NEWVOLUTIONS-LPAC,19th January :2013
My day began at 11am when I met Dr Traci Kelly at LPAC, also present was Sara Ella from Hull College of Art and Design. We began by discussing the parameters of Live Art and what constitutes a performance. It was decided that Sara and I should go to the centre of Lincoln and develop a micro-performance, i.e that which is performative but is so small it could be missed. The other of the duo should document this performance either visually or in written form.
Sara's first performance was based on her own obssesive compulsive disorder and centred around her entering a public convenience and washing her hads many time, I was to photograph her entering the toilet and when she returned.Luckily the door was open so I could get a couple of candid photos of her during this process. Conclusion was that she made the lavatory attendant uncomfortable with the idea that something that is neither-neither,i.e not a performance and not an action of reality.This poises interesting questions about what is performance and is it still a performance if we do not document it in some way, did it, does it etc.
My performance at this stage was not so subtle-I assumed the character of a Northern scallie and proceeded to ask everyone I passed if I could have a cigarette. Naturally they were having none of it and were not sure if I was on drugs, drunk or insane.What was interesting was ignoring my own intrinsically antisocial behaviour and playing a character in order to gauge a reaction.
Exercise 2
On turning to Studio 1-we were joined by Maxine a budding Taiwanese Live Artist based in Leicester. Our next challenge was to instigate a Live Art intervention which highlighted the audience as key protagonist i.e their reaction is the performance so of we toddled back to the High Street.
Maxine: Collected snowballs and invited members of public to eat them asking the general public if they were edible and delicious. She instigated this in such an ethereal way full of fun, naïve yet in control and all knowing. People didn't want to be rude but were busy and got on their way.
Sara:Not being in authority but taking the pedestrian crossing under ownership asked the people using the crossing to be careful and mind their step when crossing the road. A very interesting intervention in the sense that Sara was not in a uniform or any particular position of authority but had taken it unto herself for people to take care when crossing the road.In our busy lives there are few strangers who take it unto themselves to look out for each other so I thought this was a very well-meaning act and said a lot about our attitudes to each other under an urban situation.
James:Thought it would be good to be challenge the idea of the social norm of going about ones own business on the High Street and not interacting with everyone-so decided to shake hands with as many people as possible and give them my best wishes for the day.The outcome was astounding,people were very surprised and were quite happy to say hello but found it strange that I wanted to shake their hands seemed to be against protocol. However a few people did and I thought it was an interesting intervention in the sense that I broke down barriers and made a statement about what is socially acceptable I mean what is wrong with shaking hands with a person it is just the social context that matters, or should not?
Exercise 3.
The third exercise we instigated after discussing our previous findings with Traci Kelly was the idea of doing two perfomances in town of different lengths and seeing how this went down. I decided I would sing a couple of rock n roll songs just to gauge a reaction and see if I could gather an audience. People smiled and walked by as I don't think they understood the nature of the performance, I mean I could have been anyone just singing in the middle of the high street.I think I hunless you have a clear modus operandi then you don't really have a covenant with your audience and are in some way you are invisible. However I like the idea of this, that people are walking on a Saturday afternoon and various madness is occurring which you can notice out of the corner of their eye and connect with or not depending on your own disposition.
Maxine:the artist did a very interesting intervention where she was giving out free snowballs, in this case the innocence of her work seemed to draw people in and although they were a little bit afraid that the snowballs were going to get thrown at them they actually seemed charmed by her staging.
Sara: This artists intervention at this stage continued on with the invisibility of her washing hands in an OCD fashion. This time Sara attacked a bench with her wet wipes and cleaned all the dirt and snow off it. Once again totally invisible unless you cared to question its Surreality.thought it was a really interesting slice of her practice-and the idea that our thoughts seem to go away when we are busy cleaning, making art etc.
A really great day and I learnt a lot-documenting and performing with two talented artists.A good time was had by all!
