Drawing board
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taʎːaˈtɛlːe and cut
Ah, what a jolly day that was I thank you both so much for ferrying too and fro: Anne for delicious pasta the other night and Francis for extreme courage in harmonious duty. Sups in October, coffee will be heavily caffeinated I promise. Love Jessie x (postcard from Whitley Bay on the North Sea).
One day, sooner or later, whether you find it by looking or having it looked for or whether it reaches you by mail in six years time – that is how long it has taken me to shake my vengeance – you will have this letter in your hands and you will finally know why and how I killed your daughter. X
Recipe for delicious pasta (disaster)
“I always use fresh tomatoes and anchovies, no tomato paste. Always fry your onions in butter for the best of buttery results and meanwhile prepare your broccoli on the chopping board. Use vegetable stock and take stock at all other times, keep calm and collected. Fresh tagliatelle, tagliolini or tagliare is the best type of pasta for strangulation. Boil this separately until half cooked and add it to the stock, tomatoes and anchovies. Add the broccoli too at this point, don’t cook it through leave it half raw – give her something to choke on.”
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In this lies anything but sinister edge but the relationship between two texts and the negotiation of a fiction brought together from the two. Jessie wrote her words on the back of a postcard that she left in an art gallery; I found the postcard that was addressed to Francis and Anne, in London. I copied the text and then posted the card. The text on vengeance came from a book I was leafing through at the time. The recipe comes from an artist friend of mine who works in publishing – she’s very quick at giving good ideas and lying out recipes and structures for text on the page.
She sat on the red sofa in front of me eating a cup cake, head bent low over the table between us, and read the following text on a piece of parchment littered with scribbles and marginal errors:
After a bare-footed mountainside climb he found himself half way across a river hanging from a rope swing. Whilst hovering just two inches above the water he recalled his initial excitement that was now debased by the present situation. He thought of the feeling as his tired feet left the ground and his weight and momentum were transferred to his hands clasped around the rope. But he never reached the other side and on his return failed to touch base. Now he hangs like a broken pendulum listening to the voice of the water and the story told by his partner who sits on the riverbank:
Breaking from the text she crossed her legs, swallowed the last of her cake, brushed the crumbs off of her lap on to the floor and continued to read:
In the town where I grew up a couple that live in a house with many rooms of many colours hold feasts celebrating the twelve days of Christmas. All the community are invited and for each woman and a cake is baked. In two of these cakes they hide a gold ring – one for a man to find, another for a woman. Whoever finds the rings takes to a throne for the remainder of the festivities: they demand an audience and decide upon the fate of the community. Decisions are made; the community acts and things change with each year. This is a memory but I do hold an experience close to my own: one year I took ill and found I could not eat my cake so decided to keep it – one of the rings was never found…
She then took the parchment, folded it in front of us and turned her attention at last to me asking: “What made you decide to disown your work and give these moments of experience and this effort as an artist away? Does your work have no value to you?”
To this I replied: “I wanted them to think of my work not as a commodity but as something they could own for their very participation. They experienced it so they have access to it as an experience: and through this it ceases to be ephemeral.”
“What are you getting at?”
“How an audience and their relationship to the artist can sometimes get stuck in the middle (the artist can also be stuck in the middle fully exposed). I wanted to elevate this relationship, pass over the ownership of my work”
“How did you meet them half way?”
“As the artist I took an anonymous role and entered in to the domain of the spectator. As the artist in disguise I approached people watching my film (that clearly featured me) and engaged them in polite conversation. Slowly I revealed who I was and released my anonymity.”
“How?”
“I gave them fragments of the film burnt DVDs I hid in my pocket.”
“Do you think this worked?”
“Yes it worked, I am no longer stuck in the middle, it gave me momentum to either return to the beginning away from my present position as the artist, or to continue ahead. But with each element given away their was less of a title for the work and less of me. Soon enough I disappeared entirely.”
She stopped at this with a sigh under her breath, unfolded the parchment and read the final paragraph out loud:
“For him nothing was tight or durable enough. From his publisher we know that his proof reading habits were the despair of the typesetters. The galley proof always went back stuffed with marginal notes and not a single misprint had been corrected. All available space had been used for fresh ideas. Thus the laws of remembrance were operative even within the confines of the work. For an experienced event is finite and a remembered event is infinite as it is only a key to everything that happened before and what is to come after.”
Man in green jacket lined with white fluffy material: “How would you feel if I gave you a piece of this artwork?”
Mersey River rower: “What do you mean, it’s a piece of video installation, how do I take a piece of it home with me…”
Ubiquitous is everywhere action and thanks to the small tight stairways leading to the first floor of Greenland street’s foundation beginning with A my work remained anonymous – just like myself as a performer or artist in the presence of an audience on the opening night.
Boots were bashed trousers were ruined and self-performance exuded across the widening floor as light and colour danced upon the walls – and the objects I brought with me, they made friends with the ghosts of each hallway stairwell and barricaded windowsill. Dust was all and Perspex sheet (scratched upon the surface) rendered heavy efforts beautifully reconciled.
These moments were then given away – fragments of a whole film reel were offered to the audience. Value and spectator as embodiment of an artwork’s worth were both explored through conversation: conversation with space, object, interaction and displacement of “a set piece ever changing”.
Man in green jacket lined with white fluffy material: “Each film is a fragment of what you see before you. You have seen it and your presence gives it a title. Here’s the title…”
He takes from a rip in the right hand side of his jacket a silver shining disk embellished with an intricate drawing and hands it to the rower – this is a votive act – an offering of ritual and shared experience an opportunity and tangible object of touch…
