Press conference this morning.
By being in the main drag of the river, rather than at the edge, we managed to commit to the river as an idea. It created a scene for the press and keep a distance from them. Performative.
There were around 20 journalists. It was all pretty absurd – see the pictures – but the translator said it was by far the most surreal press conference she’d ever been to, which is a measure of success, I suppose.
Then to the TV studio. It’s in an old soviet building but the studios are well-equipped.
We were briefed by Donatus. There are now 12 of us: Romeo dropped out, asked to come back in then dropped out again, the second Monica decided she’d rather learn French over the summer and Mantas, who I never got to know, has disappeared. Nat flew home this morning and they tried to pressurise Eero into signing the contract before the press conference. He refused and they relented, thank God.
Rafal is in, as is Monica (the first one), Andrus, Tadas and Saulius. I really need to talk about them and their art practice, I just haven’t had time, so far.
So given that they were originally meant to have 16, it’s still undecided whether they will make the numbers up or leave it at 12 people. And we’re filming tomorrow.
There are four white square boards with white paper on the ground, lots of different types of materials and a couple of workhops in the bowels of the building which we can have prior access to.
The plan is that we will be put into teams, in front of the studio audience, and invited to make some work. We’ll have an hour to discuss it and plan it, and then an hour to make it. We can do some prep in the workshops and studios, prior to the show, but we won’t know which teams we’re in so we can only prep our own ideas, which will then have to feed in to the group.
There’s more than one of us thinking “I have no goddamn idea”, but there are two approaches we can take. Either, we brainstorm together and come up with some ideas as a group, or we leave it till the appointed hour, working only by ourselves, and embrace the pressure.
I can buy that, but because this is a TV show and we’re perfoming, we should try to make it as performative as we can, to be mannered. I think.
I don’t know how it’ll play out – a group of us had pizza late afternoon, so I’m missing dinner to write this and spend some time reading. I also need to phone home. A late-night swim in the lake last night had me sleep like a baby, but I’m still dog-tired.
