Durational Caffe Lattes

From Monday 31st October to Thursday 3rd November members of the Field Theory collective will be undertaking a four day meetings binge. They will engage members of the Sydney community in discussions around the meaning and relevance of Live Art.

The artists will drink one coffee for every meeting they have, to see the outcome of what caffeine overdosing can do to the body and also to hear the responses of Sydneysiders to this task, come to Performance Space on Thursday 3rd November at 8pm.

If you are outside of Sydney then you can follow the project online here at LALA as it happens with regular updates…

http://www.performancespace.com.au/2011/durational-cafe-lattes/

The Australia Council granted Performance Space a Cultural Leadership Program Development grant to enable the artists of Field Theory to extend their skills as Live Art strategic leaders.

Fun Run Darwin

Fun Run part 1

The live art endurance spectacle FUN RUN returns for its Darwin premiere on August 19th. Tristan Meecham will run a 42km marathon on a treadmill supported by performances from local communities of cheerleaders, body builders, zumba enthusiasts and Darwins own Grey Panthers, (a 70+ dance troupe). FUN RUN is at once hilarious, gruelling, camp and delightful.

http://www.darwinfestival.org.au/2011-program/fun-run/

Strategies for Leaving and Arriving Home

Strategies for Leaving and Arriving Home

1. Find the longest way to leave
2. Announce your dramatic departure to be sure there’s no turning back.
3. Sell everything you’ve spent the last ten years collecting on eBay so that you can afford ultra-light, warm, waterproof hiking equipment that you will only use this once.
4. Source redundant road maps, scaled 1:2500 and pin them to the wall across from your bed. Spend hours planning the flattest and most direct route, and then acknowledge that it’s probably best to just follow the train line.
5. Romanticise solitude and anticipate loneliness, invite everyone to join you.

Dear Everyone,

I am writing this in the hope that you will read it and decide to join me on my walk at some point.

On Saturday June 4, I will be leaving Melbourne and moving home to Sydney, on foot. I will walk four hours a day, more or less and it will take me two months, more or less. Most times I will camp, sometimes I will have to stay in a motel or if I’m lucky enough, someone, like you or a friend of yours will take me in for the night (I like pets).

I will be following the train line so it is easy to meet me. You can walk for a day, you can stay the night, you can walk again the next day and longer. There is room in my tent but you’re better off bringing your own, as well as food (for me too, I’m vegetarian) and please dress for the weather.

To join me, email: strategies@strategiesforleavingandarrivinghome.com with the date or dates you are thinking of and we can arrange a place and time to meet. For further information please see strategiesforleavingandarrivinghome.com

I hope you can walk with me

Sarah Rodigari.

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.