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.