‘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…

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…

‘The Good, the Bad, and the Chelsea’

So, I have finally reached the point where I feel I can exhibit the work that I produced in May. Back in may I did a performance based on the children’s game Cowboys and Indians. It took place on the square of grass in the centre of Chelsea parade ground and I used six performers, three of whom where given ‘cowboy’ roles, and three of whom were given ‘Indian’ roles. The performance lasted 10 minutes, and was filmed on four cameras, each one at a different side of the square. The performers were told three rules. One, that they can shout ‘NAME your dead’ at someone to shot them. Two, that if they heard someone say ‘THEIR NAME your dead’ then they had to lye on the ground and count to ten before getting up again and continuing to play. And three, that one performer was ‘Chief’ of the Indians and one performer was ‘Sheriff’ of the cowboys, they were not told that these two were in charge of either group though. The reasoning for the third rule was to see if, having been given these roles, these people took charge. This didn’t happen.
I had made a number of set pieces for the performance to take part around. These were two explosions, two trees, four cacti and a tepee.
I couldn’t exhibit the videos in the exact place that it took place as it took place outside. So to exhibit it I moved the set piece inside. However I feel just resetting up the ‘stage’ in which the performance took place inside would be pointless. So instead I domesticated the ‘stage’. If the ‘stage’ is moved inside I must make the ‘stage’ environment suitable for an interior space. The cacti have been turned into the legs of a coffee table, the two tree have been joined together to make a free standing coat stand and the explosions make the front and back of a cupboard.
I struggled for a long time on how to exhibit these videos. The original thought was to present them as projections in a blank, four walled space. Each projection on a different wall, and all in time, so one by one the video came on and played showing each angle of the performance, then turning off one by one. However the more I thought about this, the more it seemed like trying to recreate the performance, instead of seeing the videos in there own merit. So instead I decided on this domestic environment. However I also decided against the idea of showing them in sequence, as again this didn’t feel like it added anything to the original performance, and if this exhibition is not going to add anything to the performance in May then what is the point of exhibiting. So in the end each video was played at random at differing levels of sound, so no sound could be heard completely, but there was definitely sound of some sort. This worked rather well in the end too, as it created a sound not dissimilar to a school playground, which evoked the memories that this game should provoke.
So the exhibition consists of the furniture made from the set pieces four televisions, a red sofa, and a coffee table book, as a catalogue of the original performance.