06.09.09
THE SHOW- BEFORE & AFTER
Initially I was experiencing a mixture of excitement and nervousness prior to the opening. On the morning of the exhibition I was a little worried about the clock piece which consists of a 5 inch tv scrren showing a film which would be inserted behind a glass panel in the clock. I had my suspicions that the power cables may be a little faulty so I thought it would be a good idea to replace it with a more reliable cable to rule out any problems. Richard Negre, the French artist offered to drive me to a DIY store in Pont Saint Maxence- 8kms away. The store luckily stocked the cable and when I brought it back to the chateau it seemed to be working well. I installed the piece at lunch time and it had been running for around 2 hours quite perfectly. After documenting the work I realised that it wasn’t quite straight so adjusted it. However when I moved the TV the cable somehow disconnected itself from the machine – I re-inserted the cable, pressed the power button and nothing. It would seem that the inner pin had been damaged and this had been the cause of the faulty connection all along. Now the TV was completely irreparable. I tried everything to fix this problem put to no avail. Richard even kindly offered to take me back to Pont St Maxence to see if an electronic store would stock the TV. Sadly there were no TV screens of this kind so I had to show my piece ‘Trapeze Time’ on my lap- top. This was a big compromise yet I felt that it was important for people to see the work as it was mentioned quite extensively in the catalogue. It felt as though luck was not on my side.
My performance that was scheduled for 5pm went well. It lasted for 1 hour, much shorter than previous performances yet some interesting things came from it and hopefully I can push the work forward.
I shall return to Sacy-le-Petit in 2 weeks to work on Invitations d’artistes where I will be working in the local butchers with a lady called Madame Noel. I shall be recording the sights and sounds over a 2 day period where I will be helping out in the kitchen,
