Category: Performance

CREATIVE JOURNAL—Mujeres Creando—Art and Political Activism

In Lab last week I was quite negative about the Bolivian feminist performance/action group Mujeres Creando1, mainly with respect to their relevance and effectiveness, but also with their translatability to the present state of affairs in Europe and particularly Britain.

This reaction was sparked by an anecdote about their presence at a conference last year where they performed and talked about their work. Apparently their presentation was greeted with a degree of scepticism by the audience as to it’s effectiveness when taken out of the Bolivian (or South American) context. The way the response was described, the audience were put off by the group’s less than academic style (given the context within which they were presenting), and the methods proposed as being those which Britain had seen from activist groups in the 80’s and 90’s and which had proved to have had little effect on politics and society in general.

After this we watched a video of one of Mujeres Creando’s performances in Bolivia. It took place in a public square, with a woman throwing pots of red paint (possibly blood) over the floor while haranguing the assembled crowd. Another member of the group, gaudily dressed as a caricature of someone from the upper-middle-classes (I think). The performance leads to the involvement of the police, performing a predictably heavy-handed eviction and arrest of the troupe. Much struggling and screaming ensues.

And here lies a problem with all works, it depends for it’s immediate effectiveness—it’s affectiveness?—on some knowledge of the context on the part of the viewer. Speaking personally, for this work I have only the vaguest idea about the background in Bolivia, about the treatment of female and/or gay members of their society. So my first contact with the piece lacks the necessary information for me to make anything of it (and given that I do not speak Spanish, I cannot gather anything from the dialogue), and I am hence only able to interpret formal aspects of the show, and relate what I am seeing to similar events I am aware of.

Is this a surmountable problem? In the context of the performance itself, is it a problem in the first place? The Performance only loses it’s context—it’s meaning—through the recording, so when performed I assume the piece works for it’s audience, and only by being mediated does it fail (at least on that front).

So what can be done to regain that context, if that’s all that’s necessary to make the piece work? At a very basic level, the video would need to include a lot of extra information to situate to performance within the social and political milieu, and this information would need to be tailored to a certain extent to the particular audience viewing the piece.

So what can be said about the reaction of the English audience to their work? Many will have no direct knowledge of experience of the situation in Bolivia, thus losing any possibility of an empathetic reaction. The performers at the conference may be able to engender an affective reaction through their engagement with the issues and ability to communicate with their audience.

So is this particular (lack of) reaction just apathy or a reasonable suspicion of this type of activism? Has performance of this type lost it’s effectiveness in Britain?

And what about it’s status as art? Is that relevant anymore? Does being classed as art neuter the work’s political aspirations? Again, does ‘art’ give the work some caché in Bolivia that is lacking in Britain? Have the British become inured to art? Is art not the place to make any kind of statement, if you want that statement to be taken seriously? Has the avant-garde tradition of épater le bourgeois been emasculated?

It’s very difficult for me to relate to what is undoubtedly a very serious situation in Bolivia. Using performance art to address it leaves me with conflicting emotions – on the one hand I can see that in it’s place it could have been effective; on the other I am repelled by the methods that seem to me to be embarrassingly ineffective. But of course, I am only thinking of them in relation to myself, one person’s reaction. Just because I do not react well, does not prevent the work from being effective with other people. I feel bad for being so negative now. I was being very limited in my thinking. I should ask myself what I would do in this situation.

  1. Mujeres Creando

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PRESENTATION—Lab Presentation—Notes and recording

Here are my notes for today’s presentation. A recording of the event is at the end of the post.

Introduction

As I’m sure is true for all of us, I’ve found this course to be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride. Not only from day to day, but from lecture to lecture, and even within each lecture I can go from elation to depression in the course of a few minutes.

What I think this shows is that I’m at least being challenged by the work we’re doing, which has to be a good thing, when all is said and done. I keep telling myself, when the tasks seem insurmountable, that if I wasn’t feeling this way I wouldn’t have any way of knowing when I was up against my limits and potentially making progress.

There is a distinct difference between this presentation and the first. The first was an introduction to me and my life up until the point at which I entered Goldsmiths, concentrating on personal, anecdotal evidence.

Review the first presentation

List of objects:

  • DVD: Jacques Tati’s Playtime (my sense of humour, modernism, architecture in general)
  • Some Monopoly houses (suburbia – my upbringing, architecture)
  • my iPod (music, electronica)
  • A small maquette for a sculpture (lovely objects, my interest in art)
  • 2 of my own artworks – the erratum slips and the Malevich book (the work I was producing while at College)

New objects

List of objects:

  • Performance
  • Blog
  • Deleuze and Guattari

This time around I’ll talk about specific things which have developed during the course and which I hope will develop during this term and beyond.

Perhaps the main theme (or problematic) of last term was my search for a hook within the course subject-matter on which I could hang my own interests and (potential) work. This has only very recently started to become clear to me.

Up until the end of last term I think I was somewhat at a loss as to how the course actually intersected with my own interests. The main problem being that I’m not sure what my interests are at this point, which obviously makes any kind of connection and subsequent progression difficult. This has always been a problem for me – even before we started this course I was viewing it as more of a move away from a negative than towards a positive, real goal.

Diagrams/Performance

But the presentation that I did with Ian in the last week of term clarified some things for me. Certainly what I enjoyed most in this presentation was the analysis of the display of the Beuys work at the tate, and—perhaps more pertinently—the representation of that analysis through diagrams and performance during the presentation itself.

In relation to this presentation I’ve started making links with aspects of previous work I’ve done (specifically my activities at Middlesex University doing my first degree, where I would write and “perform” those writings). So the writing, and performance of those writings; the concern with space and perceptions of space; the systems of awareness and control of space—I can see this as a method for future work which will now be placed on a far more informed basis than anything I was able to do in the past.

Blog

As a parallel exercise, over the past few years I’ve been keeping a blog on my website. This serves as a repository of thoughts and comments on what’s been happening to me. At the same time I’m seeing this more and more as another performance space for my writings, another area in which they are being presented.

Deleuze & Guattari

Another thing which is developing is my interest in Philosophy.

In what at first appeared to be a huge mistake I chose to take the Philosophy and… course. I originally came to it wanting to improve my knowledge and experience in this subject, but wasn’t prepared for the obscurity of the teaching. To begin with it was very disheartening to have to sit through lectures week after week and not be able to grasp the point of anything that was being talked about. Here was a situation where I felt completely out of my depth, but at the same time knew that I was learning something completely new that could only expand my thought processes, as painful as it felt.

At this point in time I don’t claim to have much more of a clue about what it’s all about, but I have been introduced to some authors whose work I’ve found interesting. I was particularly taken with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Right now I’m attempting to write an essay on the concept of ‘the refrain’ as a musical motif as well as a wider concept applicable to other forms of art and society. This is described in frustratingly obtuse detail in their book A Thousand Plateaus. Needless to say I’m finding it quite ‘interesting’ (and challenging). For me, it’s a new way of thinking and thinking about thinking, and I’m keen to see where it leads me.

Conclusion

So essentially my objects are the writing – represented by the blog; the performance – represented by this presentation; and the philosophy – represented by this book, as my objects for this presentation.

I can’t tell you what implications these objects will have for my future activities – that remains to be seen.

Recording – 24mins (Ogg Vorbis format – 10.6MB)

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PRESENTATION—Lab Presentation—Initial thoughts

Next week we’re back at college for the Spring term and straightaway we have a presentation to do for our Lab session.

This follows on from our initial presentation back at the beginning of the course, designed to allow us to introduce ourselves to our colleagues by the selection of six objects through which we could talk about our backgrounds and motives for being on the course.

This time around it’s a review (or “reprise”) of the original presentation, with the effect of progress made over the previous term. Again, the format is to bring a number of objects. We’ll be looking at transformations in our approach to the course and possible lines of development.

—

For the original presentation I talked around the following objects (they are followed by some bracketed notes on how I accounted for their inclusion):-

  • DVD: Jacques Tati’s Playtime (my sense of humour, modernism, architecture in general)
  • Some Monopoly houses (suburbia – my upbringing, architecture)
  • my iPod (music, electronica)
  • A small maquette for a sculpture (lovely objects, my interest in art)
  • 2 of my own artworks (the work I was producing while at College)

—

For the forthcoming presentation the main theme (or problematic) I want to talk about are my search for a hook within the course subject-matter on which I could hang my own (potential) work. This has only very recently started to become clear.

Up until the end of last term I think I was somewhat at a loss as to how the course actually intersected with my own interests. The main problem being that I’m not sure what my interests are at this point, which obviously makes any kind of progression difficult. This has always been my problem – deciding on this course was seen by myself as more of a move away from a negative rather than towards a positive.

But the presentation that I did with Ian in the last week of term clarified some things for me. Certainly what I enjoyed most in this presentation was the analysis of the presentation of the Beuys work at the tate, and—perhaps more pertinently—the representation of that analysis through diagrams and performance.

Relating this back to previous work I’ve done (specifically activities I was initiating while I was at Middlesex University doing my first degree)—the writing, and performance of those writings; the concern with space and perceptions of space; the systems of awareness and control of space—I can see a method for the future forming.

Another thing which is in the process of bubbling up is my interest in Deleuze and Guattari’s writings. Right now I’m attempting to write an essay on ‘the refrain,’ specifically where mentioned in A Thousand Plateaus, and am finding it quite ‘interesting’ (and challenging). For me, it’s a new way of thinking, so I’ll be keen to see where it leads me.

I think those are the two major results of this course so far. They are both effects of extreme and ongoing trauma for my patterns of thought, displacing me from what I already know to new pastures, potentially deterritorialising my thought (I have a feeling that that word will become more common in my writing from now on – this being one of the side-effects of reading D&G).

So, as far as the presentation goes, there is a distinct difference between the first and forthcoming one. The first was concentrating on personal, anecdotal evidence, while the next will be focused on the course itself and it’s effect on my thinking. The objects to present remain to be decided – books would be too obvious, so I must come up with something a little more intelligent to show. A difficult proposition.

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PRESENTATION—Gallery Analysis Related to Joseph Beuys’ The Pack

As I mentioned in my previous post I was unable to use some of the material that I had prepared for our presentation to the Lab course just before the Christmas holidays, and wanted to present some of it here with a view to showing the kinds of things that I concentrate on in my analysis of galleries.

This animation runs through the various stages of analysis of the space at the tate Modern holding Joseph Beuys The Pack, starting with a basic exposition of the space itself, the work’s positioning in that space, then moving on to various social aspects of the space. The animation runs quite fast, but there is a ‘pause’ button to hold a particular image for further inspection, CTRL-click (or right-click) for zoom options.

Run Animation

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