gertrude contemporary / discipline lecture no 8

I went to a really interesting lecture last week. It was part of a series of lectures at Gertrude Contemporary that have been programmed between the gallery and Discipline art journal.
The lecture was delivered by Denise de Silva, Professor in Ethics at Queen Mary University in London. 

Black Feminist Poethics: Toward the End of the World (As We Know It)

“Would the Poet’s intention emancipate the Category of Blackness from the scientific and historical ways of knowing which produced it in the first place, which has been the Black Feminist Critic worksite?

Perhaps Blackness emancipated from science and history would wonder about another praxis and wander away and beyond the World, guiding the Feminist to an imagining of other ways of knowing and doing. From without the World as we know it, gazing at the Horizon of The Thing – where the imagination plays unchained – such a Black Feminist Poethic could expose the whole field of possibilities for knowing and doing.

Towards this End, as a preliminary move, this talk returns to the task some call the critique of representation, with an account that confronts juridical (the authorised total violence of the police and the courts) and economic (the expropriation of total value from indigenous lands and enslaved labour) moments of racial subjugation.”

-Denise De Silva


I found Denise De Silva's discussion of how capitalist wealth has and continues to exploit labour along racial lines very interesting. The fact is that the current economic state is built off the exploitation of people of colour. 
In America, the munificent wealth some people enjoy has at its basis the colonizing of land followed by the exploitation of slave labour. 
Likewise in Australia. We are a country that has built ourselves from the colonization of land and the marginalization and mistreatment of indigenous people. Australia's wealth in the global economy comes from gathering and trading resources from these lands. For people familiar with Postcolonial critique and history these things would be obvious. But the overarching ways that labour and land are used and exploited by capitalist structures can go overlooked. If you want to look at issues of equality and feminism it seems vital to consider all the ways in which people are made un-equal within society. If you want to consider whose subjectivity is being considered most important in the way politicians make policy, it's crucial to consider how racist divisions of labour have been and continue to be, within society. When you look at Australia's current political situation it isn't difficult to see that our government plays on people's fear and racist tendencies, particularly in the case of policy around refugees.

The lecture was inspiring and I highly recommend reading this article by Denise de Silva. I plan on reading some of the books she refers to in the article as well.


 

pussy riot : a punk prayer

"Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it."  -Bertolt Brecht


I went and saw a documentary at MIFF recently about Russian punk-feminist group Pussy Riot. It was awesome and inspiring. 
So just as some background, Pussy Riot formed as a response to Vladimir Putin's re-election in 2011 and is composed of around eleven women who wear fluorescent balaclavas and refer to one another in nicknames to maintain anonymity. They are based in Moscow and create guerrilla performances in public spaces that protest against conservative and misogynistic ideology. Their lyrics focus on the fusion of church and State, describing Vladimir Putin as a dictator, as well as on pressure faced by young women to have children and behave subserviently. One of the things I found enjoyable about their performances is that they have a playful, trickster edge, while still giving a powerful message of hope, liberation and pushing back against authority. 





"Pussy Riot's performances can either be called dissident art or political action that engages art forms. Either way, our performances are a kind of civic activity amidst the repressions of a corporate political system that directs its power against basic human rights and civil and political liberties."  

The documentary focused most particularly on the period after their highly publicised arrest in 2012. The performance that led to the arrest and trial of three members of Pussy Riot took place at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and involved them walking up the steps leading to the alter, dancing and beginning their song 'Mother of God, Drive Putin Away,' which included lyrics that criticised the churches role in oppressing women and alluded to links between the Orthodox Church and the KGB. A previous performance of the song can be found here. They were escorted from the church by guards after less than a minute and the church called on the government to criminalize blasphemy. Within a few days, three members of the group were arrested and charged with 'hooliganism.' 





The details of the trial were curious, and a media circus quickly grew around it. International attention turned towards the case, with protests held worldwide, and international artists such as Madonna, Die Antword and Bjork pledging their support. It was kind of pleasing to hear that through all the commodification of the 'cause' of Pussy Riot, that they remained ambivalent of the attention stating:

“We’re flattered, of course, that Madonna and Björk have offered to perform with us. But the only performances we’ll participate in are illegal ones. We refuse to perform as part of the capitalist system, at concerts where they sell tickets.”





One of the things that I found most interesting about the film was the way that it went into each girls upbringing and background in activism and art. Maria Alyokhina (left) had a history in environmental activism and studied at the Institute of Journalism and Creative. She spoke beautifully and eloquently during the trial:

“For me, this trial only has the status of a ‘so-called’ trial. And I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of lies and fiction, of the thinly disguised fraud in the sentence of this so-called court. Because you can only take away my so-called freedom. And that is the exact kind that exists now in Russia. But nobody can take away my inner freedom.”

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich (middle and right) were previously members of public performance group Voina and were involved in a protest that I really loved in which they went into public places and grabbed and kissed female police officers on duty on the streets and on trains. There were a few grainy videos of this piece, and it seemed like such an aggressive and spontaneous action. The police officers seemed so surprised and confused, it was beautiful.




I suppose the only thing that pissed me off about the documentary over all was the conversations that I overheard in the bathroom queue afterwards. I listened to two ladies bemoaning what tough places Russia and China would be to live, how these countries are backward, restrictive and have no freedom of speech. They comforted themselves by mentioning how lucky we are to live in Australia (and they really couldn't have sounded more smug about it).
This really made my blood boil. 
Do films (and film festivals) like this exist simply to validate people's feeling of self-satisfaction and superiority? As though in our current political climate, in which our politicians implement racist and cruel refugee policy, things are all perfect. People are still arrested for protesting in Australia. There is still sexism, violence against women, homophobia and blatant racism. Not that I don't think it's right to feel grateful for the food, shelter and love that I have in my life. But I really don't think it was the goal of Pussy Riot to reaffirm people's sense of comfort in their position in their respective societies. They are a voice for mobilising, thinking and making change to the things that are wrong and unjust. 

At any rate, was an interesting film, but going to MIFF makes me feel like I'm drowning in smug.

goldene bend'er : mikala dwyer : acca

Just a few quick words on an exhibition currently on at ACCA that has ritualistic, abject elements that I found interesting. Goldene Bend'er is a work by Mikala Dwyer, that spans over three rooms at ACCA, with an installation, a performative video, costumes hanging on the wall and a series of large scale sculptures. 

The video depicts a circle of people shrouded and hooded in golden KKK-esque robes dancing, swaying and waving their arms in unison. It's like witnessing an odd, anonymous celebration. There is a ring of clear perspex cylinders that they move around, which also appear on the ground in front of the projected video. At a certain point the group (of around six figures) each seat themselves on one of the cylinders. The sound, not so noticeable before moves towards a groaning, humming crescendo; the figures squat, their forearms held forward, their hands making jerky 'jazz hand' movements; as they each take a shit, into the plastic cylinders. Their anuses are not visible, under the cloaks, but the shit can be seen clearly as it falls and plops slowly from each figure into the 'toilets' below. 



It's a sinister, but comical ritual. It reminds of the moment in childhood development where a child is proud that they've managed to use the toilet for the first time and are gleeful about their shit. A moment usually private, turned into a funny, scary, brightly colored ritual. The sound accompanying the video was similar to that at the end of the film Rosemary's Baby, when Rosemary has discovered that her neighbors are Satanists conspiring against her, all kind of guttural and droning.

The wall opposite the video was hung with the costumes that the figures wear.




In the next room are several sculptures; large warped ring shapes that are rendered in glossy silver and gold. Beside them sit smaller golden objects, blobby vessels and figures. I found the video work the most interesting element, and couldn't entirely get into the relation between that and the sculptures.....but hey, maybe I was just being stubborn.
I attended a talk about this exhibition. It mostly focused on the way we figure shitting to be a private activity and endeavor to separate ourselves from feces, decay and disease.
There were also references to alchemy and the idea of 'turning shit to gold.'



ACCA
111 Sturt Street
Southbank
https://www.accaonline.org.au/

feed room : thoughts

I've been pondering some of the strange thoughts I had during the Feed Room performance and the behaviors that you all witnessed and have been trying to figure out how to describe my experience. I guess I could begin by saying that I went into it with limited expectations, I hoped it would be experimental in nature. However I thought it would be an artwork about what it means to be imprisoned. About how surveillance works on the individual. I also thought the isolation might be enlightening....and contemplative.
I think it was all of these things to some degree. 
But some of the thoughts that crossed my mind surprised me. And I found it much more difficult than I expected. In fact I think it's probably the hardest performances I've ever done.


Day 1      10:00am
At the very beginning when I settled into the room I felt fairly calm. It seemed an opportunity to collect my thoughts, think about particular plans I had for the next few months and further into the future. From where I was I could see a sliver of window behind a curtain and therefore see when the sun rose and set. I could also faintly hear the activities, TV watching and muffled conversation of the owner of the gallery, who lived upstairs. Once the sun went down I began to panic. It became very very cold, and I calculated that I still had at least 48 hours to spend in the room and it already felt like I'd been there for ages. I paced around a lot, walked in circles, tried to break down numbers into smaller increments of time that made sense. Where at first I'd thought this would be a scenario I'd have some degree of control over, I began to feel that it was   entirely unpredictable. Without surrounding people or objects, without context, was I entirely unsubstantial? I found it difficult to sleep because of the cold, uncomfortable floor and curled myself up completely under the blanket. Every time I'd nod off I would wake up feverishly within a short time, and it felt like the night lasted forever. Sometime around when the sun came up I slept and had a dream in which I was on a beach covered with tiger snakes. I grabbed one by the head, and killed it by sinking my fingernails through its head.






Day 2
Waking up I felt, at first refreshed. I thought for some time about people who lived for long periods in prison, or in institutions. Where everyday they would wake up and see walls that didn't belong to them. I began to daydream about food, meals I'd eaten and meals that I wanted to eat. In the afternoon I fell asleep heavily and slept for what felt like a while. During this time I dreamt of eating soft boiled eggs and toast with honey on it. I spent a lot of time staring into space, staring at the walls and the floor. I felt agitated, impatient and depressed. The room smelt more and more of urine because of the fact that I'd been pissing in a bucket and gotten some on my clothing. Noticing there was a brick loose in the wall, I pulled it out and placed it in the middle of the room. Sometimes when I glanced at it, it seemed to have features, or be alive. As it got later I became more and more hungry and it was difficult to focus on anything other than food. I struggled to fall asleep because of intense stomach cramps, but when I finally did, I slept longer and deeper than the night before. I dreamt that I was in the apartment of Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. She was wearing a trench coat, my mother was there too and a man that I didn't recognise. We were drinking champagne, smoking cigarettes and enjoying ourselves.





Day 3
I woke up feeling somewhat better. My stomach no longer hurt. Occasionally I got the impression that I would faint, the air in front of my eyes was crackly. I felt more meditative and calm than the previous day. I realised that when I sat beneath one of the light globes on the ceiling that it would reflect in the glass of water I was holding. I began pouring pools of water onto the floor and the light globe reflected in them looking somewhat like the moon reflected in a lake. I stared at this for a long time and it was soothing. I lay down under the blanket for a while. It felt like a pink, soothing sanctuary. A womb. I began to think of leaving the room which made me feel relieved but also anxious. When it began to grow dimmer outside, I decided the performance was over, got up and turned the webcam off. It was 4:30pm.








Many thanks to Jason of The Owl and the Pussycat Gallery in Richmond for allowing me to undertake this work there, as well as to all of you who watched online.

feed room II

Feed Room
Live stream by Ustream

feed room

Feed Room is happening this week!! from Sunday through to Wednesday night at The Owl and the Pussycat Gallery in Richmond.

Feed Room is an online and on air work in which I will live in a gallery space continuously for a number of days with the footage streamed to this blog and to a series of TVs in the front window of the gallery. I'll be getting isolated, staying up late and testing my mind and body.

The address is 34 Swan Street, Richmond if you happen to be walking by. 
I'll post the video link on here tomorrow if you have a moment to watch over the coming days.

xo

BACKFLIP: feminism and humour in contemporary art

I went along to the opening of BACKFLIP: Feminism and Humour in Contemporary Art at Margaret Lawrence at the VCA Gallery last Friday. The opening was PACKED as they always are at the VCA, the wine was plentiful and the art was interesting. There was a real buzz in the air; I felt like the artwork had presence, atmosphere....humour. It was a really well put together, considered collection of work, with an enjoyable balance between performance, video, installation and photographic work.

The show was curated by Laura Castagnini around the idea of humour and wit in feminist art and included work by a number of Australian and international artists. Some of my favorite works were performative, such as Flowing Locks, 2007 by Hannah Raisin. In this video Hannah appears in a lycra suit that has had holes cut at the crotch and armpits. Through these holes protrude absurdly long hair extensions which dance in the breeze as she performs graceful balletic movements. It's a really funny work. 

Besides; is it truly more absurd to attach long silky pube-xtensions than it is to meticulously rip out all your crotch hair with molten wax? I wonder what the market out there is like for pube-wigs? (aka merkins)  And what if your pubes and armpit hairs really could grow that long of their own accord... ?

At any rate, I find it an interesting and funny image of womanhood. Hannah Raisin's art is always engaging and inspiring. I recommend looking at more of it here.



Another performance work I thought was great was Melons (At a Loss) 1998 by Patty Chang. In this work the artist slices through one cup of an oversized brassiere, revealing a now halved melon, which the artist has tied in front of her body as a surrogate breast. She then gradually scoops out the melon with her hand and piles the seeds onto a plate balanced on her head. Eating the melon’s flesh, she tells the story of a relative of hers who died of breast cancer.

Friendship Is.. an installation work by Melbourne duo Nat&Ali was very dynamic, kitsch and beautiful. A pond was installed in the space surrounded by white pebbles, Coolabah wine boxes and plastic plants, with two white rope swings overhanging the water. During the evening two young girls in matching pink t-shirts and blue jeans swung on the swings together creating a picture-perfect moment of girlhood friendship...... although actually there was something a bit too perfect about it...  Anyway, I liked the installation. I also enjoyed the way audience members interacted with it during the night.



A new series by Catherine Bell entitled Mum's the Word, 2011 was also very compelling.  The large scale photographs shot by Bell during a residency in New York, show black nannies caring for white babies, in public spaces around Manhattan. The artwork interested me in that it highlights issues of class and race in relation to childcare labour (which is viewed by many as mundane, unskilled work). 

"Because these women aren't the mothers, we don't feel the perdurable warmth of the archetypal bond. Instead we're witnessing an employment arrangement, where nannies are appointed from a less prosperous class to perform the love-work that the parents cannot always supply because of work-work."
-Robert Nelson review

It made me wonder about the way that women are expected to naturally excel in the role of motherhood, to have some degree of intuitive knowledge about caring for children and nurturing others in general. It seems like there is a notion that being a nanny is a job that really only a woman could perform. Though social views on motherhood have shifted since the 1950s, women who put children up for adoption, who suffer from post-natal depression, or who struggle to show love or affection for their kids are generally viewed as anomalous, mean-spirited and strange.


Such an interesting collection of art...



On until May 25th 2013
Margaret Lawrence Gallery
Victorian College of the Arts
40 Dodds Street, Southbank 3006
VIC

pupa : performance no 2

I recently did another performance of Pupa but in a rather different location. I'm not sure how I feel about the way I've used Australian landscape, but I wanted to create something in a context that I've never really used for my performances before. It also proved to be good in that the stench and rotting of the tripe didn't give rise to complaints from surrounding neighbours, because there weren't any. The 'sculpture' has been coated in varnish and is currently still hanging from the same tree I attached it to. I'm interested to see how it looks in a day or two...

advice for rebel artists : by guillermo gomez-pena

1. Work against formulas. If your art is too easy to recreate, you are on the wrong path.

2. Challenge all forms of authority with an open and critical mind.

3. Make your art relevant to the world, not just the art world. 

4. Discuss politics and culture daily with friends and colleagues.

5. Distrust mainstream media. Go out of your way to remain informed.

6. Practice intelligent skepticism. Question simplistic formulas, easy narratives, dogmatic solutions and self righteous positions. 

7. Travel to other countries for extended periods of time.

8. Learn other languages, especially those that will help you communicate with your surrounding 'others.' We must all be fluent in at least 3 languages.

9. Don't be a purist. A 'performance purist' is a contradiction in terms. Challenge yourself to reinvent your practice on an ongoing basis. 

10. Be an 'outsider/insider,' a temporary member of multiple communities. Artists need to be everywhere: in the media, in academia, in the major institutions as well as the community based ones. We also need to be in the streets.

11. Devote equal energy to work and play.

12. Experiment with your identity and sexuality. Add a performative dimension to your daily life. 

13. Practice responsible hedonism. Re-vindicate the sacred right to party and fight puritanism.

14. Be humbly accessible to others. Share your knowledge and connections with others. Support your peers. See their work, write about it, reference it. Collaborate. Don't be selfish.

15. Deliver critiques to your fellow artists gently but deliberately. Expect the same in return.

16. Don't take yourself too seriously.

17. Don't be a princess or a mindless bohemian. 

- Guilermo Gomez-Pena, Excercises for Rebel Artists & Radical Performance Pedagogy, 2011

sketches

kira o'reilly article : performance spaces

This week I read a couple of articles about Kira O'Reilly's performance practice and about artists that use flesh and biological matter in their work. Her works seem to be primarily about the female body and to consider the interrelating threads of personal, sexual, social and political identity. The article I found the most interesting was called "The Touch and the Cut: an annotated dialogue with Kira O'Reilly" written by Patrick Duggan. An article in two parts, the first section describes the writers experience of Untitled (Syncope), 2007 a performance O'Reilly created for SPILL Festival in the UK, while the second part is an interview and discussion between artist and writer. 

Untitled (Syncope), 2007 takes place in the SHUNT vaults underneath London Bridge Station. The location, a dark, labyrinth of tunnels seems important to creating an atmosphere of unease and uncertainty in the audience. The crowd are huddled together, waiting for the performance to begin when they see the artist approaching. She is naked except for red high heels, lipstick and a burlesque headress. She carries a mirror and walks backwards towards them, catching their gaze in the mirror. There is the steady sound of a metronome ticking during the performance. Moving through the crowd, O'Reilly brushes against the audience member, reaches out and takes one by the hand. They are lead through the space, a series of arches and tunnels. 
O'Reilly holds a scalpel. She bends her body downwards and cuts the flesh of her calf muscles causing blood to ooze and puddle at her ankle and the edge of her red shoes. "The metronome's pace quickens and grows louder as she tries to keep her taut, automaton style movements up with the pace set by the mechanical ticking, all the while teetering in her high heels. She never speaks." 





 Although my experience of this performance is via anecdote and photographs, I feel that it is a very powerful, atmospheric artwork. The way it is described by Patrick Duggan makes me feel that to be in the audience and experience O'Reilly's body within that particular space would be emotional and affecting.

"The touch and the cut, both acts which press upon the bodies of the audience in different ways, gave the performance a strange sense of familiarity and extremity, and it is this dichotomous mix which, much as Amelia Jones suggests, causes it to feel slightly voyeuristic, a scene stumbled upon which we should look away from but it is impossible to do so."

I found the use of space in this performance particularly interesting, the stark underground space made entirely of cold stone. In the second section of the article, O'Reilly discusses the space a little: 
"The arches frame the body beautifully.... There is something about these spaces being so harsh and to present the body unclothed, vulnerable, without any staging or floor laid down, there's something really nice about being able to do that, where you have a mixture of materials with skin and stone."

This is something I've being thinking about in terms of my own performances; the way the body can correlate, contrast or be positioned within spaces. The way that architecture and surfaces can intersect with the body. 

VALIE EXPORT

louise bourgeois at the heide museum

This weekend I went to have a look at an exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois on at the Heide Museum of Modern Art. It was a collection of sculptures and fabric drawings created in the last 15 years of Bourgeois' career and the first survey of her art in Australia since her death in 2010. Bourgeouis work is often described as autobiographical, with references to her childhood, her father's betrayal of her mother and other instances of trauma and pain. Viewing her fabric sculptures, I was struck by the varied ways the female body was rendered in fabric. As a shifting form, with amorphous curves, orifices, genitalia and sometimes violent intersections with other objects.

 

Femme Maison, 2001 

Bourgeois skilled layering of fabric and use of the body was both poetic and startling. In this work, the house is grafted onto the woman, rather like a tumor or extra limb. There is humor, risk and abjection to her work.




Knife Figure, 2002




Couple, 1997

I love the way that Bourgeois' work invites the viewer to consider the experience of living within your body, the surfaces, textures, and orifices. The experience of violence, touch, interaction and penetration. And the way a body can be trapped in space, threatened or traumatized. 



On until March 11th 2013
Heide Museum of Modern Art
7 Templestow Road
Bulleen VIC 3105

http://www.heide.com.au/

inspiring performances : live art development agency : london

A few weeks ago while I was in London I was lucky enough to spend two days immersed in the reading room of the Live Art Development Agency, a center that supports the study, research and practice of live art. The reading room had a very comprehensive collection of books, journals and catalogs, as well as a vast library of dvds and videos of performances. I was pretty much in heaven and spent two full days reading and watching dvds of work by artists from the renowned to the obscure. Here are some of the artists and works that I found most fascinating:

Kira O'Reilly   

Succour, 2002

In this performance, O'Reilly begins wrapping a tight lattice-work of sticky tape around her legs. Proceeding around her leg she cuts a diagonal line into each square of flesh that is exposed creating a pattern on the body. She then continues applying tape and cutting the pattern onto her abdomen and breasts. At the conclusion she removes the tape leaving the network of very evenly applied cuts. One of the things this work makes me think of is the torture method of 'a death by a thousand cuts.' Though the cuts are shallow, and she does not seem to be in serious pain, it would be such a raw feeling to be cut all over like that. It's such a controlled and precise action though, the cuts are applied to her body almost as someone would draw flowers on wrapping paper.  

"This action begins where words fail me...Using processes of measuring and cutting, the skin is (re)marked like a text or a drawing, etching a history that can be followed on the surface of the skin, like a palimpset. Tenderised, it brings sharply into focus a visual and visceral vocabulary that invokes notions of trauma (a wound) and stigma (a mark) towards a 'spoiling' and opening of the body to explore an alterity or otherness."
- Kira O'Reilly, Notes from the National Review of Live Art, RealTime no.52

Watching this did make me think of writing and inscribing, about different types of mark making, and the way that scars and wounds create patterns on our bodies. It reminded me of 'Crash' by JG Ballard which I read recently, in which there is a real obsession with the body being marked and injured via mechanical means. Where the body is imprinted with even, exact wounds by the metal objects around it. 


Inthewrongplaceness, 2005

"There is a room in a house that is Home. One at a time people come into the space for the merest of time, five minutes. They have been told they can touch the human animal and the non-human animal. First they are instructed to put on a pair of latex gloves and then to spray ethanol onto the gloves. They are also reminded that they can just look and stay a while."




I move slowly with the piggy body
Kill no. 000053, 48.5kg
Bits of me go inside her ;
My head disapears into the rib cavity
Where the soft organs have been recently excavated.
She is body without organs
I dance with her.

I am stoked, prodded, probed to within fractions of decency by one
I don't look at anyone.
I keep moving with her.
Our bodies pretend to turn into one another, a funny piggy girl,
A dead sow lady, she still has her eyelashes.
Mine Close.

-Kira O'Reilly, notes on the performance.

This performance fascinates me on many levels. The merging and blending of the human and animal bodies into one form, as though they are making love or dancing or just holding one another. The contrast of dead and living forms and flesh, the way that the room is set up with rich decor and flowers to look like an exclusive hotel or a still life, the way that the audience are invited to touch the 'human and non human animals,' its a visceral and suggestive performance. It makes me think of the use of animal flesh in my tripe/cocoon series and wonder about the future incarnations of that performance. 


Stairfalling, 2009

I only saw a few photographic stills of this work but it interested me in that it it showed a violent and sinister action, slowed down, exaggerated and made almost ridiculous. In it O'Reilly enacts a fall down a steep flight of stairs at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. The pace of the fall is choreographed so that the entire descent takes 3 hours. It doesn't come across to its full extent in the photographs, but I imagine live this would have been excruciating and fascinating, a drawn out enactment of a frantic, sometimes accidental, sometimes homicidal act. 






SenVoodoo

Arterial, 2005

I have read about this performance before in an article by Anne Marsh, so it was fascinating to see the video. In it two women shrouded in white walk in slow measured paces towards one another along a white platform. They both have their arms outstretched and drip even, regular drops of blood onto the floor creating a long river behind each of them as they draw closer together. It is a very stark and beautiful, with the droplets of blood tracing the path they are walking. The women seem drawn to one another, yet when they meet in the middle they turn away. There is a feeling of intimacy between these two figures, but there is fear too. 
The notes in the DVD case said this: 
"Arterial is a performance about loss and mourning. It has universal relevance and is recontextualised with each new siting. With its use of the primal medium of blood, Arterial also confronts issues of fear, infection, disease and death." SenVoodoo are a performance duo made up of Ana Wojak and Fiona McGregor who have performed throughout Sydney as well as internationally. 




"Blood in our time is a dangerous medium. Amidst war, real death, detention and persecution blood is spilt. How can artists enter into this realm and make a point? Make a difference?"
-Anne Marsh, 'Extreme Acts: Live, Remade and Remediated,' Eyeline no 69

I think it is worth questioning how trauma works in performance art. When violence is so much a part of broadcast media and everyday experience, what does it mean to choreograph performances that confront violence, pain or trauma? Can these works be relevant socially and politically? 



Karen Finley

Shut up and Love Me, 2004

"Shut up and Love Me deconstructs desire into a series of unlovely impulses, climaxing with Finley rolling naked in her golden pond. Of honey. This is a female libido run amok- raunchy, messy, inappropriate, even grotesque. This is sexual power both flaunted and mocked. At the core of this work is Finley's observation that women are defined by their sexuality, then demonized for it."

This work went for around 45 minutes and involved dance, a disco striptease, storytelling and cavorting in a pool of honey. In this performance Karen Finley tells stories of sexual encounters and pursuits, lapses into animalistic  outbursts and performs exaggeratedly sexual dances. It is upfront, comical and complicated all at once. While watching it I felt at various times aroused, unsettled, sick and amused. So all in all, brilliant. 
I really wish I could make work of this quality, that involved a narrative, could make people laugh, and yet still be very affecting.  



Sonia Richli

Untitled, 2003



This performance was staged in a public place and involved the artist, painted green and positioned behind strands of barbed wire. Many of Sonia Richli's performances seem to involve suspension or restraint applied to the body, followed by periods of stillness and endurance.


Paradise Lost, 2004










The days I spent reading articles and watching DVD's at the Live Art Development Agency were really inspiring. There was such a good range of different work and opinions and I think it will inspire me to keep momentum up with my performances. 


The White Building
Unit 7, Queens Yard
White Post Lane, Hackney Wick
London E9 5EN

www.thisisliveart.co.uk