Distillation, documentation, participation…
Homeopathically speaking we will always be there which underpins the non-documenting stance. Well, provided the receiver was present.
Maybe when ideas get so convoluted, it’s time to take stock and say’ just why are we doing this?’ Going back to the original reason to collaborate, I needed someone to help me realise my 8 year old concept about fighting for the body. Similar ways of working and the exciting prospect of a potential collaboration jumped off the page at me. The bits I am enjoying are the batting of ideas back and forth; the anxious bits are the shoehorning.
But then the distillation process is magical when unexpected things happen. eg virtual skyped S + present S talking to people about their imaginated venues for /ed.
And at the moment yes, it could go anywhere. Once it steps out of our heads and into something tangible, I’m hoping it will be obvious where we are going.
One last thought… paper bodies?
And so the distillation process goes on. I am hoping that a beautiful jewelled drop will fall from the end of this and we will not have just distilled ourselves out of existance.
The problem with ideas is that they grow and grow and get out of hand, or take funny and unexpected turns, and lead you up false alleyways or into dead ends. Knowing this is not helpful. So when faced with a good idea that could literally go anywhere, what do you do?
When it is a collaboration and there are two, does it mean that this problem is halved or doubled? or just some other funny equation with lots of strange squiggles.
My thoughts have turned to creating a FIGHT PATH. Documentation of such a thing in the form of a giant map created by the performance itself. Thus the history of the event is recorded in an oversized and impractical atlas. But essentially a
work on paper.
In my experience ‘works on paper’ are worth more than works in cloth by about a thousand fold.
So we have provisionally decided to become ambassadors of the parts. One of wounds the other of the fallen debris. The resultant map will be a record of a battle and hold the status of an official historical document.
We have realised that the shape of the cut will affect the shape of the record, creating it’s consistency and make-up.
Above all is this still a question of fighting for the body? A fight between inner vulnerability and outer threats with the thinnest dividing line.
I fermented my thoughts overnight- went to bed with thoughts of an investigation into physical/mental collapse in durational activity. Which happens first? The mental collapse from being controlled or the physical collapse from being driven physically?
Woke up certain I know where this is going. Being controlled by a signalling audience is just the very process enacted when we as artists shoehorn ourselves into someone else’s space. ed/ is a mirror of that ‘dancing to someone else’s tune’.
The reality and the fantasy clearly overlap and I have only just noticed what is going on. Ping!
Strategic planning meeting. Via skype. Ideas ferment better when slightly garbled and broken up.
After much deliberation we have decided that at this current point we should stop trying to shoehorn our idea into someone elses space. It really isn’t working for us at the moment.
So what’s next. DIY. I’m much better at this than dancing to someone elses tune anyway. (Being something of a stubborn person).
So how, where, what and importantly, how to pay for it all?
For some time now we have been playing around with the ideas and it seems that we could do with some ‘intellectual rigour’ from a wo/man in a white coat. Having seen ‘Pirates, Adventures with Scientists’ I have an idea of the sort of person who may just be able to help us……… Where to find them?
but *flicking through SCIENTIST yellow pages* neurology, micorbiology, psychology…… what kind of ‘ology’ should they be?
Pondering the PechaKucka in Wakefield.
Attending as a disembodied head on a screen it was hard to judge the atmosphere and responses to our presentation. (I say our although my contribution added up to a lot of nodding, grinning and waving – feeling like I’m appearing in a Hogwarts newspaper). So it is hard to give an accurate portrayal. But from my one dimensional view here are my thoughts.
Initially the audience seemed a little flumuxed by us – and seemed a little bemused at our presentation. Maybe that is just the ‘PechaKucha’ speedy style – this was my first experience of it.
By cross-examining anyone who would talk to us, myself and my bearer managed to get some extremely useful feedback on our ideas.
Random suggestions: Saltaire, derelict warehouse, Royal Armories Leeds, make sample film, Piece Hall, shadows behind screens (coloured?), inside a wooden shed, air hanger: people around the edge. NO DESCPRIPTION OF SIGNALS. Minders for drunken yobs (don’t want to get carried off) Edinburgh, instruction booklet in alienese, Park, bridges with water.
Collaboration is VERY interesting when what seems like one thing to one person is totally different to the other. Making 2 of each item and sharing them will be interesting……..
Teddies beware….
