I feel a bit disappointed because I'm not going to get a still or a DVD of the filming that's taking place at work in school of pupils performing the action of chopping onions. I wanted a document that shows the process of isolating the material of emotions; and here we are the filming takes place next Thursday and I'm not going to get a personal copy; I know the reasons are really valid, and I keep reminding myself of this fact…never mind at least the work still gets made.
Having performed this action of chopping onions as part of a previous work, entitled ‘do you think you have a feeling?' it's invaluable to consider this action from other artist's perspectives. ‘do you think you have a feeling?' used informal ritualistic actions and gestures as a way of socially engaging with audiences and the question of feelings. I created an embodied experience of ‘feelings' through onion chopping and framed the activity by asking individual audience members how they were feeling; this was documented onto a clipboard as a list and then read back to the audience as a performed spoken word. I've been thinking about onion chopping in relation to emotions and questioning how I could even justify it's link with emotions; it exposes something physiological, from inside, without the attachment of emotion, the tears are the material of feelings yet separated out from feelings, they still come from inside and look like real emotions, but are absent of it. I think it is this absence and separation that I am pursuing, perhaps it is the ‘lack of the emotion' that is compelling, is seeing knowing?
Issues that this collaboration has thrown up for me are the difficulties surrounding continuing to make work as an artist even though you have to take a day job to pay for living. I don't have a studio space and the need to be resourceful is an art practice in itself, so that ideas can still have a life and questions can still be asked. You've probably realised from reading this blog that there is no real budget, someone needed an idea, a few ideas were thrown into a pot, a common ground was initiated, a-n blogging became the framework and hey presto, the official existence of a new work. Blogging creates a space for me to have a handle on the collaboration without me inflicting my ‘I must have control over my idea' statement! Let's face it it's good to share ideas and to be in a position to receive creative input from other artists; how does anyone make work alone?
Faga just rang to say that the filming date had to be changed to Friday because she's got an interview for a new job on Thursday. My constraints are dictated by my role within this institution, I have a responsibility to the Curriculum Support Department. Ho hum, the work will still get made though.
