Pipilotti rist

DANCE OF REALITY

Nathaniel Mellors

Cinzia Cremona

Incident No. 253

Cinzia Cremona - The other person

Cinzia Cremona - Before you now

THE OTHER PERSON

'Yes its for you'

'Come and lie down'

'Make yourself comfortable'

'Just relax'

'Were you dreaming'

Expression of a possible world in a perceptual field - components for field for itself in a new way.

No longer the subject of the field or the object of the field - the other person will become the condition under which not only subject and object are redistributed but also figure and ground

The other person shapes the gravitational field. Creating concentric zones of intimacy and inviting shared vulnerability. This contrasts my video 'CRISIS FULL LENGTH MOVIE' - because this is addressed to myself but really to the wider audience, Cremona addresses the viewer completely and obviously, my address to the viewer is masked in apparent address to myself. But which is actually more intimate, because I am 'addressing myself' mine is very intimate, feels like you've been let in on something private. Cremona's address is very personal but its almost too much, perhaps actually creating distance between herself and the viewer, but i think this is the point, to highlight the camera. 

Relational processes mediated by the screen these video performances address the public directly and ask personal and self reflective questions, whereas with my work these questions are asked to myself explicitly on camera. 

Cremona says you have to accept invitation within yourself otherwise they are simply monologues, the viewer has to allow themselves in to it. However my whole installation is aimed at excluding people, whilst at the same time being slightly open enough to welcome them in, physical conflict to reflect the mental conflict within oneself. 

 Cremona attempts an impossible diaglogue with the viwer? is it impossible though, do you need to reply for a dialogue?? i attempt impossible dialogue with myself, obviously they cannot reply to each other but again, does it need a reply...#

 Cremona on the screen - screens very familar to us - most of our own communication on screen based snapchat, text, messenger maybe even more than our face to face communication. The screen shapes our identity, always seen through edited version, its our edited personality. video allows the same. What is a real moment in virtual culture?

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

Frustration of miscommunication ? different angles and lighting suggest two people

'subjectivity is approached from a psychoanalytical perspective as fragmented and unstable continuously produced in rationality.

BEFORE YOU NOW

- 'Before i start the performance'

'before you start thinking'

'i want to share this moment before you become a viewer and i a performer'

'we are here now, just you and me'

'i know you can feel the difference'

'im a bit scared, of what you might think'

'what do you expect'

'can you see yourself in the screen or in my eyes'

SAID SMIRKING - 'I'm scared you might reject me. But I also trust you. I can feel your presence im not really scared'

'But before I start the performance i can tell you what i think'

The smirk - we are being played by her, we all knows its not true its a ploy. In my piece am i unknowingly playing the audience by 'excluding' them, luring them into the solipsist circle even though its not for them. But really it is for them because its in a gallery setting the whole thing is false.

Cremona lures you in but then snaps out of it with comments like  'this seems so real and natural' is she mocking us or mocking herself? I am quite obviously mocking myself  but in a very different way to her, mine much more distressing.   

Psycho Social exhibition

OFF SITE SHOW

Personal piece –

Too rushed- I could’ve experimented with layout for the show – instead what about TV’s in corner of room? Creating solipsistic circle enclosing the audience?? But then of course this would no longer exclude them and the audience would not be myself and the objects it would also include them.

Objects in centre of circle – what if I separated the objects dotted them around or had the TV’s in the corners of the room with some objects in front of each one that was the audience would still be the objects. And it would all be less literal – there would be more for the audience to work out – rather than there being a literal object audience- however there is already quite a lot to digest.

Perhaps the TV’s should’ve been more enclosed a very tight circle barely giving the objects any room, that way no one could walk through it and the audience would barely be able to even see it. (But I enjoyed spectating to see when people would stand in the middle, what made them feel they were invited too? Perhaps the allure of the objects?

Or perform within the circle to myself as added facet rather than the inclusion of objects. Or be one of the points of the circle still performing to objects to add live actual presence as of course ‘present day’ me in the video is technically now past me. I could’ve been reflecting live on the exhibition on people’s reactions etc, OR on my reaction to being there performing watching the video of myself reflecting and reflecting on it (what a mouthful)

Instead of the video being about past presence and future it could just be a circle of videos of myself reflecting to myself a circle that never ends, this would also be quite overwhelming but in a good way, overload of the absurdity of it.

ALONGSIDE the installation, I could’ve sat in a corner just reflecting out loud to myself but away from the circle to separate the live element of myself from this weird stuck version of myself.

The grandma video was problematic …. Was too funny, humour perhaps undermined it, but also I do like to use humour it is key to mock myself and undermine. The music was too obvious and clichéd (however I did choose not to use the music in the end)

It was perhaps not obvious enough I was mocking myself or using cliché on purpose as a way to critique, some people may have thought I was being serious with this.

Also on the surface it seemed like I was mocking the old women, when really I was just using them to mock myself, (the route of a lonely solipsist).

The nature of surveillance is often seen as cruel but obviously self-surveillance is not seen the same way.

I massively regret not doing my performance, I excused myself on the night because I was exhausted and much stressed but really I was using those because I was just scared. I was scared because it was so subtle that people might not realise and think I was just being rude, but really who cares about that. If I could change anything it would be doing the performance, especially because the private view was the perfect time to do it.

TEXT AND VOICE IN THE PIECE:

Subtitles – think carefully about how to use them and how text is represented. I didn’t experiment at all with text I just went for my default form, which I do think worked however to progress I need to explore other ways.

How can I challenge the voice? Or add to the voice? Separate it from the body? Separate text and voice, person and voice?

SELECTIVE SUBTITILING – I did this before with the soap opera video (from when I was 13) – however I did not do it thoughtfully enough – how can I use it to emphasise the key points.

Use a voice that isn’t my own? Or a voice that is me but a different image, or different text from someone else but in my voice made to seem like it is mine too.

VOICE – TEXT- SOUND (separate and remix)

Experiment with direct address in exhibition piece it is all aimed at ‘myself’ (even though really its clear it is not as I am making it for an audience) – I NEED TO ADDRESS THE AUDIENCE –perhaps? Like Cinzia Cremona

YOU – or also to a specific person eg my mum – address it to my mum or address it to Andrew – or someone I don’t know someone famous?

How would this then make the other audience feel, excluded? Or more intrigued? How would that re-act to exclusion?

ADVICE FROM CRIT:

Essays – Kawara On kawara

-          Narcissism

Practical advice – presentation issues, space, music choice

I often find that people don’t know how to crit it because it is about myself so they cant get into it enough- I did not really find the crit very helpful, because of time I had a significant amount less time and it was more rushed. However the essays suggested were extremely helpful and relevant to my work.

We held our own crit on Saturday night (Mel, Bob, Rosie, Laila and myself)- this was very helpful hearing from the people we worked with – feeling comfortable enough to speak to each other- it was very important to me to know what my collaborators had to say and how they would suggest to improve my work. The general thing was that it had too much going on which I agree with, it was a lot to digest and without understanding the concept properly perhaps a lot of it did not make sense to people. It maybe wasn’t clear enough that is was me with the trolley walking down the street or me in the ‘soap opera’ video and so without that knowledge they did not seem to link. The soap opera video was also perhaps offensive (homophobic) if you did not realise it was made by 13 year olds. Also the level of criticality not obvious enough?

Also not clear that my press release was just another level of mocking, making it over complex and pretentious sounding on purpose to try and alienate the viewer- setting them up to be alienated from the video. Perhaps there was too much mocking going on.

OVERALL EXHIBTION

Overall we worked well collectively and communicated clearly we had plenty of meetings in preparation and made lots of visits to the space. I think our work all tied in together well and there were clear dialogues between them.

We used the space well too, not at first though, it took a lot of moving around and compromise.

Although I think my work was quite bitty in the centre. I also think that the darkened space could’ve been used more successfully with people in that area spreading out more.  Laila’s piece worked really well in the space, weaving through others pieces of work, however there were some problems with health and safety so sadly some of her work was compromised because of this.

Joel’s performance was a major disruption due to the lack of communication from Joel and also lack of organisation. It was frustrating especially as he missed the crit so we didn’t have a opportunity to hear from him properly but I understand that he had to finish the work. But it was stressful for all of us involved having the exhibition all set up but still Joel not being finished right past the start time. Then there were issues when the performance began as it felt like it took over because it was so long which we had not anticipated and because we had no idea what his plans were we didn’t know how to re-act to it, which was frustrating as his collaborators in the show.  But we have all spoken as a group now about it and we have all learned from this experience that we all need to communicate better.

Perhaps for next time too we should have all worked more with the space in mind, I certainly did not consider it enough when making the piece and this was a mistake because I could’ve used the space a lot better, rather than just plonking the stuff in the middle.

I think our promotion of the show was very successful we had a huge crowd come, a resident of the Hive estimated about 130 at one point which was very exciting.

Chinese Philosophers

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/09/forget-mindfulness-stop-trying-to-find-yourself-start-faking-it-confucius?CMP=fb_gu

Being John Malcovich

'Being John Malkovich utilizes a surreal persona transferral technique to address, among other things, problems of displaced desire.'
I often think about wanting to be inside someone else's mind, so i can then compare it to me own. However in the film this only leaves people realising what they are missing, for example Lotte becomes hooked on the experience because she finally feels comfortable in her skin but only in her skin in Malkovich's skin. But is the more a self -realisation that really what she was missing her whole life was a mans body, or is ignorance actually bliss? Then Maxine having experienced the desire of two people from one body, or the womans gaze coming from a mans body, does not desire them separately. Once you have experienced something greater you cannot go back to the way things were before. Or when Maxine is pregnant, whose baby is it, it is said to be Lotte's but it is Malkovich's DNA, does Lotte being in his head at point of conception mean that it is her child. Or most spooky at the end, Craig in the mind of the daughter of Lotte and Maxine, yearning for Maxine still.

A really fascinating point was when Malkovich entered his own portal, what would happen?, i actually paused the film at the point trying to think of possibilities, would he just get trapped in a loop of endless Malkovich going in circles or would the two Malkovich's cancel each other out and so he would just become a vegetable in a body, or would he become double Malkovich, with two minds, would he get trapped there? Would he explode? No instead his unique experience was a world full of Malkovich where the only word was Malkovich, although this to me didnt add up to me, but perhaps its better they treated it that way, as if they treated it more seriously then it would move the story somewhere else.

After that something really stuck with me when Malkovich wanted the portal to be closed, was it his right just because it was his head, did Craig have any right? Even more worrying when he said he would take him to court and Craig questioned who would be thinking in court. How to you deal with the possibility of someone invading your thoughts.

Craig likes puppetry because he can get inside someone else's skin, he also says to the chimp that conciousness is a terrible thing, being able to think and feel. He feels through the puppets giving them emotions, he is putting his terrible curse of conciousness into them. The same could be said for Lotte and her obsession with animals, having trapped all these animals with her in her concious human life and reflecting human emotions onto them, for example the chimps supressed childhood trauma which she wants to treat through psychoanalysis. She is isolated from them as she is human. The film has so much concerning human isolation, isolation that everyone has trapped in their own thoughts, never really able to communicate what they want to. Even through experiencing life as another, they are still in their own thoughts and head within the head of another, so are still isolated. Craigs puppet show at the start forshadows this isolation as the two sexually frustrated puppet characters are isolated by a wall. The body of John Malcovich is a wall for many of the characters who enter it, for example Lotte and Craig can only have sex and be intimate with Maxine from behind the wall of Malkovich and vice versa for Maxine. Even the physical portal itself is within the walls of a wall. In a way the irony of it is that to be really in someone elses head you could no longer be aware of the self the were before, otherwise you would just be a spectator, to really be somone else you have to be them fully so therefore you would not be aware of the fact you were in someone elses head as it would be you.

'Storytelling is inherently dangerous. Consider a traumatic event in your life. Think about how you experienced it. Now think about how you told it to someone a year later. Now think about how you told it for the hundredth time. It's not the same thing. Most people think perspective is a good thing: you can figure out characters arcs, you can apply a moral, you can tell it with understanding and context. But this perspective is a misrepresentation: it's a reconstruction with meaning, and as such bears little resemblance to the event.

The other thing that happens is adjustment. You find out which part of the story works, which part to embellish, which to jettison. You fashion it. Your goal is to be entertaining. This is true for a story told at a dinner party, and it's true for stories told through movies. Don't let anyone tell you what a story is, what it needs to include. As an experiment, write a non-story. It will have a chance of being different.

I'll tell you this little story. There's something inherently cinematic about it. I run in my neighbourhood, and one day I ran past this guy running in the other direction: an older guy, a big hulky guy. He was struggling, huffing and puffing. I was going down a slight hill and he was coming up. So he passes me and he says: "Well, sure, it's all downhill that way." I loved that joke. We made a connection. So I had it in my head that this is a cool guy, and he's my friend now.

A few weeks later, I'm passing him again, and I'm thinking: "There's the guy that's cool." As we pass each other, he says: "Well, sure, it's all downhill that way." So I think: "Oh, OK. He's got a repertoire. I'm not that special. He's probably said it to other people, maybe he doesn't remember me ... but OK." I laughed, but this time my laugh was a little forced.

Then I pass him another time, and he says it again. And this time he's going downhill and I'm going uphill, so it doesn't even make sense. And I started to feel pain about this, because I'm embarrassed for him and I think maybe there's something wrong with him. And then it just keeps happening. I probably heard it seven or eight more times. I started to avoid him.

I like the idea that the story changes over time even though nothing has changed on the outside. What's changed is all in my head and has to do with a realisation on my character's part. And the story can only be told in a particular form. It can't be told in a painting. The point is: it's very important that what you do is specific to the medium in which you're doing it, and that you utilise what is specific about that medium to do the work. And if you can't think about why it should be done this way, then it doesn't need to be done.' KAUFMAN

changes all in the end to change the way it is going and realisation, this rings true to what i am doing, especially in the piece of myself talking into the camera and reflecting on my thoughts from seconds ago, everything changes through the thoughts, when nothing really changes at all.

Communication through language

I have been finding it hard to know what to make for a while, ever since really I found my old songs, plays, films i had made and my old fashion blog. There was so much in it that i knew i had to use as it felt like a very important turning point, but i found it very hard to use. Reading the songs from my 7 year old self felt very alien, i could not communicate with them properly, i did not know whether the things in the songs were genuine feelings as they were very sad and spoke about things i did not know I felt, or whether I was imagining they way people might feel and then writing songs about it. The problem is I can never know now, which is very frustrating as it was my own mind, so that mind is now gone? how can it be gone as it is me. how do I communicate with it. I envied that mind from the past as it was so much freer, i tried writing as freely as that but it was hard as i kept feeling stupid in front of myself, the third bit between language and thoughts seemed to get in the way, why did i feel stupid in front of myself, how can you use your mind to feel stupid and embarrassed about the very mind you are using. It also became very hard to then think write about all of this as everytime i would get frustrated as the words were not what was in my head, even now its frustrating to write as this is the very problem. I just noticed that i have been typing out loud whilst writing, so have been doing all three, thinking, using live language and then language in writing, all which are very different and all are doing different things. Every time i try and write about what i have been looking at with my work, i end up getting distracted by my current thinking situation thinking about the way I am transferring my thoughts into the external world incorrectly.

I have realised ever since finding all my old material is that now anything i write or do is tainted, because i have realised it can be used as artwork, this is both positive and negative, negative because subconsciously now this will always be around with everything i do, so nothing can ever been innocently written anymore. I did find anyway before that though, that i always had this feeling behind my most apparent thoughts that someone would see everything that was taken out of my mind through written language, but i have come to realise now that maybe its just myself. I want to impress my future self, not even in the far future but perhaps from a few days into the future. So aswell as trying to communicate with my past self. the future self interests me too, even the small journey from when i started writing this paragraph to now, what has changed with the language and the way i feel, i can never get back to that self, or the self that just wrote that part. Obviously its all the same self, but if i look at how much i cannot understand my self from 10 years ago, surely a very small part of me cannot understand myself from seconds ago.

I just read this whole thing back and its frustrating as its not accurately communicating what i want it to, or  maybe it is communicating what myself 5 minutes ago wanted but not myself now.

This is why I am stuck, because every time I end up getting distracted, and I cant work out how to use the old stuff I wrote or did, without just putting it in, maybe I need to extract parts.

For now to break from this I need to make something without pre thinking it, just make whatever I want unrelated to what I am doing, and then do something with it without trying to make it about what i am doing and see what happenns, I NEED N OT USE LANGUAGE FOR IT.

video of self

The videos of myself each time reflecting on myself are very unimportant or at least they were meat to be , but now I'm not sure. Watching them back each time and then reflecting on it is addictive, it is intense self analysis but only very on the surface. Each time I am getting more and more frustrated and more and more self aware but at the same time this is making me much less self aware! However it is a way of sort of interacting with myself with directly trying to converse with a pre-recorded version of myself, which I did in the crit ( although I would like to come back to this). Its funny as it reminds me of the bit in waiting for godot where one character is restrained for thinking out loud, his thoughts getting ahead of him, although when I was recording it to camera it felt much more frantic and oddly watching it back it was a lot slower, which is usually the opposite of what happens for me, I am often speaking much faster than I think I am. is this something to do with being filmed by myself, so talking to myself... Should I film myself once again talking to myself on a screen reflecting on it as its happening???

I just need to do it and stop saying ill do it. ahrigidjogogfopd LOL shutpu

I also find it funny that in it I am aware of the fact that I am questioning the things I am doing and making fun of the fact that I could be someone on youtube who peole laugh at...

THE BED SITTING ROOM

Bizarre, slapstick language but after a while it all starts to make sense, even though it doesn't really you are just used to it. The people start to turn into objects that talk at some points. It is set just after a nuclear war. One character is obsessed with the fear he will turn into a bed-sitting room. All the smiles become more and more forced as the film goes on. Rita is pregnant what will be the fate of the first baby born after the nuclear war. It is so absurd that it turns the threat of nuclear war into something no less terrifying than a 'well aimed custard pie' - through the attack of normal language and scenarios / social greeting and normalities, be-little's a fear of nuclear war (to an extent).

DRAG PANNEL

Becoming (S)he : why do drag?
Foucault: we have to create ourselves as a work of art
RuPaul : We are born naked and the rest is drag
Lacan - mirror stage
Davey wavey - youtuber - seeing himself in drag for the first time- mis-recognition of oneself
continuation of whole of physic development
The voice is a unique sonic finger print, voice as third space always mediating between the self and the other - voice matrix
 Drag lip syncing - literally having someone elses voice as there own
ADORNO - GRAMMAR PHONE-  on cd or ipod whatever the voice of singer - voice we want to hear is our own - we identify with what they are saying. - but if it was actually our own voice it wouldn't work.

Freud - NARCISM - ego of ourselves - in our heads the ego ideal  shatters
drag queen protects the ego ideal.
INFANTILE MIRROR LACAN-  that between mother and child - mother image of totalised perfection - gay heroine for drag queen

DYER - gay function of judy garland - in the face of everything she carried on singing - figure of fragmented identity
minoz - queer utopia - stage rehersal - protection

the stuff about voice and sound I find really interesting, I wonder how it can relate to my practice at the moment, working with my written voice as a child to my spoken voice now as an adult....

MY DREAMS

I have been writing down my dreams since Christmas now, but I haven't worked out what to do with them yet. I'm finding though that at the moment I'm finding it much harder to get up because of it because somehow in my in-between sleep and awake stage I'm telling myself to go back to sleep because it will make my dream better. For example in one dream the other day, I was telling myself to ignore the alarm so that I could make a soundscape in my dream, I think I was already doing this in the dream, so the alarm kept with this, I managed to stay asleep/awake with my alarm on for 2 more hours without turning it off. So was i aware i was dreaming still i do not know? I also have more desire to sleep because I want to dream because its exciting.
I also had another dream about doing a performance in a green installation with a worm on a computer screen, i have never dreamt about making art before, could this be because i am now aware of using dreams in art or just a coincidence.

End of term

This term has now come to an end, and I really feel I have nothing to show for it at all which makes me angry at myself. I feel like I'm in this rut and the more I get in, it feels the more I can get out of. I think over the easter holidays I just need to go ahead and make things for now, things that have nothing to do with anything really and see where that takes me, perhaps some random sculptures which could then be used for props or something, I'm not really sure. Of the few bits of work I have made this term, I am really not sure about any of them. The charity shop piece was ok, but It just seemed to reach a natural death, where I felt I couldn't take it any further. Perhaps really this needs to be revisited. I also think a lot of the problem with my working this term was my lack of reflection, last term I reflected a lot more frequently and this is something I really must do again. This term I was much less emotionally invested in the work and was to distracted by other things, so I need to find a way to focus again and get back into a routine, I only have myself to blame for all of this. The practice workshop week was a really great turning point but after that I was quite thrown off, having found a lot of my old stuff from when I was younger as I used to write 'songs', write plays and make videos about lots of things. These felt to me so important and I knew I had to use them but I have had so much trouble working out how. Again I think a lot of it comes from issues I had last term (but seemed to get over) surrounding the issue of just making work. I faff about to much over the ideas and thoughts and get too distracted in my own head rather than just going and MAKING something. MAKE MAKE MAKE MAKE MAKE DO IT MAKE SOMETHING YOU FOOOL.
I don't really deserve an easter break as I haven't done enough, so when I go back to Brighton I'm going to jump straight into work, and use some friends for performance stuff. I must stop saying I'm going to do stuff and instead just do stuff.

My ideas surrounding the old material I've found are very stuck in obvious things and this really frustrates me as, but I think this is also a part of the problem, I'm too scared to make something that is bad or really obvious so I just don't do it at all, and instead hope that I can get it away from being that simply by developing it in my head, which really isn't going to work. I need to not be afraid for it be to rubbish, as this is the only way it can get better.

Death Cafe

Last night I went to death café. It was interesting to speak to strangers about this topic because you loose the awkwardness that happens often when you talk to friends about it. Death is a leveller between people because everyone is clueless about it really, no one knows what happens so everything is just speculation. Everyone I spoke to was there for different reasons, many brought up a death they had experienced which I found odd, as for me the reasons that brought me there had nothing to do with death of someone else, probably because the only major deaths I have experienced close to me were my grandparents but I was really young when it happened. In some ways I don't even associate their deaths with my thoughts of death. Both my discussions were very different, the first being more serious and the second more sort of laughing at death in some ways. Through the discussion I was recommended to watch tales of the unexpected, in particular an episode about freezing the brain, which I intend to watch. I used the second discussion to bring up my younger self's thoughts on death, as I have realised that a lot of the old material I wrote when I was younger which I am using now, is a lot to do with death. People seemed intrigued that I had thought about death so much from such a young age, so I feel like this is something to think about. I was really interested in one woman's stories about her time as an undertaker, I think undertaking is such a fascinating career because you are working so closely with death everyday, why would you want to keep reminding yourself of death... but for me it would be fascinating to be up so close and personal to it. It's funny it always seems like people feel that talking about death or seeing death will somehow bring it closer. Why is there so much drama towards death, like birth it is just something that happens out of our control.

I swear I cannot write anymore finding it so hard to focus on anything for more than 5 minutes. I can barely form a sentence.

Theatre of the Absurd

Ionesco
Beckett
Adamov

Ionesco - repulsed by the theatre - grown people embarassing themselves- de-humanising . But thne he realsied that everything was too subtle that was the reason for his repulsion
metaphor for dead love as a physical corpse - growing bigger and more destructive.

Murial Spark - the drivers seat

never allowed into the main characters head - just what we see as observer- also story of events that we know happened more an account of how they happened and not of why. the character is absurd (some critics say too absurd) and

suicide----- the only thing she can take control of - sense of ownership and power over oneself - i have often thought this how with death although I dont want to die and would like to die in an unexpected way so i do not have to deal with the build up. the notion of being in control of your death is also something satisfying and a away to tackle death. even in the name of the play , drivers seat it shows this.

Bataille

Inner experience
disillusioned we realise what we are.
we wont die and we can be everything
false - dis intoxicated when we realise what we are
higher existence - organisms like economic systems, building up energy, but then then when they squander their existence.

death of god - mysticism without god
DISCOURSE must be destroyed in order to have contact with the unsayable. his book is a paradox
capitialism and illusion of discourse drives us to self sufficiency - desire to become everything to escape the fact that we are finite beings.

fever, witnessing a death, frenzied spiritual contemplation -  these raw experiences only way we can free ourselves from work exposed by capital. but  problem lies in communication - through words it then becomes subject to the capital -  disillusionment . we can never talk about them without emptying truth. paranoid sensation that the only thing worth speaking of cannot be spoken.

but the difference of self and other is not totally destroyed, there is still an awareness of the concious of the other.

we cannot solve the problem by dying


THE EYE
story of an object - passed chain through metaphors

duality of metaphors
and circular metaphor bringing things back to the reality
two chains of metaphors entwining, then the normal words to fit with each one can flip, blurring thr distiinction between them all further.
synsthesia in the language.

David Hoyle

dark humouur - absurdity  but still very grounded in reality.
anti-drag , satirical of the gay scene itself.

I find Hoyle's performance style very engaging, I have always liked dark humour

Slavoj Žižek on Synthetic Sex and "Being Yourself"

Object cause of desire- what makes you fall in love – sign of imperfection

Online dating- element of contingency – not spontaneous

Humans never spontaneous

Lesson of big brother- just ourselves, we are always playing being ourselves. Good thing? ‘express yourself’ – most people are monsters – do whatever u want but just don’t express yourself too much

Like people who have control – self-control – stage certain image of self. It would be so interesting to demononstrate how we act in wild way – we are talking in polite way – someone gets mad then explodes – in normal conversation we control – no actually moment of explosion- trained and controlled not expressive – have to go through certain ritual of humiliating others – what I will do to your dead mother – necrophilia – tasteless stuff – 10 minutes of dirty – paint tribute to ugliness – and THEN we can be good and talk in polite way – get rid of desire to talk dirty to be polite.

Met many sadomasochists – never met nicer more kind women – enact all dirty horrid stuff through sex and then through personality they are nice – lust joke – where re we today with sexuality . is romance still alive today? Lets imagine sexual – meet lady – what happens then, comes with plastic penis he comes with horridble thing – stimulating training unit – plastic vagina – wonderful technology – Regulate everything- puts her plastic penis into plastic vagina , plug them in, machines doing it for us- then free to do whatever they want – have a nice chat- PAID super ego full tribute. Talk with the lady because really like each other. Hands touch – maybe they end up in bed – all worry of performance taken away by machines – that is ideal sex for him.

mime

lindsay kemp

fake blood capsules
batting eyes still they fall off
batting eyes until they bleed or cry

HISTORY OF PANTO

FRANCIS ALYS

SOPHIE CALLE

dames, mime, clowns and costume

Why the absurd costumes , comical with random objects, over-exaggerated, very bizarre costumes. Often involving food, playing on job of house wife? - offering women from that time someone they can assign too? (stereotypically) - panto - relieving from stresses

dame always a man - originally men only plays and then when woman introduced no one wanted to play an older woman. caricature of the older woman. HARELQUIN BECOMES THE CLOWN BECOMES THE DAME. 

'unexpected star - careworn mother, haggard and a bit of a gossip, struggling to cope in this unfriendly world. pantomime crystallises around the story of a dysfunctional family and that strange eccentric figure of the dame.'

domestication of the dame, as mother, imagining problems  as this, problems that audience member knew well, like poverty and unemployment . impersonating the absurd dilemmas of ordinary people

Sad clown - not seen in this position - stripped of role as happy entertainer, what does it then become, sad but sexualised position, can a clown be sexualised, a clowns role is entertainer , sex is entertainment.... a sexualised clown? what would this be?
UGO RONDINONE
The clown is an invention of high nobility to push away boredom and melancholy out of the court
clown as entertainer - but now lying on the floor, quasi-static, mute, flabby (beached whale) - imparting an overwhelming sense of alienation to the viewer- leaving us feeling disconnected... on the other hand, he perhaps appears more human to us, who can really relate to a happy clown, they are merely a distraction, yet here we are confronted with perhaps ourselves.... breaking the rules of the clowns job to distract and entertain.
clown is stripped of role, of freedom and ability to fufill role of the trickster or fool - clowns usually serve the audience, but not here ... but this is questionable.

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd

Historical and contemporary avant-garde
she says anything she does is often considered as a performance because of her 'title' as a 'performance artist' - frustrating to be put under this
Cousin IT - absurd
society and human nature, taboo
soft play centre, inappropriate music, break dancing, discomfort, Hermitos children
I really like the debt cave idea in one of her videos, metaphor for the debt people owe, how large the rock they are carrying is. I enjoy metaphors and symbolism hugely, almost as a sort of abstract code. debt counselling club.

Chetwynd's work is very open and free. I like the DIY approach to it, importance of the thing in ideas and performance , rather than the production of the 'thing' itself. I hate huge emphasis on the way something looks, how precise and tidy it is, I find it very dull and boring, which is frustrating as i realise it is something important. However Chetwynd is not neat in production, for example in Tate shots video, she is installing her exhibition at a gallery improvised, just painting certain things on the floor free-hand using her body, improvised. I find improvisation really exciting and thrilling, maybe because it counter-acts my excessive need to control and think... I want to explore more with improvised scenarios, maybe for the crit ? my last crit although the performance was improvised in practise it was not in planning... what about total improvisation.... it would have to have a purpose though , for me to justify it..... is that counter-intuitive though ?  I admire the freedom she has in her work by her loose attitude.

The self and other

big other - stepping into position of the 'other'

the self  becomes others and vice versa, never detached from one another.

mother and child one entity ? then dillusion - but also mirror learns from oneself.

peoples thoughts on selfhood

lucid dreaming

spirituality

diary recording

macro tevice society

radical veiws

the inoperative community - carving self out of will. The other defining the self , exploring the self

intervals - glenn gold

art gallery institution -- other assimilated to another idea - views in gallery making it possible - studio space.

structure things to do with subjectivity 

alien comes out of self - parasite - ambiguity 

interior and exterior sound

cat purr - mutual - communication of self and other

negative self - portait

INDIA SONG

DELEUZE AND THE IMAGE.  

self and other not fundamental?#

absence and virtue - explore this

we belong to memory - construct and change through time

breaking down. 

Notes from discussions

Mixing pot
consequences
the ball rolling
twin peakes - making ideas - woods performance scene
Romah Augys
deception - Victorian spirits,orbs, elaborate event
reality tv show - big brother - not yourself - multi personality - alter ego --- when are you assigned your identity
tarot cards
politician on big brother - george galloway - becoming cat for whole time

performance discussion
organising
potential
absence of performance - daily lives
not mechanics of performance - presence of performing in the act of making
QUAKERS - religious meetings - silence

POTENTIAL FOR PERFORMANCE TO FALL SOMEWHERE ELSE, SHOULD WE HAVE BOUNDARIES FOR PERFORMANCE - dancing on butter sqaure as it melts

performance existing in our heads- through text and story and rumour - is it greater than what we end up seeing. for example my running away performance does it exist better through text or in video? or actual performance, but the actual performance can only exist once.  the video of the woman dancing in butter .... was it greater before i saw it... the idea i had in my head of  GIANT SQUARE of butter with woman on top, reality was smaller less dramatic but more successful in other ways.
theatrical quality - animals and imagery before performance
SIILENCE -  what you dont say or what you dont do.

background noise - john cage
incubator - eye - performance
brian cackly - chisenhale or mats gallery - scribe making notes unfolding - john tilby focus- tied to others to perform - alive to that moment!

ENFIELD POLTERGEIST - convinced there was a spirit - became huge thing = performing to ourselves change.
desire to believe - I WANT TO BELIEVE - HOW CAN I DO IT.

CHANGE - why should we change, when do we change, do others change not us? we always change, is there any set point we become ourselves - when do i become lucia so to speak - or the lucia that everyone assigns to me - people say oh youve changed... of course ive changed, why are you still the same. what about when its change not for good? bad change? can u change back completely?

obsessions
perform the peformance - tricante cremaster cycle.
fake dustology business.

Absurd making desiscion methods

Currently I am thinking more about absurd making decision methods, different ways to make these decisions, but also who to target them at.
Everything compulsive to counter-act myself -- should I insert some mundane control.
Keith Tyson's Art machine is something I find interesting, I think more so in the questioning of its existence, what it looks like, how it actually works, whether we should take what he says to be true.


'A sculpture of a dorsal Fin randomly positioned each day upon 3x3 metre stainless steel plynth'
'Five found frames for 5 photographs'
'Atlas in the 21st century'
Reflect the complex and fragmented world i was living in - TYSON
The bizarre instructions are more than just a randomising device.
It is embracing complexity and absurdity - with a complex set of rules

The problem i have with this is that there are too many rules to this, why not make the machine more free somehow, maybe not even a 'machine', more about of absurdity of actions. Perhaps using people as part of the game too.
Perhaps things like a spinner, dice (giant dice or tiny dice?, human dice, or not actually a dice sort of dice), giant arms that extend and you wear them and spin around in a circle.  BAKING CAKES WITH SOMETHING INSIDE THEM - EATING THE DESISCION.
Dropping eggs label them, whichever cracks first, or whichever one has the biggest spill, that label relates to desiscion.
But where do the components of the desiscions comes from? me? or perhaps , taken from different concepts of others, my interpretations of certain aspects of their work?
stealing milk
everyone put hair in a jar then whoevers hair is picked out must choose or already determined idea.
Putting liquids in microwave and see which one bubbles over first.
I also like the idea of obviously biased results, so the control is not really not mine or perhaps deceptive...?
for example letting animals decide when really I'm pushing one animal
In Science controlling variable always interested me, and then cheating this, to make sure you got the wrong results in practical experiments.
Could i create ideas designed for other people - then swap them over
childish games like pass the parcel to determine my work
musical statues and musical chairs - it is all a game - idea determining what to make - perhaps even i know the idea all along but I just use this to make people do something useless except for my entertainment and maybe theirs.
Or force them to wear something silly and then do it?
Could it be interesting to trick everyone and dissect the meaning - assign to them and trick everyone.

'i have created something that asks me to create things that i do not necessarily want to make... yyet i desperatley want to make it manifest in my work'
what if the art machine is me?
using others as art machine without tellling them
perhaps some sort of business (loosely) - john warned against business art>>>> but maybe not a mock business but some sort of format of a service with currency, or forced service like U2 putting their album free onto everyone's itunes and then having to apologise.

MORE RESEARCH:
Lindsay Sears
Sophie Calle
Francis Alys
Jackie Irvine

Purely material

Last term I spent a lot of time thinking and developing my work through thought, with less time spent on fabrication. This time I wanted to try and start fresh and loosen myself up and just make something completely unimportant, also something that allowed me to work with others, as my practise is otherwise just the individual, especially because often to film i have to be isolated by myself for a while. Me and Rosie joined together and bought lots of things impulsively without any questions asked, things we liked the look of. These included lemon curd, mouthwash, party hats, wooden snakes, French baguette, cotton wool buds, and old couple for a dolls house and some other things. We had one rule that to join in you had to wear a party hat, it was all silly of course, but it actually felt so important for me, as a way of just loosening up and stopping myself from having to think in detail about absolutely everything. Others joined in, both while we were present and not and it was interesting to see how it was adapted throughout the course of two weeks... mainly destroyed by other classmates towards the end. I found this interesting, did people just want to smash things up, obviously there were no rules so it was allowed, but I found it intriguing. One day we came back to find the old couple hung by their neck from the ceiling.  It is not something I will be carrying on with, however, It has given me ideas for the future about possible materials to use, especially nappies and lemon curd, perhaps s props?

Reflection of last terms show piece

Firstly there were many issues regarding presentation.  The white sheet spread across the floor, somehow invited the viewer into stepping onto it, which i actually understood, as it was a sense of invitation onto the set. However because the sheet was not stuck down properly this meant it was moved around and crumpled making the work look very different, and the sheet got very dirty. I think also this was because it was near the door so people felt more inclined to step on it.
The sound was also a problem, as it was a crucial part to the video performance however it could not be heard because the speaker was not loud enough. I did think about using headphones, however this was not right for the piece as pantomime is about unified audience, and that could not be through singular headphone use. Perhaps in hindsight I should've displayed it in another area, a more separate place with chairs to sit down so that there was an audience, or somehow created an environment where people would want to and feel comfortable sitting down on the sheet in front, to create an audience.

However in forcing them to be more a part of this, would it be false, as it is all about my thoughts and my mind which someone can never enter.