the real world and other complications

So, what have I been up to since leaving Chelsea? This is a question that I ask myself everyday. Post-university life is hard, why did no one tell me this. I think that I have been too comfortable receiving a regular payments courtesy of the student loan company for too long! But its alright I’m starting to adjust now. I have been involved in a couple of projects since I left. I was meant to be in an exhibition pretty much straight after leaving called magpie, curated and organised by Sophie Colley and Jess Fisher, two fellow Chelsea graduates. But unfortunately due to personal reasons I had to pull out at the last minute. So I have been focusing on a video for the website Kent based Psychotherapy Company that I worked with on my degree show, and pursuing my own lines of exploration.
I’m starting to come to the conclusion that whilst ok within the microcosm of the art university, my current lines of work may not be totally suited to the real world, and I may need to adjust my practice. Whilst I think that my current practice is the best way for me personally to explore the concepts I am interested in, I am not sure if it the best way for the viewer to contribution or empathises with this exploration. I feel my work needs a more interactive, participatory element to it.
My personal belief is that the work I did back in January, where I gave a lecture on pub games is a strong line of practical enquiry. By linking games, a fun, past time activity, with a lecture, an educational device, I was able to explore the concept in a more comprehensive manner, whilst also sharing this exploration with the audience I was performing to. I also thought that taking on the role of lecturer was a strong move. Although I do not like performing in my own work, and prefer taking on a directorial role, I felt that I this case taking on the role of lecturer meant that I was able to have an air of authority, and able to maintain control over the piece, whilst not technically performing in the traditional sense. It was more like I was pretending to be a lecturer, which ties my performances into my previous participatory collaboration work with Natalie and NO. Taking on a mock professional role may be a better way of maintain performer/audience engagement, and keep the audience as a strong part of the piece as it is being performed.
So I think this is the route that I am going to following regarding my practice. I think it would be good to look more at doing participation pieces; this way my work links more closely to community art projects, which I am interested in getting involved in. I think my work has to be less eccentric and emphasis the element of it that offers something to the viewer, as a joint experience.

father on film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llsfgx3Y-Bw

the above is a link to the video for the chelsea degree show 2011 video, Filmed and edited by pundersonsgardens.com ...

notice my work at 2.09, complete with my father sitting on the sofa...

also (my personal favorite's) well worth noticing; Sophie Colley's pine forest at 0.07, Anika Manuel's paintings at 0.18, Gumit's golden snake-like sculpture at 0.35, Heena Patel's drawings at 0.54, Elham's paintings at 1.16, Rabia Aquel's drawings at 1.55, Natalie Bays' estate agents at 1.59, followed by Sophie Hanson's robot hands, Emily Rubner's blue paintings at 2.23 and Tim Ridley's 'Car Trouble, Oh Yeah' performance at 2.31. (a long list, but i really did love all the work at our summer show...)

Chelsea College of Art Degree Show 2011

So, its all over now, the private view has been and gone and currently I am spending my days sitting and invigilating the show. I was very pleased with how my piece turned out in the end. The responses to it were very good as well, I was pleased to walk into the room several times to see people settled in on the sofa for the long haul watching the videos from start to finish, and for people to commit to the hour long video was quite a feat.

The private view itself was not quite what I imagine. It was so stressful that I couldn’t enjoy it, as I wanted. We all got in for 8am for the VIP breakfast, which would have been fine, had Tesco’s not phoned Natalie at 7.55 to tell her that they wouldn’t deliver the alcohol for the private view. This meant that I missed an hour of the VIP breakfast running round trying to organise a solution, whilst Natalie spend the whole VIP Breakfast on the phone to Tesco’s and running to majestic to re-order. The bit the VIP Breakfast that I could attend was good, not many people came up to mine and Jakob’s space, being on the 2nd floor of A-Block, and a bit tucked away. I did have a very interesting conversation with the head of fine art at San Francesco Uni, and his colleague. Me and Natalie then had to spend the rest of the day, when other people got to go home, rest and get ready, organising the running of the private view, bars, maps, and so on…but then I guess if you decide to head up the fundraising team this is what you have to expect. I have never known anyone to work quite as hard for the good of other as Natalie, I think that the whole of our year have her to thank for the successful running of the show and so many other events … and I helped too… and we did get thanked in the end, which is always good!!

The show, as a whole, was amazing, and I don’t just say this because it was my year and degree show, the quality of work was really impressive.

Below are some particular favourites of mine:

Laura Marley’s videos and objects … Laura has a beautiful talent for making. She is very practical, and has a wonderful way with objects. Her practice seems to stem from her innate ability towards the home-made, (if you have every tasted her tea-bread you will know how wonderful she is at all things homely…) but her video and objects are more than this, they have a strong sense of purpose, and almost a needs to be used. The video display to the viewer, not the use for the object, but rather the object in use, the object being moved and played with in a way that shows a true respect for it.
http://www.lmarley.co.uk/

Jodie Gooch’s Photos … Jodie’s photos are beautiful, the quality of the print is amazing and the light she uses gives the photos a truly impressive feel. The size of them is impressive, but they have the subtly to be shown at any size, their strength doesn’t rely on the size of them, which so many large scale photos do…
http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/JodieGooch

Anika Manuel’s Paintings…. Anika’s paintings work towards a photo realistic style, but don’t quite make it there, which subverts the idea of the re-production of the found image. In this way I see a link to my own work, and the idea of the failure of re-presentation. I have known Anika’s work since I started at Chelsea, and her persistence to develop her own style and subject matter, in opposition to the dislike of painting at Chelsea, is really reflected in the strength of her practice and mirrors her love of painting.
http://www.anikamanuel.com/


Eleanor Rose-Fusaros’s videos… Ellie’s videos I think are hands-down the strongest video work in the show. They are absolutely beautifully shot, and the presentation of them on four screens above your head angled inwards, is impressive.
http://www.eleanorrosefusaro.com/

Rob Meads paintings… I know Rob’s work very well, having spent a year sharing a studio with him, and the paintings he has decided to show at the degree show are wonderful. Two are on aluminium, with just the small glimpse of the metal shining through. The other three are on MDF, which Rob has hacked away at. The result is a series of grooves and dents that the paint settles in and distorts the image. The level of sophistication in Robs painting technique really does demonstrate his research and interest in this medium.
http://robertmead.co.uk/

Sarch Randles bird house… when Sarah first said that she was going to make a bird house to show her pictures in I thought it was a wonderful idea, but was worried that it may come across are a bit gimmicky, and undermine her beautiful drawings. However she has really pulled it off, and it looks incredible. Having seen one of her shows recently in Hackney Wick and seeing how well her delicate drawings fit into a slightly retro environment I can really see the development towards the structure in which she showed the drawing in. The bird house came across not so much as a place to show a drawing, but an extension of the drawing itself, and the other drawings hung on the wall next to it in a saloon style are just as impressive, and show off Sarah amazing talent.
http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/SarahRandles

Jill Haraway’s installation… Jill’s installation has three lights placed on the floor shining across the floor, cutting across each other towards two boxes in the centre of the room. The first box is open on two ends, and has a mirror on the top and bottom of the inside of it. When you look at these mirrors they reflect each other and create what looks like a never-ending tunnel into the ground. The second box is in a rough wood and is closed, but through a small hole in the grain you can look in to see your eye reflected back at you. This installation has a playful element to it, and the light dances across the room. The minimalist nature of it shows a level of sophistication that suggests there is more to this piece than the artist is revealing to the viewer, like she is keeping something of it back for herself.

Tim Ridley’s performance … I am a great fan of Tim’s performances. They are always laugh-out-loud funny, but at the same time have a strong concept to them, and deal with pressing concerns that the artist explores in depth. This performance, ‘car trouble, oh yeah’ with it squeaky toys and pedal tractor is true to Tim’s humorous performance style, and the various mistakes, crashes and occasional clumsy ending only add to this humour.
http://www.timridley.co.uk/

Emily Rubner’s Paintings … Emily seems to let the paint do whatever the paint what to do in her work, but it is much more controlled than this, and Emily’s strong understanding of paint as a medium means that she can manipulate and influence the paint to produce the beautifully iridescent images that she creates. http://emilyrubner.co.uk/

Natalie Bays’ estate agent … Natalie’s work explores human interaction, by creating a controlled environment whereby, she as the artist, can act as host and the participant can indulge in the care and helpfulness of Natalie’s reception. In this piece she has set up an estate agent’s selling suite in the university to sell off part of the college as a luxury flat. This is not only, I believe, a comment on the dire financial situation of many universities, or a suggestion at a way to free up money for the university, but also a way of acting the ‘crooked’ host to the viewer, the host that is hospitable because they want something out of you. But I really encourage you to read more about this piece at http://becomingasomeone.blogspot.com/

Svetlana Khachatryan video … Svetlana is a wonderful photographer; she has a real talent for it. That is why when she said that she was doing a video for the degree show I was worried, even more so when she told me she had never done a video before. But the video she made was amazing and a true reflection of she skill. She films like she photographs, very striking images, with strong light source and shadows. The images are calm and quiet. The subversion of sound to image adds to the contradiction of feeling in this piece, and you can really relate to the dilemma that the artist feels towards are environment and is trying to express in this video.
http://www.mypaintedmind.blogspot.com/

Jess fisher’s video … Jess’s video’s are always funny, but at the same time a bit creepy and make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. In this one she talks from one screen, to another screen where dolls of her parents sit on a sofa. She talks to them about their divorce, and you are stuck in the middle. The feeling is similar to when you are out with a couple who then start having an argument that you are stuck in the middle of, where do you look, would do you do, do you say anything, do you take someone’s side, do you leave? This is what Jess’s video does to you.
http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/JessicaAnnFisher

James White’s cars… James white’s cars…what can I say…I was so shocked to hear that they had allowed him to do this. When I first heard about it as an idea, I thought, amazing idea, but a health and safety nightmare, they will never let him do it, but they did and thank god, because it was brilliant! He had two cars in the parade ground, chained together by their bumpers. They were remote controlled, and he turned them on, and pulled them away from each other. Because they had the same force neither went anywhere, they just stayed put, both wheels spinning and burning up. The playfulness James’ had with them was hilarious, like a child with two massive toys. He sometime let one get to close to the other, or one close to the crash barriers, but never quite. However they were a lot of crashes, and the car’s didn’t look too good for wear by the end of the week. The tension created by this piece was brilliant and the resulting videos are well worth watching… http://vimeo.com/26010708

'Play Session' 2011- video one

above is one of the video that was part of the video-based installation at the chelsea degree show 2011 (play session)

Getting there…

So, I think my degree show is finally set up and ready. With a lot of set back and complications, but its almost there. The carpet is down, the projector is up, and the sofa is re-covered. I just have to put up the window.
I struggled a lot with the positioning of the projection and the quality of the film, but in the end I have decided that neither of these things matter to the piece. It isn’t the quality of the image, or the positioning of it, it is more that there is just an image there on the wall, like a memory being projected into the space that the current viewers now occupy.
I also have found out that if you film in HD, and then edit on final cut, the export can make it worst than if you had filmed on a normal camera. I filmed on HD…however the more I think through these problems the more I think that the quality of the image isn’t important, the image is just there to show the performance as it happened, it doesn’t need to be clear or precise. It is about re-creation and the problems of re-presentation, so the problems that occur with the set up of the installation are something that have to be shown in it. The piece looks at the way that we can’t re-create things exactly as they were. It is just as much about the failure of recreation as it is about the re-presentation of a previous event. This has come across in other aspects of the piece, for example the shape of the room is not the same, so the carpet is different, I have left the marks and stains made on the coffee table over the last few weeks.
The important part of this piece is the subversion of reality. It is about how fantasy can undermine reality, but also how reality can underpin a fantasy, until it is deemed a reality as well. In the film the fantasy of the actors pretending to be children undermines the reality of the psychotherapist, whilst the reality of the psychotherapist blurs the fantasy of the actor, until there fantasy becomes a reality. The voice over of me reading the transcript of the film is to further undermine the reality of the piece. It questions the reality of the film, and turns that into an uncertain reality. The viewer doesn’t know if it is exactly what the people said in the film. The voice over is not lip-synced and further more, which the pixilation of the piece now, it is hard to see the movements of the actor mouth. The voice over adds a air of creepiness to an already uncertain situation, and gives the viewers a general sense of unease.

Degree show set up and video editing…

So, its that time already, 1 weeks left to edit, paint, set up…ahhhh…I am spending most of my time video editing, rendering, and building fake walls. I have been put in the plastic room at Chelsea with another video artist, Jakob Nielson. It is on the first floor of A block, so a bit tucked away, but I’m hoping that because I been given the task of making the degree show maps I can make sure that people know where it is.
There is a floor to ceiling window in the room, on the wall I want to project onto, so that needs to be covered with a fake wall. I also think I want to extend the wall between my half and Jakob half by like 4 feet, so there’s going to need to be a fake wall there.
I think it is important that the space where the set is, is an off-white colour, so as to mark it off as a recognizable staged area. Also the domestic-ness of my set means that it is necessary to continue this theme with the colour of the walls. I don’t think it would look right if the set was the same colour as the rest of the room.
So its going to be a long week of work.

the pressures of filming day!

So, it was filming day yesterday. I’ve had to cancel one date for filming already, because I had too many other things to do, what with fundraising, paid employment, and seminar presentations. So yesterday was the last date this month that Alyson could do. I felt terrible about cancelling last Friday; it means that Alyson and Sue came straight from work in the Medway area of Kent in the morning to London in the afternoon. I am very appreciative of them taking the time to help me with this.
The night before at 8pm the actor that I had hired decided that he wanted to do some other work instead, and couldn’t do the performance, even though I had booked him and was paying him, very professional!!!! He said in the e-mail, ‘Good luck with your project…’, this isn’t a project, this is my degree show!!!!! Oh well, at least I know what type of actors I won’t be using again. So at the last minute I had three lovely people fill in, the lovely Elham, Eleanor Fusaro and Nadine Kreter, I am forever grateful to them for helping me!!!!!
So, Alyson and Sue arrived at 3pm. I only had the room booked for yesterday, so I had to get in for 8.30, when college opens. I had two hours before seminar started to lay the carpet, put up the fake wall and arrange the furniture. Then it was three hours of seminar presentations, followed by a quick cuppa, a brilliant tutorial with Georgia Starr, and then they arrived.
So, Alyson and Sue arrived at about 3, and I went to meet them in the Tate, gave them a quick briefing, and took them to the room, ready for Eleanor arrive at 3.30. I staggered the performances; so that we had a bit of time to prepare everyone before hand, time for the performance, then a bit of time after to recover.
The room is set out the same as it will be for the video based installation I will show for the degree show. It is important that the set up that I arranged yesterday will be the same as the installation for the space in which I will show the film. The work looks at the idea of re-presentation, and recreation. The rebuilding of the set will hopefully represent the recreation of a situation and how it will never be the same, how little things will change. It’s the same as our memory and the theme that I work with, the idea that we can never remember exactly what our childhood was like. How it will also be effected by who we are, and the way we remember things.
With all three performance filmed, the task is now to watch them back and work out the soundtrack that I will play with them, I am thinking of playing a different sound over the top of the sound of the performances, but I am still unsure of what this will be.

Georgia Starr

So, I had a tutorial with Georgia Starr, literally 30 minutes before I was filming my degree show performance, and on a very busy day, but I’ve wanted a tutorial with Georgia since first year, so I was determined not to cancel it, even though I was probably a bit out of it.
We talked about the upcoming filming, and what I wanted to get out of it and what themes I was exploring.
Georgia told me about a new project that Gillian Wearing has just finished called ‘Self Made’, where she worked with volunteers and psychoanalysis to make a film. ( http://selfmade.org.uk/about/ )The films explored issues that the volunteers had, from suicide to alcohol abuse. After the tutorial I looked into this and was reading about how she advertised for people to either work on their own experience or act as a character. This links into a dilemma I have had with this performance, regarding how I want the performers to act. I was determined not to use the usual students that I use in my performances, but instead to hire actors. I felt that students would know to much about my work, and this would influence their performance, and make it too unreal. I want the performers to draw on their own experiences of being children, but not too much, because I feel there is too much of an ethical issue here. The ethics of this performance has been an issue for me. If I am to ask performer to draw on there own childhood to act the role of a child in a psychotherapy session, then what’s to say that the session wouldn’t open up underlying issues in there lives. Normally sessions like this would be 10 sessions long and 45minute each, where these issues can be explored. However in this case it will be a one off, 20-minute performance. Whilst I want the actors to draw upon there own experience, I don’t want to open up old issues, or expose anything that would be exposed in a ‘real’ psychotherapy session. Georgia told me about another Gillian Wearing performance where she gave real alcoholics free beer and told them to dance in front of a white screen whilst she filmed them. Whilst there are obvious ethical issues here, they are also consenting adults, who where being paid, so is this wrong or is it justified? It reminded me of a Dave Beech seminar I went to earlier in the year, where he was discussing ethics and participation. I got annoyed, because a lot of people there seemed to view artists’ as some sort of care worker, who’s role was to come into a community and solve all the problems there, and be connected to that community for life. I don’t see why an artist role is this steeped in responsibility to the participant. A musician who does a concert in a poor area, isn’t then expected to provide aftercare to anyone who might have been affected by it. But then again I think that the piece by Santiago Sierra, where he tattooed the backs of the drug addicts, was abusive towards a vulnerable group. Is there a difference between this piece and the Gillian wearing piece with drunks?
I think the difference may be that the Sierra piece is more permanent, and takes advantage of a group is a harmful way, whereas in Wearing piece it is just exaggerating a problem that already exists. But this has caused lots of questions. Because I am now using friends, who are students at Chelsea, in my film, it means that I have more of a responsibility towards their well being afterwards, and therefore I tried to make sure that they acted as children, drawing from what they remember of as being a child, but didn’t draw on actual experiences that they had. They created a character, but worked from there own memories to create this character. I wanted it to be both manufactured and organic at the same time, which is a big, and oxymoronic, ask, but will hopeful mean that my piece will work out how I want it. I think that this ambiguity will link smoothly with the contradiction of reality and fantasy that my film and following installation focuses on.
So, I’ve booked a ticket to go and see the Gillian wearing film on the 31st June.
We also talked about the link between this work and art therapy. I talked about how when I started on foundation I was interested into going into art therapy and wasn’t thinking of doing a fine art BA, but an art therapy diploma instead. But I discovered that I wasn’t as much interested in art therapy itself, but rather therapy as a theme, or rather the institution of therapy as a means of challenging the ways people live. Watching Alyson (the psychotherapist in my performance) doing a play therapy session with the actors, made me think about the similarity between our practices. The way that Alyson plays and talks to the client, but is always in control of the situation, manipulating it in order to manipulate certain aspects links to the controlling aspect of my performance, and the way this control draws out the theme I am exploring. Through this technique she can highlight and cordon off a particular problem areas of the clients persona.
This tutorial with Georgia made me think about the techniques I am using in this performance. It made me consider why I thought it was so important to use actors as appose to students or volunteers. And I think it was all down to an expectation that the actor would be more professional, that they would play down the character, instead of focusing on trait that they thought to be particularly childish and playing these up. It turned out that I just wanted someone with the right personality to act, they had to be quietly forceful with there character, whilst exerting a subtly toward the interplay of there adult reality and their childhood fantasy. What I needed to do was to audition actors. However as luck would have it, three of the most brilliant people volunteered to actor for me and I couldn’t have been happier with how it went. It turned out that the importance of actors who knew nothing about my work, as I discussed with Georgia, was not as important as I thought. And I think my insistence of this stemmed more from a fear that the performance wouldn’t happen as I wanted and an attempt to control it. I learnt from this that I can’t always control and that sometime letting things run the way fate (or just a crazily random sequence of events) intended makes them turn out for the better.

Presenting my work

So, the following is the script for my seminar presentation on my practice (apart from the info on my degree show proposal, which I adlibbed…but I written about that else where in my blog…)

As a overall theme my practice explores the discourse and interplay between childhood and adulthood.
My practice explores how we see our childhoods, and how ‘childhood’ as a concept is seen by adults. The diagram here shows a working hypothesis that I use when exploring the themes my practice throws up. I say this is a working hypothesis because I do not claim that it is a complete truth, it is a hypothesis that is likely to constantly change as my work explores these concepts. At this stage this is the hypothesis I work with.
As it shows, our experiences as a child shape are personality as adults. It teaches as norm, beliefs and values in society, and also shapes as into the person we are as adults. The belief that childhood experience effects are adulthood life is a benchmark of Freud’s the theory. However I don’t claim to strongly look into Freud’s theory regarding my work.
as an adult our personality determines the way we view our childhood. What we exaggerate and what we play down. It shapes the our memories.
So it is in a constant cycle.
However our adulthood perception of our childhood is likely to be influenced by TV, books, media and having children of your own as well.
As a overall theme my practice explores the discourse and interplay between childhood and adulthood…it looks at addressing, not so much, what we have lost from our childhood…i.e. the fact that we are no longer children…but rather what we perceive to have lost…how we remember our childhood, how we remember the hopes and ambitions we had, and how we relive memories, shading over some aspects and exaggerating others.
The discourse between actual memory and perceived memory in my work lead to a subtheme that underpins the themes of my practice. This is a play between fantasy and reality. What is fantasy and what is reality. How fantasy can become a reality though the incoherence of our memory. E.g. as a child I always thought the corridors of my primary school were massive, like never ending spaces, with giant stair cases…common sense tell us this is not true, however my memory of my primary is as such, so does the incoherence of my memory make it a reality? If my primary school was to be knocked down, and here was no pictorial evidence of it, then my exaggerated memory of the space become the only interpretation of the space we have, so it become the reality.
The theme of fantasy/reality can be further broken down into two sub – subthemes…which relate more strongly to the technical production of my practice, i.e. performance…these are fantasy and the everyday.. so how fantasy intercepts our everyday lives as adults…and game play and reality…i.e. how we can turn games that we play, or even played as children, into a reality of adulthood.
To demonstrate the theme I have just talked about, I am going to look at two recent performances/ video based installations. The first is a performance filmed in may 2010, and a video based installation installed in December 2010.
The performance was called, ‘Cowboys and Indian’. I did not perform in this myself, I instead used six actors. The performer were asked to play a game of cowboys and Indians in the square of game in Chelsea parade ground. I chose cowboys and Indians as it was a personal favourite game of mine when I was little. I built a number of set pieces to create a staged environment for them to play around. These were all made of 12mm MDF and were 2D held up on stands. There was two explosions, four cacti, two trees and a tepee. The performer were required to play for 10 minutes. I gave three the roles of cowboys and three the roles of Indians. The only rule was that they shout ‘NAME…you’re dead to someone’ if that person heard that they had to lay down and count to ten before they could get up and continue playing. One player was given the title sheriff, and one player was given the title chief. This was an experiment to see if these perform took on an authoritive role. This didn’t happen, and as a result highlight a key difference between children and adults acting as children. the performance was filmed on four cameras at each angle of the square.
Later in December I used the films to make a video based installation. I want to highlight a key point here, that I was not just showing the videos of the performance. I make a strong point in my work that the videos I make are not just film of the performance they are a new genre of art, and as such need to be view in a different light. Themes and issues brought up in the original performance may be different in the installation following it. The installation was entitled ‘The Good, the bad and the Chelsea’ and looked at the domestication of the games, or more specifically the way that adults still play the games we played as children, just in a more controlled environment… a more mature setting for the same game play. The set pieces for the performance were turned into furniture, the explosion into a cupboard, the trees into a hat stand and the cacti into a coffee table. The video were played at random timings on four TV, so that all the sound overlapped each other and create a sound like a children playground. It gave the effect of looking onto the performance, but not knowing specifically what was going on. It made you feel like an outsider…or a grown-up watching children play.
The second work that I am going to look at is a performance filmed in march 2011, and a video based installation installed in the same month. The performance was called ‘A124 School’. I did perform in this one and took the role of teacher in a school that I created. It was based roughly on my secondary school, and looked at a childhood desire I had to be the teacher…mainly so that I could write on the whiteboard and tell people off. I used four actor to play the roles of students. There were four lesions, each an hour long, they were English lit, art, languages, and history. The performance lasted from 9.45am to 3.45pm, and was filmed on one camera, first at the back of the classroom, then at the front. The room was set up very specifically to resemble as class as possible to a classroom.
The video-based installation, installed in the same space a few day after the performance looked at memory of my time at school, and how there memory were rose-tinted and uncertain. It also looked at how these memories influenced the ‘A124 School’ performance. There were five videos in the installation. One in the classroom, that you could listen to through headphones that was an edited film of the ‘A124 School’ performance. On the teachers desk there was a laptop playing a video off ‘you tube’ of my secondary school in 1998 that someone had filmed…(these was two years before I started there). In the store room, (which was blacked out) was three video, one was me talking about memories of school, one was talking about facts about my secondary school these two were played at the same volume over the top of one another, the last one was me sitting at the teachers desk listening to Jerusalem, my old school hymn. This was played at top volume so as to drown out the others. The difference in volume was to highlight the uncertainty of the memories.
Jessica Voorsanger is an artist that we myself and Natalie did some work with in December 2010. we participated in a video that she was filming for a commission at Peckham space called ‘Peckham Heroes’. We sang karaoke dressed as famous people from Peckham…
Her work has influenced my recent work, but not so much the work I am heading toward for degree show, more work I am produced separate to this…however technique I like the approach she takes to her work, and the way her work has a light heartedness to it.
The following is a clip from the channel four comedy ‘Smack the Pony’.
I’m showing this because It works as a major influence on my work…maybe not that obviously, but I think it’s the subversion of the everyday with the un-ordinary.
This is a screen shoot from my blog, which talks about my work and its development…I try not to focus on research or influences on this but rather focus on how my work is progressing and the technicalities of make it…
This is my research facebook page. I use this to write about influences and exhibitions that act on my work…it is also a place where I can write about exhibitions and books etc, which helps to get to grips with them…I used facebook as it is a good communication tool, and it means I can get feedback etc from other people.

Set backs and solutions...

So, I phoned round timber yards to find out how much it is going to cost to build the room. I need 10 panels of 8X4 12mm MDF, 184 feet of 2X2 timber, and 32 feet of 2X3 timber...the total cost of all this is about £350, which is way over my budget...although I don't want budget issues to get in the way, I really can't afford this and be able to pay my rent. So I decided that I am going to focus more on the furnishings of my room. This is more apt for my piece anyway, as it is about re-presentation, and the inconsistency of memory. The troubles in recreating my set continue the concept I am exploring, out of the boundaries of the physical performance.

Meeting my theapist

So, today I met with Alyson Henty, who has kindly volunteered to help me in my performance, and take the role of the psychotherapist. As I have said it is important that the performer taking this role is an actual psychotherapist. Alyson is one of three director of East Kent based company ‘Together in Communication’. ‘Together in Communictaion’ (TIC) is a not for profit company who work in schools in the Medway area to provide counselling and support for children and families, as well as working on a number of other projects in the area, such as a program of counselling session with overweight people called ‘tipping the balance’. The company was established in 2005, and since then it has gained a great deal of respect and funding in the local area, as well as receiving lottery grants. On there website (http://ticcic.co.uk/AllAboutUs.html) they say they’re aims are to work for ‘social benefit and improvement, (to) work collaboratively helping develop healthily, real and meaningful relationships that are based on respect, honesty, integrity and mutual trust.’ In their own words there vision is to ‘give people the opportunity to understand and improve relationships in a peaceful, powerful and trusting community, by using innovative, retainable and self sustainable methodologies.’ Through her work with TIC and her own private practice Alyson has a great deal of experience working with both adults and children. I will also be working with another of TIC’s directors, Sue, who also has a great wealth of experience working with children and adults, through TIC and her private practice in west Kent. Having a wealth of experience at my disposal in both Alyson and Sue I feel safe that my performance will run smoothly, and be informed by their knowledge around this area of psychotherapy.
This was my first meeting with Alyson regarding the performance, but I had discussed it previously via e.mail. It was good to meet face to face, because we were able to talk about the technicalities of the performance and how we might structure it. We decided that we were going to do three 30-minute sessions, one in a direct style and one indirect. The direct style is where the psychotherapist guide the client in what they are doing, for example they might say, ‘why don’t you paint a picture of what you think a family looks like…’, indirect is where they just let the client do what they like and then comment on it, for example they might say, ‘I see you are playing with that soft toy, do you like the soft toy…’. The last session we will decide on the day which style is working best for the performance, and do it in that style. We discussed the role that Alyson is going to take, and how to act. We also settled on a date for the performance, which will be the 13th of May.
I am really happy with how this meeting went. Alyson really seemed to understand where I was coming from and what I wanted to do, and was very happy to help. I’m confident in her as my psychotherapist role.

Plans

so, for my degree show performance I am planning on building the set so that I can film in exactly the same set as I present the work in, so there is a continuity between the two pieces. These are the plans for the set…

Catalogue photo

So, its time to take my catalogue photo for degree show. I have decided that I am going to dress as a child and sit under the lamp, (which is the first part of the performance set that I have made). The thinking behind this is that it combines the two most obvious elements of my work, the performance as children, and the 2D MDF cut out set pieces. It will also make my catalogue entry instantly recognisable to my work in the show. It took a long time to decide how the picture was going to be taken and what the set up would look like. But with the help of the lovely Natalie Bays, who took the photo, we came up with some really good shots. The set up I envisaged was a front on photo of my sitting at the base of the lamp to the left, but the one I decided to go for was actually one where Natalie was experimenting with the angle of the picture, and not something I had considered, but that looked really good in the end. I also experimented with expression during these photos, and decided to go for a rather perplexed, worried look, as I thought this tallied quite well with the confusion of reality and fantasy in the piece.

Toward the degree show

So, I’ve been back and forth with the plans for my degree show…my original idea was to put on a production of ‘the rocky horror picture show’ using students from the university with a variety of talent levels as performers. I’m interested in the nature of role-play in amateur dramatic and to a wider extent the show itself. The idea of the amateur dramatics societies is something that interests me a great deal. It is the community that is created by these groups that interests me. The fact that acting is not these people’s careers and therefore they do it to intersect their everyday life, to add fantasy and role-play into there lives…I think maybe I have to much of a ‘Stephen Poliakoff’ view of the amateur dramatics society, if that make sense…I mean by this that in my head I think of ‘normal’ people with ‘normal’ lives…(meaning boring life)…doing something to brighten their lives, something small, and perhaps mundane that is in fact beautiful and life affirming…there is a beautiful scene in ‘Gideon’s Daughter’, where Stella takes Gideon to a church in the middle of some industrial part of London to hear the choir. The choir is full of normal people, fat, thin, short, tall, etc, one is gorging on a sandwich, others are chatting, it emphasises the normality of life…but when they sing it is the most beautiful sound…glorious, in a much better sense than a hyped up PR event (which is what the film focuses on) it is beautiful because it is just normal people who have a quietly beautiful talent…and I think this is what I think of when I am thinking of the concept of amateur dramatic society and the people within them…so after all this analysis I realised that I didn’t have enough time to explore this concept in depth, so it is something that is on the back burner until after degree show.
Instead for degree show I am revisiting an idea that I was working earlier in the term. I am going to be conducting a performance where a performer goes into a room and acts like a child. There will also be a trained psychotherapist in the room, who will do a child based psychotherapy session with them, the whole time treating them as if they are truly children. The room will consist of a sofa in a bright base colour, various children’s toys on the floor, and a number of other items of furniture, but these will be set piece, 2D MDF cut outs. The performer must act true to being a child, they must believe they are a child, the psychotherapist, similarly must believe that the performer is a child, and they are doing child based psychotherapy, the actor must throw themselves into the roles. One of the ideas of this performance is to deconstruct a reality within a fantasy, using realistic methods, which in essence become a fantasy due to the fantastical nature of the situation. It blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. As a sub-theme of this it is about the idea of childhood that the performer invents, and how this can be examined and analysed through real processes. As a hypothesis I would propose that the performers will draw upon memories of their own childhood in order to act as a child and therefore there will be elements of this performance that look at memory, and how we view our childhood.

‘I’m the teacher now…’

So, I have chosen to exhibit the video of the A124 School within an exhibition based around the ideas that informed the performance.
The video of the performance run along side four other videos. Three of another performance I did on Wednesday of this week, where I talked about when I was at school, one is a very factual video on the details of my secondary school, one is about memories from when I was at school and one is just a video of me staring at the camera whilst the hymn ‘Jerusalem’ plays. In each of these videos I am sitting at the teachers desk from the ‘A124 School’ performance dressed in my old school blazer and tie. These videos are shown in the store cupboard of the classroom. The store cupboard is not empty, it has a pile of chairs, an old plinth, a stool, some old lockers, a notice board by the door with teacher notices, and behind this notice board a lot of store room type junk. The TV showing the memories of school is on the old lockers, the TV showing the video of school facts is on the old plinth, which is closer to the door and the TV showing me staring at the camera, and ‘Jerusalem’ playing is under the stack of chairs nearest the door. The volume on the video of ‘Jerusalem’ is loudest so it blocks out the sound of the other two TV’s, which are already playing over each other. The only way you can hear these two TV’s is to put your ear right up to the speaker. The fourth video is a clip from ‘youtube’ of a film someone made of my school in 1998. This plays on a laptop on the teacher’s desk in the classroom. There is no sound on this video. The video of the performance plays on the TV on the windowsill, that was present throughout the performance. You can hear the sound through headphones.
The classroom is exactly the same as it was throughout the performance, however, the boards that were empty through the performance, now have the work of the ‘students’ on them.
This exhibition is not about critiquing the educational system; it is not about education at all. It is about memories of part of everyone’s childhood, memories of an institution that dominates 14 years of our lives. The performance of ‘A124 School’ focuses more on a childhood desire I had to be the teacher, mainly so that I could write on the whiteboard. Coupled with the exhibition, these two things come together and it focuses, as a whole, on childhood desire, memory and the fact that none of this matter now, because now as adults we are in the position to do what we want. None of the memories, whether good or bad, of our school days matter now, because now, I can be the teacher.
I also used this performance and exhibition to experiment with performance and exhibition techniques in light of the approaching degree show. There was one main thing I wanted to experiment with performance wise, and this was whether I should perform myself. It turns out no, I don’t feel comfortable enough performing myself, not because I’m not confident in my own performance, but because I don’t feel I can get the same level of control over the performance as I can standing on the outside, directing the performers. Exhibition wise, I like the site specific-ness of the video instillation, and this is something that I will certainly use in the future, but not something I feel is completely necessary. I also like what was going on in the store cupboard with the three videos playing over each other. It is something I did before in ‘the good, the bad and the Chelsea’ exhibition and I will be thinking about this, perhaps not for degree, but certainly for other projects I am working on. This week has certainly made things clearer, and I’m very pleased with the performance and exhibition…

A124 School

So, I’m running a school now. I’m the headmaster, and I will be running four hour-long lessons. Pupils will be expected to arrive at 8.45. They will have English literature first period, where we will be looking at William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’. Then they will have art second period, where they will be looking at Vincent van Gogh’s letter and producing illustrated letters of there own. Then they will have a free period and lunch. After lunch it is languages, where we will be making flags and singing national anthems. And last period it is British History, where we will be looking at the timeline of Kings and Queens in England, and making hats for the different time period. School will end at 3.45. The students have filled in admissions tests, and been grouped into skills groups. They are all expected to turn up in smart dress and behave themselves to the standards expected at A124 School, whatever they think that is…

Translations

So, for the interim show I presented the video of my lecture on pub games on a desk in the triangle space. There was one chair and no headphones, which meant that only the person in the chair, close to the speakers could hear it.
I wouldn’t say I was overly happy with my piece for interim in comparison to my other work, but as an exercise into understand my practice it did open up a number of ideas. My main concern with this piece was that it was just a bit boring. Normally my work has an element of humour in it, and a certain light-heartedness, but due to the nature of this performance it didn’t have this. I also felt that It didn’t work in the gallery setting, as even the person sitting in the chair couldn’t hear it, due to the surrounding noise at the private view.
However I did think that some things worked, one being the performance itself. The show that I made this work for was called translations, and focused on changing your practice slightly. The way I changed mine was to perform myself in a participant based event. I felt the event itself worked, and if I could go back and change it I would just do the performance, and not show the video of it in the gallery space. The piece showed me the value of the original performance, and from this I was able to reconsider the way that I perform. Whether the performance itself should stand-alone or if it needs to be couple with the video achieve. This idea leads onto my thesis, where I am looking at whether performance and the achieve can, or must, go hand in hand. It also made me think about the way that I can present the research for my work as a viable part of the work itself. Although it may not seem it, there is a lot of research that go into my work, which I often discard and don’t show; it is just there to inform me. But this piece actively uses this research, and is something that I will be developing in the future.
Lastly this piece looked at two things I don’t often do or address in my work, one was to perform myself instead of hiring actor, which is something I’m still not overly comfortable with, not due to feeling unconfident, but feeling a lack of control over the performance. It is however something I will experiment with further. The second is doing a participant based event with member of the public, which is something I don’t do, because, again, I don’t feel I can maintain the right level of control over the performance. However in this situation (the lecture theatre) I felt I could assert control over the proceedings, and if I was to do a participant based event again I would be interested in doing it in this type of institutional, control environment, where I can take on a role as leader.
Below are some photos of my piece in the interim show, and some of the private view…

Traditional pub games in Britain - lecture.

This is the transcript for a lecture I gave at chelsea college of art on the 18th of January...

For as long as there have been pubs there have been pub games. The problem with understanding the history of pub games in Britain is that prior to the 17th century games played in pubs were played by people who did not write, therefore these’s games were passed on through word of mouth, and often confined to the microcosm of the single pub. So what is known about pub games prior to this time is derived from records from prohibitions issued by the crown. Out of interest the earliest of these is a prohibition issued by Henry III in the 13th century to prohibit members of the clergy from playing dice or chess.
This first slide shows a painting by Adriaen Van Ostade, depicting a typical pub scene in17th century Europe, it was painted around 1674/5. Van Ostade and his contemporary, such as Jan Steen (shown here in the next slide) at this time were focusing on painting images of social realism, and therefore gave an insight into how pubs and games formed a part of everyday life. However in Britain artists were not focusing on scenes such as this until the late 18th century where it was focused far more on caricature, as appose to social realism.
So here are a couple of pub facts.
• There are over 50,000 pubs in Britain, however they are closing at a rate of about 6-7 every day.
• Eight out of ten adults consider themselves pub goers, and over 15 million people drink in a pub at least once a week.
• There are 759 pubs in Britain called ‘The Red Lion’, 626 pubs are called ‘The Royal Oak’, and 427 pubs are called ‘The White Hart.
• The most popular pub game in Britain is dart, which in 2005 was recognised as a sport by combined sports councils of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
• Second to darts as favourite pub games is pub quizzes, staged at 44% of all pubs. The oldest and largest league in Britain is the Merseyside Quiz league, which started in Bootle in 1959, however the first recorded quiz league is at a working man’s club in York in September 1946.
• Thirds most popular is pool, which although assumed to be an American import is actually based on a smaller version from Australia, France and Italy.
• Lastly on this list, as Britain’s fourth most popular is skittles, particularly in the West Country and south Wales. There are over 150 leagues and over a thousand alleys in Britain.
• Two of the strangest pub games I have come across in my research for this lecture are pipe smoking contests, which although now rare still exist in some pubs, one being the Bull in Harpole, Northamptonshire, where such contests have been staged since at least 1856 (these contests now take place in the beer gardens). The second is Rifle Shooting, where there is a rifle range in the pub itself, often in a hole in the wall. This seems a particularly ill thought through game to play in an institution design almost solely for drinking. However it has been a traditional pub game since the 2860’s, under the sponsorship of the National Rifle Association as a response to the threat of French invasion.
I’m now going to show you an extract from the 2009 channel four documentary ‘The Red Lion’…

The reason I showed this clip is to show the range of different pubs in the country and how they are used, from the traditional ‘old-man’ style pubs, where socializing and community is more the focus to pubs such as witherspoons, where the focus is more on cost effective drinking. However one looks at the pub as an institution though, it still forms a major part of everyday life for many people and a focus of the community. I am from a largish village/town in Kent called Sevenoaks. In Sevenoaks there are 10 pubs, there used to be a lot more, but slowly but surely they have been shut down. The pubs are as follows. Round the corner from my parents house is ‘The New Inn’ and ‘The Castle’ (we never go in these two, the new inn is a bit dodgy and the castle is just weird), wetherspoons and the oak tree (these are both the under age drinkers pubs), the checkers (this pub has perhaps one of the stupider landlord, he could smell gas in the basement, so went down to have a look, the light wasn’t working so he got out his lighter and blew up the pub, lucky he was thrown behind a door by the blast so didn’t get hurt and it was the morning so the pub wasn’t open yet, but the market is outside the pub and the blast blew the doors off the cellar into the street.), the ‘very PC’ly named ‘The Black Boy’, which is where the city types go, ‘The White Hart’ (our gastro pub), ‘the halfway house’ and then lastly ‘the anchor’ and ‘the rifleman’. These two pubs are the only two left that tilt towards the traditional. In the rifleman (which was my local) there is a pool table and a bar billiards table, a darts board, and the landlord keep a 1940’s bar skittles set behind the bar, which has little Stone’s green ginger wine bottle as the skittles. The anchor, in town, holds a traditional meat raffle; where there is a chance to win 15 different cuts of meat if you buy a ticket. This is something that I am told was once very traditional in Kent but has died out, probably because it’s a bit odd. The reason I have talk about the pubs in Sevenoaks is to give a little bit of a background into my interest in this subject. I have described the different types of pubs in Sevenoaks and the different pub cultures you find in each of them. I am not a drinker by any means; to be honest I am quite happy with a cuppa tea, and get odd looks by going into pubs to order just a coffee or juice. However it is a particular pub culture that I like. Where I’m from in Sevenoaks is very traditional, and countrified. There is a pub for example that has a big sign on the door that says, no food, no lager and no children. People drink real ale, have pork scratching and pay the type of games I will be describing. And with this comes a certain culture, a traditional culture, where they is a community in the pub that is welcoming and friendly. you often have to gain respect in this group and it doesn’t take kindly to new coming, but after 21 years of living in one place they might finally except you.

I am going to talk about six different categories of pub game in this lecture, pushing and shoving games, ring games, skittles, board and dice games, cue games, and lost games.

Firstly I will look at ‘Pushing and Shoving’ games. As the name suggests these games involve an object, normally a coin, weight, or wooden counter, being pushed or shoved along a polished surface. These games include shovel board, shuffleboard, shove ha’penny, push penny, shove groat. In Scotland they have their own variety, a type of table-top curling called ‘summer ice’.
This slide shows example of Shove ha’penny. A Ha’penny is a half penny and refers to the coin that the player pushes down the board. The game consists of a long smooth board that is placed on the flat of a table. The board is marked with horizontal lines two inches apart, (about 1 and a half times the size of the coin) with a square of blackboard on each side. The gaps between these lines are known as beds. Each player in turn places a coin at the foot of the board, which is then struck with the palm of their hand, so that it slides towards the top. The aim is to get the coin to stop between two of the lines, if it is touching the line it doesn’t count. Each team must get the coin to land between each line three times in order to win. At the ends of the lines there is a square of blackboard. When a player scores a point a tally is drawn on the square of blackboard corresponding to their team. The horizontal lines on the board are often groves as appose to just drawn on, this is so that if there is question to whether the coin is touching the line or not it can be decided by running another coin along the grove, if the coin in question is touching the line then it will move when the coin run between the grove touches it, thus deciding the point. When the player has shoved the coin between the lines three times it is known as a ‘sergeant’ .If you have already scored three coins between two lines and the coin lands there again then the point is given to the other team. The rules to this game, like most pub games vary depending on the area you are in, for example in Guernsey they insist that you get the coin between the lines five times, known as a ‘sergeant major’, or ‘gold watch’.
The game of shove ha’penny has suffered a decline since the 1970’s. for example in 1973, there were a recorded 27 shove ha’penny teams in 25 pubs, they have all since disappeared. However it is still possible to find shove ha’penny in pubs in Britain, for example at ‘The Cockpit’ pub in Blackfriars, there is a hinged shove ha’penny board that can be pulled down when you want to play it. It is also making a come back in a more technologically advanced way, as this clip of a shove ha’penny app for windows phones shows.

The next type of games that I will be looking at is ring games. These are probably the simplest type of target games, and have been played in homes, playgrounds, pubs and fairgrounds for centuries. At British pubs there are three major ring games still found, rings, ringing the bull and indoor quoits. There is also a Suffolk version of the latter known as caves. Apart from the simplicity of these games, they are favour as they are cheap, and don’t take up a lot of space in the pub.

I am going to focus on a game called ringing the bull. This is the most simple and the probably the most annoying of all pub games. An upturned hook, often in the shape of a bull’s horn is fixed to the wall at the same height as the bull’s eye of a dartboard. Six of seven feet away from the hook, a length of cord is suspended from the ceiling. At the end of this cord is attached a ring, usually brass, about two inches in diameter. The player takes hold of the ring steps back to a mark on the floor a further six feet away and swings the ring so that it flies onto the hook, thus winning a point. At first this look like an easy game, but the level of hand to eye co-ordination required is quite spectacular, and locals that make it look easy as anything have actually spent years practicing. Rules for this game vary from pub to pub due to the altering way in which this game needs to be set up. It is set up around the lay out of the pub, therefore the lengths of cord, throwing distances, ring sizes and types of hooks may vary. For this reason there cannot ever be an inter-pub ringing the bull league, as the advantages would always be weighted to much in favour of the home team. This game is truly frustrating to play, you try for ages to get the ring on the hook, and it comes so close so often, but not quite, and then a local comes over and shows how its done first time. The following slide shows a video of this game being played at the rock inn, at Chiddingstone Hoath in Kent. I was at this pub at the weekend playing this game for the first time, and on my first go it took about 10 minutes for me to get it on the hook (the people in the video are actually my mum and dad), however it is surprisingly addictive and draws you in. No-one knows how old this game is or where it originated, but there are a number of theories. One of this is that, because this game is played at a pub called ‘Ye Olde trip to Jerusalem’ in Nottingham, which is called this due to the fact that crusaders stopped there in 1189, it is said that the game may have been brought back from the Holy Land. Although the origins of this pubs name have since been traced back to only 1799, and there is no record of a pub on the site before 1483. The oxford English dictionary has traced the first reference of it to 1851, stating ‘it is, or was, common in the ale-houses of Cheshire, and is called ring-the-bull’. The tense in this sentence suggests that it was played before 1851. A pub historian called Rob Magee found further evidence of the game being around at this time in a magistrates report in Stalybridge, Cheshire, in 1869, in which boys were caught playing cards at the globe Inn, while men were playing ‘bull-ringing’ for beer money. A version of this game is also played in the Bahamas, and is called the Bimini game. Here is it produced commercially, however its makers deny claims that the game was brought over by pirates in the 18th century, instead claiming that Ernest Hemingway played it first during a fishing trip to the Bahamas in the 1930’s (however he doesn’t mention this in any of his writings). Other than this there is no evidence of any similar game in Europe, suggesting that this is a truly unique, British pub game. The game can also look very different depending on which pub you are in, some are just single hooks on the wall, like this one from ‘Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem’, or a painted bull on a board with a hook for a nose, such as this one from the ‘White Lion’, in Cray, North Yorkshire. Or it can even take the form of a stuffed bulls head with a hook drilled into the nose, such as the one in the earlier video at the ‘Rock’ in Chiddingstone Hoath, Kent (which is just a couple of villages along from Sevenoaks, the town I’m from). Experts in this game can do trick such as throwing the ring while standing with their back to he hook, or swinging the ring so that it swings once just over the ring, swings back to the player then back round again and lands on the hook. Some experts have even claimed to have ‘ringed’ a cigarette that has been impaled on the hook, without disturbing the ash.

As I mention earlier, skittles is Britain’s fourth must popular game. The word skittles is first recorded in 1630,but there are several records of games of this nature before then. In Thomas Hughes novel ‘Tom Brown Schooldays’ he writes ‘Life isn’t all beer and skittles; but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman’s educations’, and similarly in Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers Sam Weller says ‘Life ain’t all porter and skittles’. The most common form of skittles is this one pictured, where the game is played in a similar fashion to ten-pin bowling. However I am going to talk about bar skittles, which is a smaller version designed to be placed on the bar, and looks like this.
There have been several games that have been transmuted from outdoors to indoors, miniaturised and put onto a table or bar in the process. With bar skittles not only was this an advantage as it becomes a less strenuous game, but also because during the winter skittles alleys in the pubs are too large and draughty to heat properly. There are several versions of bar skittles; hood skittles is a version played in Leicestershire, where you have a table, which looks a bit like an armchair. It has an attached hood from which the game takes it name. This hood is formed of netting on a frame, and is designed to trap any skittles or the ball, a bit like a table version of a cricket net. Another version is known as ‘Duddlums’. This game was known to be surviving in only one pub in Britian, the Vigo Inn, at Fairseat, Kent, however in 2007 this pub closed for repairs, thus signalling the death of this game. In this game there is a table with one end open and the opposite with raised edges. On the far end there are nine pins set up in a diamond. The player stands nine feet back from the table and throws a disc, known as a cheese, so that it will land at the beginning of the table and then slide to the back, knocking over the pins, like a mix between skittles and curling. There are now no original duddlum tables in existence, however a society in Dover has a replica of the original from the Vigo Inn. The version of bar skittles on the slide is called, ‘Devil among the tailors’. It is the most familiar version of bar skittles. In this game a small wooden ball is attached to alight chain or chord to a swivel at the top of the pole. The pole stands upright on a board, where there are nine pins, arranged in a diamond with one in the middle. The game is played by the player throwing the ball away from the player and clockwise around the pole. The player must try and knock down as many pins as possible with every throw. Each turn comprises of three throws. If all the pins go down in one or two throws, they are re-set, so the maximum score possible I can be achieved again in the next throw, so the highest possible score on each turn is 27. Usually a game lasts until a player get either 101 or 121 points, depending on how it is played. However the player need to get this score exactly, towards the end if you need for example 3 points and you get six then you stay the same until you get exactly three points. This game is very common on the continent, in France it is called ‘le birinic’ or ‘le burinig’, in Germany it is called, ‘pendelkegelen’. The name ‘devil among the tailors’ is said to have come from an incident in London theatre in 1805, when a play called the tailors: a tragedy for warm weather (which was a revival of a burlesque first staged in 1783) This play annoyed tailors so much in the capital that they staged a riot inside and outside the theatre. The magistrates called the special constables, the constables called the cavalry, and the life guards (the cavalry) ‘skittled’ the rioters…which I guess is a bit like kettling, but more violent. However another pub game historian has since claimed that a game existed prior to this event called ‘devil among the tailors’. This game is still very common in Britain, probably due to the convenience of keeping such a small board. There is apparently a good set at the Bricklayers arm in Putney, just down the road from here.
There is another game along the skittles line, that I came across whilst researching for this lecture that I found interesting, it is called Aunt Sally. It originates from Oxfordshire, and its roots come from the English Civil war, when the royalist troops would play a game called, ‘throwing the cocks’. This game involved tying a live cockerel to a stake, and then charging people to throw sticks at it. Whoever killed the bird could take it home to eat. This game was reportedly mostly played by young men and boys on shove Tuesday. This game developed into a form where a figurine head of an old woman was made with a clay pipe in her mouth. The object of the game was to throw sticks at the head in order to break the pipe. The game bears a resemblance to a coconut shy or skittles. Today this game is still played, but instead of a figurine head of an old woman it is a ball on top of a plinth about 10cm high, known as a dolly, which is then placed on a metal spike. The object is to throw sticks at the ball to try and knock it off, without hitting the metal spike. Successfully hitting the ball off is called a ‘doll’, however if the spike is hit the score does not count and is called an ‘iron’. The name Aunt Sally is thought to derive from an American fairground game imported in the 1850’s.

So, board and dice games. These games are probably the best suited to pubs because the sets can be kept behind bars when they are not need, making storage easy. They can also be played anywhere in the pub. Anyone who lives in the new cross area may well know the ‘Montage arms’. I lived in new cross for the first two years of being here at Chelsea, and the monty was just down the road from us. It is a truly odd pub, decorated with all sorts, old guns, model ships, an inflatable crocodile, boots, anything you can think of hang from the ceiling. And it is run by an old couple, who tend to spill most of your drink before you get it, but they are very lovely so you forgive them. At this pub there are a variety of board games you can play, more modern than the ones I’m about to talk about, such as Essex monopoly. They have there own unique way of storage for these games, there is a small car at the back of the pub, driven by two zebra’s, the games are piled in a trunk at the front of this car.
The games I’m going to talk about however are more traditional. I find these games the most complicated, so I am going to focus on one game that I know well. It is called shut the box. Shut the box is a dice game, played in a baize-lined tray, with a display of numbers on hinged panels. The rules of the games vary from pub to pub, but generally there are as follows. At the start all the numbers are opens, as such. (new slide). The player must throw two dice and close any number or combination of numbers that adds up to the total of the dice. So, for example, it the player throws a six and a three, it could be used to shut a nine, an eight and one,, seven and two, six and three, or five and four. Once a number has been shut it remains shut for the rest of the game. The same player then rolls again, and continues to shut numbers until either all the number are down, or the player roll a number that they cannot make with the number left up. Any numbers left up become the score for that player. So for example if there is a two, four and five still up and the player rolls a six then they cannot make that number and they score is eleven. (However in some variation the score from this would be the three figures put together, and therefore 245). The game continues for the number of rounds agreed at the beginning of the game. The winner is the player with the lowest score at the end. It some variation it is the rule that if a player succeed it shutting all the numbers in one turn then they win the game outright. In Britain this game was first mention in 1965, in Timothy Finn’s ‘The Watney Book of Pub Games’. Finn came across it in the Channel Islands and reported that it had been introduced there by a enthusiast called ‘Chalkie’ Trowbridge in 1958. However in a subsequent of this book he reports to have found an older shut the box set in Hayley Island, from the 1950’s. French game historians claim that this game is very similar to a French game called ‘fermer la boite’, and as you can see from the slide it look exactly the same, however it is unclear whether this game originated from France or England.

One of Britain’s favourite pub games is pool. However pool is the latest in a long line of cue games that dates back to the 16th century, firstly as Billiards. Shakespeare writes Cleopatra says to her lady in waiting ‘let us to billiards’, and although the real Cleopatra probably wouldn’t have said this, the fact that Shakespeare writes about in this play from 1606-07, proves it was a well established game at this time. Most historians agree that until the 15th century this game was played outdoors on the ground with hoop, rather like croquet, but using a mace rather than a mallet to strike the ball. (The maces were similar to putters in golf). By Shakespeare’s time however the game had moved indoors, and into a table-top game. Mary Queen of Scots, for example, complained that her billiards table was taken away from her shortly before her execution in 1587. I have read about the original object of the game, but I don’t quite understand it, but I will explain it anyway. In early billiards the object of the game was to propel an ivory or wooden ball from the near end of the table, through a wooden hoop positioned at the far end of the table, then work it back again to the ‘king’ which was a free-standing wooden pin. The final trick was to bring the ball as near as possible to the king without knocking it over. The six pockets in the table weren’t originally targets, but hazard’s that you might knock your opponent’s or your own ball into. If a player toppled the king they have to begin over again. But how one score points in this game I am unsure of. However after that rather vague description of traditional billiards, I am not going to talk about the game of billiards itself, I am instead going to talk about a game more common in pubs, bar billiards. Bar billiards is a lot smaller than billiards itself and has the advantage of the fact that a shot can only be taken from one side of the table, therefore access to the other sides of the table isn’t necessary and it can be fitted into pub more easily. A bar billiards table has nine holes with scoring ranging from 10-200. The scoring pattern looks as such. (new slide). On both side of the 100 hole stands two white pins, and in front of the 200 hole there is a black pin. When the players put in the money the timer releases one red ball and seven white balls. The timer gives seventeen minutes of play, before the bar drops to stop balls begins returned to you. The first player must use place the red ball on a spot just in front of the black pin, and then place a white ball on a spot on the far end of the wooden shooting area. The aim is to hit the ball into the highest scoring hole. The turn continues until the player does not hit a ball into a hole. If a player hits over a white pin they loss all there points for that turn, if they hit the black pin they loss all there points for the entire game, putting there score back to zero. The player also losses the points for the round if they fail to hit another ball altogether or if they hit a ball back into the wooden shooting area. When a ball is potted it returns to the player and can be played again, however once the bar is dropped inside the table the balls stop returning and the players aim is then to pot the remaining balls, leaving just one white and the red. Then the players must take it in turns to shoot the red ball aiming to get it into the 200 hole. This is the most tense moment of the game, because it is extremely hard to get the ball in the 200 hole without knocking over the black pin. This is the deciding shoot, it does matter if you are losing at this point, because your opponent could knock over the black pin and loss all of their points. For example the score could be 10 to you and 2000 to your opponent, but if they knock over the black pin then you will win 10-0.
Finally I am going to talk about one specific lost game that I am familiar with as my neighbours have a board. This game is called Bagatelle. In my research for this lecture I found it very hard to find any information on this game, however because I have first hand experience of it I can talk a little about it. This game is basically an early version of pin ball. The board looks like such. There is a draw at the bottom where the balls are kept when not in play. The player then takes one of a ball and puts it in the area to the right. At the end of this is a sprung level, which the player pulls back and the releases. This hit the ball up onto the board. There are a number of nails and holes on the board to which the player must try and make the ball land. The nails are either there to knock the ball off of, or in some cases an enclosed area, worth a certain amount of point that the ball can land in. the holes are targets to get the ball into and worth points. The game has to be made very specifically, even if it does appear quite random. The angle of each nail is very important, as it will make the ball bounce in different ways, and the seasoned player will learn how to shot the ball in order to obtain the maximum points. if a nail is moved even slightly then it can change play completely. This game is thought to originate from France during the reign of King Louis XIV, when someone took a billiards table and narrowed it, placed pins on end and made players shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end. This game became popular in Britain, but few exist now. During the American Revolutionary war some French soldiers took the game with them to America and it soon became very popular. The game eventually evolved into the modern game of pinball, which is now more popular in pubs, since its rise in the 60’s.
So after talking to you for the last hour about traditional pub games you might be still think, why is this important. Pub games are a true measure of social history, they were invented by the common man, for the common man, and are an institution run by the common man. They are a tradition, and much like folklore they tell us about the community from which they originate and how the people in these communities spent there time. No two pub games are the same and they differ from area to area, this is because they were made with the materials the community had to hand and with the values that meant something to that community. The focus on particular games can tell us something about the people who lived in the area, and the values they held. But most importantly they hark back to a time of community, a time when people lived and worked in one single area; their whole lives could exist in one hamlet. The pub was an important place, a space that wasn’t home and wasn’t work, it is an in between space, where one could get away from the burdens of these institutions. Pub games are a vital part of our social history.