The Lost Library and Word Collecting

The elements that I’m focussing on – words, seeds and something that has been lost.
Seeds – plants as part of the language of an area.  Language as a reflection of the landscape.  Plants individually remain the same across generations, but words mutate readily and rapidly.

The physical and haptic experience of visiting a library is different now to when I was a child.  There was the smell of the pages of books, cardboard envelopes in which the book card was placed whilst on loan, the wooden boxes these were kept in.   There was also the feeling of walking into a world of the written word, with a few audio books on tape.

Looking back at why I choose to name the project the Lost Library?  Libraries had been declining and I had been projecting into the future – thinking: what will become of libraries?  But maybe what is more useful to consider is what have we already lost?  What sticks most firmly in my mind is the physical experience of being a room full of books.  The gestures I use when being in this space and an interaction with the text there both being core elements to my exploration.

These elements being central, I intend to physically be and respond to the next library I’m performing in alternating at set intervals between responding through gesture and reading / consuming the text in some way.  For instance – the Fibonacci Sequence of numbers is linked to patterns in plants growth and I have previously taken words from pages (in a dictionary) relating to that sequence, so now I’ll pick up books in that manner. Choosing books using the sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 etc.  The sequence could be used to choose which books on each shelf, which page and which word.    These words could be recorded and passed on to the next library I visit through documentation.

The other idea relating to my methods is to audio record the sounds within the library during my performance (I would be mute) and then transcribe this to pass on to the next library I visit.

These modes could work together, one is relating to my actions for the duration of the performance, the other to preservation of a certain time and place and a creation of a chain of withdrawal and deposit in libraries.

So preparing documentation from my previous three appearances to pass on to the next library I visit is my next step.

In considering documenting my Lost Library project to now, I’ve come across an opportunity: Goldsmiths Library Residency later in the year.

I know for a fact my approach to the residency isn’t strictly what they are looking for.  My approach and M.O. rarely fits anything.  I feel unprofessional in the way I develop my work, but I know that it is the most fruitful, revealing and exciting way I can work.

My recent declaration:  This season I will be mostly wearing my actions  is proving to be quite a long season.

So in the last iteration of The Lost Library I wore a stripy top, set up in three buildings which were historical or current libraries, was mute for the duration of 6 hours, signed people up to The Lost Library, issued membership cards and gave one word to each new member.

The thing that began my project The Lost Library was my desire to bring the words within the library to life through movement.  This I couldn’t do due to believing I needed professional performers and therefore funding to do this.  Which I didn’t get ( I applied to two sources and got turned down.)  I have a big difficulty in filling out forms in that I have no idea how to answer questions, what is expected, the wording is nearly always misleading to me.  As well as the way I lose the meaning to a whole sentence due to the misuse of a word.

Before I go too far on that line of blog, let me review that area of my divergence!  This slight obsession on words and meaning and being concise is clearly something I cannot leave alone.  Something I would have liked to spend more time on is the editing of my list of 1000 words that were used for the last two performances of The Lost Library – at Fringe Arts Bath and Deptford X Fringe.  Though – in fact, by reviewing the words before each use I get to refresh them just in time, so they are perpetually my chosen 1000.

Ok, so this belief that I need professional performers has subsided since I’ve been working on various projects – the car boot, the clydach gorge collaboration presentation event and considering embodying one of my paintings from the Clydach Gorge Collaboration Lifeforce Clydach  in which white stick figures dance, do yoga and relax near the edge of a landscape ridge – on the horizon. (These ridges surface again and again in my paintings)

I found not speaking during my last Lost Library appearance at Deptford X Fringe interesting, especially with giving out just one word.  The signing people up in a register for the library was an interruption in the performance, plus it meant cardboard signs were needed to explain, which I’d prefer not to do.  If I could rely totally on my gestures and having one word to give out as the focus, this is more interesting.  What I like about how this is developing is the way I’m editing the content.  I’m reducing the elements down.

Have I gone far enough?

Lost Library now=one word+ gestures

Aim:

Make our peer mentoring sessions and exhibition preparations transparent by isolating the dialogue and transcribing it, to create a permanent record, an inscription.

By transcribing a season of our sessions the ideas of individuals and the formation of the artworks in the run up to the exhibition become visibly fluid as they are discussed and often tweaked/transformed through dialogue rather than simply the finished products which appear, as if fully formed in the exhibition.

These discussions are usually only recorded via meeting minutes, if at all and I’ll be transcribing them in their entirety (including mishearing’s and typos).

Definitions:

INSCRIBE:

1)  Write or carve (words or symbols) on something, especially as a formal or permanent record.
2)  Draw (a figure) within another so that their boundaries touch but do not intersect.
3)  Issue (loan stock) in the form of shares whose holders are listed in a register rather than issued with certificates.

INSCRIPTION:

1)  A thing inscribed, as on a monument or in a book.
2)  The action of inscribing something.

TRANSCRIBE:

Put (thoughts, speech, or data) into written or printed form.

Ingredients:

Typewriter
Cream paper
Headphones
Time
Audio recording devices
Peer mentoring sessions in London

Method:

Record peer mentoring sessions July to October (November if time) and type via audio transcription onto cream paper, mistakes by mishearing and typos included in final product.

Recording in person when I’m there, virtually over Skype when I attend that way and via a willing volunteer when unable to be there at all.

I’m questioning what is and isn’t newsworthy.
Is honesty valuable?
How transparent can our peer mentoring group be?
What value does focussed discussion have?

Recently I’ve been tweeting excerpts from my inscription via the groups Twitter account @Juggernautsart

Ingredients:

40 minutes
Mute
Low Plinth
Black and white stripy blazer
Car boot items
Sign

Directions:

Stand on plinth holding one item at a time, using arms and body to show the item, interacting through gesture and eye contact with passers-by staying silent, with a simple sign at the base of the plinth reading ‘What’s your price for the item I’m holding?’   I wave at people going past in cars leaving the site, this becomes part of my routine and gets the most engagement.  (Gestures slowed).  Overhear one guy saying  ‘Wish I could get my wife to do that.’ And a mother explaining my appearance as best she could to a young child.

Result:

Engaging people through gesture and eye contact, seeking an honest interaction in a world that increasingly seems to be absorbing untruths in the media.

Unlike in the conventional retail space where prices are usually fixed – at a car boot sale we have the opportunity to barter.  Bridging the gap between the gallery, where a limited range of people frequent, to an event attended by many demographics visiting as buyers, sellers and those who just want to be entertained or social.

Having worked with words and text for a long while, I’m finding I now need to seriously limit my use of them; only reading and writing what is essential.

Doing as much research through video and imagery, and doing things rather than writing about them.

I wrote around a month ago ‘This season I will mostly be wearing my actions.” As I was clarifying my practice.

I have held back from really diving into live-art.  I find when I look at LADA (link) and ArtAdmin (link) that I feel I don’t fit there either.  What I see there is louder and clearer than my work.  I feel I’m working with subtleties.

I having been thinking and mulling and procrastinating so much, because I’m really nervous of where I’m going.  I had a notion to do my giving out words silently in the centre of a tourist city (wanting as much interaction as I can get).  I have now sourced a black and white stripy jacket, I just need a plastic crate, black fabric and cartridge holder (for the jars of words).

In my last live-art appearance in Deptford I was silent for 6 hours.  This was far more engaging and exciting than I’d imagined it could be.  I’d reduced the text down to giving out one word and a lost library membership card.  But there were written instructions all around, but I don’t think these clarified the piece for anyone.

Distilling this piece further to only giving out the one word and having none of the other paraphernalia with me, just what I am wearing and something to stand on so I am noticed (and hopefully approached)

The lost library handle could go now..It’s moved on from being about libraries to minimising text and maximising physical interaction.

I’ve become disillusioned with text.  It doesn’t live up to its promises, but physical action and interaction can.

Text is no longer my most expressive material,  my feet are.

Now – this appears to be a jump from what I’ve been producing to now and that statement, but it’s been there throughout my life.

Being attuned to the environment I’m in through my senses but primarily my feet and physical gestures – AKA over-sensitivity – is something I need to face through my practice.  (not sure of this sentence, it’s sideways)

I feel connected with my direct environment.  I’ve been attempting to communicate an idea through the live-art I’ve been doing, though not very clearly to myself and others.

It’s now a good time to review the Dancing in the Galleries conversations I had much earlier in the year at Oriel Davies.