I arrived back in the UK yesterday. My body arrived back, in any case, I’m not sure if my mind has quite made it yet, I think it will take some readjusting to get used to being in Europe again.
The Shanghai performance went rather well, there was a good audience, I was a bit more in control of what I was doing and managed to work with the unfamiliarity a bit better, that is to say to transform difficulty into opportunity to show thought in action rather than to appear to be floundering. This can go further still but I am happy to see how the performance has been growing. The post-show discussion was longer than I had expected with many questions about the meaning of this or that. I see how the author is far from dead but on the contrary, alive and well.
At the end of the performance I needed some cash to pay for the tech hire. I had to pay using notes that I had used in the performance, carefully peeling the double sided tape off them before handing them over. I could have sworn I had enough but was slightly short. This was no problem as Tomaz helped cover it till I repaid later that evening. Looking at the video later I now see what happened. A 50 yuan note got stuck to the packaging tape I wrapped around myself during the performance. When everything was over and we were clearing up I never saw the tape or money as someone must have ‘cleared’ it away.
I do now have the dilemma of what currency do I use when performing elsewhere. In Berlin in two weeks, do I use Euro or RMB? This gets to the question of who is the spectator? Am I suggesting we are in China and they are Chinese or am I simply making a performance that is first for overseas Chinese? I will have to decide soon.
I received some pictures of the performance and exhibition. I’ll post them here. Below is my artist’s statement on the works in the exhibition:
The Olympic Conspiracy (2009)
Video.
Duration 2:53
The Olympic Conspiracy is monologue that ironically adopts the language of conspiracy theories linking The Olympics to The End of The World. While the intellectual argument proceeds as a series of ‘false causalities’ the emotional undertone is quite genuine, using spurious ideas to express contempt for The Olympics. The three principal influences of novelist Raymond Roussel, philosopher Frederik Nietzsche and new age guru David Icke, come together in ‘The Olympic Conspiracy’ in a non-didactic and self-effacing lecture.
The Customer Is Always Wrong – prelude (2011)
Video: Jia Zhixing.
Duration 2:14
Filmed in Xiamen, this video performance, my first ever work in Chinese, introduces me as the customer: the one who seeks experiences and possessions in exchange for money. While I am critical of this socially constructed role, I here adopt it in order to better express both its inevitability and limitations. This video also introduces the formal language that I go on to develop in the subsequent performance.
The Customer Is Always Wrong (2011)
Video.
This performance document records the main work produced during the CEAC residency. I set out to look at how British identity could be viewed from the perspective of Xiamen. This rather personal document of my time in China, attempts to bring together the many difficulties, pleasures, confusions and insights that I have experienced without turning them into a coherent lesson or story. Working ‘close to the ground’ I have tried to immerse myself within Xiamen daily life using the materials and language available then filtering these through my very Western style of performance to create a hybrid work.
Customer On The Beach (2011)
Photograph. Photo: Irina Birger.
This residency was made possible with the support of Arts Council England and The British Council.
The Toulou guided tour lived up to and exceeded my expectations of what a Chinese coach tour should be. I think I’ll need an entry in itself to cover it, so I will save that for later. For now just two things to note.
The first is that I uploaded some pictures from my camera and they brought back to me a rather odd experience from last week. I can perhaps introduce it in this way: what does Air France/KLM and Xiamen University TKK College have in common? They both say they will give you money then change their mind and say they won’t. Yes, this was another ‘customer’ experience.
I was offered and agreed to a paid lecture, arranged translators who were also to be paid, then the day before the lecture get a call saying they can’t pay. Rather than cancel, which might have been wiser, I did it anyway as my translators and I had all reserved the time, the lecture had been arranged and I had penciled this in as one my educational activities. I don’t imagine I will ever know why it happened like this, all I can do is try to avoid being placed in a similar situation again. I also don’t know if it was a story of they can’t pay or they simply thought they could get away with not paying. If it is the latter, while it is true that I don’t really need the money the principle is exploitative and one I don’t wish to support. Particularly as the University is obviously wealthy.
After the lecture however, things took a turn for the better. My very competent translators took me on a bike ride around the new campus and rolling through this monumental park studded with oversized academic buildings I was able to forget the somewhat petty affairs of TKK College. The ‘5 star’ library was quite a sight. It seemed to take up so much space yet once inside there were not so many books or work spaces available. I had to compare it with the overcrowded library at Goldsmiths, Uni of London, and wonder if they had any more books in Xiamen Zhanzhou campus library. I seriously doubt they had any more here, even though it was 5 times the size.
The second thing I have been doing is looking at the video of the performance and making some adjustments in preparation for Thursday’s show in Shanghai. Two such practical adjustments are to the microphone and tape I use. I have also been looking into some re-writes but those I will save for after the Shanghai performance.
Last night I hosted an “English Salon” where I introduced a theme from my work, performed a short excerpt then we had a proper game of true and false stories. It was quite fun to be host for the evening, I can now understand the attraction of being TV game show host or, more modestly, pub quiz master.
This weekend I head out to the countryside to see some historical sites, the Toulou constructions. I finally get to be a proper tourist for a day and a half, though it will be as part of Chinese tour group so that should be quite interesting in itself.
