Draft V

Sestu á allt eins og hest.

Draft IV

Invite an audience to your house party.

Draft III

Make two equal mounds of dirt and salt, close but separate.

Use a spade to shovel the dirt to a third spot so as to temporarily create a triangle.

When you have moved as much dirt as you can, move on to the salt.

Shovel the salt to the place where the dirt lay originally.

Repeat in a triangular motion until sand and dirt are mixed.

Draft II

Go to the harbour

Buy some fish-heads

Sit adjacent to pile of fish-heads

Think about the possibility of peace in the Middle East while the gulls devour your gifts

Draft I

An actor recites a monologue.

A layman recites the same monologue at the same time.

The layman tell a story in his own words .

The actor does the same story.

A dancer moves through a choreography.

A layman moves through the same choreography at the same time.

The layman does a series of casual actions.

The dancer does the same casual actions at the same time.

Ai Wei Wei

SET HIM FREE!

Drawing

I have also been drawing. Taking what is next to my hand, whether it be a pen, pencil or highlighter… and draw. I have been drawing a lot of old people lately, or ‘elderly’ people. As long as there is people at the end – I like that we are all people, at least it is easier to understand than the words that come before ‘people’.

Drawing is a way to differentiate, to analyse your environment if you are drawing figuratively as I like to draw. I would like to adopt this into my performances; I would like to find a way to break up our way of understanding information, making us puzzle it back together in a different way. Trying to be the other, together. The way I understand it is basically from two sources, one is an issue of Scientific American that probably still lies in our bathroom in Glasgow, the other a keyword glossary from Chicago University, and it goes like this: Our brain functions pretty much the same way whether we are trying to remember the past or foresee an event that has yet to take place, it uses a network of memories to simulate the possible event – built from experience – or it browses these same memories to find connections to the desired memory, also building from experience. We also link things together to make sense of other people or bodies. This might sound really straight forward, and it is, it is how memory and sensory information is processed in the healthy human brain – but untangling this web is where it gets exciting.

So drawing is an exercise in this. Instead of drawing a face you draw one eye and then the other, eyelids first, then pupil or brow, etc. I can see this developing into collages… and who knows what’s next.

 

Oh yes, better find those links before I forget.

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/drawing.htm

…can’t find the exact article from SA but there are a lot of good ones on the website.

Happy New Year

I am still realising all the potential off the new year. Resolutions, or rather ambitions, are taking shape and manifesting themselves in a part of my garden that I feel has been left in the shade for a while. And you should always let yourself have enough space to cultivate your garden.

I have decided to move more into text for now. This is inspired by many things, mostly my good friend Nick Anderson, the Icelandic artist Sigurður Guðmundsson and Icelandic socio-historical tendencies towards words. These words I write to explore my mental and emotional landscape as I face a defining time in my life.

I feel as though text is the least convoluted way to explore these things at the moment, but I am also keeping the channel between word and action open, hoping that the semiotic mechanisms expose themselves. Talking about hope, I use this word carefully now as I submitted an application to the Festival Belluard Bollwerk in Switzerland, which this year was looking for performances about ‘hope’. I was rather pessimistic about the whole thing. Recently, I have changed my mind, partly because somewhere I stumbled across someone describing hope as the first step forward. When you have hope, you have the mindset to overcome adversity.

Coming back to Sigurður Guðmundsson, I have been reading his novel Dýrin í Saigon (The Animals of Saigon), and I love it. It starts of with a stream of gold, enveloping a deliciously patronising view of “culture” and “purpose” floating onward into a web of punctuations and philosophy. Great.

It really makes me think about happiness. Why does it always seem to me that the people peddling happiness never seem to be genuinely happy?

Well enough for now but I am going to try and write more now, maybe 3-5 times a month.

Tag der hellen Zukunft

The Day the Bright Future or Tag der hellen Zukunft opened last Saturday to a full house. The reception was great and I feel like we are all quite overwhelmed. The performance, which explores the utopian wish of instigating a better world and life without end, was concieved and directed by Swiss wunderkind Thom Luz who is also a musician and plays/sings with his band My Heart Belongs To Cecilia Winter. My role in the production is that of a performer and machinist of this huge instrument that we have created and even if I felt lost at times, the relevance of this performance is becoming ever clearer.

An interview with Thom and clips from the performance can be seen here.

artFart over and out

artFart logo by MoM$

Still in this post festival lull…

artFart is a performance festival that I organise with three friends in Reykjavík, Iceland. This year was the 5th installment and as I write this, just over a week has passed since it came to a close. It is safe to say that it was a huge learning curve – this year it really reiterated examples of how my education in the UK has shaped my methods of analysis, but also, how I seem to be bound to a local way of thinking. This dichotomy I found challenging at times, but also intriguing as this is an exiting position to be in. As an example of the Icelandic tendencies I found myself drawn back into was the fact that there never seemed to be time for any reflection. In the days following the festival the core group behind it have managed to sit down and discuss things but I do miss reflection being placed at the centre of the process. At the same time, I remember feeling like the discussions we had at the RSAMD were sometimes too lengthy and maybe sapped energy from the following activity, but looking back now I appreciate taking the time so that participants can feel present from the start.

Reflection is simply the act of critical thinking – and just as you can reflect the light of a candle from any angle, you can (and should) reflect on actions before, after or during.

—

Another thing I wanted to mention is the fact that I will be performing in Thom Luz’ Tag Der Hellen Zukunft in Zurich, CH from October 16th. I am leaving for Switzerland this weekend and I am very exited to say the least. Pre-rehearsals were amazing and I really feel that this project could take off. More on that later, but here is a teaser…