Continued from last post…
Tom’s team did a performance that articulated the US outsider artist Henry Darger. One of the jurors suggested it had been done before (what hasn’t?) but Rafal had never performed anything before and he did the whole thing. They won the audience votes this week and got the prize. (A massage. Each.)
Pavel tattooed a stencil of the face of the host (art student turned pop producer) on to belly pork and invited him to eat it at a set table in the studio. Pop will eat itself, etc. They also took an unpopular public sculpture and covered it in a popular free newspaper called “15 minutes” – to the annoyance of the local police, the entertainment of onlookers and, of course, the delight of the camera crew.
My team, sadly, was the runt pup of the week. We invented a new brand, a product. It was a drink, we named it after a play on the Lithuanian word for possibility (Galimbe: switch the light on), and the strapline was that with this product, you can do anything if you want to, or not – it’s up to you. Of course, there’s nothing in the product – it’s 20 per cent packaging, 80 per cent you. It reminded me of Omid Dhajili’s story about Beckett in The Times not long ago. Anyway, the jurors – and presumeably the viewers – felt that this was lost on them – we came last.
There’s more to say on the project in general – the resources, which can be fantastic if you have the wherewithal to ask for them, the relationship between reality TV and making art and the attitudes of the jurors who have been picked to talk about what we do. But these will have to come when I have more time.
There was a local dispute in my team, too. It didn’t involve me directly, but, after a cry to me for help from one of these very young people, I tried to keep it from the damn cameras who were sniffing around like terriers down a rabbit hole. And in my attempt to protect, the camera focused on me. Horrible. Anyway, there have been some team changes and I don’t want to go through that again.
It was an utterly exhausting week – a real head-f**k. I very nearly came home in despair but for the support and understanding of the group – the artists who I’m living with.
I’ve been asked to be involved with making a book of the project. I think there’s a good one to be written about collaboration – using this project as a hook and narrative. Eero’s the man to write it. We’re going to talk to the man with the money next week. It’s another good reason to stay on.
ps Gotta go with Saulius to a laser company and then the forest, so pics will have to come later…
