My performance on Saturday at the Bluecoat went well although started a bit fraught. My train was cancelled in the morning meaning that I arrived late for my initial technical set-up. There was a bit of confusion as to how I was going to meet and greet the audience. Although there was a sign up sheet there was no direction or meeting point given which I was a bit disappointed with. However I muddled through this it just made it a bit more stressful for me as I had to wander around the building to find people. In the studio was an open window and a set of lights that I used as stalling devices while the audience waited to enter the main space. For example I instruct the viewer to wait while I shut the window, switched the lights off leaving just them and me in the studio.
Nine people came to see the work and I could really feel people’s responses by how much noise they made even though my back was turned throughout most of the performance. Three of the nine people I knew which threw me a little bit as part of the piece was leading people to believe that I worked at the centre by wearing a bluecoat staff t-shirt. On two occasions individuals wanted to bring a second person with them which I went with and didn’t compromise the experience of the work. It amazed me how quite most of the people were, especially when two people viewed the work. This performance is a third version of the piece Departures that I have adapted to each site. For me this has been my favourite version due to the minimal look of the work and it not being overly ‘performed’, referencing more the performance of the everyday. It was only a year ago when I was adamant not to repeat performances. However I feel while the work feels fresh and relevant to the site/event I am happy to do it.
I have a meeting next week at Mirabel studios in Manchester as we are planning on having an open studio during the Manchester International Festival. I wanted to do a piece off site although my project didn’t get selected for Manchester Art Crawl. The project I proposed is too big for me to realise on my own so I have to re-think what I want to show at the open studio exhibition. My initial thoughts are to show a video montage from my China residency. I have also been thinking about a wall text piece, my own airline called ‘AEROFLOP’ which I intend to add myself at the end as a human logo.
