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The
title of this performance is taken from Lucy Lippard's book Six Years
- The Dematerialisation of the Art Object, catalogue of period and
signature styles of conceptual and performance art, This was a time noteable for its retreat from the object, of art works conceived in terms of primary structures, the rigorously documented doings and mere attitudes of artists. The proposition "art it is in attitude, not in form," set the foundation for a new curatorial and artistic canon. "Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form: works-concepts-processes-situations-information" ( at the Bern Kunsthalle of 1969) was probably the first major anthology exhibition devoted to the new style. Here the viewer was treated to the mass spectacle of 'artistically diarised comings and goings of the art-worker (returningto the fold of alienated labour); the barely schematised attitude (art-thought) set down in print or in performance - and set against the domination by objects in an institutional and artisanal framework. This particular performance text, Six Minutes ...plots the discontinuous conceptual machinations of an artist who awakes one morning, conceives of an art work, possibly an entire career - who knows? - in a small hours delirium of panic alternating with wild ambition...then falls back to sleep again. It was devised for two players, a master of ceremonies (MC) - myself - and a bed-ridden conceptual artist (BRCA) - played by Shaun Davies. I begin the performance by wheeling a hospital trolley on stage with Shaun lying prostrate upon it and covered in a white sheet. I move the trolley centre stage and adjust the front end into an incline position. I then walk to the other side of the stage, towards an emplacement of two lecterns and an overhead projector. I place one copy of the script and a bundle of transparencies on the first lectern - take the second one over and place it in Shaun's sleeping hand. And. Oh Yes! The floor should be strewn with soggy packets of cheap cigarettes (as a reminder to the reader of the late sixties' Phillip Morris sponsorship of the new thinking arts). I look at my watch. It's now 4 O'Clock in the morning (EST) and you've just been rudely awakened by a minor earth tremor. Ever so quickly a calming thought envelopes this crabby mental space of irritation - and it goes something like... this: First over-head: It is difficult to know where conceptual art ends and performance begins. For conceptual art contains the premise that the idea may or may not be executed. Sometimes it is theoretical or conceptual. Sometimes it is material and performed. MC (shaking BRCA): Just think about it old son. Second over-head: It's time to go to work! 4.02 am -
BRCA: I'm awake now, so ... Okay!
So sometimes I get excited about this being awake thing ... enough to
want to do something about it ... rather ... enough to want to do something
with it. [points to his own head] There! A spluttering synapse twists
the threadbare shroud of sleeplessness ... maniacal and half-dead sensations
beat a weary path to consciousness ... tripping in the early morning magic
of god's golden rays. [BRCA falls asleep again] Third over-head: To doze briefly, perchance to conceptualise ...hypgnagogically... [BRCA wakes up again - a bit cranky] 4.03 am: This cancerous lump of stinking pillow behaved all night like a giant ... like a giant sieve (looks at pillow and pauses) but straining fucking what! ... a stew of memories that an expensively educated person might call day residue but which I call (drops pillow to make a scare quote gesture) "yesterday"... (runs hand over edge of lectern) hey but this is a nice thing don't you think? Fourth over-head: [image of single head standing out from an agitated crowd with thought baloon] BRCA: They say there is no dispute about taste, but everyone knows that already! Fifth over-head: BRCA: I become perplexed by the imagined echoes (freeze) Sixth over-head: That this work will have! BRCA: With the dictates and the dogmas of those most trusted schoolmen...and at that very moment (freeze) Seventh over-head: [image of face perplexed] BRCA: I invent a new...(freeze) Eighth over-head: Ironic Physics BRCA: To substantiate my rhapsodic credentials... (long freeze) Ninth over-head: BRCA: The 'hot' they say...is in the what which contains the heatable...generic relation of cause and effect...but more than just this...naturally...I stumbled into a box which contained a banana skin...stumbled like a slippery plastered fool...run ragged into a night of passion, to tell a story, to spin a yarn...So I tell you!...as one wounded Rimbaud...cut from a thousand rusting nibs...to another...A manifesto to announce the beginning of a new and very important body of work BRCA: (writes himself a note...seals it in an envelope...MC walks across stage...takes letter from BRCA...who (then...as a consequence) leans on one of the lecterns proprietorially) Tenth over-head: Oh Mother of God (MC peels a banana...drops the skin into a box) Eleventh over-head: Hijacker's Ultimatum BRCA: A banana skin will cause a box which contains it to stand and deliver an accident appropriate to its form...but will the mind ever grow fingers long enough...to comprehend a kind of tripping over-the-box-type behaviour (picks up pillow...crosses his arms and falls asleep) (MC gives envelope to a member of the audience...who reads it out aloud)MC: It's now 4.06 a.m precisely (sits down and lights a cigarette...screws up his face and extinguishes in his guest speaker's glass of water...sits down to write a letter which begins) "I think you are my best friend...so why don't you look after these for a while." |