- Venue
- Tramway
- Location
‘Until My Pencil Runs Out' is a highly self-reflexive durational performance piece in which the artist Ginny Reed holds a pencil and walks around four walls of a studio whilst drawing a continuous line. The performance ends only when the pencil runs out, at which point the spent pencil nub, wood shaving remnants and resulting pencil line remain in the space as trace or document of the work. In this way ‘Until My Pencil Runs Out' both embodies and celebrates that which is buried, assumed or manifested within arts practice. In short, the performances' subject matter and materials are the actual work itself; the physical act of making, the labour, the marks made and their duration. The pencil line that Reed runs methodically along the studio wall manifests all these things, both in its physical trace and its performance. And it is not Reed's performance that is the main focus in ‘Until My Pencil Runs Out', but that of the pencil itself.
Out from the nib the pencil sheds itself in varying line-width steadily and predictably. In this context Reed's body is merely a guide. Reed steers the pencil in the same way one might drive a car; she may be the driver but crucially she is removed from the function and operation of the cars' performance; the pistons, the engine, the necessary consumption of oil and petrol. In other words, Reed is no more in control of the mechanical and chemical performance of the pencils lead-letting than if she was walking a wayward puppy whose shit cum shavings litter the floor at will.
The pencil in ‘Until My Pencil Runs Out' never falters. Its function is perfect by design and dedicated to the mark-making task in hand, it cannot fail. Any resulting squiggles and blips evident in the line output are human error: Reed is to blame. Reed is also wholly responsible for the fragmented nature of ‘Until My Pencil Runs Out' due to the ultimate discontinuity of the pencil line. This is because the studio door is open, leaving a gaping door-sized hole in the performance through which flocks of bemused viewers come and go. On every circuit of the studio wall the spectators watch as Reed casually passes over the open doorway, seemingly oblivious to this oversight in her ‘continuous' line. The pencil, however, feels this void acutely. The surface of the wall, its footing, suddenly falls away from under its tip. The lead stutters and is forced to stop in the path of the vast hole over which it cannot draw.
The factor of the open door in ‘Until My Pencil Runs Out' was a critical oversight. Had the door been shut and the audience enclosed within the same time and space as the performing pencil line it would have been an infinitely more productive live encounter. However, as it stands the importance of ‘Until My Pencil Runs Out' as a durational event is negligible. Moreover, given the already missing parts of the line over the open doorway, the exhibition of the spent pencil nub as the culmination or ‘full stop' of the performance is rendered meaningless. Ginny could have saved herself the trip to Scotland by better realising the performance on the page.
(This piece was originally written with a pencil, whose lead ran out soon after the third paragraph).
