Sabbatical . . .

or 40 days in the wilderness? Whatever; I got offered a deal on a month-long sublet near NYC. Wi-fi supplied, but I'm not sure how fast, or how much time I'll feel like sitting around the apt. blogging. So posts may be a bit sparse for a few weeks.

Don't give up on me. For one thing, I've been invited to write about work at the Fusebox Festival in Austin – and not only will I get to see stuff for free, but they're paying my expenses!

Fusebox runs Thur., April 23 - Sat., May 2. The Austin Chronical has a good article about last year's fest. See Fusebox for details about the works shown at right.

Fusebox Artist Jimmy Kuehnle

Yes, that is what you think it is. Kuehnle explains:

"George Zupp had a dream to serve a nacho cheese volcano as gallery munchies at an opening . . . . The concept evolved over time. George had visions of a pineapple village and jalapeño natives and I had visions of high velocity cheese.

"A few months before the exhibit, George and I were discussing the logistics of the plan at a party. A man next to me asked, 'Do you know who I am?' To which I replied, 'No.' 'I'm Rick Liberto of Ricco's Nacho Cheese.' Rick offered to provide all the gooey nacho cheese that we would need . . . ."

More details, pics, and a short video here; and check out some of the other projects shown. Sadly, the volcano was not featured at Fusebox, but two of Kuehnle's other performance projects were, Blue and Big Red (sadly, I had to miss both). Fusebox continues through this Sat., May 2.

UPDATE: Here's video documentation of Kuehnle's Big Red and Walking Fish:

Jimmy Kuehnle's Big Red and Walking Fish from The Prime Eights.

More Fusebox: Phantom Orchard

. . . pics and vidis here. This performance was wonderful (these visuals don't do the artists justice.)

For more info, click on Phantom Orchard or Fusebox Festival, or see my prior posts on Fusebox.

Fusebox/Forced Entertainment/"Spectacular"

Seen at the Fusebox Festival in Austin, TX. Four people actually walked out of this production by Forced Entertainment, described as one of Britain's greatest and most influential theatrical companies of the last 20 years.

The expectation that there might be walk-outs had already been worked into the script. I'm not sure if those who left would have done so without that suggestion, or if that was the intended result of mentioning the possibility, or if the walk-outs were faked by the company, which would be perfectly consistent with the concerns of the piece. Personally, I think it qualifies at least as a wonderful experiment. I haven't really studied the work, so would rather keep this short; but it's hard to explain without describing the piece a bit more [SPOILER ALERT: stop reading if you haven't seen the show and might have the chance.]

As the piece opens, a man strolls onstage dressed like "Death." The set is completely empty except for some red curtains at the sides, which are gathered and knotted, so they don't reach the floor or hide anything. The man's costume is not very impressive – a faded black sweatsuit with a rather inartfully painted skeleton on the front. He starts chatting lackadaisically (the following is a rough transcription), "[t]here are probably some people out there who don't think about death more than once a month. But I have to think about it every day, well, every day there's a performance, anyway. I have to go into the theater, stand outside my dressing room, knowing what's waiting for me in there, I have to go in, I have to reach up, I have to touch it, uuckh, on the hanger there . . . . And then I have to put it on, and then I have to go out and do the show." Looking around the empty stage set, he remarks, "[i]t's not usually like this. . . .

The man rambles on about the glitzier show that we're not seeing, audiences' reactions, what he likes or dislikes about it, etc. Before long, a woman comes out, interrupts him, and announces she'd like to do her big death scene now. The man says fine, and she proceeds with an incredibly long, histrionic performance that, off and on, continues through most of the rest of the production – throughout most of which the man continues his monologue, interrupting himself only when her agonized screams become too loud to talk over, or to make comments on her performance that sound like he's trying to be helpful but are mostly aimed at getting her to tone it down and stop upstaging him.

There's no suggestion that the woman is involved in the glitzier production the man "usually" performs in, and no other explicit explanation of their relationship is offered.

Meanwhile, the man's talk includes musings such as, why me, why was I chosen to play this role? how long can I keep this up? and theater in general, what's this all about, anyway? and how, although you're sitting right next to someone in the theater, fundamentally, you're alone with your own thoughts; and even when you're talking with someone, you're often not really paying attention to them, really focussing on them; it's very lonely. Among other things, he also mentions something along the lines of how just telling people things doesn't always make much impression on them, it's not "visceral" enough; so he likes to put things across to people by telling stories. But he never directly tells us any stories. His talk touches on some very important topics, but he never digs very deep; one presumes those who left were bored (although the characters and their interactions give rise to a fair amount of understated humor).

His remarks are often framed in terms vague enough to make it unclear what context or level of reality he's referring to, how literally – or not – he means them. In particular, it's not clear whether he realizes how some of them might apply in his own immediate situation, such as the fact that the woman's performance is extremely visceral and is really getting our attention, while his performance is driving some of us from the theater, or the fact of his own lack of attention to the woman "dying" behind him, while his bid for our attention, reinforced by the context of the theater, is ongoing. We don't know if he doesn't recognize his own inattentiveness and boringness, or just accepts them as given.

Schopenhauer wrote, "life swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two [feelings] are in fact its ultimate constituents."* Each of the two characters in Spectacular may represent one of those two end-points rather literally; but in my view, the production as a whole offers enough humor and insight to show that, viewed from above or below, the pendulum may in fact swing in a circle.

Spectacular runs through May 2. More info at Fusebox and Forced Entertainment.

* [Sorry, I find numerous instances of this quotation online attributing it to Schopenhauer but no mention of what work it's from.]

Fusebox: A Few More Faves, and a Temporary Conclusion

Grub, by tEEth, was terrific, and Way Out West, the Sea Whispered Me, by Cupola Bobber, was magical. The Practice Practice Practice show at Lora Reynolds Gallery, curated by Michael Smith and Jay Sanders, includes nearly three hours of video plus lots of other work. A performance by the multi-talented Reggie Watts was hilarious and musically amazing (plus he has the best hair since Sideshow Bob). And I'm still excited about No Dice by Nature Theater of Oklahoma.

During 7 days, I attended 27 productions (some more than once, and some distinctly participatory), averaging close to 5 per day, plus did fair amounts of partying and inter-city driving. But those who created and organized what I saw worked a heck of a lot harder, overcoming many last-minute challenges, full details of which may never be generally known. Many thanks to all of them, especially Artistic Director Ron Berry, for a fabulous festival and for making it possible for me to be there! It was a tremendous learning experience for me on many levels, and I had a fantastic time.

If you participated in Rotozaza's GuruGuru, you'll remember "Dicky."

Money and God just happened to be standing around in my room at testsite, which, by the way, also housed a truly fascinating exhibit by Justin Boyd and Nick Tosches – another fave.

I may write more about No Dice, GuruGuru, and/or Kalup Linzy's Keys to Our Heart (see also my previous posts on Fusebox).

UPDATE: You can find my longer descriptions/discussions of Nature Theater's No Dice here and of Kalup Linzy's Keys here.

Fusebox Schedule Plus a Few Faves So Far

The Schedule. I made a color-coded schedule designed to help me see as many different works as possible, taking into account some of my own time constraints. It's been suggested it might be helpful to share it; here it is. I'm planning to go to the yellow-highlighted items. (I'd have highlighted more "Maxi Geil!" except I happen to have seen more of Guy Richards Smit's work before than I have most of the other artists, so I opted for work less known to me.)

Some Faves So Far. This is in haste, so I'll mostly just quote the Fusebox website.

GuruGuru (2009) by Rotozaza:

Conceived and created by Ant Hampton, with Joji Koyama and Isambard Khroustalio.

Five participants (each receiving different instructions via their earpieces) talk together with a televised character whose role flicks uncannily between spiritual and marketing guru. Revelling in the absurdities of marketing technique and group therapy, Hampton, Koyama and Khroustaliov reverse the awkward history of consumer research by allowing their audience to create their own animated therapist – by means of a focus group!

Unleashing what Ernest Dichter called 'the secret self of the consumer' and allowing it to run about perhaps a little too freely, GuruGuru also explores the amusing yet complex notion of ‘wearing’ opinions and emotional reactions as one might a choice of clothes: as with 'Etiquette' (Rotozaza's earlier show in the Autoteatro series), audience members find themselves falling into a strange kind of dialogue by simply following pre-recorded instructions as to what to say and do.

GuruGuru (round-and-round in Japanese) is created by Ant Hampton in collaboration with acclaimed film-maker / animation artist Joji Koyama, and longtime collaborator Isambard Khroustaliov (Sam Britton - musician, electronic composer and one half of the group Icarus.)

More here, where you can make a reservation, which is recommended. (UPDATE: I've posted a more in-depth discussion of GuruGuru here.)

Keys to Our Heart, 24:18 min. (2008) by Kalup Linzy:

. . . a black-and-white narrative in which the artist stars as a misanthropic grande dame who dispenses advice to a trio of troubled young lovers. Linzy, who performs all of the characters' dialogue, shot and directed Keys To Our Heart in the style of a Hollywood Melodrama, which was created for Prospect.1 New Orleans in 2008.

Let me just add, watch out for aspects of this piece that are odd or incongruous with expectations created by his use of vintage visuals and clichéd cinematic devices. (UPDATE: I've posted a more in-depth discussion of Keys here.)

And I have to mention pink, though by the time you read this, it'll be over in Austin (but I think they tour). I understand the C.E.O. is Jaclyn Pryor.

[pink unplugged] is both a real-life courier service and an interactive, site-specific art installation.

Visitors are invited to visit pink’s temporary love [note] factory set up along Austin's City Hall plaza, where they can type a love note to someone in Austin. Notes are bottled on site by pink’s love factory workers and delivered by bicycle by pink’s love couriers anywhere in the city. pink [unplugged] celebrates not only human connectivity but human power. The factory is powered entirely by human & bicycle-generated energy.

[Click on the images for larger versions.] Among pink's other charming aspects, note-typers could use the hotel-desk-style bell to signal various matters including a request for help with inspiration.

UPDATE: You can see more visuals of pink here. I'd also like to mention a few more faves I've seen since this was first posted: Paul Villinski's Emergency Response Studio (2008), érection by Pierre Rigal and Aurélien Bory, and The Method Gun by Rude Mechs.

See "NO DICE" if You Possibly Can

by Nature Theater of Oklahoma. I'll try to explain further, or something, pretty soon; but it's a tour de force. Who would have thought nearly four hours of talky, partly-improvisational theater could be so riveting (actually, I would; I happen to like talk). Through tomorrow and, hopefully, elsewhere later. Fusebox info here.

I'm concerned that billions of humans will never see this show.

Fun Doc Coming on Jimmy Kuehnle's Work

See the "UPDATE" here.

I continue to be amazed at the quality of work that was included in Fusebox 2009.

Kalup Linzy's "Keys to Our Heart"

He's got 'em.

This video (24:06 min.; 2008) was commissioned by Prospect.1 New Orleans and was also shown at the Fusebox Festival. The production is in a lush, vintage-y black and white and seems more polished than Linzy's earlier work; perhaps he's gotten comfortable that by now we know better than to take his work at face value.

Keys is an example of what I might call "quasi-narrative." There's a clear plot line, but various aspects of the piece subvert any "willing suspension of disbelief" or other inclination to relate to the piece as a conventional story.

The plot involves two entangled love triangles. Linzy, a black male, plays Lily, a lesbian with a jaded world-view. She and Dina (also black) are best friends who had sex once long ago. Now Dina has a boyfriend, John Jay (white or mixed), who treats her well. But Dina's been rebuffing him, sexually and otherwise; she and Lily exult in being "bitches." Lily advises the suffering John Jay that Dina will never love him unless he starts treating her badly, acting like an "asshole." John Jay distrusts Lily, but her words ring true. He confides in Sally Sue (white), who's friends with all of them. Sally Sue defends Dina to John Jay, and also goes to Dina to warn her that she could lose him. Dina starts to take Sally Sue's warning to heart, but while dithering, allows herself to be seduced into having sex with Lily again. Meanwhile, John Jay decides to give up on Dina and starts wooing Sally Sue. Dina resolves to approach John Jay to try to reconcile, but accidentally catches him having sex with Sally Sue. Lily then tricks the other three characters into meeting for a showdown in which Dina is confronted with the fact of John Jay's new relationship and Lily reveals that she and Dina have had sex twice and proclaims her love for Dina. Dina writes John an empathetic letter acknowledging her failure to appreciate him and seeking reconciliation. John Jay writes an empathetic letter back suggesting she'd probably be happier in a relationship with Lily.

As in much or most of his other work, in Keys Linzy himself plays one of the lead female roles and dubs in the voices of all the characters. The lines are spoken excessively slowly and enunciated excessively clearly, with an intonation that's at once overdramatic yet declamatory and slightly dead; and the voices themselves, other than Linzy/Lily's, sound completely unnatural. The weirdness of the dubbing lends an air of farce or surreality. (Trailer below; this is not the whole piece.)



Linzy's script is funny – my non-art-pro girlfriend LoL'd – and also odd. Most of the dialogue consists in the characters' explicating their own or others' inner motivations with more fluency than Woody Allen, in Oprah-esque pop psychological terms. And apart from a few clichés that are heavily repeated throughout the piece (discussed below), the characters' lines sometimes seem oddly literal or direct, sometimes almost robotic – e.g., here's John Jay, initiating his seduction of Sally Sue (in Linzy's unnaturally low, overly-enunciated voice): "Since you're single and have no boyfriend, I thought a late lunch with a male friend would serve you well."

The metaphor of "the key(s)" to [one or more persons'] "heart(s)" is used liberally throughout the script, and the characters are repeatedly referred to in terms of two, contrasting sets of stock types, one positive and one negative. Sally Sue announces the positive set: Lily is the "Queen," Dina is the "Princess," John Jay is a "good man," and Sally Sue is the "Sweetheart." Lily/Linzy proclaims the characters' negative identities: she and Dina are "Bitches," Sally Sue is the "Slut," and John Jay the "Queen of Assholes."

And the characters are often presented in an exaggerated, parodic style, as if intended to represent extremes of good and evil. But both sets of labels are shown to be over-simplifications. "Queen" Lily is played by an apparent drag queen – is Linzy sending up these stereotypes while at the same time reminding us of the extent to which they're often true – though perhaps not in the way we expected? In fact, the characters are neither good nor evil; the actions of all seem at bottom determined by self-interest, but the characters all also show compassion for their friends. Lily's manner of speaking generally seems the bitchiest, but the truths she delivers prove helpful to all.

The heavy-handed repetition of stereotypic labels and of the "keys" motif may in part be a reference to old soap opera scripts. Another soap opera-ish element in Keys is the use of stock dramatic or cinematic devices. These include the climactic scene in which all characters are brought together by Lily for the all-is-revealed! showdown. As usual in soaps, however, it turns out that all was not actually revealed; further insight comes through subsequent segments that deploy the stock device in which we see a character write a letter while we hear it read in voiceover – and one suspects any sequel would offer still further surprises. And then, of course, there's the soap-y organ music.

The lovingly detailed costumes and certain aspects of the sets invoke the 50's, while most of the music is Depression-era (the piece opens with Lily lip-syncing to a delightful 1930's recording by Lil Johnson of Get 'Em From the Peanut Man (Hot Nuts) (more on that below). And in one brief scene, as a fully-suited John Jay exits a door, Linzy speeds up the footage, giving it a Chaplin-esque look I associate with the 1920's.

The vintage accoutrements throw into relief aspects of the piece that may be common enough in recent decades but seem weird within the vintage-y frame:

• As mentioned, the characters spend much of their time pop psychologizing.

• The dialogue is larded with "foul" language in quantities difficult to imagine in anything other than a modern production (bitch, pussy, bullshit, fuck, etc.) – esp. coming from characters wearing ties or white gloves. The grammar's also off, in "modern" ways.

• One scene shows doggy-style sex in the kitchen; and no qualms are suffered regarding extramarital sex.

• The casting seems "color blind"; and miscegenation is a total non-issue.

• An open lesbian, played by a transvestite, seduces a repressed lesbian. Lesbianism per se and the concept of committed, long-term lesbian relationships are accepted non-issues.

At the same time, some of these aspects (e.g., the psychobabble, perhaps the color-blind casting, and the foul language – how long has Southpark been on?) are themselves already verging on cliché.

Linzy's mash-up of vintages operates to distance us from the conventionalities in which we're immersed today. The soap-opera and vintage frames give us poke and a wink, prompting us both to laugh and to reflect not so much on what we've inherited from earlier decades as on what we've done with it lately.

At bottom, however, part of what makes this piece so appealing is that, even if Linzy's intentions are parodic, his work is full of love. The weird or parodic aspects do distance us from the characters and their story, but one strongly suspects that Linzy feels genuine affection not only for the vintage and soap opera elements he deploys but also for pop psychology, foul language, color-blindness, etc., as well as people in general. To the extent Keys is parody, it seems to be parodying our present as well as old soaps, but it also seems to be loving both.

What ARE the keys to our hearts? We hear truth in Sally Sue's sentiment that "if you want to have a sweetheart, you have to have a heart that is sweet." Or do you? One suspects John Jay's suggestion is correct that the two "bitches," Lily and Dina, hold the keys to one another's hearts; sweetness may be key for John Jay and Sally Sue but not for Lily and Dina. And compatible sexual orientation proves the sine qua non for all.

There's been some interesting confusion in writings about this piece regarding the title. Is it key to our hearts, keys to our hearts, or keys to our heart? The last is correct, suggesting that perhaps we all share one great heart, but the key for each of us is unique: another cliché we can both smile at and appreciate.

Keys may also be an example of a trend I've observed in which artists import or export material from the past into the present or vice versa, in the process transforming both. I recently came across Dieter Roelstraete's discussions of a "historiographic turn" in art (see e-flux here, citing Mark Godfrey’s essay “The Artist as Historian,” published in [e-flux?] in October 120 (2007), and here). I was excited to find Roelstraete's articles, found them brilliant, and think he nails many important points.

But Roelstraete laments "contemporary art’s inability 'to grasp or even look at the present, much less to excavate the future,'” and adds, "our inability to . . . imagine the future seems structurally linked with the enthusiasm shared by so many artists for digging up various obscure odds and ends dating from a more or less remote, unknowable past—and the more unknowable the past in question, the deeper the pathological dimension of this melancholy, retrospective gaze."

Much of the video and other new media-based work I've seen in recent years seems to be within or relate to this historiographic trend, e.g. (you may have to search the pages at the following links for the artist's name), Matthew Barney (Drawing Restraint 13), Michael Bell-Smith (Battleship Potemkin), Guy Ben Ner (Berkeley's Island), Matt Marello (Sitcoms), Andrea Fraser (her "museum" pieces, e.g., here), Simon Martin (Wednesday Afternoon and Carlton), Steve Reinke (Hobbit Love is the Greatest Love), Laura Paperina (Joseph Kosuth versus Matthew Barney, et al. {and keep clicking "next" for a while}), R. Luke DuBois (State of the Union Address, and keep clicking next for a while), Airan Kang (and keep clicking next for a while), Shana Moulton (her Whispering Pines series), and Erica Eyres (The Male Epidemic).

I believe at least some of these artists are in fact using the past to illuminate the present, in the hope of improving the future. Maybe not an excavation of the future; maybe just an invitation to all of us to help create it in a more conscious way.
____________

Lyrics to Get 'Em From the Peanut Man (Hot Nuts)
Recorded by Lil Johnson
Probably by Georgia White
Recording of March 4, 1936; from Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order, Vol. 1 (1929-1936) (Document DOCD-5307).

Sellin' nuts, hot nuts, anybody here want to buy my nuts?
Sellin' nuts, hot nuts, I've got nuts for sale
Selling one for five, two for ten,
If you buy 'em once, you'll buy 'em again
Sellin' nuts, hot nuts, you buy 'em from the peanut man

Nuts, hot nuts, anybody here want to buy my nuts?
Sellin' nuts, hot nuts, I've got nuts for sale
They tell me your nuts is mighty fine,
But I bet your nuts isn't hot as mine
Sellin' nuts, hot nuts, you buy 'em from the peanut man

* * * * *

More here.

UPDATE: Just found a great interview of Linzy at, of course, Interview, by Chan Marshall. Linzy names Meryl Streep, Lynn Whitfield, Kim Wayans, and Ashton Kutcher as actors he'd like to work with, then says, "I’m trying to imagine them in the context of my work, which is a little difficult. But . . . [s]ometimes people are good-enough actors that they can transform themselves into something kind of kitschy." The new John Waters? Later he mentions, "I definitely want to do a [soap-ish] TV series at some point." YEAH!

Fusebox: "No Dice" by Nature Theater of Oklahoma

Conceived and directed by Pavol Liška and Kelly Copper.

It's more an activity to be engaged in, starting out with ordering your free sandwich, than a performance to be observed.

I love the ideas in the script, the humor of the acting and costumes, etc., of course; but a key part of what makes this piece one of the most exciting things I've experienced in a long time is that it invites the audience to notice there's a dance/game going on concurrently with the actors' conversations, and successfully lures them to engage in the dance/game of trying to figure it out and how it relates to various levels of "reality." Our experience as audience was kind of like a continuation of the same processes the company used in creating and performing No Dice, starting with paying close attention to seemingly mundane conversations and then conversing with one another about what we think is going on.

I can't resist mentioning something my fave prof. in college (Alarik Skarstrom), pointed out, that the roots of the word, "conversation," mean "'to live with, keep company with, literally 'turn about with' . . . ." (see etymology here). In conversations repeated to the point of ritual, the actors in No Dice suggest something similar: "I think you're on the right track; I think things are starting to turn around . . ." [emphasis supplied].

Maybe the game we're lured into trying to figure out, taken by itself, is kind of dumb. Maybe it's just a trick to get us to renew our attention to eternal truths. Maybe it's just something to give us a pretext for connecting in ways or to people we hadn't planned on.

"Only connect." This advice is often attributed to Marshall McLuhan, who used the phrase well; but apparently it originated with E.M. Forster, with a somewhat different sense: "Only connect! . . . . Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."

No Dice reminds us it's the intent that counts, and the actions you're sufficiently inspired to undertake, not just the words; that connection is an activity, in which we continuously choose to try – or not – to hear what the other was trying to say, not just a passive state; that art and life are continuous, except for those artificial distinctions we create for our own use, or fail to question.

It was a very fun journey, and as they say, it's the journey that matters.

So, I haven't come up with a better way to describe this piece further than to share my notes, below, mostly taken during the first 2 hours of this nearly 4-hour tour de force. SPOILER ALERT: since part of the joy and, I think, the meaning of No Dice is having the experience of figuring it out for yourself, if you haven't already seen it and think you may have the chance, stop reading now! (There's a tour schedule on the company's website at oktheater.org.)

A lot of these notes are shortened versions of what the actors were saying. My notes got more detailed as I became more convinced something worth noting was going on; then slacked off once I felt I'd figured out enough to relax and enjoy:

We're in a conference room with risers for the audience. There's a rather elaborate, obviously "theatrical" curtain/frame for the front of the "stage" area; other than that and a few office chairs, almost no set.
Catman, one-eyed, and a cowboy, working in an (invisible) factory. Slavic accents w/ French twist (or Bosnian)?
Gal in red wig and fishnets: Are you working?
I'm coding cars [?] – for a Walmart in Oklahoma.
Do you get compliments?
No.
[Not cars; it's TARs: Time Adjustment Request forms.] Employees if punch-in; want to go on vacation.
Work 9 - 6, no pay for lunch break.
Can steal soda and pens. No stickies. But paperclips.
Work is good. Because I get bored here.
Redhead (who just encouraged him to steal sodas and pens): My job is to perk you up, make people more productive. To make what they're doing into art.
Cowboy: I'm supposed to be in a film.
Next on: Pirate with Hasidic curls and big beads.
[They're all wearing earpieces.]
"Dinner theater." It's fun because the costumes are goofy and it's like community theater and they try so hard, you have to love them. Food is part of the experience.
I'm just trying to find what makes us feel alive and gets us through the day.
What gets me through the day is seeing the cosmic dance.
Things go unrecorded, the creativity that we use – We take it for granted. We don't make anything out of it. How do we transform that cosmic murmur so we can see it. So we can hear the cosmic murmur constantly. [Punky blond is playing keyboard.]
Pirate's working on a story: he's been working on it 25 years.
Love quadrangle [but there are 5 on stage.]
People expect a story. But is it really necessary to have a story in order to tell people stuff?? Some people can't tell stories, so they need someone who can do it for them, because people need that in their lives.
[Directed acting? They all have earpieces.]
Catman starts singing wordlessly.
Reference to Moscow Cat Theater. Russian accents?
Before that, pirate told a story about a magicians' library or archive, which was in "complete disarray."
[Script v. peripatetic – no real story. Timing often off; emotions frequently inappropriate.]
And you, you are having second thoughts about your life's mission?
I wish I would have some solid first thoughts so I could have some second thoughts.
Next, discussion of alcoholism.
Then workaholism.
I'm not eating, I'm not smoking, and I'm not drinking, because I'm talking. But at least I'm not watching tv. Discussion of all the tv she does watch.
Characters have a certain repertory of hand gestures they repeat, whether appropriate or not:

• gripping bicep of other arm
• finger-f*cking
• finger-snapping
• one hand swooping in a curve w/ 2 fingers pointing
• one hand twisting near head as if turning off hearing
• hands swooping back and forth in parallel
• hands forming a loose globe in front of one
• hands pointing/jabbing in divergent directions
• stroking an imaginary, waist-height fat-roll
• tapping one's stomach or solar plexus
• one hand gesturing as if pulling something out of one's *ss
• one hand petting the other
• etc.
  

They're using these throughout the performance.
Close-together scene: I think you're on the right track, I think things are turning around, getting better, although real estate may never be good for us.
Note all characters sound like struggling actors in NYC.
Back to the factory. Cowboy may be sick. Discussion of Emergen-C and Claritin D. Can't afford to get sick, too much to do.
Has an audition.
You should act like a celebrity.
Ritualistic conversation closing: I think you're on the right track. Series of cliches about things turning around, "Even though real estate may not be the most generous to us." Words not exactly the same each time. "I think we're working our way towards each other."
Scene changes to dark, dramatic light: a gal in green gown and feathered headdress wants to be a diva. Her emotion is very sad even while laughing – very appropriately inappropriate.
Back to normal, daylight scene. Cowboy's friend got fired. Competition among remaining employees to process TARs quickly.
Tell me a story.
I came up with a great idea for a commercial for m&ms. People eat the m&ms and they make them dance in different ways, depending on the color. m&ms' or other sponsorships for the actors' company, to make more money. Cigarette commercials during breaks from their epic theater production.
[Talk about this production: short version would be 4 hours.] This idea would be completely original with us. So, like, don't tell ANYONE.
[The actors start dancing one by one, in different ways. Then they start overlapping, and it speeds up. The dances incorporate the hand gestures, in fact they're composed of them, at least upper-body. Then all in unison doing the exact same dance; maybe they were, all along, just with different styles?]
Discussion of various male actors including Mel Gibson.
[They're definitely re-playing scenes – still not sure the words are exact, but very close – but the roles are shuffled. Also, the scenes are in a different order.]
"Everything needs to be seen as a sign."
What makes me feel alive is being connected to the cosmic dance. It's like seeing your world from a distance. Imagine if you could hear the cosmic murmur. We don't hear ourselves, we just talk. The creativity that we use to talk right now, it all goes unnoticed and unrecorded. We take it for granted; we don't make anything out of it. How can we transform this cosmic murmur into something we can notice, to feel that connection? How can you go through your day hearing music constantly?
I could do this: my favorite scene from Celine and Julie Go Boating [what is this?]
[Meanwhile, Catman has apparently shaved his head and grown a mustache; NO, it's a different guy, dressed the same.]
Redhead dancing and singing with thick French accent now, You're a bunch of voyeurs, cosmic voyeur pimps! She "accidentally" knocks off her hat and red wig.
The punky blond speaks for the first time: We don't like to say when we go out or come in because we prefer to be here, I think. The question is, how do we enjoy ourselves while we're here with one another?
Fifty years ago, conversations were much shorter and much higher quality. Conversation was a form of enjoyment. One might even describe a civilization in terms of conversation.
[Room darkened; long, scrolling video projection of script, with original audio recording, of real conversation between Pavol and maybe his mom, who is confined to a wheelchair but has five younger male friends who take her dancing nonetheless. Apparently much of the script for No Dice was taken from such conversations.]
At the end, the actors all take off their wigs, etc., and address the closing conversation to individual members of the audience: "I think you're on the right track . . . ."

Not sure it's clear from the notes above, but there's a lot of very energetic dancing in the course of this production, as well as laughs.

After the show, one of the actors confirmed they'd used the exact same gestures throughout the performance, in the exact same order, and explained that all the gestures came from three sources: (1) 13 gestures from a magician's act, (2) a video of disco dancing, and (3) Pavol's mom (a different mom than the one whose conversations were used in the script). The earpieces were to iPod-type devices which, if I understood correctly, were each playing the same script; but as the hours went by, gradually got a bit out of sync with each other (presumably as intended). Which role was played by which actor depended on where that actor chose to place her- or himself onstage in that scene – so each performance is at least slightly different.

There's a good video about the company by Cast Your Art here, in which the artists explain they used playing cards to determine the sequence of the gestures. The script was culled from over 100 hours of recorded conversations.

There's a helpful discussion of the movie, Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), directed by Jacques Rivette (which was referred to in No Dice but which I still haven't seen), at Combustible Celluloid, in which the author, Jefferey M. Anderson, explains,

Many critics have read many things into this movie, but the key thing to remember is that Rivette was a member of the "Cahiers du Cinema" team . . . . These . . . directors all learned movies by watching movies. Therefore, the drama that takes place inside the haunted house--in which the characters repeat the same lines over and over and do the same things over and over--is in effect like watching a movie. Celine and Julie at first become characters in the movie as well, unable to break out of their routine. It's not until Celine and Julie have been in the house several times that Rivette even shows us different camera angles of the action.

One possible explanation is that Celine and Julie Go Boating is a fantasy where Rivette and the audience can enter into a movie filled with ghosts and change things around. . . . The other important thing to point out is that Celine and Julie Go Boating seems primarily focused on the joy of cinema. Truffaut once said that a movie should represent either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema--anything in between did not interest him. Celine and Julie Go Boating has magic, poetry, singing, lots of laughter (the actresses seem to have giggle fits every time the camera is on them), as well as the ghost and murder story.

A third explanation for the movie is that it seems like we're watching realism; the long takes and natural sound. When in reality the whole creation is one of pure cinema. There is no reality in this movie. In a perfect world, there would be an old movie palace somewhere that plays Celine and Julie Go Boating over and over.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma's website is here. Additional reviews or articles covering the piece well can be found at The NYT here and here and at Time Out and Variety.

By the way, the company's name comes from Franz Kafka's first, unfinished novel, Amerika:

Personnel is being hired by the theater in Oklahoma! The Great Nature Theater of Oklahoma is calling you! It's calling today only! If you miss this opportunity there will never be another! Anyone thinking of his future, your place is with us! All welcome! Anyone who wants to be an artist, step forward! We are the theater that has a place for everyone, everyone in his place! If you decide to join us, we congratulate you here and now! But hurry, be sure not to miss the midnight deadline! We shut down at midnight, never to reopen! Accursed be anyone who doesn't believe us!

Fusebox So Far: Rubber Repertory's "Mr. Z"

Last nite saw Mr. Z Loves Company. Some of the many lascivious acts performed before our eyes I'd only read about; others reassured one that one was not there merely for fleshy fun, such as a declamation paraphrased from King Lear (see MIT's Moby Shakespeare and search "pent-up"), and the possible reference to "Z-Man" from that magnificent Russ Meyer/Roger Ebert collaboration, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Other descriptors or associations (at least some of which may be peculiar to me): doppelgangers (identity; the "other" who is one's double); narcissism; a song with no lyrics other than: "oooooh . . . uh huh uh huh"; relaxation, positive thinking, and "tapping" one's innermost mind (sought by the protagonists but perhaps, wisely, also directed at their audience -- they say colonoscopy only hurts if you can't relax); Phantom of the Opera; Queen for a Day; class war; class war as a variety of S&M; Alouetta; a mask is like a rubber for your face.

The hour went by quickly. Crisco, anyone?

Fusebox: Austin Video Bee's "Exquisite Bee"

Trailer:



Interview EXCLUSIVE on c-Blog!!! Hopefully. Soon?

Rotozaza-Dazzle

[Spoiler alert: This post could spoil the experience for you, which may be the most important part. If you think you might have a chance to participate in GuruGuru, please look for the warning below re- when to stop reading.]

GuruGuru (2009), by the collective, Rotozaza, was commissioned by the Fusebox Festival in Austin, Texas. It's a participatory, "directed acting" production – the artists call it "Autoteatro" – and was one of the most exciting works I've encountered this year. At this moment, it's being conducted again as part of the British Council's Edinburgh Showcase 2009, at the Forest Fringe, through August 29.

I experienced GuruGuru in April-May of this year, and at that point, the artists were still refining it. So please accept my apologies for any discrepancies between my recount of the work below and its current version, whether due to any changes in the work or my defective memory.

GuruGuru lasts 50 min. and permits and requires 5 participants at a time, so you have to sign up in advance or just show up and get lucky. Participants were greeted by one of the artists, Ant Hampton. He was sufficiently slim and pale that "wraith" came to mind, though mentally highly substantial (and I understand he's picked up some color since). He quickly sized us up and cast us, passing out name labels hand-written on pieces of white bandage tape.

Hampton then led us to a locked side door into the building and gave us our instructions. He would leave us in order to open the door from the inside; when we saw it open, we were to enter, find our assigned names on the backs of five chairs, put on the headphones lying on the seats of the chairs, and be seated. The headphones would then give each of us different instructions for what to say and do. We should try to follow our instructions, but if we muffed or missed anything, we shouldn't worry, but just keep trying. We need not say our lines in the same way they were spoken to us, but we should feel free to "have fun, 'color' the character." There would be no audience, other than ourselves, and the experience would not be recorded.

[If you think you might have a chance to experience GuruGuru, stop reading now!]

After we entered, we found our chairs in a semi-circle facing a television flanked by two identical, large, fake potted plants. You could only hear your own instructions (through your own headphones), and not anyone else's. You could easily hear what the other participants were saying in accordance with their instructions, as well as sound from the tv.

On the tv there appeared a simplified, animated mouth that began speaking to us, inviting us to choose whatever appearance we preferred for it, as it cycled through various possibilities: large or small, thin-lipped or thick-, bow-shaped or not, variously colored. We made a selection in accordance with our headphones' prompts; we then went through a similar process to select a voice as it spoke in various pitches, textures, accents, etc.; then eyes, a nose, and so on, until we'd constructed an entire face and head, enjoying the consumerist experience of designing our ideal, computer-based group therapist from among a plethora of choices.

Trying to listen to and perform your instructions – while also interpreting what you and the other participants and the tv therapist were saying and doing – was disconcerting, demanding, and hilarious. You're playing an extra-detailed game of "Simon Says," in which not only your movements but your every word is dictated by a voice "in your head"-phones. Your instructions are clear but occasionally drowned out when another participant is talking, and they offer no explanation of your motivations or feelings. You're trying to get into a character that has been imagined for you – and it becomes evident that the 5 characters have been very distinctly imagined by the artists – but you've had no prior opportunity to learn what the character's supposed to be like; and you have no prior understanding of the character's circumstances, although the character does – you have to figure it all out on the fly, while trying not to act bewildered. (E.g., when at one point I was directed to start breathing hard, I wasn't sure if I was meant to be anxious, angry, aroused, or asthmatic.) This experience is in itself both viscerally unforgettable and highly thought-provoking.

As the group performed in accordance with our instructions, our words and actions often seemed both emotionally "off" and ill-timed – exchanges between characters were virtually always out of sync – this aspect seems to me to reflect interestingly on the subjects of timing, rhythm, the sometimes-awkward "dance" of interaction with others, psychological wavelength interference, etc. Nonetheless, we managed to understand the gist of what we were supposed to be trying to say.

Gradually, our "identities" were revealed. Evidently we're all actors, and we've been "on the headphones" for varying lengths of time – in some cases, years – as part of our treatment for the problem that was presumably the basis for grouping us together, stage fright. For now, we don't have to worry about forgetting our lines or, for that matter, making decisions; the headphones make all the decisions for each of us – decisions that, we're told, we'd each have made anyway, right down to when to roll our eyes (though whether in exasperation or skepticism may be unclear).

Of course this system is mind-bogglingly circular – did we ever really have stage fright, or have we just been programmed to believe that, as a justification for the whole exercise?

All kinds of issues are implicated regarding identity, role play, the need to free oneself from parental and other voices in one's head, the existential anxiety of freedom and its fruits, power, control and being controlled, brainwashing, gestalt theory, systems theory, etc. (Among other things, as Shakespeare said, "Life's but . . . a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more" {Macbeth, Act v, scene v}; I've certainly got stage fright.)

Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that our computer-based therapist has a few bugs. "His" voice and appearance are disrupted by increasing static, his voice reverts to one the group previously rejected, and aspects of his appearance revert to a default selection; he even briefly appears monstrous.

As all this unfolds, it also becomes apparent that this therapist has a substantive conflict of interest. Despite his benign veneer and the multitude of superficial choices offered to us regarding his voice and appearance, clues accumulate that he's working not primarily to help us but for corporate, commercial interests. It's more mining than ministration; who- or whatever runs the headphones already knows a lot about us; but the tv's real clients want to know more. They want to hear our dreams, not to serve us but, perhaps, to expand their control over us yet further.

Before the end of the "session," one of the participants' characters, "Angel," apparently gets a glimmer that this "therapy" isn't really helping her/him, and (per instructions from the headphones) actually takes the headphones off and walks out of the room. But (as instructed before removing the headphones) s/he returns after a brief hiatus – possibly not quite able to completely detach from the tv, the group, or both? In any case, even Angel's impulse to rebel has apparently been anticipated and co-opted.

Though the tv therapist is re-booted, the glitches quickly compound again. At one point, I think I heard a suggestion that the two systems – the tv therapist and the headphones – were separate. The headphones system seemed perhaps more reliable, both in that it continued to function even while the tv system was "crashing" and in that it lacked the most sinister aspects revealed in the tv system. At the same time, it's notable that at one point, the headphones collaborate with the tv system when, in response to the tv therapist's request that Angel describe a dream, the headphones direct her/him/(me) to tell a real dream or fantasy not dictated by the headphones.

Despite being rebooted, the therapist's performance finally degrades to the point that the session has to be terminated – but our 50 minutes of "therapy" was up anyway, wasn't it?

What is the effect of having an animated, inanimate interlocutor in the mix? We all know the "therapist" is fake. We go along with the game, but we don't worry about him, what we tell him, what he makes of it, or how he influences us – at least, not until he starts seriously degrading. We don't think about the fact that he is a front for live participants who prefer to remain hidden, whose agenda remains undisclosed but who, it becomes apparent, hope we'll help them deploy us to help them. (How many of Facebook's quizzes have you taken?)

What about the second inanimate participant, the headphones? Technology's made it vastly easier and more efficient to access more information and connect with more people who share our interests, but such relations are mediated by technology. Indeed, we often e-mail rather than phone, or otherwise use technology to avoid more intimate contact – some of us even use it to distort or falsify our appearances. Interactions among the participants in GuruGuru are thoroughly mediated not just by the "therapist" but primarily by the headphones. We get to share our "real" responses only if we hang around afterward.

And being on the headphones was akin, it seemed to me, to life in general, in that, once we're born, we truly do have to discover ourselves, to learn what various sensations mean, how to operate our bodies and manage our emotions, what our strengths and weaknesses are, our preferences, etc.

Morever, as the artists have explained, the headphones system "is an advanced version of the same brain currently driving things in our world, the brain which reads your emails and offers you products accordingly, the robot on the phone in the morning calling you by your name, the device in the supermarket tracking your eyeballs as they scan the shelves." Or, as William J. Mitchell might put it, Me++; or as Star Trek, the Next Generation put it, the Borg. What happens, the artists ask, when the system in which we've embedded ourselves makes mistakes or even fails? "At what point should we stop trusting?"

What about the role of the real, animate artists – the mad scientist creators of both the tv and headphones interfaces?

After experiencing GuruGuru, I asked Hampton if he'd seen Adam Curtis's BBC documentary, Century of the Self. In Century, Curtis used original vintage footage and recent interviews with people directly involved in the events recounted to show how, beginning in the 1920's, theories originated by Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, gave rise to psychoanalytically-derived public relations techniques used to uncover people's primitive, often irrational or self-centered motivations, so as both to cater to and to manipulate whole populations. These techniques have been used not only by businesses in selling products but also by politicians (and, I might add, by religious leaders – see, e.g., Brands of Faith). Some using these psychoanalytically-derived techniques believed they were helping to bring about a more democratic system in which the consumer or voter was "king." But as Curtis reveals, the point of a "focus group" was never to hear our stated opinions or preferences but rather to create a situation in which we might, through body language or other clues, betray the more primitive desires and emotions that drive our behavior without our conscious awareness. Curtis warns that decades of immersion in P.R. have transformed us from communities of citizens capable of organizing to help ourselves as well as those less fortunate into an atomized mass of consumers who look to the marketplace not only for instant gratification but also for psychic support and our very identities. The doc covers much more; I'd found it so valuable that I'd watched its 4 hours through 3 times. (As of this writing, you can find links to the 34 segments on YouTube, in order, in my previous post here; and I understand Curtis plans to make all his docs viewable here soon.)

Hampton confirmed Century had in fact been a primary inspiration for GuruGuru. Among other things, the selected appearance of the tv therapist was based on that of psychiatrist Fritz Perls, featured in Century, a key proponent of gestalt therapy and a practitioner at the Esalen Institute back in the '60's.

The artists have also explained that they share a "love for exploring systems crumbling under duress or through crisis: be they mechanical, political or belief systems, it's in the debris of their failed operations where [the artists'] ideas find expression, there in the terrible gap between human aspiration and 'how things turned out.' This gap often unfolds into a potent mix of the strangely familiar with the unidentifiable other. . . . The act of piecing together a face which eventually begins to speak and address its very creators produces highly uncanny results. It also begins to reveal a reverse-history of how psychoanalysis evolved into advertising and consumer research . . . . It is through Freud's notion of the uncanny that the story of modern man's relationship with the self is explored and unpeeled, revealing failed experiments, skewed intentions and, ultimately, a mindset stuck on consumer-led priorities. The piece isolates the moment when our optimism and 'good faith' in systems takes a nose-dive, where the hollow core of Freud's misappropriated ideas opens up to swallow us, and asks . . . . At what point do we have to think for ourselves?"

I was sorry to think relatively few people might have the chance to participate in GuruGuru and asked Hampton about the possibility of putting a version on the 'net, perhaps as a multiplayer online game for participants with videochat capability. He was emphatic that this would not be consistent with the purposes of the piece.

This post is part of a wider-ranging conversation I think I'd like to have about relational art (a.k.a. participatory art, dialogic art, discursive art, etc.). Jumping ahead . . . a few writers seem to have suggested that artists have become more interested in in-person exchanges, avoiding new media, perhaps partly in reaction against the alienating effects of media and the use of media by businesses and governments to manipulate mass markets and other populations, and some have even suggested that "good" relational art should give rise to interactions that have particular qualities, such as being empathy-enhancing, or building community without suppressing individuality. I think this view is too limiting. It seems to me that artists are exploring ALL kinds of relations, whether in-person or mediated by technology, and whether community-building or manipulative or even abusive. I wonder if the defining characteristic of relational art isn't simply that it focusses on the interactions, the relations created in the course of the project, as the primary art object. I think artists are asking, what conditions lead to what kinds of relations, and to what kinds of effects do those relations in turn lead?

In 1975, I wrote a paper on John Milton's dramatic poem, Samson Agonistes. The method of analysis I used then was much the same as the one I apply now in studying art works. In that paper, I concluded that part of the meaning of the poem was that "meaning resides in relatedness."

GuruGuru ingeniously combines and contrasts a wide variety of kinds of relations. In this piece, even our relationship to ourselves is mediated by technology – yet at the same time, we can only experience the work in person, in real space and real time, and we have the chance to continue our new in-person relationships elsewhere in space and time. Indeed, Hampton tells me, one member of a group of participants who decided to hang out together for a bit afterward noticed they had to go though a process of "un-learning" what they'd projected onto one another as GuruGuru characters.

GuruGuru is a collaboration among writer, director and performance maker Ant Hampton, musician and composer Isambard Khroustaliov, and filmmaker, animator and graphic artist Joji Koyama. (The three artists also presented some of their individual works in an evening program at Fusebox, which was also terrific.) More details about GuruGuru and these particular artists here, and more info on the Rotozaza collective here.

UPDATE: I understand GuruGuru's booked more or less solid in Edinburgh (but do try to get in) and that Adam Curtis is planning to attend.

FURTHER UPDATE: Century of the Self is now viewable here.

Wrap-Up Re- the 22nd Annual Dallas VideoFest

As always, although I was there most of the time, it was impossible to see everything I'd have liked.

But of the things I saw, I loved American Casino by Leslie Cockburn, Space Ghost by Laurie Jo Reynolds, Dropping Furniture by Harald Hund and Paul Horn, In Transit by Lisa Abdul, Gogol Bordello – Non-Stop by Margarita Jimeno, Beaches of Agnes by Agnès Varda (opening soon at the Angelika Dallas), The Art Guys Retrospective by The Art Guys (get the anthologie DVD here), Chickenshit by Ricky Gluski, the Nicolas Provost videos, Gravity and The Divers, the Lossless videos by Rebecca Baron and Douglas Goodwin, 14 Americans by Michael Blackwood and Nancy Rosen, Blank City by Celine Danhier, Chase by Liz Magic Laser, a selection of YouTube videos entitled, Click Play: One Billion Times a Day curated by 2 UTD grad students whose names I don't find listed (I think they're going to make a list of URL's availabe through the VideoFest's website), The Glass House by Hamid Rahmanian (which will soon air on the Sundance Channel), Body Trail by Willi Dorner and Michael Palm (the performance on which the video is based, Bodies in Urban Spaces, played at the Fusebox Festival in Austin earlier this year), Burma VJ by Anders Østergaard (I believe this will air soon on HBO), Burning Palace by Mara Mattuschka and Chris Haring, Evening's Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin by Jem Cohen (available on DVD here), and Western Brothers' Adventure Story by Andrew Xanthopoulos.

And I missed a bunch of others I'd probably also have mentioned.

Fusebox Festival in Austin, TX

I've begun my usual obsessive analysis to figure how I can see as much of the stuff I think I'm most interested in as possible, and it's a challenge because it looks like there'll be lots (Festival schedule here).

I've already come across at least a couple of participatory works that you might want to take action on more or less now (in addition to procuring Festival tix).

One is GuruGuru, the description of which reads, "Five participants (each receiving different instructions via their earpieces) talk together with a televised character whose role flicks uncannily between spiritual and marketing guru. Revelling in the absurdities of marketing technique and group therapy, [the artists] Hampton, Koyama and Khroustaliov reverse the awkward history of consumer research by allowing their audience to create their own animated therapist – by means of a focus group!" (If you've been reading this blog, you know this would sound interesting to me; see, e.g., this.) The installation will be ongoing for the duration of the Festival, but since only five people can participate at a time, reservations are recommended.

The other is 12:19 Library, which you can participate in remotely at any time (until they close it, as I assume they will at some point?) "The 12:19 Library invites people from all over the world to chronicle a single minute of their lives, 12:19 to 12:20 PM, on any day of their choosing . . . . Make some sort of image . . . a photo, a video, an audio file, a text file, a map, whatever you like." The lead artist is Ron Berry, who I understand to be the driving force behind this Fest.

Fusebox: 2 Performances by Graham Reynolds et Al.

Here are the pics and vidis (with audio). The first 4 are from PVC Surround, including one complete, brilliant Graham Reynolds piece/performance, here. "The world premiere of the latest musical adventure from composers Peter Stopschinski and Graham Reynolds! In the soaring lobby of a downtown office building, an unorthodox trio of piano, cello and violin, augmented with digital effects and beats, will be mixed live in surround sound to create a swirling aural experiment." The Austin Chronicle recently profiled Stopschinski and Reynolds in the article here.

The next 5 visuals, starting here, are from DUKE!, the Golden Arm Trio playing Duke Ellington. If you like music, hang in there for Reynolds' solo during the last vidi.

I also threw in a few bonus visuals from in or near Austin.

(This post replaces a previous post that covered PVC Surround only.)