ARS HAME 09, Riihimaki, Finland

Wednesday – Day 3 of the Workshop (presenting documentation)

Lisa had ordered two large sheets of plywood for us to present our documentation of the project on. This would serve as an “exhibition” to inform our audience of our process. We had done some extensive documentation over the past two days, we had over 200 images, and i had recorded some videos on my camera phone.

We needed to select images and decided to use the following headings to order them slightly: Site, Process, Performance, Discussion. After spending the morning staring at our laptops in the space, we were becoming tired, and everybody had opinions about how things should be presented, so ideas were changing rapidly.

The images were printed at a local photocopy shop, we made posters (in Finnish) and had to select images and write text for a small catalogue which will be held at the art museum in Riihimaki.

We worked until 6.30pm, and then made our way over to the “Art Jam”, a discussion forum for Ars Hame being held in a nearby restaurant. We were all exhausted, and the thought of having an Art Debate was the last thing that i wanted to do. Luckily, we drank beer, chatted, laughed and some people danced to the odd Indian/Finnish music being played.

Thursday – the morning before the Performance

The Performance is from 12 – 2pm today, this morning we only really need to get the boards down to our “non place” and prepare for later. I will be running for one hour and i am pleased to see that the weather will be cooler today. I have never run for one hour before, i will be a physical wreck by the end of this! But im strangely looking forward to that feeling, the feeling that i have made art-WORK and achieved something… which was my concept after all…

Catalogue Text: “Running”

I will run across the bridge for one hour; left to right and right to left. If you were to run this distance once, it would not be considered abnormal, but if you ran this short distance repetitively, onlookers would think it strange.

My body’s rhythm will change throughout the hour as I become physically exhausted and anguished, but the runner continues as a matter of principle, demonstrating conscious determination.

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.

Feeling pretty exhausted after Saturday’s performance, i had a day off Sunday.

Monday, and back into full, busy and intense routines of working again. It was the first day of Lisa Torell’s “Urban Spaces” workshop. What was i expecting? To put myself into someone else’s hands and to enjoy being navigated, to work with others and have dialogues reminiscent of Art School crits. There are 10 participants and Lisa asked us to identify some “non places” in which to work. Edwina, who lives in Riihimaki spoke about an abandoned area underneath the fly-over so Lisa set us some parameters around the site to focus us. The three words that we have to think about and make work in response to are:

Time, Moment and Routine

I spent some time walking around the area, but wanted to sit down and go through notes in my sketchbook, extracting words that had previously been useful; crossover, touching, separating, joining, crack, crease, cut…

I didn’t realise it at the time, but i had settled in my non-place here. A grassy mound linking the two stretches of road, with no real purpose. I liked sitting here because i could see activity on both of the roads and have always liked it when two cars, one on the lower road, and one on the fly over cross the bridge at the same moment.

I was also aware of a clunking sound made by cars driving over a strip of metal on the bridge, this reminded my of my line drawing performance, where the join in my perspex created a new sound for the pencil to score over.

The nature of the workshop lends itself to performance because we have a very short time to work in, and limited materials. Today, Tuesday is the day for resolving some of these ideas, and we have until 2pm to work, and then will present something to the group. So far i have two ideas:

Moment: recreate my line drawing on the pavement of the bridge, over the fracture in the surface. (on paper, or directly onto the pavement?)

Routine: Running up and down the bridge, left to right, right to left for 1 hour – the same amount of time that i spent on Saturday’s performance. Running is a routine for many people, it helps me get mentally into the right place to make work, and like the drawing, it has a physical and exhausting effect on my body.

I thought that “Time” would be the easiest word to work with, but i still don’t have an idea for this word. Perhaps its too big? We have alot of time today to work on our thoughts, so something should come.

We are meeting at 10am and have a new text to read, Lisa said that we should think about the beginning and end of a work, which is something that i have been thinking about in relation to my line drawing, especially performance.

Yesterday i performed my line drawing for the first time. I was anxious about this because it is usually quite a private activity in the studio, that only those who have a deep understanding of my practice have witnessed.

At 6pm a sizable crowd gathered and i was due to start. Should i say something first? Should i round everyone together? They all seemed quite happy chatting – so i decided just to start without making a scene. The noise was penetrating as the sharp graphite nib of the pencil scored along the canvas, and it soon caught everyone’s attention. Some people sat in a semi circle around me on the floor, near the tv monitor (Liam set up a video camera on the drawing and hooked it up to a live feed on a tv monitor, so the audience could see the detail of the drawing). Although i had my back to everyone because i was drawing, i was aware of movement and activity behind me – i could recognise people out of the corner of my eye, and they were taking photos and films on their small digital cameras. To my surprise, a man came up very close to me, and took quick photos with a huge camera and big flash, it was clear that he was from the press. The performance was generating more of a reaction that i had expected.

I drew for an hour and became more relaxed in my rhythm, and so did the audience – they all seemed very calm around me. Despite me thinking that they would get bored of this repetitive activity, most of them stayed for the full hour.

My arm ached, i could feel blisters developing on my palm, my body swayed from side to side as i drew the full length of the line, and i got a stitch. It hurt when i sharpened the pencils, and their nibs kept breaking. So much dust was produced. I had forgotten what a physical activity this drawing was, i became bored, but very determined and tired. Sometimes i would draw slowly and then i got fed up, so went really quickly for a short amount of time, until the nib broke again. The pencil made a sharp scraping sound on the fabric and perspex, a different sound each way, left to right, or right to left.

I found myself deep in thought as drew, thoughts about what the drawing meant and represented came into my head, and i wish i could had written them down for the seminar. I could also hear people in the background talking about the drawing, and what it meant for them, or what it looked like.

At 7pm, the performance ended and i took down the ruler and fabric. Everyone crowded round the remaining drawing on the wall with curiosity and took photos, and the room was filled with conversation and energy.

I was exhausted, but very pleased the audience had responded so well.