The Lost Library and Word Collecting

Ingredients:

40 minutes
Mute
Low Plinth
Black and white stripy blazer
Car boot items
Sign

Directions:

Stand on plinth holding one item at a time, using arms and body to show the item, interacting through gesture and eye contact with passers-by staying silent, with a simple sign at the base of the plinth reading ‘What’s your price for the item I’m holding?’   I wave at people going past in cars leaving the site, this becomes part of my routine and gets the most engagement.  (Gestures slowed).  Overhear one guy saying  ‘Wish I could get my wife to do that.’ And a mother explaining my appearance as best she could to a young child.

Result:

Engaging people through gesture and eye contact, seeking an honest interaction in a world that increasingly seems to be absorbing untruths in the media.

Unlike in the conventional retail space where prices are usually fixed – at a car boot sale we have the opportunity to barter.  Bridging the gap between the gallery, where a limited range of people frequent, to an event attended by many demographics visiting as buyers, sellers and those who just want to be entertained or social.

Having worked with words and text for a long while, I’m finding I now need to seriously limit my use of them; only reading and writing what is essential.

Doing as much research through video and imagery, and doing things rather than writing about them.

I wrote around a month ago ‘This season I will mostly be wearing my actions.” As I was clarifying my practice.

I have held back from really diving into live-art.  I find when I look at LADA (link) and ArtAdmin (link) that I feel I don’t fit there either.  What I see there is louder and clearer than my work.  I feel I’m working with subtleties.

I having been thinking and mulling and procrastinating so much, because I’m really nervous of where I’m going.  I had a notion to do my giving out words silently in the centre of a tourist city (wanting as much interaction as I can get).  I have now sourced a black and white stripy jacket, I just need a plastic crate, black fabric and cartridge holder (for the jars of words).

In my last live-art appearance in Deptford I was silent for 6 hours.  This was far more engaging and exciting than I’d imagined it could be.  I’d reduced the text down to giving out one word and a lost library membership card.  But there were written instructions all around, but I don’t think these clarified the piece for anyone.

Distilling this piece further to only giving out the one word and having none of the other paraphernalia with me, just what I am wearing and something to stand on so I am noticed (and hopefully approached)

The lost library handle could go now..It’s moved on from being about libraries to minimising text and maximising physical interaction.

I’ve become disillusioned with text.  It doesn’t live up to its promises, but physical action and interaction can.

Text is no longer my most expressive material,  my feet are.

Now – this appears to be a jump from what I’ve been producing to now and that statement, but it’s been there throughout my life.

Being attuned to the environment I’m in through my senses but primarily my feet and physical gestures – AKA over-sensitivity – is something I need to face through my practice.  (not sure of this sentence, it’s sideways)

I feel connected with my direct environment.  I’ve been attempting to communicate an idea through the live-art I’ve been doing, though not very clearly to myself and others.

It’s now a good time to review the Dancing in the Galleries conversations I had much earlier in the year at Oriel Davies.