Are We Asking For it?

by Mary Paterson

Are We Asking For It?  is a score for remote performance.  It's a pop song of questions, shouted at the top of your voice, to whoever is listening.  It is (not) a protest and it is (not) part of the global Occupy movements.

I first wrote the score as Getting to Know You, for I'm with you: Occupy London, an evening of performances curated by I'm With You for the Bank of Ideas, at the Occupy London protest camp in December 2011.

Like the original, Are We Asking For It? is a performance score for three people.  The three performers are passers by or audience members invited to read the score - a series of questions that should be read (or shouted) in three minutes: the length of the average pop song.  It has been written for Occupy Zeitgest, an exhibition about the global Occupy movements, which is taking place at Gallery 25 in Fresno, California in June 2012, curated by Janice Ledgerwood.

The relationship between live art and protest movements in Europe and the US stretches back to the early 20th century, when Dada and Futurist performances were used as strategies of radical disruption.   Contemporary protest groups like UK Uncut use live art as a form of direct action against government policy.  Art in all its forms is an important part of the worldwide Occupy movements, which rely on the rapid spread of ideas through social networks as well as traditional media channels.

What are the currencies of artistic strategies in the context of protest?  What kind of participation does artistic protest demand, and who is participating?  Are avant garde strategies aligned to forms of radical individualism, or collective action?

Extract from Are We Asking For it? 

Do you like to stand too close to people on purpose?

Do you prefer conversation, fashion or physical comfort?

Can you bear the sound of other people breathing?

Do you think it is warmer in cities?

If you saw me crying on public transport, would you offer to help?

How many people do you need to make you feel anonymous?

What is keeping you?

What is keeping you here?

Are you asking for it?

Are you asking for it now?

About Gallery 25

Formed in 1974, Gallery 25 is one of the oldest cooperative galleries in the country. Located in downtown Fresno, the gallery has been a forum for contemporary art since its inception.

The gallery was founded by Joyce Aiken, professor of art at California State University, Fresno. Professor Aiken was the director of the second Feminist Art program (the first program was created by Judy Chicago at CSUF in 1970). The program focused on women creating artwork from their experience as women. By establishing the gallery, Aiken gave the women in the program the chance to exhibit their work to the public and gain professional experience as artists.

The 25 founding members began exhibiting at 1986 Echo Street, moving to a larger space at 1526 Fullton Street in 1981. The gallery opened its doors to men as well as women in 1989. To expand its quarters in April of 2004, the gallery moved to its present location, 660 Van Ness, adjacent to several other galleries and artist studios.

Gallery 25 is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public. Seminars, discussion groups and classes are held in relation to exhibits. The gallery also participatges in international exhibitions and gallery exchanges.

In The Presence of Multiple Possibilities

By Rachel Lois


I have been invited to contribute to an exhibition/ publication by Ordinary Culture, as part of the exhibition In The Presence of Multiple Possibilities. 

My contribution entitled ? MARK (Question Mark Mark) takes the form of five discrete A5 elements interspersed across the publication. Each A5 page is a pared down, poetic piece that offers a definite speculation, a wayward marker and ultimately a question mark mark. 


Background to the exhibition
In The Presence of Multiple Possibilities combines sculpture, video, performance and publication to draw attention to, and attempt to manifest, the discrepancy between predicted future and actual outcome.


The exhibition brings together eight artists who explore the complex contingencies of translation, spontaneity, prediction and speculation. Either creating a structure for a continued development or deliberately leaving a work incomplete or uncertain, their works provide a space for the contemplation of multiple possible outcomes. Whether durational or static, all of the works hint towards their role in a longer trajectory. The project will include new commissions by Kimi Conrad, Matthew Noel-Tod and a commissioned publication by collective Ordinary Culture (formerly YH485). Ordinary Culture’s contribution to the project explores the publication as incomplete and subject-to-change, encouraging the participation of the audience in the materialisation of the exhibition’s legacy. 


Organised by MA Curating Contemporary Art students at the Royal College of Art, the project is funded by Arts Council England through Wysing Arts Centre’s Escalator Programme. 

Performance Writing Weekender

Open Dialogues are currently preparing to contribute to the Performance Writing Weekender at the Arnolfini, Bristol 3-5 May.

The Performance Writing Weekender involves live performances, a temporary library, and an exhibition of Performance Writing. The weekend also comprises chaired panel discussions  on cross disciplinary writing, looking at how to support it and its artists nationally, both in and out of academic institutions. Articles, excerpts of discussions and examples of participants work will also feature a special edition of Journal of Writing in Creative Practice. Details of the line up can be found here.

Rachel Lois will contribute to the temporary library, giving participants a chance to (w)read a special boxed edition of (W)reading Performance Writing  : A Guide.  Available as a freely downloadable PDF commissioned by the Live Art Development Agency, the guide is used on the Arnolfini’s MA Performance Writing and features practitioners from diverse fields of poetry, theatre, visual art and performance on the topic of Performance Writing.  See it in Bristol, or download it here.

Mary will be participating in the panel and audience discussion ‘Future of multi-media writing’,  which looks at the opportunities posed to inter-media or cross-disciplinary writing by the digital. Participants are John Hall (UCF), Lucy English (Bath Spa), Christine Atha (Arnolfini), Mary Paterson (Open Dialogues) and Nathan Jones (Mercy Online).

Access All Areas: Live Art and Disability, Eds. Lois Keidan & CJ Mitchell

A new publication about Live Art and Disability, arising from last year's Access All Areas event at Club Row, London E1.

Access All Areas is published by the Live Art Development Agency, who write:

"Access All Areas is a combination of artists’ writings, creative dialogues, critical commentaries and DVDs featuring documentation of artists’ presentations and performances spanning 20 years, which reflect the ways in which Live Art has represented issues of disability in inventive and radical ways. This 200 page publication and double DVD set has been developed from the groundbreaking Access All Areas public programme of performances, screenings and talks produced by the Agency in March 2011"

The publication includes two essays by Mary Paterson: 'Reflections on Access All Areas' (first published on this blog) and 'Undress Redress."  

It is available to buy from the Live Art Development Agency's online platform, Unbound

http://thisisunbound.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&cPath=23&products_id=350

OF FINGER

By Rachel Lois

I have been invited by Megan and Phil of Tertulia to present my work at Spike Island in association with Arnolfini on April 10.

I will be presenting OF FINGER- a talk from recent scores, readings and live performances that presses on embodied acts of (w)reading and writing, finger(ing) texts and pointing to pointing at things. I will bring a selection of recent publications with me to Spike Island for participants to read and buy, including a special (travelling) edition of (W)reading Performance Writing : A Guide (Live Art Development Agency). I hope to see some of you there. Thanks.

////

Tertulia’ is a Spanish word ordinarily applied to social gatherings with literary, artistic or bohemian overtones.  Tertulia is supported by Arnolfini and  Spike Island.  

Rachel Lois Clapham produces writing on and as performance as part of UK collaboration Open Dialogues and curates radical writing with the Arts Council partnership In a word…. Her own practice points..., punctuates movement and presses on physical gestures as text.  Work includes  Re- (PSL Gallery, Norwich Arts Centre and John Latham Archive), WORK TRY HARD (Kaleid Editions) and WRITING the SPACE (Wild Pansy Press).   In 2012 she is performing and publishing with The Other Room,  Lemonmelon, Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, VerySmallKitchen  and Open Dialogues. 

Image c- Re- (Unfixed) Rachel Lois Clapham and Emma Cocker 2010. 

Inside Performance Volume 24 no 2. 2011

By Rachel Lois

My column for this issue of Dance Theatre Journal features the latest manifestation of the score How is Art Writing? ‘How is Art Writing?’ was originally performed in 2009 by Mary Paterson for the launch of RITE at PSL Leeds as part of In a word.  It was made in proximity to (1) a green pepper on Rachel Lois’s kitchen table at the time of writing and (2) Rachel Lois and Alex Eisenberg’s text ‘? MARK’ for RITE, a text that presses on the particular space created by questions, including impossible questions.

How is Art Writing?

OR

Impossible questions that open up a definite but speculative space for saying something about  Art Writing

How is Performance Writing? has been re-made in 2011 for the particular context and form of Dance Theatre Journal.

First remove Art and insert PERFORMANCE.  Then break the score up into pink units via pink French index or Fiche cards.  Gradually condense, diagram and re-arrange the units over a period of days (in between doing lots of other things). Pay particular attention to the grid aspect, what is on the BACKSIDE of the cards, printing mistakes, folded corners and punctuation. Note handwriting. Spread the resulting composition across the whole magazine to create a sense of fragmentation and pace. Note the see-through nature of the gridded cards when holding one page in one hand.

READ.

Inside Performance is a serialised writing project developed by Rachel Lois Clapham for Dance Theatre Journal. Taking the form of a regular newspaper or magazine column Inside Performance is a personal journey into the practice of writing from or as performance from Rachel Lois’ position as a writer and Co-Director of Open Dialogues. The column features Rachel Lois' own writing, as well as conversations, commissions, page works and texts from other artists.

Dance Theatre Journal is the UK's leading magazine for dance and live art. Published four times a year, Dance Theatre Journal contains reviews, features, interviews and in-depth discussions by leading dance writers and artists, as well as talented new writers. It also includes up-to-date listings of dance performances and workshops throughout the UK.

Previous columns feature here:

Volume 23 no. 2 

Volume23 no. 4 

Volume 24 No1 

Volume 24.No3 

Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR

By Rachel Lois

My text entitled Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR has just been published in Before or Since, a special 2012 edition of Soanyway. Before or Since contains international commissions responding to the notion of Avant Garde and work of US writer Richard Kostelanetz, and includes an interview between publisher Michael Butterworth and Richard Kostelanetz.

Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR focuses on Kostelanetz's On Innovative Performance(s); a fascinating thirty year collection of typed notes-cards from the burgeoning 1960-1980 New York performance art scene. Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR introduces Kostelanetz as chief chronicler and presses on the diacritical impact of his writing in relation to performance and his chronicling modus operandi of smallness, keeping close to the ground and being present as writer. Not to mention his typing fetish.

Design is scanned and sent by Rachel Lois Clapham with assistance from Stephenpperry.

On Innovative Performance(s) : Three Decades of Recollections on Alternative Theater Richard Kostelanetz, Hardback by McFarland & Company 1994

Rachel Lois Clapham produces writing on and as performance as part of UK collaboration Open Dialogues and curates radical writing with the Arts Council partnership In a word…. Her own practice points..., punctuates movement and presses on physical gestures as text. Work includes Re- (PSL Gallery, Norwich Arts Centre and John Latham Archive), WORK TRY HARD (Kaleid Editions), (W)reading Performance Writing : A Guide (Live Art Development Agency) and WRITING the SPACE (Wild Pansy Press).  In 2012 she is publishing with The Other Room, Lemonmelon, Knives, Forks and Spoons Press and VerySmallKitchen opendialogues.com @rachellois1

So anyway is a magazine project by Derek Horton and Lisa Stansbie. There’s a thousand sides to everything – not just heroes and villains. So anyway…so anyway…so anyway…’Soanyway’ ought to be one word. Like a place or a river…Soanyway river

Before or Since Soanyway contributors include David Berridge, Rachel Lois Clapham, Robert Clarke, Jax Deluca, Emma Dexter, Alex Dipple, Henry Gwiazda, Derek Horton, Seekers of Lice, Christina Mitrentse, Neil Needleman, Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, Aymee Smith, Lynne Williams, Paul Wright.