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1. ‘THERE’ 2. ‘EXAMINATION’ 3. ‘(FUTILE) FACILITY

THERE FIX 13 Live Art Bienalle, Catalyst Arts, September 2013

An intervention taking place on the express bus route from Belfast to Larne. The bus left at 5:15pm on Friday and the journey lasted one hour The target audience was the unsuspecting passengers on the left side of the bus. Forty participants wearing identical clothing (a red woollen hat, a grey t-shirt, black trousers and black shoes), were located along the route on the left side of the road. They performed various actions to be seen by any passengers looking out the window. As the journey progressed the type of actions changed. They began as casual individuals, then appeared in groups, in the middle became theatrical and then finished by again behaving casually.

The project was part of Catalyst Arts Live Art Bienalle ‘FIX’. We gathered the forty participants using social media sites using limited information so the bus route would remain unknown to the public. On the day of the intervention all forty participants met at Catalyst’s gallery at 3pm. They were each given a map with their location, a time to be there, an outfit and a driver if necessary. The FIX ‘writer in residence’ and I then got on the bus - acting as inconspicuously as possible. I secretly filmed out the window through a small hole in my handbag. Directly following the bus in a car was a photographer and an assistant, to document the participants and then text them to let them know they could now leave their position.

This intervention was inspired by taking the bus to Glasgow from Belfast countless times. I wanted to experiment with the captive audience that regular passengers on express bus journeys could be. It was essential for me that they would be an unsuspecting audience, and that they would not easily be able to find an explanation for this elaborate spectacle (why?) The form/content (i.e everyone being dressed identically) of the intervention was based on the idea of reverie. Daydreaming whilst gazing out of a window, projecting yourself onto a passing landscape.

EXAMINATION Platform Arts Belfast 2013

Outside the gallery is a waiting area with five blue seats with writing desks. A receptionist asks the audience "Would you like to see the doctor?" and then instructs them to fill out a form, with information such as marital status and national insurance number. They are then invited into the gallery, alone or in small groups. The room is decorated like a modest office with a suspended ceiling, light grey walls and a beige carpet. Six large framed drawings resembling inkblot tests and distorted female genitalia hang on all four walls. A CCTV monitor in the corner shows the waiting area outside. A tall bearded Scottish man wearing a doctors coat, plain women's clothing and red lipstick sits in the corner of the room. He informs the participant he will be with them in a minute and tells them to make themselves comfortable, (however there are no seats provided). He then informs them he will ask a series of questions, which they must answer with either TRUE or FALSE. All of the questions relate to shame, morality, disgust and secrecy and have been taken from tests such as the MMPI-2 which is used by courts and employers to ascertain the mental state of an individual. A video camera is set up in the corner of the room to record the experiment. The 'doctors' is softly spoken yet cold throughout and he does allow participants to deviate from the questions. Although the audience has been primed with simultaneously sexualized and clinical imagery. The questions themselves never directly referred to sex or gender, but questioned the participant’s moral opinion. By only allowing a TRUE or FALSE answer to questions which are purely subjective, the test investigated(something about people answering the way they think they should, the being viewed/tested in social and institutional settings).

3. ‘FUTILE (FACILITY)’ – A beige bedsit with four zones (bed, kitchen, living, office) was constructed in the Ulster Museum. For 28 days I inhabited it. I wore only beige clothes and ate beige foods. I constantly watched documentaries on televisions built into the furniture units. The public were allowed to enter the space and converse with me. The space began ordered and became progressively more chaotic as I made drawings, diagrams and maps on the walls and fabricated ‘people’ and objects using only beige materials. A daily blog recorded my activity using the headings ‘television viewed’ ‘food consumed’ ‘gifts received’ and ‘knowledge gained’.

How???? – Artist in residence? Why? – Experiment on myself – investigating colour, stimulation, media, discipline, interiors, learning.