ARTISTS TALKING

# 17 [14 March 2008]

We are finding that tying up the project for the final activity report form is a whole lot harder than it was actually doing the main part of the activity. does anyone else find this? perhaps it is because the thrill has gone somewhat, the writing in NY was a high point, and on coming back we wrote our socks of for various magazines, but we only got a few UK magazines to print content on Performa and we still havent managed to programme a workshop back in the Uk on critical writing and Live Art, as we said we would in our grant application.

Since November the publishing points we outlined in our ACE bid, have been few and far between. Despite tring to publish with various magazines- and I think its only right that i list them, since what is the point of this blog if we are not listing details and specifics about Writing Live? - Art Monthly, Dance Theatre Journal - we have only had several publications take us up on their original offer of Performa related critical writing. The reasons for this are many, but mostly relate to in house editorial decisions that reflect the logistics and remit of the individual publications, and not the fact that they dont think performance and new media work in new York isnt important.

Despite this lack of UK take up, Writing Live has resulted in three reviews in Realtime Magazine(Aus) ( (all 08 issues), one peice in Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (May 08), and a two page centre spread in Total Theatre (March 08), we have also written many catalogue entries for the Performa 07 hardback catalogue. Whilst this is all a real acheivement, we had hoped UK magazine coverage would have been more plentiful. It just prooves that aside from the writing content, the challenges of the blog format and the live work itself, getting print published is just another hurdle. It has made us think that future critical writing workshops should have taylored sessions in how, and who, to approach regarding print publication. Even though i am convinced blogging is the way forward, sadly, the Arts Council and many other individuals are still convinced of the hierarchy of the printed word and whilst this bias remains good critical writing must keep a foothold on the print side of things. The tide is certainly changing but lets hope blogs wholly take up their rightful place of -economic and intellectuual, academic-  value soon. 

And lets hope our UK workshop materialises soon!

Will post next week update; i was interveiwed by journalist Lara Farrar recently about critical writing and new media versus arts criticism in print and mainstram newspapers. it was an interesting interview. It made me realise there are still a lot of pertinant issues on critical writing still to be discussed.  I want to theoretically lead off from where Jane watt started in her AN article on blogs. Watch this space. 

Rachel Lois

# 16 [28 November 2007]

Our time in NY has ended, but The part of our project that begins in the UK now begins. Mary sand i both have quite a few UK magazine comissions that we are chasing up. part of our ats council england funding was contingent on benefi to the public, this not only meant that we trained new writers, or writers new to live art, over in NY whilst performa was on, but that we disseminated the work, and our activityt once back in the UK. We have so far lined up 2 x UK workshops in collaboration with goldsmiths University and Queen Mary. And have provisional commissions from Dance Theatre Journal, Art Monthly, Realtime magazine and Total Theatre. Its a lot of work, chasing and pushing, but hopefully will be worth it when the writing comes out and everyone reads more about this performance work. Maybe someone will be inspired to write about performance, go to see it, or even make it!. I uppose the hope is is that someone copmes along with a big bunch of money so that we can run something similar in the UK!

Universities work to a different deadline than the rest of the workld, often taking weeks just to answer one email. and magazines, well. they are totally off the planet -either they are really busy with a 5 minute deadline in which they have to sandwhich 1000 words in 5, and hence to busy to talk to you. or they arent in the office-swanning around and seeing art  because, well, they have just inished their deadline. there really doesnt seem to be a good time to catch editorial staff, let alone solidify plans for a peice of writing..anyway. we plough on. will keep you updated as and when the commissions come and and we do our UK workshops.

RLxx

# 15 [21 November 2007]

The end

It is the end of Performa, the end of Writing Live, the end of Writers Hub and the end of our time in New York.

The last Writer’s Hub meeting was yesterday, at the School of Visual Arts. We had a good discussion about each other’s texts, and RoseLee Goldberg, Performa’s Director, joined us for some of the session. Yesterday was also the day of Performa’s Grand Finale, an evening of music and drinking at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. The glitzy surroundings (the Hudson theatre is off Times Square, that temple to hi-tech advertising) echoed the glitz and glamour of Performa’s opening night at the Guggenheim.

So how was it? Hard work, for a start. Even RoseLee Goldberg admitted that Performa’s schedule has been punishing, and getting to everything is even harder when you don’t know your way around New York. Far too much of my time has been spent walking in the wrong direction, and I have also spent too long at the back of the room, jumping to get a view.

But although it’s been tiring at times, it’s also been a fantastic opportunity to see work from all over the world that is being shown all over the city. Unlike shorter festivals which cram everything in over a weekend, or take place in just one venue, Perfroma slipped into the busy atmosphere of New York as a living city. It’s almost as if the presence of New York has also been curated into the programme; one of its recurring themes has been to reconstruct or revive the New York arts scene of the past (Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneeman, Alan Kaprow, Wow and Now spring immediately to mind). As Writing Live Fellows, involved with Performa, Writers Hub and SVA, we have also been ushered into the busy-ness of the Big Apple.

Writers Hub has been even more successful than I dared imagine. There has been lots of writing for the Performa blog, and all of a high standard. The writers’ meetings were all productive, and I hope that the other writers weren’t just being kind when they came to thank us (unprompted!) after each session. With any luck, they’ll be just as positive on their feedback forms. Leading these sessions and getting such great feedback has boosted all of our confidence, and now we have a model we can use for similar programmes in the future.

What could we have done better? It was a shame that not all the writers who contributed to the blog could attend the workshop sessions, because they were held during the day. If I could do this again, I would have arranged one compulsory early evening session near the beginning of Performa, so that we could all have had a chance to meet early on. Personally, I also regret not getting more interviews with the artists involved. And of course, there’s the part of me that regrets all the things I missed – the Alan Kaprow re-enactments at Deitch Studios, Sanford Biggers, Xavier Le Roi. But you can never make it to everything. I was heartened at one of the ‘Not for Sale’ panel discussions, in which Yvonne Rainer asked Adam Pendleton when his show would be on. ‘You missed it!’ came the reply. So missing things is a fact of life, and it even happens to world-famous, impossibly influential artists like Yvonne Rainer.

In any case, missing out on things just gives you a hunger to see more. And as Performa 07 draws to a close, I am hungry to see more performance art on my return home.

mary

# 14 [16 November 2007]

following on from the mtg on friday 9th nov at the restaraunt im enclosing here the agenda from this tuesdays 13th nov writing workshop session (the second in the series). Boring for some-perhaps, not for others,  so i thought id post it here anyways.  freemans was more informal and group discussion, so we decided to keep structure and content for tuesdays session really tight.  it was a really useful session, bopth for the three writing fellows and the other writers-who fed back to us in the session their thoughts. looking at other media examples of performance coverage in bliogs, UK and US mainstream media really helped to pick oput the problems / challenges about writing about performance and led on to really useful discussion about our own texts in the peer review breakout session. some tough words were given out-and received!

RLxx

 ............................................................

Writers Hub Workshop Schedule

Tuesday 13th November

12.00 – 2.00 pm

SVA

Workshop materials Handouts

Adrian Searle article (Guardian)

Naked Attic article (Naked Attic blog)

Gary Cooper article (Time Out London)

Holland Cotter article (NY Times)

Introductory essay in Performa05 catalogue  - Roselee Goldberg

Individual texts from Performa blog.

12.00  Intro

Thanks to everyone

Logistics

12.05 Schedule

Description of what we’re going to do today and why:

-          Together we will look at some examples (some bad some good)  of writing by other authors to discuss challenges of writing about performance

-          We will then break into groups to discuss our individual texts

-          We will then re-group, feedback about our discussion then talk about general problems associated with writing about performance

-          We will then have a short talk about the work in Performa-looking at roselee’s essay.

-          Finally, we will discuss what is going to happen at next week’s meeting 

12.15 – 12.45 Other Writers

Media examples and writing from performance

a)      Naked Attic – writing about difficult work, doing justice to the work – what’s your responsibility in terms of knowledge?

b)      Adrian Searle – complex event that is beyond mainstream classification, written about in mainstream media print, is it contextualized?  Is it transmitted to the audience?

c)      Holland Carter – good survey, lots of information, plus some very succinct and knowledgeable critique about performance, including difficult events. Critique also good-ie not all positive.

d)     Gary Carter – tone, voice, playing with the writing.  Experimental but also completely accessible. Introduction for writers into performative or performance style of writing.

12.45 – 1.10

Peer Critique

Break up into two groups and discuss our writing-each group reading a blog post and commenting on it as per the other media examples.

1.10 - 2

Come back to report on feedback about writing. Discuss Challenges of writing about performance:

-          describing the work and including the details

-          the problem of knowledge – defining the context, but also furthering knowledge, and making work accessible for new audioences. 

-          Writing about ephemeral performance events

      -      Discussion of the work in Performa

1.50 Next Week

Next week we are planning on a longer peer-critique session

Does anyone else have any ideas? 

What else would we like to do?

Any feedback, etc.?

# 13 [12 November 2007]

the friday peer review session went really well. nearly 100% (15 people) attendance and new faces who have been writing for the blog but whom we have not yet met. it was all a bit chaotic, since we decided to not set an agenda per se for the session, and instead hoped that eating 'Bring Me the Head of...' by artist Serkan Özkaya and mtg roselee goldberg etc would fill up the time and enable more free-flow discussion. what transpired was that people did want to talk, about the wriitng, whilst eating the head. Jennifer Lease, also joined the mtg and was keen to emphasise that our writing was going to play a really key part in the Performa 07 catalogue, which was good news.

Jennifer said that the first person accounts and immediate publishing of the blog would make for a really good book and she was enjoying reading all our texts. it was good to see jennifer and meet her, also good for the writers to know that there ius a good chance of being published through their activity for Writing Live: Writers Hub. hopefully it will spurr on people to post more blogs.

we did initiate a conversation about writing about diffficult work, with defne's instructions to the writers that the bog must not be a love fesat- in mind. we also discussed posts that we really liked from the blog. the majority were silent at this point, and i think the hindering factor is the fact that we dont know each other so well and dont feel confident critiquing others texts. i passed on the fact that i really liked korin's blog post about marie cool: short, precise and very strong, leading intellectually. the peice summed up a very complicated dance work and raised some pressing issues about writing about contemporary visual art/ dance works. the only criticism i levelled at the group was that too much description could hamper their ability to comment, critique or contextualise the work seen, and that this was an important part of the writing. i suggested lifting themselves out of the decriptive narrative early on in the review in order to give them time to critique and contextualise. basically, running description describe throughout a peice of writing - as i have done many times- instead of separating it in a paragraph - can lead to confused, unstructured and overly long texts as it is then hard to 'lift' youself out of this descriptive mode.

in order that everyone can better comment on some practical examples of performance writing at tuesdays session 1-3 at SVA critical we have decided to bring materials with us that other people have written, either in the new york times or on blogs. that way we can have a look at different styles, voice and critique it without worrying about other members of the group's feelings. we will also making the session quite structured, taking advantage of the SVA room to have a really intense session.

must go and do some more writing now. will feedback after tuesday. will also upload photos of friday workshop..

RLxx

# 12 [8 November 2007]

we are two thirds the way through the biennial and the critical writing initiative (Writers Hub) in case you had forgotten the name! We hope you have been reading all our blog posts and opinions on the performa blog : here again, also in case youve forgotten, http://07.performa-arts.org/performa_live.phpand on interface.

we are still building on activity and aims outlined int he worksop: writing about live art and performance for immediate online publiocation (ie blog) with the aim of better serving performance work by creating a more in depth critical analysis of new performance - thus filling the huge gap that is accessible, engaging, yet critically valid writing on this fascinating genre. most peoples individual aims for the workshop were also related closely to our aims for ourselves and the critical writing initiative itself: without exeption people wanted to write better about performance-both for the benefit of performance, future historians, performa 07 and for their own skill as writers. speed was also a key factor-everyone wants to get faster at writing and the the blog activity to date, the practical exercises and feedback sessions all seem to be really helping with reducing the amount of time it takes to write strong texts. one of the aims of the workshop, programme and blogging about perfoma was also to gain better knowledge about the work seen. and many people cited dance as something they wsanted to know more about, write on and therefore create a better groiunding of knowledge in terms of how it fits into visual art performance.

it fits really well, then, that dance is something that performa have concentrated on for this biennial, defne (curator for performa) said that programming dance into performa had been really interesting and exciting, but also very revealing about the kinds of traditional activity, classifications and skill aspects that come up with trying to cross-programme between dance, visual art and performance. according to what defne, said it seems that dance is the last bastion of the art world to hold out against being blurred into visual art or performance and resistence was found, not only in terms of programming dance ionto performa atall, but also from artists and audience members too. its quite fitting then that the performa programme 'dance after choreography' truly does take a slightly renegade, punkish approach to dance, and explodes the genre from within. it blurrs boundaries and goes global with various different traditions of dance that have been indebted to visual and fine art : judson, rainner, bell.

this revisiting dance and brining it back to visual art or live art roots is really lioberating and fascinating stuff; also really confidence building in terms of new audiences who now (myself included) feel entitled, confident and eager to not only see 'contemporary dance' but to critique it. Jerome Bell's 'Pichet Klunchen and Myself' at Dance Theatre Workshop last night, was my first foray into that world of 'contemporary dance', 'post dance , or what performa are calling 'Dance After Choreography'...more to come soon- in my Dance Review!!

in between all the joyous dancing on classical ballet's grave i have had my haircut by a ten year old as part of a performance-photo here. now my (bad) hair cut is actually - literally- a peice of live art. and stands testiment to the radical peice of work out of which it came 'Haircuts by children by Darren O'Donnell. check out my review on the performa blog, writing from live art website or interface for more gory details, suffice to say that before the performance i actually had shoulder length curly hair-and now i dont!!!!

speak soon.

RLxx

# 11 [5 November 2007]

An Impromptu Performance

As I was getting the subway back from the screening of Daria Martin’s film at the Tribecca Grand Hotel tonight, I saw an impromptu performance on the train. Two men got on at East Braodway, one stop from Brooklyn. I didn’t notice either of them until the one at the other end of the carriage started playing the cello. Then I started to look at the man sitting in front of me – he was sideways on so I could gaze at his profile without being too obvious. He was somewhere between forty and fifty years old and homeless. Just like everything else in New York, he could have been cast and styled by a film crew. He wore a plaid shirt, heavy trousers and boots with no socks on. His feet were tapping away in time to the music.

That’s when I realised that the two men were a double act. The guy on the cello sat at one end of the train, while his partner sat at the other, and when the cellist had finished playing they would both ask the other passengers for a donation.

By this time we had made a stop in York Station, and carried on again. Pretty impressive for a couple of homeless buskers, I thought. Not only have they managed to find a cello, but they’re also really treating us to a proper performance. OK, so it had none of the virtuosity of Zeena Parkins, the experimental musician who had performed on the electric harp back in the Tribeca Hotel. But inbetween the clattering of the subway train and the rasp of the driver’s anouncements, I could tell that that cellist could really play. I looked round at my fellow passengers to see if anyone else was having the same thoughts. A woman who was up near the musician had taken out her purse, so I surreptitiously fumbled in my handbag too, praying that I could remember where I’d stashed all those $1 notes and not pull out a $20 by mistake.

We pulled into the next station, and I saw the homeless man by me begin to stand up, so I closed my hand over the note ready to give it to him. He turned round and got off the train. The cellist was at the other end of the carriage, cap in hand, receiving fistfulls of change from a grateful audience. The homeless man strode purposefully towards the exit.

I realised suddenly that they were not a double act at all. The cellist was just a cellist (and now, as he came closer, I could see he was actually quite smartly dressed), and the homeless man was just another one of us riding the subway, with somewhere to go. I had witnessed an impromptu performance, but my preconceptions had transformed it into something else entirely. The cellist walked towards me and got off at the doors in front of my seat. Embarrased by the force of my own preconceptions, and shaken by the realisation that this man wasn’t homeless, I kept my hand in my pocket and never gave him any money.

Mary

# 10 [1 November 2007]

When is it ok to leave a durational performance?

When is it ok to leave a durational performance? When your legs go numb? When your drink is finished? Or perhaps when you see the curator of the event of which the performance is part, gather her bags and head to the door?

I braved over an hour and a half of Tony Conrad’s ‘Window Enactment’ at Greene Naftali Gallery last night, which means I stayed long past any of those criteria had been met. Sniffling into my tissues on the floor of the gallery, it was only when I saw the time that I realised I had spent most of my viewing minutes daydreaming about cats. Absorbing, Tony Conrad was not.

Perhaps my problem last night was more to do with Conrad’s work than anything else (I’ve reviewed it at www.writingfromliveart.co.uk ). But the question of how long to stay in a durational performance is one I’ve come across before. In an object-based show, a few minutes looking at each painting or sculpture will let you know if you want to move on, or if it deserves more attention. At the theatre, your time is packaged up neatly into watching and socialising between acts, and a lot of Live Art or performance follows a timed structure. But when your gallery handout gives just a start time, and especially if you are unfamiliar with the artist’s work, it can be agonising to decide whether to leave and if you should risk missing out later on.

I felt a similar audience-anxiety watching Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci at the National Review of Live Art in February this year. The awkwardness of coming and going was exacerbated by the fact that the artists were in a special room with a kind of sound-proofing air lock between it and the corridor outside. As a result, the work was buffetted from the hectic mayhem of the Tramway venue, but it also meant that the quiet performance space was rudely interrupted by any audience member who started shuffling her shoes, grabbing her bag and making for the door. Luckily, in February my anxiety was fleeting. I enjoyed the work, and the longer I stayed the more it absorbed me. I left when I felt pleasingly full– the feeling you get from that last mouthful of food that sates your hunger.

But the lack of beginning and end was obviously troubling for some people, and it became troubling for me last night. The problem comes down to how much agency and control you, the viewer, feel you need. One of the first reactions to unclear definitions is anger (see our posts about the queue for Vezzoli’s performance, below!) – how dare the artist waste my time? I’m not here to be manipulated! Except of course that’s exactly what you want the artist to do – to invade your life, your headspace, your normality, and show you something different or interesting.

In which case – who’s responsibility is it to set the boundaries? Should we, as viewers, submit to the mercy of the artist for an undisposed period of time? Should we surrender to an artistic authority beyond our quotidian minds, or should we expect the artists to work for our attention and justify their right to occupy our thoughts? More importantly – should we ever admit that we have been thinking of cats instead of ruminating on the multi-layered possibilities of a ‘special live performance’? Answers on a postcard please.

Mary Paterson

# 9 [31 October 2007]

Just posting the note i wrote about blogging, its personal, very general, do post a comment if you disagree with it, its what we handed out to the wokrshop participants as an introduction to the blogosphere, so pitched very much at a beginner.

RLxx

Blogging : An Ideal Recipe by Rachel Lois Clapham

Why blog?

Much of today’s art criticism has devolved away from a removed position of judgement to a more embodied critique. This is (very basically) critical writing where the author (and reader) is necessarily situated in the personal; their body, their opinions/subjectivity and this position is considered relevant and critical. In addition, people nowadays often put as much stock in what their neighbours think of a piece of art as they do in what a professional thinks. Both these factors explain why and how blogging is such a vital, popular and growing phenomenon; its form, design and purpose are all often without spin and are personal i.e. a blogger, whatever they blog about, is telling you what they think.

Your blogging voice

Bloggers need to stay true to the blogger ethos of ‘say it like it is’ and giving their opinion freely whilst maintaining levels of professionalism and being mindful of any important relationships such as funder, artist or friend. The personal touch doesn’t mean a blog is not of professional standards or interest to academics, artists or commissioning organisations. Many individuals and organisations have a vested interest in blogging and many blogs are professional, both in financial terms and content. A growing number of professionals and organisations take blogging very seriously as a genre and pay bloggers to report on much more than just the facts.

Addressing the reader

Due to the blog’s informal origins, blog readers won’t necessarily be expecting large amounts of dense, specifically academic or theoretical language or text in a blog. This kind of content certainly does appear on specialist blogs, and will certainly be beneficial to many visitors to the PERFORMA 07 Live blog, but be mindful that the Performa blog has a potentially wide and varied readership and the content of the work seen may well be unfamiliar, unusual or difficult to many who are not familiar with live forms of art or new media. Any specific content or language will need to be carefully introduced, clearly referenced and explained for the benefit of the reader.

A Good Blog
There is no point writing about a piece of work if you only have bad things to say about the work. Also, you need to bear in mind that Performa is trying to foster a community that will inform artists, future historians but also encourage more people to see and learn about performance art and new media so plainly negative reviews won’t be published. Instead we want critical writing that includes, and works within, the PERFORMA 07 Live blog guidelines whilst maintaining its voice and criticality. A certain level of questioning or negativity is ok as long as you are generous (to the artist, to the work, to your reader), also constructive and balanced in your opinion. A good tip to gage whether or not you think you are being balanced regarding your negative opinion is to ask yourself ‘Would I feel happy as author of this writing if I met the artist or curator for dinner?’ If the answer is no, it’s perhaps time to re-phrase or put more into the text to explain yourself. Thanks to Joshua Sofaer for that tip, which he told to me and has saved me numerous upset stomachs...

You will distinguish your blog from the majority of vicious, bad or ‘nasty’ blogs (i.e. blogs that are full of typos, unstructured, ill-thought-out or overly negative and viscous) by following the PERFORMA 07 Live blog guidelines, doing thorough copy editing and ensuring the facts (credits, copyright, names, dates, times) are all included and cross referenced. Also make sure you include any relevant links to the artists work.

Happy Blogging!

Rachel Loisxx

# 8 [31 October 2007]

mary has been really sick and drinking lots of tea but today seems to be recovered. yesterday we had the workshop 'Writers Hub' so she took lots of drugs and it went well. There were 11 people in total, including us. there are about 5 more people signed on to the writing live programme , but they had work commitments and other things so couldnt make it on tuesday. they will be coming to the peer review sessions though.

the workshoip itself, the handouts and writing exercises were pitched at the right level, thankfully, with many in the group either never having blogged about art, written any art criticism/critical writing, or know much about performance, so feedback and dialogue on the day were good and we have given everyone -whether they be students, performa staff, or professional writers/academics lots of templates and thoughts to go away with to help them blog better about Performa.

There was good discussion on the day too, which i am glad of, sparked by the fact that some of the writers on the programme may have been schooled in what i would call conservative art criticism of the old school, or the Academy. This sort of writing puts itself in service to the work, is well researched and critical, but often doesnt come from the personal, and as such it would never use familiar tones or the highly personal mode of 'I' in its writing. We will see how these voices come through on the blog as opposed to those who are more overtly embodied in their criticism. maybe the two forms of writing will go well together, there is no doubt that there will be readers who appreciate both style of wriitng.

an important part of the day was getting from everyone why they were there at Writers Hub workshop and what they wanted out of the writing programme over the course of Performa biennial. everybody's personal aims make an interesting read and we will be all set to try and support the writers in part way reaching those aims as the weeks progress.

the blog posts are already coming in thick and fast-often too many for rebecca alone to edit as many of the writers are inexperienced and need more condensed editorial advice or changes made to their texts. im sure this editorial challenge will sort itself out as people write more and see others texts and accessible styles of writing for the blog, we also plan to introduce writing surgeries where some writers will be invited (or they can drop in of their own accord) to go over their texts in detail and in person, then we can literally 'incise' the more problemaic bits of any writing whilst guiding them through general points.

the writers raised lots of questions re: what knowledge should you bring to the work, how much research should you do prior to writing? how to write a work that you know nothing about or dont understand. also , there were more prescient or specific points about what a blog was, what kind of blogging we were doing, what voices to use, also what were the challenges ofblogging about performance. i was glad i wrote a note about general points about blogging to give to everyone, but this is just a start and by no means answers the questions that were raised. we will no doubt continue these questions at our next peer review session 9th november. this session is at freemans restaraunt where the writers will be eating 'bring me the head of ...' by by Serkan Özkaya which is a Performa Commissioned sculpture and a peice of food!!! yum. Author and Performa Director, Roselee Goldberg, will also be attending the next session, and she can give her feedback on the writing so far, and also give her views on writing about performance in general.

I will extrapolate from my copius notes from the workshop day at a later stage. until then-im off to a halloween parade. ive seen some pretty scary and wild costumes so far-and they were only on people in the lcoal supermarket doing their shopping! in addition, between people dressed as farm hand hicks, fat policemen and homeless people (particularly distasteful i thought) im not atall sure, as a brit, if some people are in costume or not!! better smile anyway, just to be on the safe side

til then

RLxxx