled the rest of the crowd into a different entrance. I escorted the golden envelope holders through the entrance from the street and they waited behind the glass door while the gallery audience watch. As I direct people into the gallery I follow them in changing my persona, thanking everyone for coming round my house as I slip my shoes off. I offer tea but only have enough for one person. I change into my green sparkly dress behind a mini changing screen and proceed to mime silently and dance. As I hold my final pose at the end of the dance people nervously clap. I move the people off the sofa to allow the people with the golden envelopes to sit and I play them the magician video. I stand silently til the end. Lights go out. I move to the ladder and climb, framed by the dark doorway I sit and strike a match, watch it burn. I descend the ladder and leave. The audience are left standing in a dark room and eventually I turn the lights back on.