Boho Interactive

I came across your company/group Boho Interactive whilst flicking through TED one day, can you tell us how you came to give a TED presentation and what that was like?

TEDxCanberra approached us around six months before the talk, so we had a good bit of time to think about what we were hoping to achieve. They were pretty happy for us to take the presentation in whatever direction we wanted to so long as we kept under eighteen minutes, so we wanted to be as big and loud as we could while still getting our point across and not being overly obnoxious. Pegging a few hundred balloons at people’s heads while yelling at them about multisystemic apocalypse seemed about right.

The approach we took was to look for places where our work and the usual TED style met. We’ve got a bad habit of cramming as many different stylistic options into a work as possible, and it’s fun to see where the faultlines along ideas are, so that happened. We don’t really have an aesthetic or a style as a company, but we do work entirely within the area of concepts that relate to or are informed by complex systems science and similar fields. We try to let the format, style and content mirror the nature of the system we’re looking at, so for example our game theory show was an iterated competition, and we looked at Australian history by simulating social influencers and having them interact. With TEDx we wanted to adhere fairly closely to a lecture sensibility, and the eighteen ideas we looked at flow on from one another logically, but we wanted to echo the cross-disciplinary nature of complexity study by considering these ideas in a conceptual space that was as multidimensional as we could make it. I think by offering a lot of different perspectives that share a core intention you give a whole heap of opportunities to an audience to find the ideas that click in an intuitive way, and once that’s achieved they are in a better position to receptively add information to the scaffold.

TEDx was a bit different for us in that we were actually pretty familiar with all the ideas we were looking at before we set out to write the script. Generally our process is to find an area of complexity study that we have a layman’s interest in, then to devise the work as we’re learning about it. It sounds backwards but I think if you set out to communicate an idea that you’re just starting to understand yourself, you still have a fresh grasp on what made the idea resonate in your own mind, so it’s easier to identify and reproduce that logical leap. If you’re coming from the position of a person who has an encyclopaedic understanding of the topic at hand you have to guess at how people can best start learning the information. So this was actually a bit of a challenge with TEDx, trying to get to the bottom of what information would be most useful to communicate, and what aspect of that information would be engaging. All in all though it was great to have an excuse to try out a lot of techniques in a lecture theatre context, which is an area we’re looking to spend a lot of time working in for the next couple of years.
Can you tell us how technology, both lo-fi and hi-fi, operates in your practice?

Interactivity with an audience while you’re in the process of delivering a narrative is risky as hell, because you’re removing the pretence that there is a distinction between the worlds that you and they occupy. Once people are interacting in a narrative it’s impossible to avoid characterising them, even if it’s as nebulous as a ghostly presence or whatever, there needs to be a reason which is consistent with the story as to why events are modified by an external input. Given all that, it’s one thing to ask people to believe that you are someone you aren’t, it’s totally another to ask them to believe the same of themselves. If the interaction mechanism is clunky, if people feel confused or frustrated or embarrassed, then the odds are that the audience member will reject the characterisation you’re imposing on them, and then they don’t need to go far to stop believing in the rest of the show.

So the main use we have for tech is making the interaction with the audience as seamless as possible. This generally means that tech is chosen based on its function rather than as an end in itself, so we like stuff that is reliable, simple and discreet. A wiimote hidden inside something is basically indistinguishable from magic.

Your motto is ‘we fight dirty for science’ – are you all scientists? where did the love for it come from?
None of us come from science backgrounds, but we’re very aware of the frustration that scientists must feel whenever they have to wade into the battle for public opinion. Science is constrained, as it has to be, by the need for transparency, to acknowledge the uncertainty in findings, to be totally impartial. On the other hand, vested interests that inevitably wish to maintain status quo have every opportunity to muddy the waters without any accountability whatsoever. The result is that the people least qualified to comment are the ones who are the freest to. The arts has a responsibility to try to balance that out. Fortunately for us, as artists we are expected to appeal to emotion on topics that we feel strongly about. So we are allowed to extrapolate and dramatise, without having to worry about being ridiculed.

We chose to work in complexity science because it aligns really well with what we wanted to achieve in performance format, and it’s a mindset that can be applied to just about any field of human endeavour so it’s not actually all that limiting when it comes to stories we want to tell. I haven’t come across many scenarios where considering an issue from a complexity standpoint hasn’t thrown up something interesting.

Interactivity and science work really well with one another, too – you can use interaction to demonstrate the idea you’re getting at, or to verify to an audience that what you’re doing is real, or to rubber-band the pace of the information you’re putting out there. For me the best moments in a show are where the behaviour in an interaction evolves from random experimentation into a considered application of the rules – it’s great to see that change happen and it’s a really effective mechanism to ensure that the story doesn’t move forward until the ideas are understood.

I have a running joke with some friends about the futility of ‘writing a play about climate change’, how can you tackle big issues with your work, in a meaningful way or that has a big impact?
Yeah, it’s tricky when it comes to the impersonal issues found in the development of climate change because theatre works more naturally with people stuff – individual stories that take place as you are watching them. It’s kind of hard to turn deteriorating methane clathrates and ice albedo into relatable characters. With climate change you’ve got this enormous intangible problem which is unfolding over decades and the only way to deal with it onstage is to abstract the issue and look at its impact on an individual rather than systemic level. But when you do that, you’re no longer looking for a solution to the problem, it just becomes a big bad. Our focus is on tracing a logical progression through the mechanisms of climate change rather than focusing on the end result, which can be so cataclysmic that people refuse to acknowledge that it’s possible. If you’ve got a series of steps that each make sense that take you from where we are now, I think the chance of the message getting through is a lot higher. I reckon the critical gap in climate theatre is somehow getting back from the crisis to initial behaviours that need to be fixed.

How theatre can actually do that I’m not sure. Since it’s an issue that is only going to loom larger as time goes on I think it’s going to start forming a background to more and more work, without being addressed directly and without solutions being proposed. It’s naïve to think any one work is going to have much of an impact on people’s behaviour but hopefully the arts is able to make a difference in the aggregate. I know turning lights off when I leave a room isn’t going to cool the earth down, but I still do it.

Is there a community of makers in Canberra like you? Or are you going it alone in the nations capital?

Canberra has a really good continuum of art-makers, there’s a lot of cross-arts practice and people are generally pretty willing to dive into collaborations. There’s huge talent about but the scene is just small enough that you can still find a niche with room to move relatively easily. As you’d get in most smaller towns there’s a trend of people uprooting and moving to Sydney or Melbourne, which doesn’t necessarily result in them doing more cool stuff than they did when they were here, but by the same token there’s also a good takeup of overseas residencies that injects a good international perspective into the stuff that goes on here.

There are definitely artists doing similar stuff to us – for instance Last Man to Die do shows made up of sequences of sound, performance, interactivity and tech, and Cathy Petocz does science theatre and installation work, both of whom we’ve worked with in the past. And the You Are Here festival in a few weeks should have a pretty good lineup of the more experimental artists about the place – that’s being produced by David, who’s another Boho member. But being the company that does complex systems concepts with interactive narratives and live trombone hopefully carves us out a space we can comfortably claim is all ours.

Thanks Jack and Boho Interactive…

Martyn Coutts.

www.bohointeractive.com/

Pashing and Growing Old.

I spoke with Daniel Santangeli after seeing his theatre show Room 328 at the Melbourne Fringe, as I was particularly interested in the participatory nature of the work. Although this was the first time we met, we ended up having a good yarn about River Phoenix and pashing audience members.

LT:  Lets get this out of the way, what do you think of the term live art?

D.S…Pretentious isn’t the word but it is over academic and very exclusive…

LT: Interesting, I get exclusive, only tiny amount of people know of that term., it comes from the UK after a push for body art in the 90s, but here In Australia I think we are trying to use it as a term for practice that sits in between artforms, it may have a liveness to it but could also be a site specific installation that is not very performative…. No one wants to set limits  for what it is and it isn’t. But I think this work is often criticised as not being academic enough…or serious enough… just very playful, so it is interesting you say academic.

D.S: Well in Brisbane, it feels academic

L.T: You have the exist crew down there?

D.S: Yep, it was interesting… I went to the festival and some works missed the mark with the audience, they mostly just ignored them… I think what you say in terms of playful interaction is good, it’s what it has to be.

L.T: So…how did you come to make the kind of work you make?

D.S: Well I went through that thing we all go through which is …theatre is so boring. A little angsty moment….. then you go off and make something that brakes every single rule you can think of. I came across a book called ‘The Mind and the Cave’. It’s about what made humans go into the caves and start doing cave painting… This author is saying we needed to make art because we needed to begin to manipulate our own reality at that time in our existence where we didn’t really know what the difference between what  a dream and real life was…. Crawling into the cave meant we could take symbols and actually manipulate and have a sense of control over them, we were able to make our reality malleable. This is present in room 328, (Dans most recent show) a sense of coming into a space of signs and symbols getting thrown at the audience, and they can grapple with them in any way that they want.  The interactivity also came about by accident, because we were given a gallery instead of a theatre space. So suddenly the audience were walking around.

L.T: How did this expand to a work like DJ While You Sleep?

D.S: In DJ While You Sleep the audience came in and slept overnight and DJs played a 60 beats a minute set throughout the night- it was about recognising sleep as a state of consciousness and making art for it. So it’s that consciousness thing again.

L.T: How did it go down?

D.S: Really good, people slept, so I can say “people slept through my show”. Sleeping…It’s a private thing… so  within this big public event it is interesting,  kind of a bit like skinny dipping?

L.T: How did you find the audience participation went in room 328?

D.S: You don’t have to do a lot, just make an offer, people can go wild with it. The discovery we had was that audience are 90% of the show. The shows that worked the least well were probably when the performers thought their performance was amazing, but the audience was not so involved.

L.T: What processes do you use to to develop these participatory elements?

D.S: What we did was get test audiences, but never enough…it is so hard through so much guess work. We had a rule which was don’t do anything unless you have permission from the audience member to do it… which we upheld strictly like “Can I pick you up” or  “Would you like a shot of tequila”.. but then we learnt how to play with it. At the end Skye (A performer) tries to make out with an audience member.  And then we considered permission was if you charm your way into a situation… through body language…. Getting into their bubble, and that is kind of a permission in itself.

L.T: Is it?

D.S: If you are going to let them get this close to your face then you are kind of saying go all the way… With kissing audience members they would always say no if we asked, but if it happened it really worked out… 

L.T: Does he do it to males and females?

D.S He is meant to, but it is mainly females, only one has pushed him away. It’s a whole journey of giving lot of little yesses, not like walking into a café and doing it.

L.T Ha, yes I guess I am familiar with pashing audience member in these performative environments.

D.S: How did you go?

L.T: It was a choice… they are asked twice if they wanted to, it was up to them how they wanted to take it, it could be quite intimate or ‘fake’ and theatrical… people seem to get lost in the journey and let down their guard and give themselves permission to perform. We constantly ask ourselves these questions around agency, invasiveness and permissions as ours involves touching people blindfolded by video screens who are essentially disempowered. So I think it is about being honest- always giving people the option to leave. I was always unsure of the correct way to feel provocative whilst being safe and respectful. But you always get a range of responses from complete commitment and transformation to disengagment, so you can’t expect a singular response, that is the first mistake you could make.

D.S: What is the line of being too confronting?

L.T: I think that is where testing is so important, for us it is also on your own thresholds, the line we personally wouldn’t like to be crossed. And as we are different people (a five person collaboration) the medium of those responses, so look at it in your own shoes.  Also getting feedback from a test audience who are not just your friends who are always your own age and who think similarly to you.

D.S: ‘Our own personal line we wouldn’t want to be crossed’, that is good.

L.T: It’s funny because sometimes I find artists to be the most dull audience- they try to read to much into it rather than recognise it as experiential.

Do you collaborate with people who aren’t actors?

Yes visual artists like Eric Bridgeman.

I love Eric, he is amazing, and quite wild.

He worked on a past show, he was onstage the whole time, moving projectors around and doing his own thing. Yes, its funny visual arts and the theatre world are aiming in the same direction but…can totally hate each other. There is the idea that the ghost of theatre is somewhere there along the line…. there is the expectation you will be ‘good’  – which is why we do the physical theatre stuff at the end of the show, the audience are bringing the ghost with them, so we say – here you go, have it.

How to you prepare, as the director,  do you make alot of decisions before or does it all come out in the development?

It all comes out in development. It’s a lot of tasks, like go out and get six things… or what are six things River Phoenix would have said before he dies.

I love River Phoenix.

Me too!

I had a huge crush on him when I was 12. So where do you think the initial ideas from Room 328 came from?

Lots of different places, but I think a fear of growing old, I had a 21 yr old crisis…. Also at the time my dad was quite sick so I think it was that fear of growing old. What happened to Dad is there again my new work, because he died from cancer and this new work is about the natural world and how we are terrified by it and long for it at the same time and it is essentially the natural world that took my fathers life.

Interesting…My mother died  of cancer when I was that age too, it certainly gives you this new perspective,  while it can give you this a uncertaintiy of what you are doing with your own life, it gives you a much broader sense of what is important and what is and isn’t worth getting stressed out about… when it comes down to it what we are doing is just art?

I totally agree, I mean I still get stressed out, but you realise that its not that important really.

How old are you ?

25 so not very old

Yeah, don’t worry about growing old!

yeah!

So whats next?

Working on a kickstart project for Next Wave, finding some funding, working with established artist Brian Lucas and moving to Melbourne!

Excellent.

www.danielsantangeli.com

Entertainment is Not a Dirty Word

Hey Bron, You are about to premiere you new show that includes your parents as performers. What was the impetus for this work? What are some of the processes you use working with non-artists?

The idea for this work really started when my company The Last Tuesday Society staged an interpretation of Nick Enright’s play Blackrock. I chose a section of the script that dealt with the immediate aftermath of the rape and murder of one of the characters and recorded my parents reading it on camera. Initially I was interested in how the interpretation and literal content of the dialogue changes when you place the words of teenage rapists into the mouths of sexagenarians- but it started to become about so much more than that.

It became about our relationship- my parents relationship to me as well as their relationship to each other. My parents aren’t artists or performers, they’d never read the play or seen the film, but they read that section of the script simply because I asked them to. There was something incredibly humbling and trusting in that- and they were hilarious and brilliant at it. So I decided to do a whole show based on the three of us discussing contemporary art and theatre and their perspectives on it all.

By using non-performers, the show (Sweet Child of Mine) investigates what is captivating about the individual and how raw openness and honesty can transcend formal training. I am fascinated by my parents performance quality: It is completely natural, devoid of the tropes and tricks a trained actor uses to engage and manipulate an audience- yet it is endlessly more captivating. I am using tasks to generate material, giving them writing exercises and things to do- and I am completely prepared to be upstaged by them!

Sweet Child Of Mine teaser

Your work is often described as comedy. Can you tell us a bit about navigating the comedy world? What was it like thinking about comedy in an academic sense at the various conferences you recently attended?

Trying to straddle the theatre world and the comedy world can be quite frustrating at times. When The Last Tuesday Society has been staged at arts festivals, we’ve found that we’re too ‘funny’ to be arty and vice versa, in a comedy environment we’re often perceived as too ‘arty’ to be funny.

Whilst curating The Last Tuesday and engaging with the artists we produce, I have become increasingly fascinated by the lines between comedy, art and theatre and why so often one precludes the other.

I presented a paper entitled ‘Entertainment is Not a Dirty Word: The Amalgamation of Comedy and Theatre in Contemporary Australian Performance’ at The Australasian Humour Studies Network’s annual meeting in Hobart at the start of 2011. The paper attempted to investigate the murky middle ground between comedy, theatre and art through interviewing hybrid performance artists such as The Suitcase Royale and The Brown Council. I also attended humour studies conferences in Hong Kong and Zurich last year which analysed humour in a much more academic context.

But critically discussing comedy can be a double edged sword. There’s a famous quote frequently attributed to both British comedian Jimmy Carr and writer E.B White that goes: ‘talking about comedy is like dissecting a frog- no one cares and in the end the frog dies’.

Which is true to an extent! But I think stand-up has a bad reputation in an ‘art’ context because a lot of theatre makers don’t see it as theatrically rigorous- which to be fair a lot of the time it isn’t. But what I’m interested in is contemporary comedic work that draws from theatrical or performance art traditions and stretches the boundaries of what can be defined as ‘stand up’.

You just returned from the splendid inter-disciplinary arts lab – how did the collaborative and site-specific emphasis of the lab make you think about developing new work?

I haven’t made much site specific work but it was very inspiring to see the work of artists such as Craig Walsh who beautifully integrate the site into the final piece so it adds another layer of meaning- instead of something just being arbitrarily plonked into another context. It’s something that I will definitely consider for future projects and I am actually currently conceptualising an outdoor performance work for the end of the year.

The Splendid Lab was wonderful and intense all at the same time. It forced you out of your comfort zone on several levels- you’re away from home, working and living with all new collaborators and engaging with art-forms that aren’t necessarily part of your ordinary practice. It was our task to develop project proposals for next years Splendour in the Grass festival and I think that the ideas that were generated out of the lab will bring exciting contemporary work to the 2012 festival.

It was so inspiring getting to know the other artists on the lab and our provocateurs (established artists across a range of disciplines) were diverse, challenging and endlessly supportive. It’s easy to start to feel isolated or jaded when you’re an independent artist but The Splendid Lab infected everyone with enthusiasm and motivation. It’s a great program to be a part of and I hope it continues to provide opportunities for artists in years to come.

You also play the role of artist as organiser. You curate the Last Tuesday Society, a night of short works from artists across disciplines that shifts depending on contexts and themes. How does this influence your practice and how do you like to diversify the event ?

One of the reasons we (co-producer Richard Higgins and I) started the Last Tuesday Society was as a generative exercise, so we could have a public forum for experimentation and exploring new ideas. We offer other artists the opportunity to extend their practice, to try out an idea that may not fit into a full length show and to stretch the perimeters of what’s possible in a live environment. By having a regular performance outcome to work towards, it stimulates creative investigation and The Last Tuesday has certainly helped me to develop my own sense of aesthetic and personal body of work.We have presented The Last Tuesday in spaces such as pubs, nightclubs, warehouses, circus tents, theatre restaurants and city squares. By re-contextualising performance beyond the traditional black box theatre environment, it creates unique opportunities for interaction and dynamic performer/audience exchange. In this way, presenting The Last Tuesday Society in places like pubs and nightclubs creates more of a live ‘gig’ atmosphere than a formal theatre ‘show’. 

 

One of the things we do at The Last Tuesday is provide thematic perimeters, so that all the content responds to a particular framework. For example our 2010 Next Wave show was called Comfort Zonesand all the artists involved had to perform something that was out of their realm of practice. So we had a poet doing circus, a musician performing stand up comedy, dancers singing and actors making stop motion animations. I personally had to pass my grade one saxophone exam live onstage after three months of lessons- which I ended up spectacularly failing in front of 300 people! We’ve also had a plagiarism edition of The Last Tuesday, a Jagged Little Pill night (where all the acts interpreted one song off the famous/infamous Alanis Morissette album) and we also do a Christmas Special every year.

Inviting different artists to present work at The Last Tuesday ensures it remains a live and diverse theatrical experience. Although at times it can be difficult to sustain the creative integrity of the show- because what distinguishes your event from other performance nights is the maintenance of a certain aesthetic. But what really excites and motivates me about producing The Last Tuesday Society is providing the opportunity for other artists to explore ideas and present exciting new work in front of an audience.

 

What do you think of the term ‘live art’ – for me the term is not important, I am interested in exploring work that doesn’t always fit into typical categories or spaces. I loved how in a recent performance you took out an ad in the local paper to emphasise a story – it is details like that go a step beyond our expectations in a sit-down show.

That’s the thing about working across platforms and genres- you start to inevitably fit into numerous categories! I think the term live art is really interesting as it starts to talk about projects that are not necessarily performative in the traditional sense but have a live, ethereal presentation.

 

I am always trying to add something extra to my work that takes it a step beyond the expected and humour is just another dramatic tool to attempt this. Whether it’s a multi-media element or a song or choreography- a little twist that presents another spin on something. Working across genres gives you the scope to do that- otherwise I think I would get bored! 

There’s a lot of comedic artists who are doing shows about attempting to learn a skill or achieve something in real time. This is a performance art convention- it adds a real element of risk and jeopardy to the performative situation.

Celia Pacquola did a show a couple of years ago about attempting to learn a complicated piano solo as a non musician. I saw a show in Edinburgh last year by UK artist Alex Horne about his golfing quest to hit a hole in one. Every time he teed off for a whole year he filmed himself taking the swing, just in case this was the magic shot. If this has been staged in a gallery instead of a theatre and the footage shown as a video art piece and not as an illustrative, humorous documentary it would have been considered art. But because it was Alex’s intention to make people laugh while relating his story, it was perceived as not art. It’s formulaic inconsistencies like this that make me frustrated!

Can you describe an artwork that you love?

 

I saw a piece in the Melbourne Festival a couple of years ago called An Anthology of Optimism by CAMPO which is Belgian artist Pieter De Buysser and Canadian Jacob Wren. It was a performance/lecture type work about an optimist and a pessimist having a philosophical discussion about the merits of both stances as a dominant world view. It talked about this idea of ‘critical optimism’ which is an optimism that recognises the limitations of the situation, a situation that may seem hopeless or overwhelming- such as climate change, but still attempts to engage with it optimistically.

I was reading an article by one of the artists and he said ‘anything where you are in a room with other people pretending to be somewhere else is just old-fashioned’. That was just like a lightbulb going off in terms of my own practice. I realised that I want to explore and make work that generates collective experience, because for me, that’s what live performance is all about. Otherwise you could just stay at home and watch a DVD.

 

Acknowledging who’s there in the room with you is so important in generating a dynamic live atmosphere. You can hide back behind the fourth wall once you’ve broken it, but for me, that initial audience contact is so important. I suppose that’s why I’m attracted to live mediums such as stand up, because the performer/audience relationship is so immediate and vibrant.

 

Apart from their theatrical manifesto, I admired their elegant approach to performance making. It was simple without being simplistic, made complex philosophical theories entertaining and accessible and was a tender, funny and thought provoking meditation on an idea everyone can identify with.

What is next for you?

I actually just received some Australia Council funding to work with a company called The Neo Futurists next year and to also study at The Second City School of Improvisation which is a unique comedy training institution in Chicago. I am excited about combining the theoretical with the practical at The Second City and learning from the innovative and prolific practice of The Neo Futurists. That’s if I survive the Chicago winter of course!

intimate encounters – a journey in good faith

A Dialogue with Julie Vulcan and Melanie Jame Walsh

Julie Vulcan (Syd) and Melanie Jame Walsh (triage live art collective -Melb) met during the recent 3 week Underbelly Arts Lab and Festival on Cockatoo Island, Sydney (www.underbellyarts.com.au). Both were engaged in developing and presenting new work that played to a limited audience and offered a close personal experience.  They soon realised certain similarities and resonances between their practice. A conversation was started around the nature of intimate audience participatory work, site specificity and the journey for the audience as well as the artist.  The conversation has continued and this is a summary of their exchange and dialogue.

What drives you to make intimate small scale and/or one to one work?

Melanie Jame: As a performer, I love that one to one works demand that I be absolutely present and willing to play and improvise; to be really responsive to the moment and really listen to the other – it’s rigorous. I love how confronting, as a performer, this can be. I love that it provides the space for the co-creation of a secret world of two, again and again. I love the awkward moments as much as I love the moments of incredible connection; the slippage between the performed and the non-performed.

One to one works allow you to interrogate or explore any given concept in a very live and heightened way; what you discover always surprises you.

Julie: Yes, I agree. For me, it is also about creating an experience in which the general public, suddenly realize they have been a part of something unique and very special. The key words for me here are:  “a part of” and “suddenly”. When someone undergoes a sudden change, it is without warning or transition. It is unexpected and I think this resonates with your idea of the surprising discoveries. I think there is a huge element of this within making intimate work where there is this interplay between the expectations of an unwitting audience member and their actual experience.

What I love is that a participant cannot fully comprehend, before hand, the ramifications of their engagement with a work. In 2011, the audience generally understand participatory work, it is not new. However, what drives me to persistently explore this area is this “sudden” moment – the moment where something shifts for the participant and myself. It is also important for me that my place in this is something akin to a conduit, whereby I devise the framework, which ultimately guides a participant to open up or confront a part of themselves. They have a choice as to how they sit in that. My desire is to instigate these experiential moments where there is a mutual and generous exchange. I want my audience to walk away feeling like their perception of the world and their place within that has shifted.

Melanie Jame: for triage live art collective, of which I am a part, we are really interested in the idea of strangers encountering one another in disarming, playful and sometimes confronting ways – small scale and one to one works make a lot of sense as a way of exploring this primary interest of ours. I like the way these works endow the other – the audience member/participant – with a sense of agency and a sense of being valued and heard. Similarly, it’s all about them; what interests them and what challenges and confronts them.

What are some of the most satisfying moments?

Melanie Jame: In relation to our latest one to one piece, An Appointment with J Dark, the most satisfying moments were the ones in which people clearly pushed beyond their established thresholds of intimacy with a stranger. By intimacy, I don’t just mean physical proximity or the fact that we were alone together, rather the affect or feeling of intimacy; a closeness or a bond usually created through a revelation of self. It’s satisfying when people allow their vulnerability to show and we get to share the very stuff of being. In An Appointment with J Dark it was particularly satisfying to sing with people who at first were very reticent to make even a little peep of sound, and to see them move into a moment of tiny, gorgeous liberation from their own self-consciousness.

Julie: In my work Trawl (2007/8) I asked public to anonymously text me their response to the question ‘What do they regret they never said?’ For four hours I transcribed these messages onto silver paper and placed them in the belly of a plastic fish, like messages in a bottle, before attaching each one to a long net. I was blown away by the general willingness and honesty of participants and after one performance an audience member genuinely thanked me for allowing them to say something that they had been holding onto for 13 years! To mediate a shift like that is so rewarding.

There is also the satisfaction of a work coming together and being realised as you imagined it and much more. For example, more recently, in March this year, I performed the durational work I Stand In. The opportunity to present this work came unexpectedly and required me to rally 35 volunteers within a week. The work relied on a lot of tight scheduling and preparation to install and perform. It was amazing how all the elements came together so quickly and easily. The moment I stood in the space waiting for my first participant was incredible. For the next eight hours I went on such an amazing journey with my 32 volunteer bodies. Standing in for the dead, they, by proxy, became the faces of everyday people, not a cold collective body count. All the while I attended each of their bodies in a stylized and poetic ‘corpse washing’ ritual. It was incredibly humbling and I finished that performance speechless! I still have people coming up to me and talking about their experience both as audience and participant. This continual resonance and rippling affirms my belief in this form of live art practice.

How important is the body in relation to the journey of the audience/participant and yourself, in your work?

Melanie Jame: Gender and gender representation has a through-line of enquiry in An Appointment with J Dark, and I think in that respect it is important and integral to the piece.

Because people often understand intimacy as being principally about physical proximity it feels necessary to play with what the body says and means, and I do, in many different ways. I’m really interested in finding a moment in each individual journey of the one to one where the body ceases to matter so much, where touch ceases to be so loaded and the true affective nature of intimacy can be revealed…it’s more a heart space rather than a basal space.
Julie: I totally get that and this was very present in I Stand In where it is all about the journey of the body and what it means to inhabit a body and to let it go.  The participants in this work were very brave. They placed themselves in a very intimate and vulnerable situation all the while giving me their implicit trust. In this work they were required to lie naked on a table while I oiled and prepared their body in a faux last rite. I, for one, was so moved by the grace each participant brought to the work and how they embraced their part in it with utmost respect. It made my heart jump each time a new person came into the space. I know for those that witnessed the work it was an incredible journey for them also. It was a space where they could meditate on what it means to touch with an open heart.

I think also for me, the body is the connection point. Whether I am performing in close proximity to someone or whether their body is part of the performance. It is the one thing that connects us. When I explore making new works around significant or tragic events that have transpired I continuously come back to the one thing we all share and can relate to and that is our visceral and emotive body.

What strategies and tools do you engage to deal with the more challenging responses?

Julie: I think that whenever I create work that is open to many possibilities and responses, then I have to be prepared for anything to happen. The main thing is to not be too precious and proscriptive and trust that I will be able to handle any situation. Trust is a big one! I think because I am demanding trust from my audience just as much as I am placing trust in them. I have to stay in a balanced space and can’t afford to be reactive. If there is confrontation or discomfort or someone just wanting to act up then I can only be there for them and act as their mirror or support. I think that the main thing is reaching an understanding with people that this is not a competition and that I am here to see them through. If they are being difficult, well, it only reflects back on them.

I try not to censor, either. Especially in works like Trawl and Wend  (similar works which are part of a trilogy), where there is opportunity for people to make completely rude or ridiculous responses. It all gets transcribed and those responses sit there alongside the heartfelt, the devastating and the joyous. Then it is for that person to deal with, the ball is back in their court and maybe they will reflect on that.

Melanie Jame: For me, the most challenging responses are when people refuse every offer made to them, or they resist the invitation to join me in the immersive possibility of the work by asking dramaturgical questions or constantly referring to my ‘performance’. I am pretty much prepared to go as far as they are so when they refuse to go anywhere I have to be very careful not to shift gears into a coercive or negative approach to try and make something happen – it would be unethical and erode integrity. In An Appointment with J Dark, the strategy that I engaged in these cases was to hold on to the arc of the transformation of my character from J Dark into Joan of Arc and simply receive them with the patience of a saint. Also, if it’s awkwardness that they want to create, then that’s what we’ll sit in.

Julie: I love that! Lets just sit in the awkwardness! I think this is where the strength of the work comes into play in the sense of trusting the dramaturgical ‘arc’ that you establish for yourself.

How do you look after yourself? Preparation and afterwards

Melanie Jame: One to one performance is exhausting. It’s really important to strike the balance between wanting to explore duration in terms of looping performances and avoiding fatigue, which will compromise your presence and the liveness of the work.

I’ve created a bit of a checklist for myself that just deals with me actually staying hydrated and fed but also grounded – completely letting go of the previous experience before the next begins, being really embodied. J Dark likes to dance to Bruce Springsteen’s I’m on Fire between appointments.

Julie: Oh yes, dance is a great, especially daggy dancing accompanied by singing really silly songs!

Melanie Jame: People share their frailty, their fears, their desire with you – it’s confronting and you have to be very careful with how much you absorb as opposed to observe. I write a lot and I make sure that I have my own support people in place. Katerina (my triage live art collective collaborator and director & dramaturge of An Appointment with J Dark) is on call during the runs so that I can just process as needed. It’s important not to feel isolated in the work because you are witnessing the whole spectrum of the ways of humanity.

The question of how I look after myself as a performer of one to one works once a season has finished has become particularly pertinent to me since the July Melbourne run of An Appointment with J Dark. I’ve run into others on the street and it’s been a really interesting experience. People aren’t sure who you are, whether you are a character or real, they want to tell you everything they experienced and that makes sense because you are the only person in the world who was there with them. It’s gratifying to hear people’s responses but it’s important to know where the line is…it’s important, but I’m still unpacking exactly where it should be.

Julie: I prepare myself, during the lead in to a work, in the sense that I am already inhabiting it, in a sort of sub conscious way. It’s like laying down the blueprint. If the work is durational, then there are the basic things, like making sure I get sleep and am eating healthily.

I try to be in as calm a state as possible. I am also much better now at rallying my support networks and asking for help if I need it. Afterwards, I make sure I have a day off or have time for reflection, depending on the nature of the work. This is crucial because the next day is often the first time I step outside of the work, up to that point I have been right inside of it. I am usually still quite a buzz and I use this energy, similarly, to write a lot and document how I feel. I think the support person is crucial. That they know and understand the intricacies of the work you have just completed is essential. It just means that when you debrief you do not have to explain the context and you can just talk and cry or be hysterical and they’re not freaking out, they’re just allowing the process.

The day after I performed I Stand in, the enormity of the project really hit me. This was compounded by the fact that I woke up to the tragic news of the tsunami and earthquakes in Japan. The coincidence was overwhelming as I came to realise I had been in the middle of tending to my ‘bodies’ at the same time many were being lost. I was on an emotional roller coaster all day as I processed the last 24 hours. However, when you choose to do this work, you have to understand the process for yourself and see it through without holding back. I think ultimately my training in bodywork and therapy helps lay good ground for my ability to devise deliver and ride out the works I invoke.

Melanie Jame: I think two hot tips I would finish with are: don’t use your own phone number and be prepared to see your others en masse at live art events in your home town.
Julie: Definitely. I always use a different sim card for my mobile. Just helps separate things.

Julie Vulcan is a Sydney-based artist and performer. She will be presenting the durational work Breach at Oxford Arts Factory, in September as part of the curated Free Fall season. In October she will present Spotlight Bunny at the Qubit contemporary performance art event in Dunedin, New Zealand, supported by Arts NSW.  www.julievulcan.net

Melanie Jame Walsh is a Melbourne-based artist and performer with triage live art collective. With triage, Melanie Jame will present their new work, Strange Passions, at the Exchange Radical Moments! Live Art Festival on 11:11:11 in Berlin. Melanie Jame will also perform triage’s site-specific one to one work An Appointment with J Dark in both Berlin & London.  www.triageliveartcollective.com

Image title and credits:

Melanie Jame

Title: An Appointment with J Dark

Credit: Max Milne

Julie Vulcan

Title: I Stand In

Credit: copyright Michael Myers 2011

Aimee Smith

Interview with Aimee Smith carried out in Taipei, Taiwan whilst she was undertaking a 2 month residency at Taipei Artist Village.

pvi collective – sting like a bee

hi pvi,

i feel like we at lala owe you a vote of thanks as it was this is the time…this is the record of the time that brought about the creation of lala. how important was that for you guys to do and how do you see the event now that it has been 2 or 3 years since then?

i think its us who owe you guys the thanks for participating in the first place! its totally cool that everyone seemed to find ways to let it catalyse more conversations, collaborations and artist driven initiatives and that’s more than we had ever bargained for!

it’s ironic that ‘this is the time’ came at a point where we were really struggling with financial survival strategies as a collective. holding the symposium and sharing ideas and stories about the mid career ‘void’ that we all seem to fall into at some point in our practices really emboldened and energised us as a group.

‘this is the time..’ was really special for us though because we were able to rally together as a sector and realise that we have a voice and a place in the cultural landscape. for it to be artist led and primarily focussed on practice was something we were very keen to initiate. as a symposium and live event night, it was an opportunity to talk and show and get a sense of what was happening on a national level with peers. it was v inspiring to have so many critical practitioners under one roof, and in perth too!

interestingly, we are now planning for a ‘this is the time 2..’ [or t2] to happen hopefully in 2012 and are beginning to think about it as an ongoing biennial celebration and interrogation of live art / interdisciplinary art practice. we’ll keep lala posted on developments, but now that cia studios is becoming more established there are more opportunities to house it there and really give it a home…

after being together as a collective for over 12 years now, are you still finding it interesting to be making work, does it feel easier or harder?

well we feel older and not as nimble on our feet! but I think we enjoy setting ourselves impossible challenges so that we’ll always have something juicy to grapple with. its definitely not easier that’s for sure! as the politics of public space shifts, we have to find new strategies to enable ideas to come to life outside.

what is lovely is that over the ten or so years we have developed a collective working methodology and a shared language for making work now, so it means that the devising process feels really grounded. the flip side of that is to stay conscious of not getting too comfortable by sitting within our comfort zones. I think that’s why its become so important for us to expand out and collaborate with new people whose skills are radically different from ours. it enables us to keep learning from others and challenges our perspectives, which has been really healthy.

making work together and expanding our networks of collaborative comrades is still really key to who we are and how we operate as a collective.

when you guys broke into the national scene with tours around the country you were really railing against the post-9/11 political situation, does the political of today still drive your work now and what are you reacting against?

definitely. but i think what we are realising is that the more overtly political a work is, the less transformative potential it has. so works we’re developing now seem to be much more playful, but still with a bit of a sting in their tails, hopefully! we’re also pushing that audience/performer relationship to a point where we are more facilitators to their activities [as opposed to them watching ours] and that shift is really interesting for us, generating more of a shared ownership over a performance or intervention.

you are just about to travel to adelaide to take part in vitalstatistix season called adhocracy, can you tell us about the work you are taking there and how you are engaging the locals?

yay!
yes we are here now undertaking a short residency and collaborating with ten amazing local artists on ‘transumer:deviate from the norm’. its a site-based intervention on the streets of port adelaide that invites audiences to undertake tiny acts of resistance against their built environment.

so audiences are armed with their very own i-torch [a feat of engineering that consists of an iphone welded to a heavy duty torch] and a deviation kit full of absurd weaponry to use at various sites in the work. its very heavily driven by sound, with audio instructions directing the audience thru the streets. and we have associate pvi artist jason sweeney back on-board for this, so are v excited about working with jase again. our adelaide collaborators are ‘the motherfcukers’, an elite team of street superheroes who are determined to use the city as their playground.

so all in all its shaping up to be a bit of an adventure. I think we’re selling out too, as its a limited audience each night, so if peeps are in town and keen to check it out, get a ticket

who are your current influences, artistic or otherwise, who are you loving at the moment?

ooh la la! so many! but I have to say theres two amazing books that really inspired us towards the making of this work and they were: ‘urban interventions: private projects in public spaces’ and ‘trespass: a history of uncommissioned urban art’. just some beautiful works in there and terrific methods of playfully subverting the official narratives of place.

thanks so much!

muchos respect to la la land!

pvi collective are a bunch of fcukers who succeed in accomplishing impossible tasks and who never, ever use capital letters.

pvi collective – pvicollective.com
vitalstatistix – vitalstatistix.com.au

Kelly Doley – The Learning Centre

Returning the Gift: Art in Exchange for Knowledge

Kelly Doley is a Sydney based artist who likes to confuse the boundaries between painting and performance and, increasingly between art and life. The two of us met in 2004, while studying at The College of Fine Arts (Sydney) and have been collaborating in one way or another ever since.  We make video and performance works with the other members of Brown Council; we worked together as Directors of Sydney artist run initiatives, Firstdraft and Quarterbred; and we lived together for many years—which I often think of as the ultimate collaboration. This interview marked a new type of collaboration that began with a conversation about art, in this instance about Doley’s current project, The Learning Centre, a participatory performance centred on direct communication, conversation and interactivity.

Through The Learning Centre Doley has constructed an imaginary system of exchange, in which knowledge is traded for art—or more specifically lessons on life are given to the artist in return for a painting. The first public outcome of this project, The Learning Centre: Manifestos for Living, took place as part of Draught, an exhibition at Tin Sheds Gallery, in January this year.  For this exhibition, Doley invited participants from different cultural, political and religious backgrounds into the gallery to give her a one-hour lesson on what they do, why they do it, and how it gives them meaning. This act of performative pedagogy took place in an installation that looked much like a classroom—complete with blackboards, a table and chairs, and just the right amount of stationary to undertake serious learning.

Over the duration of the exhibition, Doley received lessons from 16 participants on subjects as diverse as: hypnotherapy, anarchism, Buddhism and biochemistry.  In exchange for their lesson, the participants were able to request a painting of their choice to be completed by the artist in the studio at a later date. The second public outcome of this project, The Learning Centre: Paintings for People, which opened at Firstdraft in October this year, involved Doley returning the paintings to the participants at designated times throughout the course of the exhibition.

Let’s start simple. Let’s start from the beginning. Can you tell me about what prompted your interest in creating The Learning Centre?

Last year I became quite disenchanted with the art world; I found myself questioning the validity of artistic practice, and rethinking my role as an artist. I became interested in making work that prioritised an engagement with people outside of the art world, who might not necessarily be equipped with the tools to decode the complex language of contemporary art. So I decided to invite a range of people into the gallery to teach me a ‘lesson’ about how they live their life. I thought that through this process, I would discover some kind of ‘truth’ about art and why I had chosen to devote my life to such a cause; or alternatively it would enable me to find a more suitable life path.

How did you invite the participants to take part in the project?

I sent a formal letter of invitation to people that I specifically wanted to engage with, including: a monk, a life coach and a board member from Greenpeace. In addition, I posted WANTED signs up around the city and placed advertisements on online classified sites. It was important to me that the majority of the participants were strangers, as I wanted to connect with people that I might not otherwise come into contact with.

How important is the audience to you? In the case of The Learning Centre did you see the participants as the audience?

For me the audience is everything; as an artist my aim is to connect with people via the framework of art. I am interested in creating an active space in which audiences can directly engage with the work and are essential to the success, and indeed the very existence of the performative act. In terms of The Learning Centre, which was a participatory performance, I see the ‘participants’ as the ‘audience’.

The artist/audience or artist/participant relationship is complicated by the fact that there are two levels of audience co-existing in the work.  On the one level there is the audience/participant who is either conducting the lesson or collecting their painting. They are integral to the performance, as the work simply doesn’t exist if they don’t turn up—in the same way that it can’t exist without the presence of the artist.  On the next level there is the audience/participant who enters the gallery and experiences the ‘performance’ from the periphery. I like to think that their role was also participatory as they were able to make a choice to either listen to the lesson, or just simply walk past.

What led you to the decision to stage The Learning Centre in the gallery?

I have had many suggestions from people that this work should be presented in a more public space, like a classroom or a community centre for instance. There is a long-standing tradition of this type of practice in which artists take an interventionist approach and present similar projects in site-specific locations. However, I wanted to use the gallery as a site-specific space in which performative exchanges, interactions and conversations could unfold. Placing social events and rituals in the gallery is a way to play with the conventions of the hermetic ‘white cube’ and challenge the historical traditions of art with its focus on presentation and display. I am also interested in bringing people into the gallery who wouldn’t normally engage with contemporary art, let alone be a part of an artwork.

Can you tell me a little bit about your decision to set up a system of exchange between art and knowledge? Do you think this is an equal act of reciprocity?

When I first started this project I hadn’t really considered the notion of reciprocation. I (perhaps naively) assumed that the experience of teaching a lesson to an artist in the context of an artwork would be an interesting enough experience for the participants.

However, it soon became apparent that people wanted something in return for the effort and time required to prepare and deliver a lesson. I couldn’t offer them money, so it had to be in the form of trade, and the most obvious thing for me to do was to paint them a picture—as painting is a skill that I possess. I was unsure if the painting itself would be considered an equal trade, but I hoped that the gesture of making a painting—a task that requires time and effort—would be considered an equal act of reciprocity.

Can you tell me about the types of requests you received from the participants about what they wanted you to paint? I imagine that there would have been a broad range of responses, so how did you approach this in practice?

The requests were very diverse and ranged from simple images like: a bee, or a house, to quite specific things like: ‘a picture of something bright and cheerful, so that when I wake up I can say “Hooray it’s a new day!”’[i] To overcome the difficulties of painting a predetermined subject matter, and to create a relationship between the works I developed a set of aesthetic rules, which included: a uniform canvas size, painting application and colour palette. Once the aesthetic concerns were resolved I really enjoyed being able to switch off and treat the act of painting as a task, almost like a form of manual labour.

I really like the way that you have constructed an imaginary ‘gift economy’ in which a one-hour lesson is valued equally to the time and materials required for you to make a painting. Is this a critique of the art market and the value that is placed on works of art, which often seems so illogical to someone outside of that system?

I think that this invented art economy which trades art for knowledge does challenge the conventional system of buying and selling, and wheeling and dealing that takes place in the art market. Because you can’t buy or sell these works, the potential market value and role of the ‘dealer’ has been removed from the equation. I am by no means against the commercial art market; I am just imagining other systems in which art can potentially be traded.

In The Learning Centre: Paintings for People at Firstdraft the paintings were exhibited as conventional ‘art objects’, and yet their primary function is to act as an object of exchange. Why did you decide to have an exhibition of the paintings rather than simply returning them to the participants outside of a gallery context?

I chose to display the paintings in the gallery context as I wanted to make the act of exchange visible to the public. While initially the paintings were hung on the wall as ‘art objects’, they continued to disappear over the course of the exhibition as the participants come to collect them—leaving only bare hooks and pencil lines in their place. What primarily interests me is the disappearance of the paintings over time—the gesture of going from something to nothing.

How have the participants responded to their paintings?

There have been mixed responses from the participants, mainly about the aesthetic choice to use black paint. It would seem that people generally prefer colourful paintings! Mohammad Kamal, who gave me a lesson on biochemistry, had an interesting response. When he saw his painting, of a scientific diagram, he immediately proposed a plan for a potential collaboration combining art and science. He also suggested I make a few additions to his painting including religious iconography to represent each of us. At that point I had to inform him that this might not be appropriate, given that I am a staunch atheist!

Over the years you have moved away from the traditions of painting and object-based practice in favour of a performance based approach, and yet there is always an element of painting in your work. How do you see the paintings functioning in The Learning Centre?

My practice began as an inquiry into the relevance of painting, and more recently, of art itself. This has led me to other forms of artistic practice, like performance and socially collaborative works. However, painting is still a central part of my work and the basis of my training; I like to consider how painting can function within performance-based practice. In the case of The Learning Centre my ability to ‘paint a picture’ is the skill or service I am able to supply in exchange for knowledge. The act of painting aids the process of engagement with the participants and when exhibited acts as a document of the ‘event’. They are proof that the contract of exchange between art and knowledge has taken place.

I know that you have been thinking about the best way to document The Learning Centre and also what to do with the knowledge that has been imparted on you. Where are you up to with this process?

It is always difficult to document a performance and particularly participatory performance after the event because it is premised on exchange and dialogue. The subsequent recordings of the event are completely removed from the moment of interaction, conversation and encounter, which is, in my view, the actual work. Even so, I still have a desire to archive the information, and communicate the process to viewers. People are curious about what was said during the lessons, so I suppose it is important to share that information. At this stage I am planning to present the ‘remnants’ of the work like an archive—possibly in the form of a book, which will include excerpts from the transcripts and photographic documentation.

What’s next for The Learning Centre?

Next year I am planning to take The Learning Centre to several locations around Australia—the first stop is Fremantle Arts Centre, where I will be undertaking a month long residency, and working with the local community. The long-term plan is to tour the work overseas and continue the process of ‘learning’. I still have a lot of unanswered questions about whether it is possible to commodify knowledge, life experience and education and if these unquantifiable elements can be traded for art. So I’m hoping that by presenting The Learning Centre in different cities, continents and cultures I might get a little bit closer to finding out.

For more information on The Learning Centre visit: www.kellydoley.com

Carolyn Teo

Carolyn Teo received a Seedpod grant from Punctum to develop the work “He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skills of the physician.” (Chinese Proverb). LALA talked to her as she was in Bendigo, Victoria making the work.

Can you describe the work you are developing for Seedpod?

Bendigo is a town saturated in Chinese culture that dates back as far as the Gold Rush in the 1850’s. This project aims to deconstruct the misconceptions of Chinese in Australia by researching and presenting a work based around the cultural history of Chinese people in Bendigo. I am particularly interested in the development of market gardens and the important role the Chinese played in providing fresh produce to the community of Bendigo and eventually Melbourne. Food is of great importance to the Chinese, who believe that eating good food can bring harmony and closeness to the family and relationships.
The work I am developing for Seedpod will result in a sound performance and installation based around the Chinese history in Bendigo. The sound performance will consist of various field recordings taken from the Bendigo region and found objects that are connected to contact microphones and run through a mixer. The installation will be a portable market garden made of different sized Bamboo steamers that will stand in columns (gardens planted on the top of the steamers).

Your work encompasses many different media – does this particular work represent a departure from the more 2D works you have been making?

I come from a background of Visual Arts, majoring in Photomedia. The departure from such 2D works started after I went to Vancouver as an exchange student, where I ended up enrolling into sound, video and creative electronics as well as photography. I wanted to create work that was not the conventional photographic print, by utilising electronics, video, painting, installation and sound in my work. This eventually led to the development of my performance character Wun Thong and my interest in experimental sound. I now like to combine all types of medias, I hope it is not a sign of my short attention span!

The Chinese were the first major migrants to come to Australia in any numbers after the Anglo-Celts of the first fleet. In addressing the difficult past of the Chinese in the goldfields do you feel like you are making comment on multicultural society in todays Australia, or is this more a personal journey into your own background?

I initially became interested in the history of Chinese in the goldfields after a visit to Wandiligong, Victoria. I had not heard of this history before and found it alarming that little of this history was known to most Australians, especially that of the Buckland River Riots, where many Chinese were chased out of the Buckland Valley in a river of violence; camps were destroyed and people were badly beaten and some even murdered. Any sympathetic Europeans who tried to help the Chinese also suffered this abuse. When the Seedpod residency presented itself, I saw it as a chance to investigate the rich Chinese history in Bendigo and the important role the Chinese played in the local community, providing money as well as raising money for the local hospital. My aim was to deconstruct some of the misconceptions of Chinese in Australia (especially for those who go back many generations) by shining a light on these histories. I didn’t realise that this experience and research would have such a profound effect on me. It has been a wonderful personal journey to learn of the resilience and resourcefulness of the Chinese, in a land so far and culturally different from their own. I myself come from a background of Malaysian (Chinese), Norwegian and Australian (Cornish). My parents got married during the time of the White Australia Policy, which was a very hard time for both my parents, my mum being of European descent often suffered verbal abuse from strangers calling her a “traitor” or a “slut”. It has been an insightful experience to be in a place where both Cornish and Chinese have had firm histories and it has been an honour to work so closely with the community of Bendigo and Castlemaine. I have found people to be both extremely knowledgeable and considerate of the Chinese history here.

How do you see the installation working, are there interactive elements to the work – or will it be a more durational visual piece?

The installation part of the work will involve audience participation. The audience will be encouraged to plant seedlings in the bamboo steamers. The soil will also be sourced from Peppergreen Farm one of the original market garden sites. The portable gardens will then be given back as gifts to the audience and members of the community, which they can then plant in their own gardens.
I am also intending to make fortune cookies for both performance nights, creating my own inserts based on Chinese proverbs about food, Chinese plant names and the historical facts of Bendigo.

Where do you see the work going beyond Seedpod?

This project will inform a bigger body of work in the future, it will also help to develop an open model that can be used in community gardens around Sydney and regional Australia. I have approached Addison Road Gallery in Marrickville (Sydney) for a solo exhibition at the end of 2011. The Art Gallery is situated at Addison Road Centre, which is home to several non-profit organizations, a weekly market and a community garden. I would like to go back to Wandiligong and do some further research into the history of Chinese in the Buckland Valley region and I am also interested in the walk from Robe and the journey the Chinese made from Adelaide to Bendigo in order to avoid the ten pound head tax imposed on every Chinese entering a Victorian port.”.

Carolyn Teo presents her work at the Old Bendigo Fire Station on June 4th and 5th (check the upcoming section for more info) Her website is here – http://www.carolynteo.com/

Elizabeth Woods – Journeywoman

Elizabeth Woods is an Australian artist, educator and consultant whose practice focuses on developing relationships between art, site and the community. Her PhD in 2009, related to site specificity and temporary public art. lala was pleased to talk with her about some of her recent projects…

How do you feel Hobart connects with your work, is it a place that still inspire you?

I am part of a love triangle: Tasmania, Queensland and France – and as history tells us, one has to go eventually. I love the Tasmanian landscape, the weather, the food and my family who reside there however, to me, inspiration is not found in a particular time or place – it just arrives unannounced. I don’t have to be in Tasmania to be inspired – I simply have to be in a place that allows me time to think.

I’d like to address a couple of your works;

In The Collection of Earthly Matters you involve directly members of the local town from your arts residency in Marnay-sur-Seine – does this form of engagement really seek to cement the idea of ‘residency’ for you?

I have been travelling continuously with my work for ten years now – I am an itinerant. I see similarities with the journeyman/person – a traditional role of travel taken by a person when learning their trade.

For many artists, being in residence is just a different or more congenial environment in another country to work – it’s not like this for me. I always make a project that directly relates to the site and the people – as an itinerant artist you learn to adapt very quickly and to never rely on anyone or any given promise or medium. Therefore, for me, residency is about the community and institutional support that allows my projects to happen – my work begins with what the community are offering me.

The Collection of Earthly Matters involved asking people to present their most prized object. I then went to their homes, drew the object and repainted them in fresco style in the local church that has its own historic roman frescoes from the 17^th century. The community responded by re-valuing their present day objects as objects of spiritual significance, whether it is a guitar or a bed that belonged to their great-grandmother – the project created a contemporary understanding of spiritual matters.

I was trained as a valuer of decorative arts and it was surprising not one person chose an expensive item but instead, selected an object of sentimental value – I was touched by their honesty. This is another wonderful aspect of being in residence – some people took weeks to decide on an object and being in residence allows the artist to be patient, for me successful residency that allows you to directly relate to the community this requires time and for me, that means at least two months.

As an Artist who works with site and communities I require support from a variety of places, to make a successful work, and if you do not have an official institution behind you require support from the community, and this can come about in the oddest of places, for me my working methodology begins with what the community are offering me.

There’s going to be a wedding and you’re all invited! (where you married a tree) really captured my imagination – not just as a symbol of interconnectedness with our arboreal siblings but also as a bizarre, almost pagan rite. The piece was part of the WORKS festival in Glenorchy which is a mostly working class suburb in Hobart, how was it received and how did you feel carrying out the work?

What a project! For years, I have been unsuccessfully trying to have fruit trees planted in urban communities and this was finally a way to do it. As with most of my projects the documentation did not do it justice: Glenorchy is a great place to work as the people were very open – I did not meet anyone through the whole two month project that thought that the project was a waste of rate payers money! I often work in Australian communities and surprisingly, it is usually the more middle-class communities that seem to offer greater opposition. Glenorchy was so refreshing – I found interesting people and made new friends.

What is more surprising is that this work has been sneered at by several of Hobart’s conservative institutions and commercial galleries – perhaps they feel it lacks in-your-face social criticism, or that it is too popular and lacks a rarefied atmosphere, or perhaps that eccentricity is a domain only for rock-star international artists.

But for me, this was a very rewarding project. People who do not normally participate in (Capital-A) art events did so on this occasion and I think, There is going to be a wedding and you are all invited, offered them an authentic experience as they immediately understood the symbology and ritual of the wedding and were not intimidated or alienated by intellectual theory.

The paganism was unavoidable. Had it been held it spring, this would have been more pronounced as I would have had live animals. Instead, in order to comply with Workplace Heath and Safety regulations, I was forced to have actors in animal costumes – which added to the event’s craziness! An important aspect all of my projects is the representation of everyday life, and this is often as produce, livestock and food.

I enjoy working with the general public – I find them very interesting and learn a lot about contemporary living and, I think they enjoy participating in my projects. Generally speaking, I think the general public are really unsure about what artists do these days and most still see the self-absorbed, time-rich, hard-living stereotype championed by Modernism – it is no surprise that many in the general community regards artists with suspicion. I wish someone would run an art campaign to inform the public about the range of activities common to an artist working today.

Incidentally, the Glenorchy City Council and Arts Tasmania have again been generous in running an anniversary event in May at the Moonah Arts Centre, the home of the Works Festival.

Public Notices is a very beautifully realised public art project – can you tell us a little about how this was conceived and how the selected members of the public were changed by the experience?

I was simply wondering how people treated each other and what they did behind closed doors when I encountered a council public notice. I proposed the idea to the Hobart City Council and to Chance Encounters, an exhibition curated by Mary Knights and Maria Kunda for the Ten Days on the Island festival. With their support, together with months of pavement pounding and sometimes less-than-dignified pleas to West Hobart residents, we managed to change the street for ten days.

I visited every home on Lansdowne Crescent, seeking participants. To interested residents, I asked them about what they considered to be important in their daily lives, or about what they wished to reveal or change. They then made a pledge to perform a ‘household improvement’ for the duration of the festival and the pledge was posted officially, by the council, on a notice usually reserved for a different type of improvement i.e. architectural and building construction.

It was a great success and the residents responded with remarkable enthusiasm. The suburban street became an active social area where neighbours and passers-by engaged freely in conversation. Some residents extended the project by holding their own mini art exhibitions on their fences. One household that missed the submission deadline posted a very touching hand-painted notice pledging to be more organised and to repair their front doorbell!

No project remains isolated from another, the Public notice project came about by my wonderment of people and how we treat each other: what are people are doing behind the closed doors of their homes? As I said I find people fascinating, no matter who they are, I can always find something to talk about. Since then, The Public Notice Project has also been run successfully in Queensland – although the outcome is always undoubtably site-specific, the idea is remarkably portable.

Elizabeth Woods has a website here: http://www.in.situ.net.au

Bedding down with Charlie Sofo

Charlie Sofo is a visual artist based in Melbourne, however his recent B.E.D. project, a project that has people sharing their bed with Charlie for a night, moved into the realm of live and participatory art practice. I recently wrote an article that discussed B.E.D., and Jason Maling’s project The Vorticist, for un magazine 4.2 (which you can download here). For lala, Charlie and I decided to have an extended conversation about the process and thinking behind B.E.D. Below is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Amy: So have you gained any benefits or insights by doing the B.E.D. project?

Charlie: In the beginning I didn’t know or expect there’d be benefits. I knew it was going to be awkward, but after doing 14 sleepovers, I realise every single interaction has been beneficial in some way. I don’t know about insights, but there’s been friendships formed. For instance, if we think about you and I doing the project… well, here we are.

A: Being mates now.

C: And that’s what has happened in a few other cases as well. The benefits have been, simply, closeness. But I’m ready to be proved wrong. There’s always the potential for trauma. Awkwardness is good, as well as hitting up against the limits of my ability to be social: to deal with the complications of intimacy. But so far that hasn’t been necessary.

A: The interesting thing is that you are going in blind. Usually, if you share intimacy with someone you have some history to refer to, but in B.E.D. you are activating an unmoored kind of intimacy. It is a strangely vulnerable and intense one-on-one situation, which often leads to an unusual bond forming between you and another person. I wonder what we can learn from that?

C: Perhaps it’s about tracing borders, finding that fine line between being intimate and not being intimate with someone. It’s incredibly fine. I have thought about it in relation to sex work, how you’ve got a particular structure that you set up that allows for intimacy. There’s a conventional perception that intimacy is hard to achieve, but it’s a lot simpler for people to do, given the right structure.
I’ve noticed that people I’ve gotten into bed with immediately talk about personal things. I share too, as well as listen. But almost without exception everyone has talked about private things.

A: Yes, I remember we talked about relationships. Maybe it’s the site of the bed? For me, the project signaled a lot about my own boundaries. Normally you share your bed with someone who you have few physical and emotional boundaries. It’s odd to try to sleep beside a stranger, so maybe you are drawn to talking about the people you normally let into your bed?

C: I think you’re right. It is an issue of boundaries. Definitely. I like that other people have done the groundwork, they’ve had to trust and approach me.

A: A lot of the participatory projects I do involve approaching people in the street and trying to convince them to do something. I like that your project involves an open invitation on your blog, so people must choose to get involved.

C: Yeah that’s nice. I think the thing about inviting people has something to do with my personality.

A: You don’t want to be the person who does the convincing – “Hi, I’m doing this B.E.D. project. Would you like to get into bed with me?”

C: When I hear other people talk about it, sometimes it sounds sleazy and I don’t like that. It’s pretty important that the invitation was written by me, in my own words, so my intentions are clear. But I guess you can’t avoid how people construe things, although I get paranoid about it.

A: It’s an open invitation, however you are not particularly interested in getting into bed with a complete stranger. You insist on having a coffee with them beforehand, or at least getting a recommendation from a mutual friend.

C: Which probably differs to how you’ve done projects; which is a direct engagement with the public.

A: Some years ago I had an open call out offering to take people’s portraits. Participants were able to dictate how and where the portrait would be taken. I accepted anyone who showed interest in the offer. It got a bit weird because I’d find myself in strangers’ lounge rooms taking photos of naked men. But for me it was important to not refuse anyone. It’s different in your case. You are putting yourself in a particularly vulnerable position and so a bit wary.

C: Yeah, I’m managing that vulnerability. It’s highly managed, to be honest. I don’t want to refuse anyone. I’m trying, where possible, to follow through but there are limits to my capacity.
If I felt really uncomfortable I’d probably have no qualms refusing. There are people I know socially, who I’d be nervous about sharing that level of awkwardness with. You’ve got nothing to lose with a stranger. Getting into bed with someone you know can be a bit harder.
My third B.E.D. participant, Matthew, talked about the importance of actually spending the time to relate to new people; that when you are out socially people really appreciate it when you make a bit of effort to get to know them better. I realised how little I do that and how I had to invent this very formal project to begin to start to do it. It’s associated with my nervousness in life. What Matthew said really underpins some of the goals of the project.

A: A lot of my motivations for doing social art projects is to do with my frustration with social boundaries. Often the motivation is to get direct communication with someone else. But do you think this kind of project just works on a therapeutic level for everybody?

C: No, not when you ride past their house in the morning and drop in for a coffee. It’s not therapeutic, it’s enmeshed in your life. Something has been gained in it. There a therapeutic elements in it, definitely. But I guess we all go into these things in the hope that some of it will last. You don’t make social art, or art that is about testing boundaries, without wanting to have real change.
I don’t think this project could have been possible without the internet. Over the past year I noticed there was interest in things that I was writing on my blog and discussion around my own practice, and I started to change what I was doing. Instead of just discussing what I was doing in the real world I would actually formulate things that could engage people, and also meet the people…

A: The people who were reading your blog? Your audience?

C: Yes, that’s the thing. Break down the idea of an audience, because that’s useless, no one wants that. We all want peers. An audience is like a dead thing.

A: So you were after something more responsive. You don’t want people to just view your art, you want people to involve themselves in it?

C: There is that tendency to use your audience as the content but it probably has to go both ways. If you are going to require something of people, you probably should give something back, especially if it is quite risky. That is why I haven’t documented B.E.D. And by not having documentation, it’s putting all the emphasis on the action itself. It’s placing more meaning on an interaction, as opposed to the object afterwards.

A: As artists we are often quite conscious that we are asking people to do things for us, so we try to be respectful. And yes I think that is a better way of getting more participants and more people comfortable about it…

C: But it isn’t a complete solution. I don’t think it’s the right strategy for every artwork.

A: No not for every artwork, but that’s the strategy that you feel comfortable with?

C: Yep. There’s that artist who deals directly with exploitation, Santiago Sierra. I feel ambivalent about his work… I’m not sure if I’m coming from a prudish or judgemental perspective…

A: How about ethical?

C: Actually maybe it is. I can’t disassociate from that…

A: I don’t think I’d make work that necessarily exploited the participants, but I am interested that there are a lot of self-imposed rules in participatory art. We often go to great efforts so that participants aren’t made to feel uncomfortable or manipulated – but couldn’t that make good, complex, critical art?

C: Well you could say that you are always going to exploit people. It’s a fact. But I think you might want to work out strategies to mitigate the damage.
I worked it out for myself back in art school when I was doing photomedia. I realised that taking photos of people was immediately exploitative, so it had to be about acknowledging that and working out what kind of engagement I wanted to create. Maybe a negative or angry interaction might sometimes be the right solution.

A: Currently there seems to be a lot of work by live artists that aims to achieve a deeper level of human connection between people. It’s almost formulaic how many projects create situations where strangers come together in a heightened sense of intimacy. I just wonder how much more ground is left to cover on this theme? Is there more to learn?

C: Yeah, I know what you are talking about, cause on the one hand it’s symptomatic – why are people trying to reach out, why are we trying to create these situations? Is it because there is a deficiency in how we live? Is it a societal thing? I’m not entirely sure. I think any artistic or cultural thing is about building, building on a way of relating, or redefining it.

A: I’m interested in the people that you end up in bed with. They are people like you, sourced from your social circle or friends of friends. Was it your intention to go beyond that and sleep next to people that you wouldn’t normally meet?

C: No initially I didn’t really want anything from it. I guess there’s more to gain the less I know a person, so seeing how it’s progressing definitely makes me think about broadening the scope of it.
Since starting the project I have been told about various artists who have done something similar. But the projects have all differed. Gillian Wearing, for instance did a project…

A: Take your top off – where she got into bed with transsexuals.

C: And there was this stark photo of them both with their tops off.

A: Gillian Wearing is conscious of the exploitative potential of her work, so if she asks someone to take their top off then she’ll take her top off as well. I like that she makes the transaction explicit, and the photos are quite beautiful.

C: Yeah they are very raw and tough. It’s a very tough project. It’s about your own capacity and what you are able to do. You have to do the best you can with your own personality. When I started doing B.E.D. and saw the Gillian Wearing work, I realised I couldn’t take a photo. Wearing’s were really strong photos, and I really don’t know what mine would be saying, other than “this happened”.

A: And you can say that just as well in your diary entries.

C: Or even right now. That’s the other thing; all the outcomes of the project have come out in these kinds of conversations, some of them formal, some of them informal. So when you initially asked about interviewing me for lala, I thought this was the best possible forum to have the work exist anyway. Because if you turn up to a gallery what are you going to find out?

A: The fact that you aren’t documenting B.E.D. means it becomes about the enigma of the experience. Do you like the fact that there are people out in the world retelling their experience with you?

C: I wonder what they say actually. I’m interested.

A: People are so curious about what goes on. When I did the project with you everyone wanted to talk about it -“So, what did Charlie wear? What was it like?”

C: Yeah, it’s interesting people do that cause it seems so everyday and quite simple. It’s probably that the possibility of intimacy is there and people are into that – tabloid style… I do wear a standard pair of boxer shorts.

A: The project boxer shorts?

C: I didn’t want an outfit. I just thought I’d wear what I normally do.

A: But that’s what struck me about your project – it’s not a performance. When I was writing the un article and talking to Jason Maling about The Vorticist, it was clear his project is a performance of sorts, he plays a role. But in your project there is no structure or uniform or role played, it’s just: “Hey, I’m Charlie in your bed.”

C: Well yeah it’s about barriers again. We are always playing roles, but I guess I really want to alleviate the pressure of having particular roles. I want to minimize the dynamic of artist and subject – take that away. That’s another reason why it’s not documented – I don’t want it perceived that I’m somehow ensnaring a person or placing them in an artwork. Instead we are both getting something out of it.
I’ve tried to neutralise the whole idea that I have power by constantly playing up my vulnerabilities. I’ve almost done it to excess. But it’s somewhat necessary to balance the power.

A: I think again of The Vorticist. In that project you go into Jason’s office, and although there’s efforts to minimise the difference in power – the space is neutralised to a point, like an office is neutral  – but you are still entering his space. But you put yourself at risk because you go to someone else’s private space. I like that the siting is in a participant’s own home.

C: Yeah, practically I find that really interesting. I didn’t realise how interested I was in people’s little domestic routines. It’s something you don’t fully appreciate by having a coffee with someone or going over to dinner.

A: Do you take that information away and know so much more about a person?

C: Yeah, totally. That’s half of it. This mundane shit is incredibly interesting.

A: Yet you aren’t doing anything with it, are you?

C: Well I just jot down a little diary but I don’t want to do anything with it.

A: So you aren’t going to exhibit what you jot down?

C: I’ll work it out in 2 years. You never know.

A: So what’s in the diary? I thought it was just a date and a name.

C: And I also just have a brief description of what happened, just for my own records. Like you’d have in a personal diary.

A: It would be interesting to see Charlie’s observations of all these stranger’s rooms.

C: It’s true. That’s why I reckon if I read the diary in a couple of years I’ll work that out. I’m not feeling rushed about it.

A: That’s what is nice about talking to you about your project. You didn’t go in there with an idea of an outcome. It’s more about starting with a question. I know Jason talks about The Vorticist in the same way. For him, it was really just a question of who would respond to his invitation, and it still interests him why people continue coming to him for this strange interaction. I guess that’s part of the answer to the question; people are interested in a one on one experience even though it’s unclear and ambiguous.

C: I often wonder what people are expecting actually. And it’s possible they could always be disappointed – “This wasn’t interesting. He isn’t the person I thought he’d be”.

A: People go to it with their own questions. What would it be like? What does this mean for me? It’s that mutual uncertainty that makes it interesting.
Do you think you’ll get to the point when you are so good at it that it loses the point? At the moment it makes you feel vulnerable, it takes risk, but once you’ve done it a lot you’ll lose that. Is that the time you’ll stop?

C: Exactly. That’s why I have resisted doing them back-to-back. I’ve taken them slowly and they’ve all been really considered. Each one has it’s own requirements.

A: Do you feel this project has made you think of other projects you’d like to do? Will you continue making live art?

C: It’s probably been one of the most personally meaningful things I’ve done to date. It’s also made me realise or underlined a particular motivation in my practice. It’s bared my own intentions to me.

Roarawar Feartata Collective

At the recent LIVEWORKS at Performance Space, I interviewed Roarawar Feartata (Benjamin Cittadini and Craig Peade) from Melbourne, who were there developing a work I Luv Amanda Crowe 4 eva.

Here is a very small portion of that interview, covering a number of previous works that happened in Dandenong and Frankston, which are outer suburbs of Melbourne;

MC – Tell me about the works you did in the suburbs?

BC – In Dandenong , it was almost a year spent out there doing things

MC – Just off your own bat?

BC – No we got some money I was doing a masters…

MC – At VU (Victoria University, Melbourne)?

BC – No at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) in Public Art funnily enough but I already had…

MC – What’s that course like?

CP – Shite

BC – I didn’t even realise public art was visual art

CP – It’s ‘art in public spaces’

BC – Basically just design and architecture and visual artists who want to make money, they do art in public spaces, you know giant sculpture things, but I was amazed there was no performance art. I couldn’t believe it but um but I was going to do this stuff in Dandenong, anyway I started doing stuff out there,  We had done stuff in Frankston before that and we started using ‘surveying processes’ on the street – we had a complaints table , we just took complaints, well Craig did in Frankston on his own.

MC – Were they good complaints?

CP – Well you get good um

MC – Did people think it was part of the council?

CP – Some people did yeah, and then you get conspiratorial nutjobs you don’t know what their past is, who are absolutely paranoid , what was that guy? That guy was South American? We didn’t know what his relationship with government agencies was, he had a problem with everything, you know the cosmology of the universe….

MC-  hahahaha

CP – It’s a beautiful moment it starts getting…

BC – The point of engagement for the complaints is that we are taking complaints,  they are like “whats this for?” you go – “nothing, we are just taking complaints do you have a complaint?” And then the decision gets made (in their mind) do I want to or not?  And the majority of the time they are like ‘fuck it, I’m happy, any opportunity I get!’

MC – To have a complaint

BC – To have a complaint

MC- It’s a very Australian thing

BC – But then you also – it frees it , and then you might actually learn something but that’s something we did with our surveying as well , the design of surveys  – fairly passive questions you do a lot of research about the place, what the issues are there , you try and ask the next question that never gets asked on the survey, you know or you try and jump ahead and use the whole survey process…

Cp – It’s a totally open process…

MC – For the purpose of being there, for ‘opening a space for people to…’

BC – Purpose of engagement – whats this for? , just for us and you to talk and you do a survey and you create this space once or twice over a few days and you start creating your own thing and people get used to your traffic…

CP – even enjoy it,

BC – Then you set up a complaints table and they come back for more , you use these things, you know because we were working for the council and we made it quite clear we are not going to give you anything but still in the back of their mind they (the council) are thinking  – oh we might just get something because  we don’t know what the public think, we ask them a million surveys a year and we still don’t know what they think.

So you sift through the mountain of material and you can find questions like How often do you think about God? cos we had gone to a there was a interfaith meeting in Dandenong, there are a lot of cultures in Dandenong we went along it was quite tense we were quite struck about this thing so we only gave them a few choices on the survey

[polldaddy poll=4350720]

One person answered OFTEN almost every single other person unflinching, almost deriding looking at us going ALL THE TIME

You know by the end of the day right we are losers for one you know because in my mind there were four choices but there was never going to be four there was only ever really one choice ALL THE TIME  – everyone around you was thinking and talking about God

MC-  That’s amazing

BC – Pass that on to council and go ‘you want to know you want to provide for something, here you go – GOD!’

CP – Transcendental hub

BC – Yeah its not a transport hub the community needs it’s a Transcendental hub for fucks sake

MC – hahahaha

BC – Let’s think big here lets stop fucking around

CP – What was the other question? Tying into that about If you could be in anywhere now you could be in Dandenong, somewhere else (another city) or Heaven and the majority of ppl wanted to be in heaven. I found that deeply disturbing because that meant, kind of, dead.

MC – Hahahahhaa

CP – Not to say that was about Dandenong it was just about

MC – I would rather be dead than in Dandenong

CP – I want to be in heaven

BC – That was my moment, from that we took our point of departure ok well lets work from this point that everyone thinks about God all the time, thats where we went with our next thing. We did a book of prayer.  I just put suggestion boxes in the library with little dockets saying write a prayer down, donate  a prayer we are going to make a book, do it anonymously , I didn’t really know or think what was going to happen, but they were prayer machines! stuffing the box with very few jokes most of them were…

MC – From all faiths?

BC – Yeah of course some of them disturbingly honest which is what you were going to get – luckily they were anonymous.

MC – So you made a prayer book,

BC – Yes and we got them made and gave them away for free, put stacks of them in the library so people could take them with photos I had been taking everytime I went out there.

Dandenong was being flattened and rebuilt. Sorry – ‘renewed’. So I was trying to document all the shit that was there. Trying to give the council a picture of what Dandenong is – it may not be the kind of picture you want to see or have projected, but it is compelling as any other.

We also created a performance intervention where we wanted to do our own ritualised act of the place that had given us this opportunity and also just provoke it a bit putting ritual fair and square on the street even if it wasn’t a specific ritual it was alluding to something other – so we walked on our knees from Dandenong station to the plaza we had bells we were doing some things prostrating ourselves in order to show that the body creates space not just architecture all these things that are part of what which is what doing performance is all about, body creates space, you can lie down anywhere and it does that…

MC – What was the response?

BC – Well it was amazing, it wasn’t lots of people flocking to us but you had these few engagements where people were going what are you doing? So enthralled by it but wanting it to be for a specific faith “if this was Christian, I would call all of my friends now” that’s what one guy said which I was almost tempted to go “okay”

MC – hehehe

CP – Then there was also you know “what are you fucking doing? My dog shits on that footpath” because we were on our knees and had been for an hour and they were cut up and shredded…

BC – And also there were some boys on BMX’s who rode up and said “hey what are you doing”, “oh you know doing this stuff” and we had been going for an hour and we were on our knees and they were all torn and stuff and we were carrying bells and everything and they went  “ok cool, see you later” and that was sweet, I love that!  Just take it in, let it go, let it be what it is…

Roarawar Feartata are a collective operating in Melbourne.

Rebecca Cunningham – Existing in Brisbane

Hi Rebecca,

Welcome to lala (live art list australia)

Thank you!

It’s been a long time since i heard about Exist in 08 and I was very excited to see the program back then, it was so extensive and had so many internationals, how did you manage to put together such an amazing group of artists?

exist in 08 began really the year before. some friends  [good friends] gave me a ticket to the uk and in 2007 I saw the National Review of Live Art http://www.newmoves.co.uk/newmovesinternational.phpin Glasgow for the first time. I had been making work, but didn’t know exactly what was going on. When I was at the NRLA, I felt I had come home. I had found a community that I somehow intrinsically knew and work I could relate to. I spoke to some artists there – specifically Black Market International http://www.asa.de/ http://blackmarketinternational.blogspot.com/& La Pocha Nostra http://www.pochanostra.com/home/, and asked if they would be interested in coming to Australia. Upon returning home, myself and co-curator Zane Trow began working on exist in 08 www.existin08.com . 18 months later, the event took place. It took a lot of time, work, and energy. And it wouldn’t have been possible without the artists, and the strength of their work, the support of the venues, !Metro Arts and the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, and all the funding bodies who financially supported the event [primarily supported by Arts QLD, Brisbane City Council and the Judy]. There was a great team of volunteers that helped in showing people how to get to which venues when and help explain what was going on. The artists that came, from overseas and interstate were really excited to be here. Many internationals had never been to Australia before. Finally, the event happened, and I was so excited to see this work, in my town, where I rarely see performance art, live art or action art. And here we were. It was really wonderful.
Initially, I had planned to bring out Black Market International in 2008 and La Pocha Nostra in 2009. However, even though exist in 08 was funded, it wasn’t funded enough to bring out Black Market [a group of 12 + artists from around the world. they have been together for over 20 years, and have never been to Australia before]. However, 3 of the 12 from BMi, namely, Helge Meyer, Jurgen Fritz and Elvira Santa Maria Torres did make it.
After exist in 08, the exist-ence event has failed to procure any funding. So we have persisted in making smaller local events, with national and international content arriving via dvd or streaming over the internet. I am now working towards having La Pocha Nostra in Brisbane 2011 and aiming for BMi in 2012, plus a range of other artists I have met over the years, internationally, nationally and locally. Funding determines what happens, but something will continue to happen, we will continue to exist regardless. https://existenceperformanceart.wordpress.com

And your own progression as an artist, how did you come to make the work that fits under the umbrella of live art?

I began as a classical clarinettist. I liked the work of John Cage, Morten Feldman, Steve Reich. In my final year of my Bachelor of Music I arranged to play with 17 others, Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” It was wonderful. I became completely obsessed with John Cage, so much so, that the only way out was by making a MUSICIRCUS, which happened at the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2004. Over 50 artists presented over 30 John Cage works, for free in 8 hours in all the free spaces of the Powerhouse. These were my first experiences in curating and organizing events. I don’t particularly like the work of making events, but the outcomes, for me are essential. During this period I was teaching woodwinds at a range of music schools, and realised I couldn’t do this for a living. I could play at weddings. I really couldn’t change my art for anyone without become completely miserable. So I went into admin, and kept my art for me. Clarinet requires a good 4 hours a day practice to keep any chop and working fulltime, I gravitated towards making up things in my head while undertaking rudimentary, repetitive tasks at work. I was now practicing body based works in my head for longer than I was practicing music, so I started working with the body more. After seeing the NRLA in 2007, my path was affirmed, I felt a great sense of permission. Which I then grabbed with both hands and haven’t looked back.

How do you see it fitting within the Brisbane art scene and also within Australia as a whole?
To be honest, I’m not so au fait with the Australian scene. I think in time I will, with infrastructure such as lala for us to stay in contact.
I think Brisbane is beginning to be more active in a live art sense. However, like me, I think a lot of artists don’t know what they are doing within a greater context. As more artists from out of state, overseas come here, or if the the opportunity presents that locals go elsewhere and return, one can see how a range of individual artists work within a global context of live art, performance art, action art.
Speaking only for myself in Brisbane, and talking to people here, lots of artists are making up their own contexts, and own definitions, explanations of their work. Artist run initiatives are growing, but spaces are still difficult to procure, even outside the institutions of the Brisbane Powerhouse and the Judith wright Centre of Contemporary Arts [arguably the 2 contemporary art venues in town]. I think there is energy and it is growing. We just have to keep working together.

What were some of the highlights of the most recent Exist-ence event held in November?

There are so many
49 artists from 17 countries presented work in 6 hours. As we had one venue, the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary arts, Shopfront for two nights Fri 26 & Sat 27 Nov 2010, the work was presented in an overlapped, mishmash milieu, with live work, artifacts dvds and streaming occuring simultaneously in the space. The first night, local artists, Thomas Quirk & Leena Riethmuller, Robert Millet, Jan Baker-Finch, Nicola Morton and Michelle Xen presented work alongside ex-pat, now Melbourne based Dan Koop. Thomas and Leena extracted bodily fluids for an extended period [tears and saliva], Robert reinacted a work by Myanmar artist Moe Satt called “SmileS”, Jan moved throughout the space in constant connection, reaction, and response to the sonic state around her, Nicola Morton presented Love Hypnosis Exchange which had the entire room spinning [which is also being presented tomorrow Dec 17 7:30 - 10:30pm @ Nu Psychedilic Exhibition at Hoffkake, 284 Albert St, Brunswick, Melbourne]  and Michelle Xen provided us with a heart beat soundscape. Throughout both nights, Dan Koop undertook his work by DJK International “Wish We Where Here” in which he offered a personalized postcard delivery service – you would sit down with him, write a postcard, and let him know how you would like it delivered [whispered, sung, said while laying on back holding left elbow] and he would keep you updated via text and twitter how close your postcard was to delivery. The second night, Andi and Sun welcomed in the crowds with their performance of “Untitled [The treachery of Words], Velvet Pesu performed and in her hand made sonic and light recycled costume Concentric Circles on Red, filling the space with echoes of knowing and not knowing, while Andi and Halfpapp and Tess Maunder wrote “tick” “tock” and covered themselves with these reminders of time; I made a work “a study in red weight” a decomposition of made objects, a repetitive action, a risk in marking the body with memory, and Melody Woodnutt presented Lines and Flux, transforming the space, part meditation, part play, as earth and stones, images and actions collide.
If you read that very fast, I think it gives you a sense of what happened. I had a really nice time, with every work presented being a highlight for me This event was made possible in part by the venue and completely by the generosity of the artists involved. The full catalogue is now downloadable from https://existenceperformanceart.wordpress.com

It feels like you have got a lot of these events up with just your own tenacity and personal links, how would you like to see the Brisbane live art/performance art scene continue to grow?
I would like to see more artists and artists run initiatives doing more and communicating more [so we don't end up doing things the same night as each other etc], sharing information and resources. Communication is vital I think.  Now in dream mode: it would be great to have a space we can call our own. Eventually it would be great to have ongoing financial support. But in the mean time, there are no excuses. Do something. Do anything. and lets do it together.
On the exist-ence front, we are looking at not only doing a festival but do more regular low key events. We are looking for a home for them at present. Hoping this will allow local artists with more opportunities to present their work. I think the more we are connected as a local, then national and then global community, the more we will grow individually and collectively.
Thanks so much Rebecca!

Thank you Martyn!

Rebecca Clunn-Cunningham is a maker and producer of live art/performance art/action art events in Brisbane. She is also a new contributer to lala!

http://existenceperformanceart.wordpress.com
www.myspace.com/rebeccalyncunningham

atlanta eke – intimacy in dance

tell me a little about your performance background,

Growing up I played a lot of tennis and my point of difference as a player was that I would, more often than not, win a match if I was being watched – by my dad, other parents, passers by. In a match situation when there was no one watching me play I would have to imagine there was in order to win. I began to perform, always, audience or not, performance has become something I tend to practice a lot, perhaps always. As for performance in dance, when I was 6 years old I performed my first solo in the rap section of a piece called ‘Things That Make You Go Mmmmm’, at the chadstone shopping centre. The ‘running man’ was a dance that naturally resonated in my body at the time, I could do it well and this was something I wanted to show – since then my interests in ‘showing’ what I can ‘do’ have faded and my attentions are directed more toward the relationship of myself to the audience through questioning what it is to perform and why.

and you performed a piece recently as part of the next wave festival in melbourne that appeared in private dances curated by nat cursio as part of the dance program?

This piece was titled You and Me. I was interested in making an experiential piece to fit the context of private dances. I thought the set up for private dances was very clever. The audience was entering an unfamiliar space in which to experience dance performance but were completely nurtured and made comfortable by the lovely guides and the quality and generosity of the food and drink provided.
I also think that the concept of the night was very strong in setting up a framework for me to really think about what dance could be in this environment. It was a situation I felt completely supported within but with freedom to make my own clear choices.

It made sense to stage some sort of situation.
I was not interested in producing entertainment or performing a three minute dance routine – to have an audience member sit in a tent and watch me execute ‘dance moves’ seemed simplistic.

You and Me was such that as the audience member entered the tent they were confronted with me standing there in a gorilla suit. I would watch them as they would watch me. Within moments a gentle love song would begin to play and I would move slowly toward the audience member offering my gorilla hands, which they would take and we would look, or not, into each others eyes. As time went on I would begin to slowly dance with the audience member, drawing them closer to me, the gorilla, for a romantic intimate dance.

After some time I would unzip a screen separating two areas of the tent and it would be revealed that there was a third person in the space viewing the entire experience from behind the screen. I would then let the viewer out the back of the tent and the audience member would be sat down to watch the next person come in and have the same intimate dance with the gorilla, and so the cycle continued every three minutes for two hours.

when you put it together you talked about how you have been influenced by feminist theory and the idea of the male gaze, for me this was a fantastic merging of ideas and practice, how did this come together in your head?

I am often considering what it is to be watched when performing – how people look at my body on stage. It is inevitable to be subject to the ‘male gaze’ and objectification as performer, so I try to work at dissolving opportunities for this asymmetric power relationship between the viewer and viewed.

I recently read an article written by Elizabeth Dempster – Visioning the Body, Feminism, Ideokinesis and the New Dance, in the 1993 Autumn edition of Writings on Dance. She presents arguments about how ocularcentrism, a vision centered world, produces a “phallocentric perspective”.

The theory, as I understood it, was that when sight is the dominant sense of how we consume the world (which I think it is – especially in western societies where the saturation of images within mass media nourishes capitalistic consumer society) it inevitably positions females as lesser than males – the image of the female body exists as a castrated version of the male body. I don’t necessarily agree with this theory but it became a good starting point to think about how to pervert the sensory experience of the audience member within the tent, where the seeing of the performer would be in close proximity.

Initially I was keen to remove the sense of vision from the performance all together and stage the piece in complete darkness – to produce a sensory experience that emphasized perhaps more maternal senses such as smell and touch. – I think this is where the idea of gorilla suit began, generating a new textural surface for the audience to experience through touch. I wanted to create a close physical connection with the audience whilst manipulating levels of comfort and intimacy through what they were hearing, being a love song.

But instead of taking away vision altogether I wanted vision to become the perversion of the experience. So instead of eliminating the opportunity for the position of the ‘male gaze’ I wanted to transform it and decided to create a space where the audience member could notice it for themselves – and even perhaps elicit a ‘female gaze’ – where the audience member coud feel burdened by the position of looking in on a private, intimate experience, and becomes uncomfortable even reluctant to gaze at all.

As well as this, by placing the audience member in the situation before they viewed it was to also stimulate an empathetic relation to the performance and to manipulate their memory of what they had just experienced which then affects how they see. ‘Seeing’ with memory/empathy – subjectivity instead of objectivity.

the first part of the work created really different feelings in audiences, some people seemed to enjoy the closeness of the experience whilst some were very very confronted, i wonder how much of this was the suit and how much of it was the act of close dancing?

The face of the gorilla was a little confronting, I would have preferred a softer expression but the costume shop didn’t have any friendly gorilla heads, -but this was a nice challenge for me to override the intimidation of the mask with gentle affection and reassuring love, though sometimes I just felt like a creep, especially with younger girls – girls my age. I felt like I was in some way assaulting them, I would imagine myself as some slimy guy hiding in a gorilla suit in order to feel up girls.

Within the three minutes, after initial reactions to the confrontation of the gorilla suit, I would notice people progress through different levels comfort, there was a lot of awkwardness and shyness, resistance and even disgust, though some times there was an instantaneous freedom and release. I found it difficult to dance with tall men, especially if they became really into the experience and would start controlling the situation. – this made me feel like a prostitute. I began to question whether this situation I had set up for You and Me was not so far removed from prostitution and more generally is performance just another form of prostitution?

I preferred short women that would continuously alternate from a hysterical giggle to a released softening into the experience. On the opening night a woman entered the tent and we danced to elvis preselys love me tender. As we danced she began to cry. I began to invent all different types of scenarios in my mind as to what must have been happening in her life a this time for her to respond in such a strong way. and felt terrible that I had to reveal to her that some one was watching us together and she was about to do the same.
It soon became apparent that this work would be quite emotionally draining for myself. Every three minutes for two hours, I would try to fall in love and give to that person what they needed and would respond well too. I found mimicking the body language an effective starting point. It seemed that my timing was very important to this piece, and some love songs were more affective in assisting gentle gradual allurements, with both lightness and depth, forward yet non-intrusive affection, being transparent and fun but deeply passionate. The few times where I felt the piece worked was when there was a sense of joy in the intimacy paired with an awkward, even horrific unease – I think in the context of Private Dances it made sense to try and evoke these things.

many ppl thought you were a man – which i think is quite a flip in terms of the male gaze stuff you were talking about…

my ‘male gaze’ investigations are applied to the thinking about audience and performer relations regardless of sex, but more as noticing positions of power. But I did try to become and man or women depending on whatever I imagined the audience member desired and would fall in love with.

On hearing some feedback I do not know if I was successful in obliterating the ‘male gaze’ in You and Me, and perhaps I even unintentionally put myself in this masculine position instead. One audience member said upon entering the tent he felt that he became the performance, even before he knew someone was watching him from behind the screen, he felt that he was being watched by me – hidden safely behind the mask of the gorilla, this made him uneasy and feel himself objectified – this was not my intention to reverse the situation for potential objectification, but to find a place in between, or to produce a to and fro of perception and responsibility within the staged experience.

It seemed obviously pleasurable for some audience members when they realized they were to view an intimate dance. Most people liked that they couldn’t be seen – I find this disturbing. But it is how audience is conditioned to behave. Others I think were left confused about what just happened to them and it was clear some felt upset, because the becoming audience and being given the space to notice ones ‘male gaze’ it completely perverted the reality of what they just experienced.

do you feel like dance has the opportunity to cross over into different audience/performer relationships such as this or is this a specific thing to private dances?

Dance performance always exists in a relationship to the audience. I am there, the audience is there, we are sharing space in real time. but this is a relationship where we know our roles very well and behave accordingly. I am interested in redefining these relations by diminishing the opportunity for an audience member to sit passively in the darkness of the theatre and expect to be entertained by spectacles. I think people want to be entertained. They want to be separate from – they want to admire skill and virtuosity from a safe distance. The interactivity of You and Me and Nat Cursios decision to position performance inside tents, where there was nowhere for the audience to hide, were affective strategies in dismantling conservative formats but I think it is also possible and fun to work within the existing conventions of presenting dance in theatre -in order to break them.

A current incentive to produce work is to find strategies that allow audiences to activate themselves and their own perceptions of what the experience is. I don’t want to do it for them, and I don’t want to bore them with a performance in which I ‘show’ what I can ‘do’ with my body, inferring perhaps they ‘cant do’ and so there – having a pacifying affect. The context of Private Dances gave me the space, whilst feeling totally supported, to exercise these curiosities

where can you see this kind of work going in your practice, is it something you will continue with?

I will continue to experiment with ways to allow for the production of meaning in my work that is outside conventional representation and I am interested in experiential work, but not necessarily interactivity on a physical level. What performance can produce conceptually is central to the way I work, but it is through the ‘doing’ that the concept evolves and I hope to continually undo the way in which I do every time i do do – as to keep things interesting for myself and audiences.

Melody Woodnutt

Hi Melody, welcome to lala,

Thanks lala!

Tell me about the Neo-intimacy pod you made earlier this year?

Well, it was a piece for Exist-ence Performance Art Festival in Brisbane in Jan 2010.  I wanted to create a kind of surreal installation and improv performance looking at the evolution of intimacy and how we connect.  A red telephone booth was positioned like it had crashed into and destroyed a bedroom on the street.  The bed was broken around this red British phone booth. The work was performed on the bitumen road outside of the gallery, and I worked as much intimacy into the performance as I could. I wanted to connect to people in this streetside Neo-Intimacy Pod using methods of modern communication.  For the 2 hour durational performance I didn’t get off the phone, skype, email, facebook, myspace, twitter, or a home-made tin-can-on-a-string-phone.  I began inside the phone booth, shut away from the audience and communicating with relative privacy over skype with a friend, then moved out of the booth to check my emails or facebook and chat online, I then switched to my mobile phone and spoke to someone else.  While I was communicating, I was moving and performing actions with sand or papers or simultaneously destroying my own sphere of privacy by writing what was said upon the telephone booth for all to see.   I used metal rings around my feet to walk outside the installation, they made the most amazing sound that I hadn’t counted on, but they connected me back to the Intimacy Pod if I walked across the road or sat next to people on the footpath.  Mostly the work was improvised.  I just provided myself with the installation and some conceptually aligned tools and left the performance to intuition and spontaneity.  I think my favourite part was when I left the technological devices and spoke to someone face to face right at the end through a tin-can on a string, by this stage I had reduced my privacy down to my undies.  Some real emotions and connection happened and I just spoke and spilled things in the middle of the street.  I later spoke to a guy who had come to Exist-ence and was surprised to hear when he first turned the corner he was confronted with these emotions, he just wanted to stop me, pack it all down and put me inside the gallery where I would be safe.

I also had a soundscape for people to listen to through headphones that was a part of the installation, it was a recorded message from about a year prior, it was of a recorded voicemail that my friend had left on her ex’s phone overseas, she was so drunk and her message was so uncensored and real and full of emotion and so adorable.  It really was this miniature intimate pod she’d created with a machine.

Also when I think of a ‘Pod’ I think of any environment that is defined by people or physical boundaries determining that space. Almost like the phrase ‘in our own bubbles’.  For Neo-Intimacy Pod I was seeing the way that new mobile technologies had redefined or blurred our modern concept of intimacy and the spaces we use to connect intimately to other people.  Our pods of intimacy prior to mobile phones and mobile communication devices were primarily in the bedroom, in our homes, or in enclosed private spaces and mostly just face to face or on the phone, You can see even through the gradual redesign of telephone booths that our society is now more open and public when communicating a private intimate connection.
And so it was Matt Locke’s research that coined ‘TIZ’; Temporary Intimate Zones, and he describes it as  “…the real space of human encounters enabled by networks…” , I thought this was a great visual image, you know to find a ‘Real Space’ constructed in the street; a tangible reality of an intangible connection that is so ephemeral.  Our intimate behaviour has adapted to this oxymoron of public intimate zones, like in elevators, trains, streets and really anywhere in an urban environment we’re merging more, our lives and the way we connect is morphing and evolving.

And how did the online and mobile communications work with the piece?
Well they were the foundations of the work and used simply as mobile devices as anyone on the street would use them.  I had my laptop with wireless prepaid internet connected and my mobile phone constantly used.  I invited people to be contacted during the work, some I knew very well and others not so well and some were overseas… I like the idea of geographically neutral; where distance is just eliminated through these mediums, and technology can do this to an extent.

And was Exist-ence a follow on from Zane Trow and Rebecca Cunningham’s Exist in 08?

Yes!  Exist in 08 was fantastic! And I think very valuable to Brisbane and live art practice in Australia. Rebecca has been championing the way forward with Exist.  There’s plans for another Exist festival in the future that’s really exciting.  This last installment of Exist-ence in January was beautiful and a little more under the radar than Exist in 08, it was scheduled for 2 days, but it kicked on with some last minute extra additions for a 3rd.

Does much of this type of work happen in Brisbane? and has it grown out of another scene of has it been brought by some practitioners?
Brisbane, despite it’s sunshine, is pretty industrious.  There’s a lot of experimental works going on and some really fearless artists are ploughing the scene.  However as far as regular live art in Brisbane goes, it’s hard to find off the bat, I think of some artists I know and I guess it’s emergent from more theatrical or visual art scenes.  It’s where I see experiments with live elements really being explored.  But I think there may be some performance artists out there who haven’t come from another scene first, I just don’t think I know of too many right now.
That said though, I’m still a green bean newbie as far as the development of Brisbane arts, I just moved to Brisbane from overseas 3 years ago and it took me around 6 months to get my shit together, sort my life out, ditch the debt collectors, and then get back into the arts and take my own practice seriously after that. I don’t think I can speak of the scene before I got there or how it’s evolved with any kind of authority, I’m still discovering too.  But Brisbane has a really enthusiastic and supportive dynamic, and people like Rebecca Cunningham and Zane Trow who have brought it to us from overseas and artists who are bringing it to us with their own creative work are pivotal.  Michael Mayhew said it best over some beers though; that these curators need more artist support.  I think generally I’m needing to be more pro-active as an artist in developing this culture.

How do you see this type of work in relation to the works you make that are sculpture or painting works?
Neo-Intimacy Pod was a progression.  My ideas just progressed, paintings just don’t cut it for me now.  I still paint, but I can’t express the more experiential ideas my work has taken by doing painting.  I’m so much more enamoured with creating experience or immersion or actions or space for people to feel their surroundings.  So the progression went from painting to sculptural installation and then to immersive and sensory installation and live art.  I know that installation still holds a place in my work, because it can involve other people and affect them and their environments. But a live or performative element and the presence of the body can bring an immediacy or humanity to ideas and to audiences.  I guess if we’re talking about Neo-Intimacy Pod, the installation itself was moved after the performance on the opening night and stood inside the gallery as it’s own entity, but as a durational performative work, performance was really just something that was essential to the work and to the way I had to communicate that idea.  There really was no other way I could do it but as a durational performance. I think that visually, I’ll always be interested in the environment of the work or the imagery it projects, which is why installation or context or site-specifics or spatial immersion will play a role in live works I do.

And you have just been on a big travel session including a residency in Iceland, a trip to Gibraltar, Spain etc, is this normal for you or was this something spurred by work or restlessness?
Oh yep, this is very normal! I started traveling on my own 10 years ago, and it became an addictive habit.  Since then I think the longest I stayed in one place was 3 years before skipping the country again.  However this is the first trip I’ve actually traveled for artistic reasons.

How does it reflect on Australia for you?
I guess Australia is safe and a relief for me.  After traveling and living in so many places,which I love, it’s taken a while for me to really appreciate what we have there.  I think Australia is somewhere that is still developing it’s culture and we really have a say in it’s future and what kind of place it will be.  Some countries, you may be born into a culture and way of life that has been existent for thousands of years, yet being born in Australia we are brought into a place where we are still developing our ideals, our culture, our laws and our people.  I guess having seen a lot of cultures, I understand every one of them is developing in their own way, but we have this historically fucked up and bittersweet gift of starting from the beginning.  And what we create is entirely up to us now.

And what is next for you?
Oooooh, I’m leaving Gibraltar for Denmark to hang out with the Snuff Puppets, then Berlin and Amsterdam, hoping to get a photocopier into a field, try some phantasmagoria out, immerse myself in the Melbourne Fringe, and exist a bit more in 2010.  I’ll be back in Australia for a short stint for a couple of gigs, then New York and back to the residency in Iceland.  I seriously can’t get enough of that indie underdog Nordic country.

Thanks Melody!
Cheers lala!  Love your work!
x

Melody Woodnutt is a hybrid visual artist working across painting, sculpture and live art. She is from Brisbane but is currently on sabbatical from an artist residency in Iceland.

Fiona McGregor

Hi Fiona,

Welcome to lala.

The last time we spoke was when you were in Berlin and your were having issues with your artist residency, did that manage to resolve itself?

I had a fantastic, unofficial residency with Basso Art Collective. The rest of the time I rented rooms in apartments – most of my time in Berlin was spent writing.

How important is travel to your work?

Not very. I have gone for many years where I couldn’t even afford to fly from Sydney to Melbourne. I just happen to have traveled last year, and because I went away for so long, I took my work with me. However, I have taken advantage of travel in the sense that I’ve seen performance art that I couldn’t see here. We get to see almost everything in Australia in terms of theatre, literature and the visual arts, but performance art doesn’t travel here because it is quite marginal. In the context of literature, of writing a novel set in Sydney, it was really fortuitous to get some distance from my subject for the final drafts of the book.

I am fascinated with the variety of your practice, you are a novelist and also a durational performance artist, these things seem at odds in a way, without become too binary, the mind vs the body…

Yes, they are at odds. It’s just the way things have played out. It’s where I’ve evolved to. I began as a musician, then began writing in the short story mode, then novels, then performance … As a performance artist I began in a theatrical Dionysian context – queer dance party culture – the body and extreme use of it are central to this, and that is what led to the endurance work, which is what my focus has been now for some years and will be for a time to come.

How does one influence the other?

Hhmmm … Endurance, time, focus, discipline, patience, awareness, stillness … these are things the two have in common. Long stretches of time are required for both. In that sense I’ve realised that they are quite closely related. I’m attracted to that because I’m actually a rather hyperactive impatient person. So by doing this sort of work I learn a lot, and calm down. I think in a broader sense I’m attracted to working in this way, in these genres, as an antidote to a contemporary culture that is very sound-bite driven, gimmicky, and rewards quantity, speed and volume above all else.

I am interested in the work Tidal Walk where you walked the length of Bondi Beach from sun up til sundown, was this a performance piece or do you see it as research? Are you interested in the viewer of this work being a part of the process, or is this a work for you and your own body?

No, I don’t see it as research. I’m a little suspicious of the way that word has been co-opted in, I think, response to funding requirements. You could say, as an artist, that everything is research. The process is always more important than the product, and so on. Certainly it is as a novelist – we can never predict what we may end up using as we go through life observing and absorbing. I don’t like doing things publicly let alone showing them until they are as developed as I can possibly make them, which doesn’t mean things don’t sometimes go out in a raw state. They do. I feel the same way as a punter – I’m not terribly interested in works-in-progress. Tidal Walk was a very personal and ritualistic performance, one that didn’t require an ever present audience, although the companionship of a photographer and friends towards the end was very happily received. All performances I do are for me and my body, but all of them also – even Tidal Walk in a very oblique way – invite sharing and therefore necessarily include an audience. The way that work is shared varies enormously, (publication of a novel, show in a gallery, walk along the beach, or through documentation afterwards, etc) and within that sharing process all sorts of interesting chemistry occurs. It’s the final episode in the creation of a work, like cool air on the cake when you take it out of the oven. (But hey, maybe the cake continues its life in the journey through the body that eats and converts it to energy, help! We could go on about this forever … )

Do you feel like you are part of a community of performance artists/live artists in Australia? Or do you feel like the writing community is more where you feel like you belong?

It’s funny, in a way I don’t belong in either camp. I socialise outside of both. I have a lot of visual artist and musician friends, or people who don’t work in the arts (phew). But I have also naturally built up friendships with both writers and performers. The  literary community here is big whilst the live art community in Australia is miniscule. Performance here is mostly experimental theatre or dance or text or movement based …

You are visiting Melbourne on a book tour supporting a new novel, have you returned to Australia? How do you see Australia at the moment, both politically and artistically?

I came home end of April, as planned, for the publication of Indelible Ink. I’m living in Sydney, still looking for permanent accommodation, still catching up on how things are. I danced for Gillard for 24 hours for the momentous symbol of a woman leading the country for the first time, then I came back to the reality of opportunism and skullduggery – politics anywhere, anytime. All we can do is sit back and wait and see. I don’t agree with the compromises made on the mining tax, but some say Rudd would have made the same. (I wish they’d let him run his course). I’m disappointed with Gillard’s weakness with Isreal and her refugee policies. Me and my housemate fell asleep during The Great Debate – haha – maybe what is most disappointing so far is the woman is just so dull! Some say she’ll her lefty guts back when she wins .. who knows? I’ll keep voting green. l loathe the corrupt NSW Labor Party as much if not more than ever and think they should all be thrown into Albion St lock-up in perpetuity at their own expense. I’m disturbed by our mining wealth, I’m superstitious about what evil spirits we’re stirring from the underworld that will come back and haunt us, yet another chapter in our rape of the land …  we are obscenely rich: so much (land) fat must affect our brain cells, artists as much as anyone. Too many artists are timorous when it comes to creative endeavour and ruthless when it comes to careers and funding: it should be the other way around. I think there’s a big problem with the top heavy corporate model of artist organisations which pays CEOs at the Opera House, Carriageworks, and of theatre and dance companies six figure salaries. Considering the majority of artists and writers can’t earn a living from their trade, this is a Feudal system, patently unfair and also inefficient. I leads to cynicism and despair.
I also lament the diminution of the autodidact. People are often amazed I didn’t go to uni, but every creative writing teacher knows that reading is your best teacher. Peter Porter didn’t go to university and was one of the most erudite of 20th century Australian poets. Robert Gray ditto. Lots of writers used to train in cadet journalism – pretty much out amongst life. Now it is assumed that you have to go to uni or art school to ‘become’ a writer or artist. Once again, a corporate, careerist model prevails. In rock’n'roll thankfully you are still able to just pick up your instrument and begin …
We have some GREAT artists. Yeah, very inspiring. I see and read great art every year, from all over the world, and I love that. Last night I saw Annabel Lines perform a sizzling show at a tribute night at Red Rattler. She rocks.

Do you have an upcoming work that you will be making in Australia?

Yes, I’m currently writing a long essay about Paris – personal memoir style – that I hope to get published by the end of the year. And I’m itching to begin work again on a novel I started ten years ago then put aside. I have a show at MOP gallery next year in February and one in September at Artspace, for which I will be performing live and screening video works and an installation from my ongoing series of performances about Water.

Thanks Fiona!

Thanks to you.

Fiona McGregor’s website is here.

Follow me – Michael Yuen

lala was in Beijing in the minus 10 degrees snow of late 2009.
Michael Yuen was in the scorching Adelaide heat of January 2010
This interview was conducted between these two temperature extremes

lala: In talking with you and looking at your website, I am really intrigued by how diverse your work is, recently I have been observing this flexibility or adaptability to be something that Australian contemporary artists are quite good at. I know you spend your time between Adelaide and Beijing now, do you think this is something that is a cultural thing or is it something within you?

MY: For many architects flexibility is about a structure with multiple uses or something that can be reconfigured. Its about options and change and possibilities. In art, maybe it is a willingness to explore–a trait I enjoy. It is about tackling issues with imagination.

Diversity? During the boom years of Asian art, I noticed a rush for artists to find their iconic thing, the thing with which curators could identify them with. This style of working did produce some significant works especially by those artists that were considering the way in which they were working. But, it was also very destructive–especially for young artists. Curators need to share the responsibility here too. Time and again, we see curators arriving in Beijing to ‘touch the China thing’. They produce a show out of complete ignorance after a week touring studios. And, it happens all across Asia. This is a phenomenon that has pushed a lack of diversity in people’s practices.

Horses for courses, we say! A different racehorse for a different racetrack. I don’t see my practice as particularly diverse, but I’m probably too close to it to notice. Look at someone like Yayoi Kusama. Her practice involves museum installations, public sculptures, video, painting, photography, mobile phones, clothing, cats, etc. That’s diverse. Well actually, yes my practice does involve a similar variety of things, but I guess there is such an enormous amount of possibilities to imagine.

lala: And the Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art – how did this come into existence?

MY: To explain a little about DICA, DICA is an artist run space I run with a friend Yam Lau that exists on the back of a donkey and travels around the streets of Beijing.

Yam and I were chatting about Beijing’s porous boundaries. Beijing is a city that is especially difficult to define with its change and growth. The city doesn’t just expand outwards. The countryside reaches inwards: farmers bring their produce in; rural style villages exist well within the city’s limits and reforms from the 1970′s left behind green patches inside Beijing–a concept that was being explored in other parts of the world as an antidote to the excesses of modernist urban planning.

These days a donkey is still a common sight in Beijing, not a foreign object. They aren’t really allowed inside the fourth ring, but we often see them inside the second ring. In fact, donkeys can be dangerous amongst cars getting spooked and charging down the road. In this way, we are always very mindful of the donkey’s safety.

Yam and I met in the summer of 2008. It wasn’t until the following summer that DICA had its first outing. Maybe a project like this will be full of false starts, but I should mention that the opening was delayed by a week because our donkey was arrested before the first show. The traffic police impounded her for a week when the owner took the donkey to a part of Beijing it wasn’t supposed to go. We helped the farmer get the donkey out but not in time for the opening. With the help of artists Ma YongFeng and Shen Yi and her SUV, we tracked down another donkey hours before our first outing. Fun memories.

lala: The idea of ‘slowness’ and also of meandering encounters with its audience seems important to you in the DICA and also in other works such as Follow (2007/8). Is this some need in you as an artist to shift the paradigm in which an audience views work? Or is it a want to create a more personal interaction?

MY: The idea of speed is important in art, as important as scale or colour or form.

Would I say that I’m interested in shifting the way audiences view work? Perhaps, not. But, there are many ways to view, interact, engage with art. I’ve personally seen the process of some museums and galleries going through exploring alternative ways for audiences to view art, but in the end they remain at their core about collecting the object. It’s a contradiction.

This might sound strange for me to say–because I’m often working with public–but we need to question why we want public involvement. In truth, do we really need the public or are we using the public to speak about unimaginative things? Or to look at it in another way, I’m amazed at how the public is so often used without consideration of what public might be.

The appropriation of theories by artists always strikes me in the current art climate. Too often, artists place themselves in the position of being sales people for such and such a theory or idea–a go between from the idea’s originators and the broader public. But, in the end, does this add to life and knowledge? Even Plato, who thought art was the betrayal and distortion of Ideas, knew this.

So, what I’d want to say is that I like imagining again what public is, and even more so what the city is. And, Beijing is a very interesting place to think about these things.

lala: You have been working in Beijing and mentioned to me that you see this as an amazing opportunity to witness the ‘birth of a nation’, does the extreme difference in culture between Adelaide and Beijing feed you as a person and an artist?

MY: I got my start in Adelaide particularly with a project with the Adelaide Festival of Arts. In this way, Adelaide holds very fond memories.

Now, I spend my time between Beijing and Australia without having put my roots firmly down anywhere particularly in Australia. Standing across two cultures is something that I enjoy, not quite local and not quite foreign in both. And, in Beijing life is quite rich with all its charms and vices.

Birth of a nation, yes. Beijing is at a unique point in history. It is a cliche to say everything here changes very quickly but there are serious repercussions when a city like Shenzhen can be built in 15 years. For instance, it means that an entire city of 5 million are nearly all migrants. We can feel this too in Beijing, whose population has also exploded. It’s also cliche to talk about the scale of China in numbers, but at the moment my favorite China-scale statistic is that the Chinese local and central government spend an estimated 30 billion US dollars on cars every year.

But, to answer your question more directly, being across to cultures, countries, naturally places me as an outsider in both but with a familiarity that’s beyond the exotic. I like to point to others who have worked across different cultures: Samuel Beckett, the Irishman that wrote Godot in French or perhaps Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat who wrote so insightfully about American democracy.

lala: And now you are moving to Melbourne for a while – what sort of life and practice do you see for yourself here now?

MY: I’m in Melbourne for three months. I’m looking forward to some quiet time in Melbourne and a break from shows. And, there will be some time to work on my amateur cheese making.

lala: Thanks Michael.

Michael Yuen is an artist that works between China and Australia.
http://www.michaelyuen.com.au/

Pie

lala talked with Willoh S. Weiland about Pie, a participatory live art project programmed into Primavera 2009 by curator Jeff Khan for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Pie asked contemporary artists to sit down with a member of the general public and talk about their work. If the member of the general public wasn’t happy with their explanation then they could throw a Pie in their face. If they got along then they could choose to sit down and share the pie with them.

lala – The Pie has a lot of connotations in film history as a device of slapstick and gentle ridicule. So why the pie?

lala – Pie started as a project which was part of This Is Not Art Festival in October, 2008 in Newcastle and this year was at the MCA in Sydney, what were the differences in the project?

lala – The MCA and the Primavera exhibition are quite progressive in their programming yet it seemed like it was quite a challenge for them to get their heads around the idea of a once weekly performance?

Pie was a work by Spat and Loogie (Kat Barron and Lara Thoms) and Willoh S.Weiland. Performed 5 times over the course of the Primavera exhibition at the MCA, Sydney 2009.
Spat and Loogie are a Sydney based artistic duo
Willoh S.Weiland is an artist and curator living in Melbourne.

Jason Maling – The Vorticist

One of the most interesting and underground artists in Melbourne is Jason Maling. His three year project The Vorticist is so secretive that you need to be part of the experience to understand it fully.

Lala invited Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy to interview Jason Maling, a Melbourne based live artist currently presenting The Vorticist, a three-year durational appointment-based project at the Abbotsford Convent.