Expo Leeds
25-28.09.09
Sunday
The two highlights were: Christina Kubisch’s ‘Electrical Walk’, and Paul Rooney’s ‘Thin Air: The Psycho-Vocalic Discoveries of Alan Smithson’. I’ve ‘done’ Kubisch’s walk before, in Birmingham, so this time it was easier to focus the walk on areas that I knew would be the most interesting. Photo-booths and cash dispensers were a nice surprise. The accompanying maps were very thorough, so presumably those who were encountering it for the first time would find it easy to get over the initial ‘I’m wearing massive headphones’ dilemma and find some interesting sounds to explore very quickly. Perhaps situating the collection point in the mall (rather than tucked away in the Ikon gallery) changes the public uptake of the project. I’d like to see some audience figures…
Paul Rooney’s video lecture was the main thing I have taken away with me from this weekend: it was an intriguing blur of fact and fiction, delivered authoritatively, and made me re-consider the use of text and lecture formats in my future performances. It is a successful method of delivering work about some complex (and possibly spurious) theories such as Electronic Voice Phenomena, with the ability to subvert the audience’s expectations of lectures as a form of knowledge dissemination. In this case I enjoyed the fact that the performance was held within the university lecture rooms, further blurring the distinctions. It seems a natural way to present work which is experimental and research-based, or which has sound or photographic elements which the artist wishes to present in a specific order or context. It removes the option of flexible viewing/listening which takes place when such elements are installed in a gallery.
