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.