Escalator Performing Arts

Mentoring with Bob Levene

21.09.09

I had a really useful mentoring session with Bob Levene in her studio, having posted her a DVD of my work. We discussed problems I had come across trying to fit into particular genres, and came up with methods of making a piece of work to show in two or three different contexts (eg theatre/gallery/film festival). The most apparent one was something I had touched on in the past (but without much determination), and that was performance-to-camera. It would suit the exploratory/science demonstration elements of my work, and would mean that I had an object to send to galleries or experimental film festivals which was still performance, but didn’t rely on re-performing the same piece every time.

Another discussion point was this: I am interested in the simple physics of sound, especially in relation to human experience, and I expressed concerns that I was acting as a second-rate scientist. One of the most useful things Bob said (and I am paraphrasing: don’t quote her on this!) was that obviously art practice is also a form of research, and to bear in mind that a few hundred years ago the arts and the sciences were both forms of philosophy. We also discussed the possibility of going to talk to a scientist to find out how they formulate ideas for experiments. I might see if I can arrange something within this Escalator period.

When I arrived I noticed a pile of books, many of which I had. One in particular was “The Audible Past” by Jonathan Sterne, which I had bought a few months ago but still not read. That can be no. 1 in my list of things to do. She also gave me a few projects to look at, and then a list of weblinks. I’ll aim to look at all of them before the next meeting.

Task No.2 was to simplify my wordpress site: it does the job, and lists all my recent projects, but the wordpress bits (RSS feed, Login, etc etc) are too prominent in that layout. I will redesign it to a two-column site, and make an effort to put more of my videos on Vimeo and embed them. That will overcome the issues I have had with trying to represent sound-based work using photos and a sound clip!

I think Task No.3 can be to develop a performance-to-camera. I might re-work ‘Cans’, which was filmed live, but had an additional stereo soundtrack to turn it into a more accurate document. I could play with the scale of the screen a little more so that it was just a headshot. Part of my reason for doing this Escalator project was that I find I only have time to work on things that have a specific performance date (or financial obligation!), and that it means I perhaps don’t develop my work as thoroughly (with experimentation) in between times. This performance-to-camera could be a good start.

Event 5

Take a Look at Me Now

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

30.08.09

I saw a video piece by Zorka Wollny, called ‘Flee the Frame’ in which multiple screens showed the results of separate camcorder footage of a game piece in a railway station. Each of the participants had to attempt to catch the other members on video, without getting caught themselves. It was really mesmerising and light-hearted, and I liked the way the rules of the game gradually became apparent if you gave the piece enough time. I am interested in the formal gallery presentation of an intervention activity (which was also a carefully designed performance-to-camera). It was lively and inventive, and might influence my approach to using video and multiple subjects, particularly because it was another method of negotiating architectural space.

Event 2

Toby Huddlestone: Artist Talk

Outhouse, Norwich

07.08.09

Two aspects of Toby’s work interested me in particular. The first was his ongoing series of interventions in front of artworks in galleries, filmed unobtrusively, and in most cases conducted without a live audience. They are published online, and have a secondary audience who can view them as a body of work, rather than one quick incident in a space. He said that these are composed as performances-to-camera, and that shyness plays a part in this decision. I think that the collecting of video becomes the focus of the work, more so than the action itself.

The second aspect was his piece “Walking at the same speed as people”, which was a personal intervention in a busy commuter stretch of pavement. The people he is mirroring presumably experience the work as a slightly uncomfortable few seconds, in a space in which they are forced to behave in a particular way by the architecture.

Events 3 & 4

Richard Long: Heaven and Earth

Tate Britain

Sound Escapes

Space, Mare Street, London

15.08.09

I used to love Richard Long’s work when I was at sixth form because it seemed amazing that you could turn walking and mapping into an art practice. I’d not really revisited his work since then, so it was really interesting to see this retrospective after the intervening ten years. I like his most recent work, which manifests in the gallery space as a colour photograph, overlaid with coloured graphic text, much like a film poster. It is different from his handpainted texts of the 60s and 70s: less about the hand of the artist perhaps? The most interesting piece of the exhibition was actually the room full of his catalogues and artist’s books, because the scale (like notebooks) seems a step closer to the activity of the walks. They also represent a pretty comprehensive collection of approaches to disseminating live practice through text and object, which is something I am considering during this Escalator research period. (It was also full of maps, which are a personal fascination of mine…)

Sound Escapes was a brilliant exhibition: a great balance of proper theory (from both scientists and artists), and great artworks. My favourite was a really simple demonstration of resonance by Dawn Scarfe, inspired by Helmholtz. She developed a new set of ‘listening glasses’ (with a scientific glass-blower), which you picked up with white gloves and placed against your ear: they are calibrated to resonate at specific frequencies, so they help the listener to isolate particular sounds in the room. I particularly enjoyed the delicacy and ritual with which they were handled by the public. Visually, it was presented in a fairly straight historical manner, with typeset booklets in the style of the 1863 publication, and whilst this was appropriate to the concerns of the artist, I could imagine a more contemporary presentation would be just as effective in demonstrating the concept.

Performance 1 & Event 1

Rub Me Up The Wrong Way 2: The Live Art Supergig

Norwich Arts Centre

25.07.09

I performed as part of other/other/other, with our SPILL-premiered piece “Longwinded in Five Parts”. This piece is about generating sounds (and notes) from a giant modelling-balloon sculpture, and refers to the history of avant-garde music, with formal presentation, and a score. It is also equally about the audience’s expectations of formal music performance, and the conflictingly ludicrous use of materials. If we had intended to explore purely sound in the piece we could have used single colour (white or black) balloons, and probably the large weather-balloon style ones, rather than the multi-coloured, clown-like modelling balloons. I enjoy performing this piece, as it is one of the few straight stage-based pieces I have done, and developing a score for the materials was an interesting exercise. However, it is primarily a collaborative experimental piece, and I am glad this fell within the start of the Escalator research period, because I can use elements of this piece to develop my individual practice. Things I may consider over the next few months include:

Lighting: can/should any of my non-stage performances use lighting more effectively?

Text: the audience were given a formal programme note; can I explore the relationship between text/publicity and event more?

Music: how much should I differentiate my practice from sound-based music?

Stage: can I develop a sound-based performance, which isn’t music, but which could be performed on a stage (and repeated?)

The other work that evening was based on the theme of “The Live Art Supergig”, like a mini Glastonbury. Hunt & Darton’s performance was interesting in terms of the uncomfortably extended phrases of sound or movement, which regularly shifted the performance away from the familiarity of the lyrics. There was brave use of a cappella singing, which felt like bedroom singers suddenly thrust into public performance: it was entertaining and uncomfortable at the same time. I was also interested in Foster and Gilvan’s use of space: they appeared during intervals and led a selected group of audience members into the stairwell to the NAC darkroom, in which they serenaded the group with a mixture of love songs and sea-shanties. It was a good-humoured series of performances, which worked well with the space. I love acoustics in stairwells, and it was nice to hear this one put to good use.