Post-tutorial (you all know I love my 'posts'!)

So - had my tutorial with Geraint yesterday. Although it wasn't overly helpful in terms of my practical work (there been a distinct lack of my own practical work and all at the moment) talking to someone really helped me to pin point what it is that I am concerned with.

I have been skirting around issues of documentation, technology and embodiment all term.  I really think that what I'm concerned with is liveness and how time presents itself. I'm really interested in the temporality that is inherent in live performance, as well as its ephemeral nature. I think that I have been suspicious of media and technology because I see them not only as artificial but I haven't understood how they relate to the documentation of time and how that impacts on the body. They are kind of removed from how I see time, they are not happening in the here and now, they are presented in a medium that can be fixed and therefore doctored, this automatically makes me trust the content less (especially because I am the kind of person that will trust a visceral experience above anything else)

 Now I am beginning to see how examining the nature of media and technology in relation to time and the body can be investigated performatively...yeah, that's it really - I'm happy about that! Still learning how to use certain technologies but am beginning to plan a series of experiments for next term when we have more time!

*Yey*

My Potential Focus for the Year

I'm still trying to decided what I should be focusing on this year. Every time I think that I've taken a step forward I stop and question myself...it's driving me up the wall, so I have decided that I am going to make a plan and sick to it.

I have been torn between wanting to look at the effects of media and technology on live performance and the body, and looking at the female body in relation to sex and feminist theory. Now I am beginning to see that the two are actually (or can be) linked. The main link being that I can situate my body within both and both affect how I make and contextualise my work.

Feminist theory has turned out to be a real passion of mine but I hate talking about it because I find it hard to articulate how I view or use it, however, if I am thinking of working more on feminist theory I guess I should work that out! I find materialist feminist theory is how I understand things, it allows me to be able to decode the construction of performances and look at systems at work in popular culture.

The main problem that I have with feminist theory is that I think a lot of it is outdated. I don't feel like we have really moved away from the 'second sighting of women' when we really should have done. I still like the tenets of the theory and find them useful, but find how they are applied in many cases infuriating. I would really like to be able to take the tenets of material feminist theory and turn it into something more androgynous...if possible!?! 

I have been worried that if I move down this route then my theory will take over again. After looking at the handbook I realised that my research has to be reflected in my practical work and now feel a bit restricted. I don't know how to make work that isn't reflected or overtly informed by theory, especially when i have such a passion for it, but don't want my practical work to be as dry as it was.

Maybe I would be better off on the research route rather than the professional practice route? I have been thinking that maybe I am a theorist not a practitioner...I can't seem to see myself as both (as I would like to be).

Presentation and Tube Theatre

After the presentations that we gave last week I felt pretty lost. I realized that I have no idea what I want to create or how to go about doing any kind of practical work...especially if I'm not working from performance theory (as you all know I have decided to give up on the theory for a while and see what happens to my work - gulp).

I feel a little like I have been de-centered and am actually really scared that I won't be able to create any practical work period! SO - I'm metaphorically getting back on the horse straight away before I realize that I am too scared to work at all. :o) I am therefore starting practical work straight away. My first idea is a performance that will take place on the tube. My ideas are still coming together, I am finding it challenging to say the least working in this new way.

I have all of these questions floating around my head like: why am I creating this? What am I trying to communicate? Who am I trying to communicate to? Have performances on the tube been over done?...and naturally I want to turn to my theory books to help me answer these burning questions! Although I know that all of these questions need addressing I have decided that I am creating the performance because I want to and will work out the specifics as the work progresses. This is a real backwards way of working for me and am looking forward to seeing what happens.

Anyway...the performance. I am currently trying to create a world on the tube of characters that have become stuck there, they have been riding the tube continually for years and years and are unable to get off. The performers will be covered in dust and have the same conversations over and over again whilst traveling up and down the Victoria line. I am looking into the documentation of this performance as an integral part of the work (as this is something that I really want to address).

I like the idea of having one of the performers having a hidden camera (actually that was Harriet's idea). I realllly want to invite people to come and see the performance and request that they record the performance in anyway that they wish and then pass the documentation on to me to compile. I realize that the logistics of this are problematic as any invited audience would have to find me! hmmmm

I'm currently trying to work out a script and the details but will let you know my progress.

Does anybody have any other thoughts or ideas on the documentation of this performance?

Participation Project and Documentation

I have recently been thinking a great deal about the documentation of performance work. Firstly, I would like to clarify that when I talk about performance work I am referring specifically to work that was intended to be seen live (not, for example, a performance that was intended to be viewed through the medium of film).

After our first day working on the participation project with FrenchMottershead, I had a number of questions that were niggling me regarding documentation and the nature of the work that we had undertaken. Firstly, I questioned whether the act of approaching members of the public, asking them to write something on a piece of paper and taking a photograph of them was at all a performance. I can see that there are performative elements within this act…but how much of that constitutes a live performance, if at all?

If Corrine was not present when I approached members of the public and conversed with them, and vice versa, then would the lack of an immediate spectator have meant that the event was less performative?

When asked “What is your project about?” Corrine answered, “The conversation and interaction that we are having right now”. If that is the case then surely, as the conversation was in real time and live, the project does indeed constitute a performative event, even if it does not constitute a contrived performance. Although, if we do view the work as a performative event I do have to stop and question whether every conversation we have is also a performative event; or is it the inclusion of a speech act that makes the event more performative?...anyway, before I digress:

If we are now looking at the work as a performative event (which is in itself quite obviously debatable), I am left with the burning question of “how does the picture that we took as part of the work fit into all of this?”

The problem that I seem to be having with the documentation of live work is that

This is not a performance

In the same way that this is not a pen

This is the only way that I can think of expressing what I am trying to say. However, the picture that we took as part of the project;

doesn’t pretend to be a representation of the live events that occurred. It is an art work in its own right, it can stand on its own, yet it was formed as a product of a live performative event. This fact enables the photograph to stand on its own whilst simultaneously being a trace of an event that occurred without claiming to represent that event in anyway shape or form. I feel that this is therefore, a form of documentation that holds much more integrity than simply filming or photographing a live performance for archiving purposes.

I also have to add that whilst I have been writing this and looking for images I have come across some great photographs of Live Art that are thoughtful and beautifully produced (check out Manuel Vason's work)...so maybe it is just thoughtless and badly documented work that I have a problem with!?!

Please let me know what you think or any counter arguments!!

Surface

Here are some photos of a performance that I was in last year. Please excuse the layout I wanted them as a slide show but don't know how to do it (yet!).

Anyway, this was a really important experience for me as it was one that made me rethink what type of work I wanted to produce.

Before I took part in this performance it had been years since I had done any straight acting, nevermind taken direction, or indeed participated in something that wasn't my work. I had strayed away from theatre (I had been on a stage since I was about 5!) and became obsessed with Live and Performance Art. Been part of a company again was really exciting. I engaged with contemporary theatre and realised that "Theatre" does not mean what the west end produces, or something that is easy to digest. There can be a plot, a narrative with strong characters, set and costume, and still hold all the edge and excitement that I found in Performance art.

This production made me remember what I loved about performing and creating art within this domain in the first place. I have now decided that I want to work in the binary between "Theatre" and "Performance Art".

The company who wrote and directed the performance of Surface are currently establishing themselves in Leicester (which is brilliant becasue there is a huge void where this type of work should be in the city). If you want to check out the website or read more about the production go to http://www.whiteroomtheatre.co.uk I played Amy

First and Foremost

It only took forever...but I got here in the end!

I will upload some images of a previous performance and a video of a past performance as well (it'll take me a while to figure out how to get them on here).

I have to say that I don't have much of my work documented. I always found documentation of live performances problematic and so stayed away from it...I regret that decision slightly now as I would love to have something to look back on and to show you all. One of the founding principles in a lot of my work was that they addressed the liveness of performance, I never really figured out a way of documenting work that I was happy with. I found video and photographs poor substitutes to the live event and often misleading. Perhaps documentation of Live and Performance art wouldn't be a bad issue to address. It is certainly something that I believe performance artists should consider.

I once saw a performance by Chris Canavan where he was naked but locked in time by pouring hot wax over his head (don't worry he did have protective material over his face). The wax locked his body to the floor and Canavan stated that this also locked him into time. The main premise of his performance (or so his blurb in the NRLA booklet said) was that once the performance was over it was lost to time and space as those events were not documented and could never be recreated in that exact environment because time is continually moving...I liked the idea until I saw it was been photographed by Manuel Vason. In the instant that I saw the documentation of the work I knew that Canavan had not achieved his aim as he had introduced a whole new set of elements that addressed the documentation of time. His performance was never going to be lost to time and space once it was over because it will be forever archived!

I'm still trying to work out what it is that I want to achieve through this year and what I want to create. This time last year (before I interviewed for VLP) I had really set ideas of where I wanted to go. I was heavily theory based and took inspiration for any performances that I created from performance theory. Now I want to try something different...I just don't know what.

To help me work it out I have decided to go right back to the beginning and think about what it is that attracted me to Theatre and Performance in the first place. I'm hoping that looking at where I have come from might help me to focus on where I want to go.

I have a few half baked ideas bumbling around my head - so as soon as they are worked out I'm sure that I will have more to say :o)