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)