Tuesday – Day 2 of the Workshop (Presentations, Performances and Crit)
We had until 2pm to work on our “performances” and to think about how we might document them. The first exercise that i did was to draw across the crack in the road, onto paper every time a car/bike/pedestrian passed me on the bridge. I sat on the pavement for an hour making this drawing, it acted as a record of traffic, and different drawings made at different times would give different results. The end result was fine, but not strong enough to be my “performance piece”. I enjoyed working in a public place where passers-by could glimpse me, but not understand what was going on.
The piece that i will carry forward as my Performance will be my running idea. I will run up and down the bridge in Riihimaki for one hour. I see it as a large version of my line drawing, where my body is the pencil and the road is the ruler. Like the line drawing, this activity will have an exhausting effect on my body, and my rhythm will change throughout the performance. At first i will be uneasy until i find my pace, then have fast and slow moments, sometimes i will feel determined, other times, tired. I have never run for an hour before, so im not sure how my body will fair – but it doesn’t really matter if i cannot run towards the end, i will continue walking.
The activity of running across the bridge is not abnormal, if people were to glance me doing this performance, they would not think anything of it – but if they were to see me running this short distance repetitively – then they would think it was it was strange.
“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
— John Cage
I have recently discovered that my new phone has a video function, it is very low-tech, but i would like to record the performance on here. I would position the camera at one point on the bridge, and just record the rhythm of my feet as they ran/walked past – the intervals of when the viewer saw my feet would vary depending on my pace at that time.
The crit lasted from 2pm til 6pm, everybody gave a “trailer” of their performances and we discussed them and talked about the documentation and life span of each. We had only been introduced to this “non place” a day ago, and everybody had come up with something different, inventive, curious or moving. We now need to consider how we present our performances to the public, and will be working together in the Project Space today (Wednesday) to pull together our extensive documentation, produce and exhibition and perhaps a catalogue.
