Am I being too safe?
Here I go again questioning my proposed balloon arch, am I being too safe with this? Am I trying to fit in too much with the rest of the group? Deep down I want to do something live but I also worry that I wont have a presence in the show for 3 months, again I question, does this really matter? The strength in my work is having a live presence and using myself as material in a temporary situation. I could simply do a live piece on the opening night and repeat it intermittently over the 3-month period say once a week. I guess how long and when will depend on the nature of the work. I really struggle making proposals 2/3 months in advance of actually realising the work as it always changes. I feel really strongly that I do not want to show video documentation and that I want to use the energy and situation of an opening night. These feelings of worry are part of my process when I make live work, fear of looking stupid and crossing the line of the ‘status quo’ fills me with anxiety but also drives my work. I sense that the group would rather I showed a video or an object as they are easier to curate which I feel is the wrong attitude.
This week I have been doing some research on the Internet looking for images, which represent ‘celebrations’ and ‘parties’ this is helping me build a picture of how I want my mini event to look. I feel that the balloon drop idea is what I want to go with and to start building the performance around this. I need to consider if I want my event to look like an informal party or more corporate looking? Could I somehow combine the two aesthetics? I really like the structure of a corporate stand, which has two or three elements such as a display board, poster stand and plinth. These objects would be easy to move around the space and place next to the balloon net. On the Internet I found information about Liverpool’s sister cities, whatever that really means? They are Cologne, Germany and Shanghai, China. From this research I am eager to have an ‘International’ flavour to my performance. On a-n website I have been reading the visual arts research paper titled ‘Biennial and citywide events’ and I particularly enjoyed Jan Verwoert piece ‘Forget the national: Perform the International in the key of the local (and vice versa)!’ (www.a-n.co.uk/p/471538/) When I think of ‘events’ I also consider this to be birthday parties, weddings, a dinner party, and meeting up with friends. However I am aware of how large-scale events are taking over our city spaces for example last year we had the ‘International Arts Festival’ in Manchester, the following month, ‘Spanish weekend’ and after this was the Jazz Festival.
