I came to a conclusion yesterday that we shouldn’t progress with Pixy with the Chameleon Project. It wasn’t a light decision, I hardly slept at all. Primarily, I think I was anxious about the nature of the collaboration, and about how much we could adapt Pixy to work with Chameleon. I was anxious about delivering the project on time. I was anxious about having very limited video to work with, I was concerned about too much complication, and how Pixy brings a very different reading of the work. If we hung Pixy as a display for Chameleon, I would have wanted it to investigate emotional contagion, and Natacha told me that she didn’t think it was about emotional contagion anymore. I guess alarm bells went off, and I started to retreat away from the development of Pixy and Chameleon. I wanted it to be the meeting of two great projects, and I wonder if it ended up competing more than anything else? Pixy bought a very different reading of Chameleon, and maybe one that I felt might have been to confusing. I was also aware that both Pixy and Chameleon are quite innovative in their nature, and wondered if audiences would ever see past this. My work, although I use technology is about humanity, about visceral responses, about relationships, trust and intimacy. I don’t want it to concentrate on Technology. I realised part of the reason that I wanted to explore Pixy was also so Pixy could be seen more by people. Bringing Pixy to Fabrica would have been a great opportunity for Experientiae Electricae. Anyway, I am sure they will get other opportunities in the UK after the Lighthouse residency. Pixy is beautiful.
I talked the decision through with Fabrica, whose main concern is really about what I want to show, as well as what works in the space. The opening at Fabrica is October 2nd, and I always had told Fabrica I would give them a decision by the 12th of August. I sit here now, still feeling confused. Fabrica is a big space with a personality of it own.
I talked it through with Natacha and Michael and they understood. They could see the disconnects that were never truly resolved. We discussed the type of imagery that Natacha might explore with Pixy. Interestingly she wants to explore video’s of ‘atom bombs’. How very different to my own approach to Pixy.
I feel sad about the potentials that were developing between Pixy and Chameleon – that were never truly resolved. When I thought about Pixy coming into Chameleon, it took effort – we needed to find somewhere to host a residency, I needed to discuss it with the collaborators, I needed to work out timings, we wrote 3 grants applications and were successful with one Arts council England application. 100’s of emails and discussions later. Both Natacha’s and my own family up-routed to Brighton… Sleepless nights and hardwork from everyone.
