This is an edited version of a posting before experiencing one of the only six performances of Robert Lepage lipsynch, a colaboration between Ex Machina, Theatre Sans Frontiers and Northern Stage, theatrical experince of approx 4hours 30mins plus intervals.
I had intended to insert my reaction to 5 hours of Americal Idol on ITV 2 last night but preference was given to begining to explain how visits to Saatchi and Tate Modern in April 2003 led to concentrating the past four years on the creation of a work 101, an examination of aspects of my life before discovering who my father was wehich triggered a journey back through the portal to my creative being as a young person.
For most of my life I have wanted to be certain of absolutes and distrustful of them
So it should not surprise that despite the revelationary nature of that April day of first visits to Saatchi and Tate Modern and the immediate impact of Emin Lucas, Nauma,n Darboven and Beuys and the creation of a set of a 4 Cards in homage to Emin that my work has evolved as circumstances changed.
The concept was worked on the six hour coach ride back to the North East. A look back at myself as an artist in the making who had chosen to enter a portal into a parallel universe and then was given the opportunity to return four decades later, As a sixty fifth birthday was in view. this seemed a good point to begin and to make. Life used to be said began at forty where as now there was an arbitrary transition between lives imposed (self or socially?) by 65 when everyone had to retire from employment unless they were self employed. I had already experienced the difference in social reactions when wearing and not wearing a suit and the advantages of becoming socially invisible. I had to make a kind of pilgrimage to the land of my conception and I had to work out to manage the volume of anticipated output. What did over 600000 A 4 size cards look like? How long would it take? The way to find out was to do. The Emin Homage set revealed that a creative set, just one of 24 cards would take at least a week to think out and then produce through more error than trial, (what does that mean. to me let alone to anyone else?) and even making cards by sticking bills and receipts involved longer than first anticipated because I wanted to read and remember, and then floated off in thought association, so that quickly there was the interaction between the historical material being worked upon, my contemporary condition or state of being, the memories the material created and consequential diversions. I would have to become disciplined if the project had any chance of being completed in my remaining life time, although I quickly understood that it was not the end that was important but the doing and even more important the integrity of the doing. It did not matter how the outcome was judged or if it was judged by anyone other than me. However there were a number of issues still to be resolved.
From the outset there was no question of waiting until the age of 65 and then working backwards or starting at year 0. I would need to explore how I reached year 0 and what could happened after 65, and I had agreed that the process of the work had to be presented in some form which meant that events after 65 would be part of the work. I would have an ongoing existence, separate from when I worked or at least that is what I thought would be the situation.
The first framework decisions appeared comparatively straightforward until they were put into practice. I would commenced with a record of how I came to do what I was doing and how I was doing it which was labelled Creative Development which would be different from creative work in development, which would cover experiments with the use of crayon, pastels, paint and other materials to make up individual cards. I also decided that I needed to photo and film what I was doing and an early although it was a couple of months before investing in a digital camera and discovering the wonder of being able to photo and print, so that the photograph became an essential integral part of the work, both in recording the process and completed works and in creating photographs, so that although only 150000 cards have been produced so far I have 230000 photos. However it will also immediately recognise that what is developing creative work and work development cannot be always differentiated. Whereas some 1800 sets of completed has been categorised as creative development there are only 400 sets of creative work although in addition there is the equivalent of 230 sets of artman glitter cards.
One aspect of the Saatchi visit was seeing the extent to which contemporary artists were making their work glitter with childhood colours. so I went in search of glitter and came across a glitter glue from which sprung the idea of adding two cards to every set of 24, One was the set name category, number and date of registration and the other was an artman glitter card although artman changed to the Witness and the Guardian depending on the work component. There is also part of the work and numbered, although whether this means they are added to the original total or are part of the original total has not yet been decided.
The second issue is what would be covered by confidential cards, cards would not be available for public view and how they would be presented as part of the work.
The work was also a chronicle of experience so there would be event records such as the visits to Saatchi and Tate Modern, but also there was material where it could not be said there was any creative thought or activity involved but they were part of the total creation. Thus the category of record record was devised. I have to break off now to prepare for an afterteroon and evening in theatre lasting 5.3o mins approx overall. Not the longest theatrical experienced which is helf by John Barton's ten plays of Tantalus, although not e43xperienced in one sitting. I am back, eaten a bacomn sandwich, sme peanuts, cheese twists and a glass of Merlott Cabernet Sauvignon and a can of diet pepsi, watching the first half of Charlton 3 West Ham 0, switching off the English defeat by the Irish and deciding not to view another showing to Roy Orbison in Black and White or Queen and then remembered that there were Catherine Tate show reruns.
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