‘A Film In My Purse…’

Last November, and out of the blue, came an invitation by Pat Naldi, Associate Editor of Philosophy of Photography (Intellect Books), for me to contribute ‘A Film in my Purse…’ to the forthcoming spring volume. Such an unexpected but wonderful outcome for this project. The interview process itself proved interesting, challenging in some ways, providing a different space and  landscape of questions to the ones that patterned and formed  the making of the work.

My copy arrived a few days ago, and between pages 115 and 130 of the Photoworks section are 11 images and the interview. This sits mid essays and works connected to a trans-disciplinary conference held at Central St Martins, UAL, June 2015.

The work has also been shown as part of  The 2015 Photohastings Festival  at The Observer Building, Hastings, and performed as part of Curiouser #06 at ESPS, St Leonards on Sea, 2015 as part of a Belgium/UK project.

‘A film in my purse…’ has imprinted itself within the body of my practice, and within my physical body, its memory and flow, and has provided a new geography for my practice.  In wanting to seek further catalysts for  development, I decided to  attending  Helena Goldwaters Performance Master Class, as part of  the ‘Tempting Failure’ Festival, in London this July.

#conversations#catalyst#body#space#research#parameter#borders#boundaries

Clearly I am drawn to all things testing and tempting but unknown, and perhaps another project is emerging…

7 months on. Laying across my table are notebooks, papers, fragments, the small projector that pulled me, my body,  across part of Europe…

On the wall an even larger piece of paper. New maps wanting to draw themselves out. I find a lists of things that drew me in, connected as I formed my journey. I read them now as for the first time and surprise myself,  as I now enter a process of reviewing,  making space for the unexpected.

‘Space, place, the city, the body, encounter, intimacy, border…did she slip in quietly or take territory, just for 4 minutes…how loud was her arrival? Quieter than being present perhaps…’

Alongside  the quietude of the project,  another voice seems to be emerging. In the meantime,  ‘A film in my purse…’ has gathered interest…

With time on my side here, I return to Syntagma Square two days later, as I feel I have unfinished business. I wander, projector in hand, and to the side of the square, the west this time, I see  a plinth with a  statue mounted on the top. A figure ready to travel.  I sit on the floor and project on the plinth below.  The woman in the film walks in a different direction.

Here nothing and everything is happening. An audience is hard to detect, however, it soon becomes a game of frames…

In front of me, and as a backdrop to the statue and is a water wall that changes color every 20 seconds. It reminds me of cinema curtains and a promising light from behind.  On a wall to my right is a couple kissing, a camera dangling from  the woman’s wrist. The lens pointing towards me.  To my left, is a woman making a panoramic shot. I may be in one of those frames I expect, but she does not see me either.  It is all incidental here.

I sit for four minutes, returning to my original performative structure. Then I stand up and walk back towards the central fountain. I first pass a man with a video camera who has been sitting on the wall, filming me from behind. He does not acknowledge me. I exist  within his frame too. Secret audiences here.  Interesting hidden ‘conversations’.  Stark and invisible once again, I walk around the square, disappearing into the crowd…

From Skanderbeg Square to Syntagma Square and 705km of road between Tirana and Athens, across the Albanian/Greek border.  I do not know at this point that many of the borders that I have just ‘slipped’ through will be closed off behind me by the time I return home. Fences being planned  behind me.

I am no stranger to Athens.  This does not make it easy. I can navigate this city, and familiarity becomes the problem.  Graffiti covers the city. This becomes a problem. No wall space. Flood lights, and cafe lights, mean its too light. This becomes a problem. Too many people. Another problem. The problems become interesting, because I cannot find a space…

I try to avoid Syntagma Square, as it feels too much of a circus. I am however drawn to it as a democratic space, a space of public gathering and one that  resonates with shift and change.

It is also the place with least Graffiti. I surrender to Syntagma Square. I am however lost in the crowd. It pulses with tourists. I cannot hear the city. Feeling pushed and pulled I find a corner that is too light, too dissolute, and so I project onto marble. This is the least successful performance of the trip. I cannot listen, and I am unable to  ‘enter’ the performance and this leaves me feeling more like an ‘operator’. while I ‘operate’, people walk up and down the stairs, some watch from above.

Disorientation has seemed crucial to my process. No time to understand the surrounding heightens the sense of place, and the sense of my body in the space.  But here, for tonight, an irritability prevails.

Strategies and Tactics…

The following day I walk into the National Art gallery, lured by a huge banner ‘Strategies and Tactics’.  I cannot resist. The title resonates so well.

Presented by The White House Biennal, Athens, and curated by Lydia Pribisova,  work from  Slovakian  Video Artists  speaks volumes in a large beautiful space.

The work is mesmerising, and I consider its theme more closely in relation to my processes and invented borrowed spaces.  Contrapositions of strategies and tactics.  Strategies of power, and tactics to find a way through, new alternatives, developing  innovate ways of working. The powerful and the non powerful…

I chat with a curator. I chat with the security guard about opening times.

I return to the gallery at 7.55pm It is closed.

I like the flat concrete front. The expanse of paved floor in front. Not many people around, but I am not searching for that kind of audience. I sit down and turn the projector on.  Distance and space means that the scale of the projection is larger, and this impacts on the experience. I lose edges.  Ambiguity and intimacy play with each other here.  During the four minute performance, I am only aware of the shadow cast by the security guards peak cap, moving back and forth on the same wall. We watch each other, and nothing is said at all.

Here,  aside from the security guard, I have an audience of drivers,  moving past or stopping at the traffic lights.  Perhaps a viewer from a window in a nearby tower block…