Lost and found: Kikuchiyo the Seventh Samurai

When viewing Akira Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' (1954) there is one character who stands out from the rest and gradually takes over the film. This character is called Kikuchiyo and he is one of the most interesting and complex characters I have ever come across in film or literature. The factors which make Kikuchiyo memorable and the most arresting character of 'Seven Samurai' are to be the focus of this piece of writing. I will be discussing Kikuchiyo's character assuming a prier knowledge of the film so I would like to warn anyone who has not yet seen it that reading on will reveal the story and aspects of the film which will have the best impact when experienced for the first time without any prier knowledge. I notice how difficult it is for some to remember the names and their characters so I have also included a list to help readers identify the characters:

Kambei Shimada: The leader of the group
Katsushirō Okamoto: The youngest and inexperienced
Gorōbei Katayama: The Strong man. He assumes a second in command position.
Shichirōji: He was once Kambei's lieutenant and he re assumes this role.
Heihachi Hayashida: He is recruited to keep up the spirits of the group.
Kyūzō: The most skilled fighter of the group. Dedicated and serious.
Kikuchiyo: A false Samurai who proves himself within the film.

Lost and Found: Kikuchiyo the Seventh Samurai



The character of Kikuchiyo is revealed to us slowly through out the film, the more we see of him the more we like him and the more we understand his character.
Kikuchiyo's being ungrounded is the over riding factor of his character. His whole being evolves around his status and his desire to become a worthy, better version of himself. Through out the film Kikuchiyo is trying to prove himself, and this is of vital importance. For a man who has no reputation, no family, no family history, no home, no friends, there is no one to whom he has to prove himself. There is no one who cares or has any interest in his worth except for himself, and that is the most moving aspect of his character and the most revealing. Kikuchiyo wishes to prove his worth to himself and wants to be worthy of respect form those around him. His mission is a personal one, one in which he competes against himself and his personal daemons. Kikichiyo is battling his shadow self.

Kikuchiyo is not a real Samurai, he is not from an aristocratic line. He has in his possession a scroll which he claims has been passed down through his family and that he is 'Kikuchiyo'. He is reproached for this by Kambei because the scroll indicates that Kikuchiyo is thirteen years old, far too young to be the character in front of us. This suggests that not only is the so-called Kikuchiyo not a Samurai but also cannot read otherwise he would not have made such an obvious mistake. This character the so called 'Kikuchiyo' has no name as he cant remember it, therefore the group adopt the name 'Kikuchiyo' in order to have something to call him and so he is continued to be called by it. Kikuchiyo's not having a real name is significant of his being spiritually lost and it is also significant that the name which he is given is one from a boy who is from a Samurai family. This is significant because Kikuchiyo's manner is like a child's and he wishes to become a better person, to rise above his station by being a Samurai which he is not. Kikuchiyo is an orphan and this is why he cannot remember his name, he has no family and no home, no friends and no money, all he has is his false title and a giant sword which looks much to big for him. The sword is another significant object, it's size suggests that it is a symbol of the characters trying to fill boots that are too big for him. It also echo's his false status as a Samurai as the rest of the Samurai in the film have Katana's, a much smaller type of sword compared to Kikuchiyo's which is almost the size of him.
To understand Kikuchiyo's position fully we must understand a little of the society in which he lives. The story is set in 16th century Japan. In this time there was a very strict social order, whatever station you were born into was the station in which you were expected to remain forever. Kikuchiyo is an orphan who is from a farmers family. Through out the film all the farmers are woeful and lowly. They're existence is hard and unforgiving. In a scene in which the Samurai are gathered around an elderly woman who wants to die because she has nothing to live for, Kikuchiyo remarks at how he hates miserable people. This shows us how deep Kikuchiyo's inner turmoil and conflict goes. He is understanding and sympathetic to the farmers and perhaps the most passionate of all the characters in the film, yet he scorns a vulnerable old woman and attempts to dash the Samurai's attempts to comfort her. This display demonstrates his anger and frustration and his philosophical view point, he holds a kind of existential stance, unwilling to live the life he was born into he wishes to lift himself out of an unnecessarily painful and meaningless existence.



'I never want to be a worm'
-Kikuchiyo

Kikuchiyo is first presented to us as a silent and disheveled man but at the same time as a warrior. The only characters within the film who have swords are the Samurai and bandits. As the character is played by the actor Toshiro Mifune he has inherited a charisma and a domineering presence from the actor which holds the character to be a ferocious and confident individual. This character has some gestures which help us to acknowledge his characteristics. He scratches himself publicly and adopts a casual and uncouthed conduct throughout the film.
The first few scenes in which we see Kakuchiyo are worth noting as they set up our first judgments about his character and it is these first judgments which we reflect upon later in the film when we come to understand his character more.

Katsushirō Okamoto is the youngest of the Seven Samurai and is an inexperienced aristocrat. Katsushirō enters the film at the same moment as Kikuchiyo and at the same moment both characters become impressed by Kambei's heroic display in rescuing a child who is held hostage by a thief and follow him. Kikuchiyo barges his way through the peasant farmers with out so much as a glance and skulks his way around Kambi without speaking, his silence comes across as a mixture of a challenge and a shyness, it is as though Kikuchiyo would like to adopt Kambi as a mentor in the same way as Katsushirō Okamoto does but Kikuchiyo can not bring himself to ask or to admit that he requires guidance. At this moment we can compare Kikuchiyo and Katsushirō and find important similarities and differences. Katshushirō is inexperienced and young and is in need of a mentor, he is aristocratic and is willing to throw himself at the feet of Kambei and beg to be taken on as a disciple. Kikuchiyo comes across as inexperienced also, and is undisciplined. Despite being older than Katsushirō, Kikuchiyo behaves with a manner similar to a teenager. The clearest difference between Kikuchiyo and Katshushirō is their refinement and their dress. Kikuchiyo dresses more like Kambei who is a Samurai who roams as a Ronin with no master and little wealth, he travels and lives a simple life, it is unclear if he has a home or not. This can reveal to us a hint of the similarities and contrasts of the characters of Kambei and Kikuchiyo which become more noticeable further into the film. It is within this scene a fore mentioned that Kambei asks Kikuchiyo if he is a real Samurai and does not seem to believe his answer as Kikuchiyo insists that he is a samurai.

The only other character who holds a profoundness similar to Kikuchiyo is Kambei. Kambei is the leader of the group, he is the first to accept the offer from the farmers and he does so because of his kindness. Before this moment he is seen selflessly saving a child held hostage by a thief. It is within this scene where Kambei prepares to trick the thief into letting close enough to intervene by dressing as a monk and shaving his head. When Kambei's head is shaved there is a curiously long moment between himself and Kikuchiyo where both characters look at each other. This may suggest a significance to the audience that the two characters are important when examined together. Kambei is an older and high ranking Samurai. It is mentioned within the film that he had distinguished himself in war and gained ownership of a castle. His military status is noted when Shichirōji re-assumes his position as Kambei's lieutenant. He is respected throughout the film and is held as the leader due to his skill, experience, military status and reputation. These qualities are that which Kikuchiyo desires. However as the film progresses there are two notable moments where Kambei expresses his experience of being a reputable samurai. Kambei remarks how he is alone in the world and has nothing to show for his lifetime as a fighter. The second moment is at the end of the film where Kambei and the other two surviving Samurai contemplate the events of the story by the graves of the dead hero's. It is a profound scene where Kambei remarks, “we have lost again”. Kikuchiyo's desire to be a respected individual such as a samurai is reflected by the experience of Kambei who has nothing to show for his life, he is a wanderer like Kikuchiyo and has no master nor any wealth or friends/family to speak of. His life similar to the farmers is at moments bleak and empty, the very life Kikuchiyo is trying to escape.

Kikuchiyo is aware of the dualism between the farmers and the Samurai. In his emotionally delivered and passionate speech to the Samurai Kikuchiyo notes the faults of both parties. The farmers are deceitful and dishonest people who have hunted down Samurai at the end of battles to harvest their wealth and who now are relying on Samurai's compassion to save them. Whilst the Samurai who are noble and honored have fought wars and burnt down villagers and raped women causing the farmers to become deceitful and to hide their provisions and lie. Neither the farmers nor the Samurai are completely virtuous. Kikuchiyo does not pretend to have virtue, he is neither a farmer nor a Samurai, and this leaves him in some ways the most honest character of the film.

Kikuchioy's position as a farmer and Samurai leave him part from both positions. He conducts himself without Samurai decorum but also without the fear and woe of the farmer. Japans strict social structure is one which Kikuchioyo is able to transcend because of his undefinable position. He is held to no station nor code of conduct. Kikuchiyo is the embodiment of the 'fool' who is a common character in stories, being of the most lowly position as a 'fool' the character is able to reveal truth without reproach where others cannot, even truths which a respected individual might be punished for.

By the end of the film Kikuchiyo is dead and in the ground. In the last shot we see Heihachi's flag which accepts him whilst acknowledging his difference by representing him as a triangle whilst the others are circles. He is accepted as a Samurai and buried with the same status as the other four who have fallen in battle. The title of the film accepts him as a Samurai. Kikuchiyo has earned his place and has succeeded in elevating his position and reaching his potential. He his much more than an orphan of a farmers status. Kikuchiyo defined his own life and his character shows us the individual struggle with the shadow self and a chaotic world.

Scarlet the Anima

Toris Amos's album 'Scarlet's Walk' is a concept album released in 2002. The Album follows a character called 'Scarlet' who is tracking down a friend who needs her help. The journey which Scarlet takes goes all over the United States of America and the album is in fact an album about America and identity. The album has certain parallels to Janet Cardiff's 'The missing voice' in which a red haired woman follows clues around a city which is presented to the audience as an audio recording. Scarlet is 'played' by Tori Amos who has red hair and similarly to the character in 'The missing voice' who is the voice of Janet Cardiff Scarlet follows clues left by the woman she is trying to find.

In Tori Amos's Album each song represents a certain part of Scarlet's journey and this is indicated by the booklet that accompanies the album, making the work of art as a whole the entire album including case and booklet.

This Album has themes in common with ideas I had been working on for some time and I became a fan of the work listening to it often during my time working on my project in the third year. My first ideas for artwork exploring identity and the search for identity where inspired very much from this album which is why I feel it important to reference here.

The area from which I lived with my parents is in the Somerset levels, a particularly flat area of Somerset which used to be underwater until barriers where put in place and the land drained revealing a fertile moorland. I often walked sections of the Parret river whilst listening to this album infusing the work and Tori Amos personally with the memories of those journeys. The front and back cover of the album show's Tori as Scarlet stood on a long straight road in an incredibly flat land presumably in America, an image which spoke strongly to me being a person who often walks the levels in Somerset. There is a romanticism in walking a landscape and being exposed to the elements. For myself personally I moved with my family to the village Martock in Somerset when I was 11 years old, only seven miles away from the town of Yeovil where I lived previously. My romanticism began straight away as I took long trips into the countryside and searched almost daily for a female figure whom I was convinced I would find out in the countryside. This female character was a source of romance and developed to represent freedom and emotion. I continued to hold close this idea of a woman whom I believe now to be my Anima, a Jungian archetype who is represented as the opposite sex and holds characteristics which one simultaneously looks for in a partner and in them-self. My character developed as I grew older taking on the character of Kate Bush after I discovered her Music. For me Kate Bush was inextricably linked with the countryside around me and I sought to make art which could invoke the feeling which I felt from listening to her music.

As I aged and my view of women and myself changed so did my Anima, unable to remain as a pure character of virtue after my sexual development. I was introduced to Tori Amos's music through a friend who suggested her music because of my love of Kate Bush and that Tori Amos was influenced largely by Bush also. I embraced Amos and my anima changed form into the tall and sexual redhead whom stays with me today. This transition may be seen as the transition from the 'Mary' stage to the 'Sophia' stage of the anima development,the third and fourth stages. Mary is virtuous and unable to have sin attached to her and Sophia is an integration of good and bad aspects creating a well rounded character.
Until very recently when ever I imagined ideas for performances I would image how they looked in my mind and in place of myself I would have this redheaded woman. This seemed to happen without my control. I toyed with the idea briefly of bringing this character out into the world through cross-dressing and performing the persona but this idea felt very uncomfortable and according to Jungian theory the embodiment of the Anima is very unhealthy. My first performance ideas centered around a search and this is the theme I have returned too in my recent work. One significant relationship that my relationship I have with the countryside around Martock and my Anima is that of my relocation from Martock to Cardiff, from the countryside to the city. The years spent in Martock set up a foundation from which my current work is built upon. The shifting of place and the separation of myself from the landscape in which I invested so much of my emotion places Cardiff for me as a location of estrangement. The Album 'Scarlet's Walk' was recorded by Tori Amos in England despite its subject matter and story being about the United States of America. This to me seems a significant set of locations, to discuss a location as a large and powerful landscape in which one feels lost and out of place in from a location in a different and older country which has a long-standing relationship to the other.



"Can someone help me I think that I'm lost here, lost in a place called 'America'"
-Tori Amos, Wednesday in Scarlet's walk

A Candy Coloured Clown

When watching David Lynches film 'Blue Velvet' certain scenes stand out to me and to others whom I know who have watched the film. The scenes I am referring to are the scenes which make use of the Roy Orbison song 'In Dreams'. The significance of the song to the film is it's subject matter, a song about dreams and the uncanny figure of the Sandman. Within Lynches film there are many references to dreams and the sometimes threatening subconscious. Around this subject the film is full of dislocated shots and sounds which invoke a dreamlike discordance. I will not go into all of the symbolism of the film but keep myself to what is relevant to the song I have before mentioned. The scenes in which 'In Dreams' is used both involve the main character Jeffrey Beaumont and Frank Booth the main villain of the film. Frank has an unusual attachment to this song, he is moved emotionally by it and uses it as a kind of soundtrack to his own scenes, fusing the association of Frank and the song, turning Frank into a profound character, an observation I will go into in more depth momentarily.

The first time we encounter the song the song is sung by Ben played by Dean Stockwell, Ben is a drug dealer which has its significance in relation to this subject as drugs supply a passage into the subconscious, accompanied sometimes by dislocations, confusion and waking dreams. Along with his providing of the song 'In dreams' on tape, he seems a kind of personal 'medicine man' or Shaman in some sense providing Frank with art and substances which satisfy his emotional and spiritual needs. Ben is most curiously wearing a subtle white face paint, to show perhaps how debonair he is but this white face mask acts as a mask, creating a sense of mystery and uncanniness about his character similar to the Sandman of the song who also prescribes a rout into dreams and the subconscious. Beyond this the white mask is also associative of actors who embody mysterious transformations and Clowns who embody the 'trickster' persona, a Jungian archetype. The trickster archetype can be found in any culture, first being manifested in society as a Shaman or 'medicine man' (with is relevant to Ben)the Tricker is a shape-shifter. The Trickster has evolved to be embodied sometimes as a jester or clown, masked and mysterious, revealing profound truths. The song 'In dreams' begins with the line "A candy colored clown they call the Sandman" infusing the 'Sandman' and the 'clown' together, and this fusion is used in Blue velvet as a mechanism to do just that, infusing the sandman with the clowns of Frank and Ben.

The second time in the film the music is played Ben is not present, Frank has taken Jeffrey to a secluded location and before playing the song from the tape player of his car applies lipstick to his lips messily so that it covers more than his lips and kisses Jeffrey in a sexually threatening display. However the image of his painted lips is two fold, not only does his painted lips carry with it sexual overtones but it also reminds us of the white faced clown, with big red lips. Frank embodies the Trickster persona (it is interesting to note that 'Persona' is Latin for 'mask'). Frank is a nighttime figure, seen in the night time hours of the subconscious. In this very scene in a convosation in the car Frank says to Jeffrey "Your like me". Jeffrey has at this point began to behave in some instances in a similar way to Frank. This sequence paints Frank as a reflection of Jeffrey, a trickster who reveals to Jeffrey his own dark side, the sandman of nightmares.

Context and performance

The relationship between film and performance has always existed, films often have performers in them, whilst Performance artists often film their performances. On the course I am studying the most common way for a performance artist to document their work is through video, and by the end of the course in order to be assessed the performance artist will usually perform and have a DVD of their other performances and practices on display separately. The relationship between performance and film is one which has interested me since I began performing. My very first performance was not filmed or documented in any way other than in my own writing, my later work was filmed and photographed with minimal editing or manipulation, I attempted to show what the camera had captured.

Following my research into Heidegger's theory of Being which places Being as a situation always existing within a surrounding context, I view performance and film from the same stand point. No film or film maker can ever be completely neutral to the situation being filmed. I enjoyed films which made light of this point or admitted their own artifice. I noticed some performances ignored the presence of documentation and rely heavily upon documentation for advertisement and self-promotion. The audience appeared to do the same, ignoring the camera as having any significance to the works meaning, however they did not ignore it's presence as a camera, avoiding standing in it's way or standing in shot, and when in shot being noticeably self conscious of their own actions and conversation. I came across my own issues with documentation in my performances where I emptied a room, and in order for the room to be empty needed to move the camera, the problem with moving the camera out of the room is that of course without the camera there is no documentation which is required if you are performing on an art course where lecturers and examiners need to see evidence of your work. As well as this the integrity of the work would be compromised if the camera was allowed to remain within the room, treated as a transparent object.

It is important that the context in which an artwork exists is understood and taken note of. In the case of my work the context of the location in which my work is performed and my vocation as a fine art student creates a context for the artwork. My actions have focused upon the preparatory actions for performance, mainly cleaning the room I use to restore it's white cube status, a process which is specific to my university's M.A.P department's etiquette and practice. I find that actions which have a clear aim tend to be actions which are ubiquitous such as cleaning a room. A person tends to act in a certain way within the available script of the current social parameters they find them self in. In other words one only does what one does, so actions which have a practical aim seem to work very well. A practical and 'regular' action placed at the start of a perform seems too ease people into the work, adjusting the lens and creating a narrative and context which is assessable by the audience and which set up the next actions which may not be so recognizable or understandable. In my Cleaning performances the starting action is reflected by the ending action which is also to clean the room, emphasizing the temporality of the work and erasing it's own trace until all that is left of the work is a clean room which as a trace is indistinguishable from the white cube room. Recently I have been developing ideas of performing for film, and displaying the films as the only way for an audience to view the actions as the performances will have no audience. The film displaces the work in space and time allowing the viewer to engage with an 'after image' of the work, degraded and removed from reality into an electronic retrospective.

Film and performance are themselves glimpses into a persons life or soul. I have already in a previous post discussed John Ford's film 'The Searchers' and the bracketing scenes similar to those used in Orson Well's 'Citizen Kane'. My cleaning actions are a parallel to these, creating a clear 'begging' and 'end' to the audiences experience of the performance although the performance itself has been going on before and continues after. The Searchers is most relevant for these scenes because of the search that the main character embarks upon and the search which continues after the end of the film. I wanted my performance to continue, as the feeling and subject it is based upon does, allowing the audience a small glimpse into a personal journey.

The Red Shoes (1948)

The Powell and Pressburger film 'The Red Shoes' (1948) has an interesting sequence in it. The film evolves around a dancers role in 'The red shoes' ballet and her love which is torn between to men. The sequence I am mentioning is a chapter of the film in which 'The red shoes' ballet is performed in front of a theatre audience. I first came across this scene by itself without watching the rest of the film which came before or after. By watching this scene and not the rest of the film I was fascinated by what I thought was a short film about the story of the red shoes. The scene begins with an man in the audience opening a theatre guide which contained the cast and crew, including photographs which I assumed where the real names, people and photographs of the actors within this 'short film' as I took this peek into a theatre guide to be the credits of the film. The ballet is filmed with shots of lights on stands at the sides of the stage, sound and film editing and special effects such as superimposition. I took this to be a film which did nothing to hide the fact that it was a film. To take this scene in such a way based upon some incorrect assumptions this sequence was to me fascinating and a very powerful work of art utilizing the techniques of theatre and film to create one work of art beautifully executed. Even to ignore my incorrect interpretation of this scene it remains a part of film which stands up as a work of art. My incorrect interpretation of this extract of the film lead me to experience it in a way which created through misunderstanding a new and unique experience of this extract. This unique experience of viewing was based upon a situation which was created in my mind and conjoined with the film I was watching. It is this chance misinterpretation which endears this moment to me.

The visuals of the film are stunning. The ballet's music makes up the only sounds of the scene, we watch the main character move upon the stage in silence and silently dance into a dream like sequence where the films special effects come into play much more. The characters decent off of the stage and into a dream world represents her complete rapture in the role she is performing, internalizing the story and performance to give a convincing performance. The scene was for me about an actresses engagement with a role whilst she performs. Indeed now knowing the full film and story this scene is still the case, we see an actress using personal emotions and experience coupled with situations and charters in the ballet to invoke a more genuine performance.
The shots of the stage lights behind the curtains and the gradual integration of film techniques with the ballet following my incorrect assumption, would show that the film was made to reveal that it is a film, reminding the audience that they are not watching a ballet but watching a film of a ballet, a cut and edited film of a ballet which was produced and performed solely for the film.

Improvisational Collaboration

In order to expand my artistic practice I embarked upon an improvisation performance with Owen Lawrance. Owen's work had focused upon performance and mainly, audio work. I was interested in how Owen's sound work would effect my actions within the space in which we performed. We worked for a day in the 'Sculpture Instillation room', all the decisions we where to make regarding the work and it's set up where not discussed before hand, we both agreed than we should move in the objects and materials we wanted to work into the room and start from there. Owen set up his sound equipment which consisted of two speakers, an amplifier, mixing desk, and microphone in the corner of the room opposite the camera we had set up to document the work. Owen's set up was compact and defensive, he had created a space for me to perform in quite separately to his corner of sound work. During the performance because of Owen's amplified sounds a small crowd gathered to watch and soon disbanded, I can only imagine because they found no entertainment or artistic value in what we where doing. The performance began slowly as a dialogue between artist and material and a dialogue between myself and Owen began to form. Owen branched out of his corner to involve himself in the rest of the space and materials eventually after bordering off his area with soil and salt.

One audience member and fellow M.A.P artist Rob Offord stayed for much of the duration. Rob's review of the work highlighted aspects of the work which had a particular relation to the audience. Rob's continued presence in the room lead to our involving him with some of our actions. By the end of the performance myself and Owen had sat quiet and still upon an island of soil contemplating the performance and experiencing a scene of emotion created by a liberation that comes from acting impulsively, I felt an unease in leaving Rob to stand apart from us in the room as a passive onlooker and invited him to sit with us which he did.

Rob reviewed the performance to us afterwards remarking that as an onlooker and following the conventions of the M.A.P audiences he had tried to avoid effecting the work, but once bags of soil had been tipped empty and the fine soil particles had covered the room Rob found it impossible to move without changing the material. As the soil had effected the entire room the audience was no longer separate to the performance and found themselves participating actively with the performance than passively as they had done before. This was a point which brought to light my previous performance of cleaning in which the audience moved around me as I moved around the space to clean. My following performances also included actions and set ups which forced the audience into positions which kept them from sticking to the wall farthest away from the performance.

Exercise performance

The second and last module of my second year Fine art degree was a 'Venue Specific' one. The students of M.A.P were required to attain a venue to showcase their work for this module. This module was very beneficial for me and the other students, working together to form groups to them find and curate a venue for newly made work of ours. From my position in the M.A.P corridor as it is known by us, I group together with a group of peers. The M.A.P corridor is a corridor where myself and eight other students work. It may sound like a desperate situation to be working at a desk in a corridor but none of us would want to change it, we have grown to love it there. At this time many of the students in M.A.P where only acquaintances until this project brought us together in small groups picked and developed by the students themselves. The group I became involved in was made up of myself, Owen Lawrence, Shane Davis, Lucy Wright, Lucy Thompson, Andrew Hill, Glenn Muggleton, Ellie Hooi and Alice Tori. Together we produced a show entitled 'In Space' named after Lucy Wright and Lucy Thompson's collaborative video work which was shown in the show.

For this show I had written and performed a piece again without a real title, but as a title of reference was labeled 'Exercise performance' or as some call it 'Dancing Garuda'. The work's main action was based upon an exercise called 'Dancing Garuda' which is one exercise of one hundred and eleven which make up a practice of physical Yoga entitled sKu-mNye. The Dancing Garuda was taught to me by Performance artist Kira O'Reilly whom tutored my Class for this year.

The performance was one based upon personal themes of performance, humiliation, romance and sex. The performance was performed in the M.A.P instillation room, a small White cube room, during a 'Tuesday show'. A 'Tuesday Show' is a show every tuesday where students volunteer to exhibit work to other students and their lecturers who critique the work after it is shown or finished. My performance was of a physical exercise in a small room, I undressed fully so that I exercised naked as is traditional for those practicing Sku-mNye. As I exercised I sweated and my body oder filled the small room, this had started before the audience arrived. The audience came into the room to be confronted by the full frontal male nudity of a man panting, sweating and jumping in close proximity with them, creating an uncomfortable scenario from which some students left. By the end of the performance almost all had left, either not wanting to experience any more or too see other work which was being exhibited in the Tuesday show, two remained. The two audience members stayed I felt through concern for my condition, or I hope through some connection with the work. The reduced presence of the audience made me comfortable enough to respond to the presence of those who where there, I felt it right to make eye contact with them both and in those moments I felt a connection and attachment to them. The performance left me feeling liberated from embarrassment and self consciousness.

Unfortunately whilst performing this work to my class I broke a bone in my left foot, the third metatarsal and I was not able to perform that work for the show as I was still at that time in a cast and on crutches. I had a film of the performance, done alone one evening in University, this film was ran through a monitor on a plinth in a room for the show and stayed there running on a loop for the duration of the exhibition.

Say yes. At least say "Hello"

Watching Metallica's music video of their song 'The Memory Remains' I was struck by the image of an aged woman singing in a broken voice whilst the whole room around her rotates creating a scene of chaos and a sense of being ungrounded. The strange period style the room and the woman are decorated in suggest some sort of dream like sequence or metaphorical 'inner space'. Her voice sounds broken and one can see that she is a beautiful woman who was shurly stunning in her youth. I discovered that this woman is Marianne Faithful, a singer and actress who's personal life possibly over shadows her career. I admit I did not really know who Marianne Faithful was, and her name only rang a distant bell for me. Faithfull's involvement with the song is interesting as the song is about a woman who looses her fame and is driven mad by the memory of her past success, something which at some moments may have been a reality for Faithfull herself. The meaning of the song, Faithfull's life, raspy voice and aged looks along with a rotating room all come together to create a powerful image of being ungrounded whilst remembering faded potency of past youth and success. This image is at points within the video allegorically referenced, as in such moments as Faithfull standing in front of a coffin and in another scene singing a tune whilst stood alone as money rains down inside a rotating room.



Near the end of the video Faithfull says the words "Say yes, at least say hello" a line from the film 'The Misfits' where Roslyn Taber is asked by Guido "Will you give me a little time? Say yes...at Least say hello Guido". The line is a desperate reach for acknowledgment and human affection, the word 'Hello' is of particular importance. 'Hello' between two people who have been spending a whole evening together and mid way through a convocation is noticeably out of place. In this scenario the word which is used for acknowledgment and announcement is used to acknowledge a deeper meeting between the two characters, in this case as Guido is drunk and revealing personal depths, Roslyn gains some deep insight into his character and history. 'Hello' defines a new meeting between two people, separating two modes of socialising, Guido is making a transition from the normal everyday convosation and engagement to one which is deeper and more revealing. For these reasons the line seems appropriate for the song.

Whilst researching 'The Misfits' I read the script and found that the written dialogue worked extremely differently to being spoken. The broken convention of convosation and language by Guido in this scene whith Roslyn already mentioned read like some patchy telephone call, and I thought this to be the case as to begin with I skipped to this part of the script as I was looking for one line in particular.



Say... Say hello to me, Roslyn.

Hello, Guido. Please, huh?

Will you give me a little time? Say yes.
At least say "Hello, Guido."

Yes, Guido. Hello, Guido.

Hello, Roslyn.

The Searchers

John Ford's 1956 film 'The Searchers' is a masterpiece. The searchers is in many ways the pinnacle of John Ford's directing career. Ford repeatedly used the same cast, crew and location for many films, developing a practice which evolved not only himself but also his cast and crew. Ford's dedication to the Western genre and his practice culminated into the film 'The Searchers' a film which stands as an artwork above many of the Western genre films ever made.

The story of 'The Searchers' follows Ethan Edwards, a man who fought in the American Civil war in the Confederate army who's bitter defeat still broods within him. Ethan approaches his brother Aaron's ranch in the hope of finding some home or peace, however during his stay his niece Debbie is kidnaped by Native Americans. Ethan embarks upon a five year search to rescue Debbie but during these five years Ethan's anger in defeat, his unsettledness and racism seem to drive him more than his original noble intentions leaving us to question weather Ethan's quest is in fact fueled by other desires of revenge.

The film is a brutal and relentless movie, reflecting Ethan's single minded search. The movie was filmed in Monument Valley, under the burning sun, clear blue skies and upon scored earth. The scenes of violence and tragedy are not cushioned by atmospheric sympathies, almost every scene is under the brazen sun which makes one sweet and squint, laid bare in the desert like the Native American's victims in the film who are left in the heat. The music is dramatic and shrill, conveying a tragedy and madness of grief. The relentlessness of the movie is one of the aspects which makes it a truly great film.

For me, one of the most powerful and emotional scenes in the film is the ending scene. The final scene is coupled with the opening shot of the film, in which we begin in darkness, a door opens revealing the bright landscape of the American desert. A woman moves out of the room in which we are in and the camera moves with her to reveal Ethan arriving on horseback. The final shot after Ethan's five year search is in the same location. The camera travels backwards into the house, watching the charters who overjoyed at Debbie's return enter the house, along with the men who went searching for her, all except Ethan, who stays outside. It is this moment which is one of the most powerful I have seen in all of cinema. Ethan is ignored by the rest of the charters who go inside, we the audience are inside the house looking out at Ethan. He turns and walks away, not to the horses which have been taken to the right but straight on into the desert. He stumbles a little rather than walks, as if he is giving in, to search evermore like the Native American who's eyes he shot out so that he would be condemned to wander in-between the winds forever. I half expect Ethan to disintegrate into sand and be blown away by the sideways wind, but instead and more abruptly the door swings shut, the film is over and I fall to pieces.



The ending scene is accompanied by a song 'The searchers' and the lyrics:

A man will search his heart and soul
Go searching way out there
His peace of mind he knows he'll find
But where O Lord, Lord where?

The first and final scenes in the film bracket the film in the same way I have discussed the bracketing scenes of Scorsese's Raging Bull, and before Raging Bull and The Searchers, Citizen Kane with the cameras peering through the fog and finally our retreat back into murkiness. In Martin Scorsese's 1967 film 'I call first (Who's That Knocking At My Door)' two characters hold a discussion about 'The Searchers'. The opening and closing of the door in The Searchers symbolizes not only the beginning and ending of the film but the door through which we catch "A glimpse of a mans soul". We know that the story does not end with the closing of the door, Ethan is destined to continue searching. In a sense the closing of the door which ends the audiences insight into Ethan's life by cutting off our experience leave Ethan to wander forever searching.

Soil and Salt

My second performance work within the Sculpture Instillation room was performed using the left over trace of the previous performance. The soil which had been left in a line through the centre of the room was left for the remainder of the week so that it could inhabit the room and I could witness the soils power diminish over time until the soil was moved and controlled by passers by. This performance used the soil which was already there, the development of ideas and the movement of the emotional drive for the work lead me to this work which was in all ways a development of the last work and an extension of it. Like the previous work, I added tables and chairs and the substance salt to the room and than began the work by clearing a space to work in and setting up the tables and chairs. All of the setting up was in fact what made up the actions of the performance which left me feeling that this work was quite similar to an instillation and in fact I left this work up for the rest of the week also to be viewed in an instillation state.

In the same way my first cleaning performance had no specific position for the audience other than to stand where I was not, in this performance the audience lined the walls all the way around the room, only avoiding the middle where the tables and chairs where. The size of the room meant that the audience could barely avoid stepping on the soil that was on the floor. The audiences position was one I had never witnessed in this room, which so far had only housed performances which faced the entrances and which made a clear orientation which left the performer on one side of the room and the audience on he other. I felt the positioning of my objects and the positions the audience took up broke down the barriers in some small way between them both. The audience where circling me and facing, looking at each other in unspoken dialogues. I personally enjoy the audience to be able to move around and interact with the performance. Having an audience around you makes the work three dimensional, the actions can be focused on and performed within a spacial relationship which encompasses all the objects and spaces rather than being directed towards a single faced audience.

As in this performance I had moved in and out of the room a few times to collect different objects and move others out, when I finished and left the audience didn't know whether I had finished or not. My video documentation shows a space of time where the audience watch the door for my possible return, and then look at each other, questioning as a group whether the performance was 'over' or not. With one student clapping as in customary in M.A.P when a performance finishes (that is a performance which follows conventional performance scripts such as leaving when the performance is over) the rest joined which I found amusing as I had left the vicinity and was on the other side of the campus. It seems that my exit was not obvious and once the audience had come to the conclusion as a group that the performance was over, signified this by clapping which touched me through it's respect for a performer who wasn't there. The exit which was not obvious as such was one of my favorite performance moments. It's a disappearance, a nonchalant abandonment of the past moments which are left to the remaining audience to do with as they wish. I remember at the time I had in my head the end of John Ford's 'The Searchers'(1956). The ending of this film isn't the same as the ending to my performance nor does it mean the same, but it does involve a character leaving a room full of things happening, unnoticed to carry on drifting and searching for some home.

Room and context

My cleaning performance was moved to another room from the one I originally performed in. The room I moved too was a new edition to the 'M.A.P department', that had only been used for a year before. The room is located within the area of the 'Sculpture department'. The room has two entry points, one of which is a fire exist door which leads out to the Howard Gardens courtyard, a communal space where many of the students socialize. The other entrance point is a door way in the wall next the the fire exist which leads to the rest of the Sculpture department. It is because of the natural corridor that these doorways make and the position they have within the whole of the campus that it has become a corridor to many of the students moving in and out of the Sculpture department. The fire exit and always bee opened from the inside and is never shut fully within the day to allow students to gain access from outside. Moving into this space, I had no interest in stopping people from moving through the space. Even though my work involved a claiming of space, the trickles of people moving through the room presented an obstacle for me. Claiming a room would be more difficult when people have free access to the space. It is this tension of taking control of a space against the people who move through it, and the students who can book the space and have it taken away from me that was of particular interest to me. Engaging with that room, spending time in it and understanding the room meant understanding its relationship socially as well as physically. The room as I have mentioned is operated under a booking system, and has been adopted by students as a corridor, an adoption which is so programed within students that obstacles which prevent the corridor being used are sometimes met with anger and frustration. The corridor status attached to the room dominates the rooms status as a studio. An audience fits uncomfortably into the room in most cases. The performances which have taken place there are generally directed at the door and as a result the audience positions themselves opposite, filling up one end of the room and blocking the corridor from being used. I found that by creating longer work, my audience became the passing students who shoot glances at first, and investigated more when they came in contact with the same work more than once. The works maintained presence within the room opened a 'clearing' in which the audience could build a relationship and a dialogue with the work. I decided to attempt to occupy the room as much as possible whilst abiding by the rules and etiquette of the M.A.P department and the University by booking the room as much as I could and spending time in there, performing all my work in the same room. I developed the cleaning performance and extended it to leave a carpet of soil going through the middle of the room from the fire exist to the back room for a the rest of the week. The soil was neat and was kept within the lines of the large stone tiles which make up the floor of the room. The soil covered the floor by the exit so that anyone who wanted to pass was forced to make a decision to go a different way, walk through the soil or jump over it. To begin with some students left the room upon entering and traveled a different route. Many students where incredibly respectful of the forceful geometry and presence of the soil which dominated the room. Within time as the room was left and I'm sure in students minds was a discarded piece of work, the soil was disturbed more and more, first with footprints, careful and sometimes playful, to unconsidered scuffs and disturbances, rubbish and cigarette butts.

After 'moving in' to the 'Sculpture Instillation room' as it has become know to us in M.A.P the relationship my presence has developed in the room began to effect the students who engaged with the room. A student from another department came to me and asked if they could use my room. The room is not mine, it's not my studio, it's a room that I book for up to a week at a time. The room is booked on a monday when the whole of the M.A.P department meets in the morning. It's the first order of the day where we book out space and equipment to use through out the week and than we have the same meeting the next monday. It was interesting to have a student refer to the room as belong to me. It followed that people around the area referred to the room as "Matt's room". Even within the M.A.P department where the students are aware of the booking system my integration with the room was taking place within peoples minds. I noticed that in the monday meetings when the technician called out to the class for bookings for the 'Sculpture space' a pause would follow. People who might be thinking of using the room would, consciously or not, wait for a few seconds and look my way to give me a moment to book the room for the week as though I had some authority over it. On one occasion when I decided not to use the room and another student booked it the technician asked if anyone had a problem with the booking. This was a question I had not heard be asked before. His gesturing towards my direction suggested that the question was for my benefit. My performances where creating a new attitude towards the room. Whilst performing I could hear students outside in the courtyard enforcing a etiquette of respect with regards to being outside the room and making noise, even passing through the room at times seemed a taboo if I was engaged in a physical performance and filming.

Raging Bull

The film 'Raging bull' by Martin Scorsese is one which after watching, stayed in my head for a long time. I understood the film to be very important to myself as I thought about it everyday. I will not go into every nuance of the film as the film can be analyzed in some depth but I will mention a few scenes which stand out to me. The theme of the film which resonated with me is that of struggle, a mans struggle to perform and when his integrity is damaged. Jake LaMotta's on screen struggle is with himself, through the fights and situations in the film we see a simultaneous portrayal of the struggles he went through in life and inside his soul. Jake's remorse for compromising his integrity when boxing perhaps underpins the rest of Jake's downfalls which for myself was a striking theme in the film, the struggle to be successful and keeping your integrity is one which many people can relate too.

One aspect of the film which interested me was the passing of time which allowed the audience to view LaMotta at the beginning of his boxing career and beyond the end of his boxing career. Curiously the scene which most demonstrates this passing of time whilst acknowledging the past's influence upon the present is the final scene inside a dressing room, in preparation for a performance, the beginning of a new challenge.

The reason why this film is important to my art practice is that two of the films most powerful and emotional scenes are at either end of the film, the very first shot and the very last.













The last scene in Martin Scorsese's 'Raging Bull', Jake LaMotta's monologue, is one of the most powerful scenes I have ever seen, and one which I could not shake from my mind for a long time after seeing. The presence of this scene in my thoughts lead me to write down the monologue and discover the reason why it meant so much to me at that time.

In the film, the use of the dressing room mirror in conjunction with the monologue is of particular significance. The boxing carer of the main character of 'On the waterfront'(1954) Terry Malloy has many similarities with Jake LaMott's real life. When Jake recites the famous scene of 'On the waterfront' where Terry finally after years of silent torment confronts his brother 'Charlie' and blames him for his miss-fortune in boxing, he recites it into a dressing room mirror. There is no one else in the room. LaMotta is simultaneously blaming other people for he situation he has ended up in, and is most movingly addressing himself through the recital. LaMotta's past career and the dignity of contending as mentioned in the monologue are echoed by his sparing, done to prepare himself physiologically for the coming performance. The sparing reminds us that LaMotta is still fighting his own personal battles, still contending now as a performer, and echos his personal history of boxing and violence which have lead to this moment.

Similarly the first shot of the film, is of LaMotta sparing in a boxing ring by himself. LaMotta of to one side of the shot and the rest of the shot is empty. The solitude of the scene and the sparing sums up the films focus, a man fighting himself. The music of 'Cavalleria rusticana's Intermezzo plays over the shot, a dramatic piece of music used before scenes of violence and revenge. The action of the sparing shows a preparation for an upcoming fight, and being in the opening shot of the film marks the moment before the film really begins the story line, the upcoming scenes of violence. The two scenes I have picked out both bracket the rest of the film in the same way other films which have been influential to me have down such as John Ford's 'The Searchers'.

The act of cleaning

My first artwork in the third year, a performance, followed questions which arose from my writing and performances. A crucial step in this performance was the integration of actions which prepared the site for a performance to take place. The actions of preparations have for me a strong significance as preparatory actions are performed in order for something else to happen. It is for this reason that they become purposeful. These purposeful actions stood out to me against the less functional actions which took place in my performances.

Actions which have a function, are performed within a social context. One does what others do. To Clean a room is a ubiquitous action that is required for one to live in a room over any substantial length of time to remain healthy and for the room to remain in a functional state. An action such as this is embossed with a wealth of significance and meaning. The meaning of such an action does not only exist within an artistic performance, but outside the white cube. It is accessible to a large number of people whose embodiment of the action within different situations and contexts endow the action with its historical significance as a meaningful act.

The reasons for my choosing the action of cleaning a room and painting it white came from the context of making work in an art institution and showing the work to art students and lecturers. This was the first work I had made which acknowledged the context in which it's location was within. In the art institution and department I am in, the standard state of the rooms in which to make and show work is that of the white cube adopted by galleries. The etiquette of producing and displaying work involves cleaning and restoring the room that has been used to its former state. The rooms are used by students and any work shown will be shown to students and lecturers who will be aware of the university's procedures and departments etiquette. I had a few simultaneous instances where students has not cleaned/restored rooms after they had used them which left me to clean the rooms myself, cutting into the time I had booked the room for. The act of cleaning a room, erasing other peoples trace from it and restoring it to a white cube condition held a personal significance to me. Erasing mess and producing empty space communicated my feelings of existential homelessness more than filling the room with objects, substances and busy actions. The erasing of students trace acted as a 'claiming' of location, creating a clearing for my own work and a significant relationship with the location.

The performance brought to attention certain problems inherent when cleaning and emptying a room . Time based work is documented in order that lecturers and examiners can review an art practice and it's development, aswell as allowing others to view work and verifiy it's existance. The problem of cleaning and clearing a room is that the documenting equipment must be cleared away aswell. To not clear away recoarding equipoment would compromise the art works intergrity, the room would not be empty and the work would remain incomplete. The problem is in documenting the work when the recoarding equipment cannot be pressent. In this particular example, the audiance are students and lectureres who are aware, for the most part, of the nessessary procedure of documentation. In the same way that many recoardings are made without aknowledgment of the recoarding equipment itself and are viewed without this aknowledment, the performance audiances I have encountered automaticly ignor the pressence of a camera as having any artistic involvment of significance in the performances.

Shaving

In the second year of my being at University I performed my first piece of performance artwork. The work did not have a title and was not documented in any way other than in writing. None of my work has a title, I label them myself to help me identify them, those names are made by taking the most obvious and memorable aspect of the work, for example my first performance work I called 'Shaving performance' because in the performance I shaved my body hair off. I had decided not to film the work as I wanted the audience to engage with the piece without being conscious of a camera, in terms of space a camera would have limited the area the audience would be willing to be in (I had found that most people avoid cameras that are filming performances).

The work was set up in a small enclosure of three black curtains formed together to make three walls, the 'fourth wall' did not exist, the space was an opening for the audience to enter and exist. I walked in and undressed down to my underwear, sat down in front of a mirror and shaved my body. I shaved my legs and arms, half of my chest and my neck and face save the eye brogues. The shaving was enough for me to look hairless whilst wearing clothes. The performance produced some lively debate within the audience who critiqued the work after it was performed. The debate was in how the audience read symbols of gender into the work, and whether bodily shaving is a feminine action. At this time I had been researching 'identity' focusing on gender identity and gender roles. The performance was in fact not intended to begin with to be a performance but rather preparation for a performance. Artist Ruth Bamber advised me to consider my preparatory actions as significant to the work, a piece of advice I took heed of and found that the preparatory act of shaving said far more and opened debate far better than the performance I had first planned.

I shaved only half my chest so that when wearing clothes no hair could be seen however under the clothes hair was present. This half shaving kept me in an in-between state of being 'shaved' and having hair, in one sense a hermaphrodite. The in-between state this held me in contributed to the debate as to my 'being masculine or feminine' in the performance. When I develop my ideas for performances and picture them in my head I am always replaced by a woman, she is tall and has red hair. I took this image of a woman to be some version of my 'Anima' a Jungian archetype which is your gender opposite and an image of desire in two simultaneous ways, a concept a persona you want to be and a persona you seek romantically in someone else.

(written 9/4/10)