Angharad barely draft

SLOPPY W Sloppy is a performance during which I read from a piece of printed paper a sequence of statements. The statements are identical in form - they use a variety of adjectives and slang to describe the effects of varying consumed substances (alcohol, drugs), and the resulting actions of someone under the influence. The text is read very quickly and at once, drawing deep breaths between each statement so as to read it hastily. The text is always read whilst standing. The text is an ongoing piece of work where new statements are developed and added when conceived and then realized according to an invitation to show or collaborate. Subsequently the performances’ length is dependent on the number of statements in the collection. Currently there are 36 statements. The project could be described as a writing machine.

H Myself and a group of artists from the Piet (Katherine, Natalia and Madison) were put in a group for our seminar ‘on Performativity’. Our main concern being ‘liveness’ we identified some shared interests in confession, activism and vulnerability. As a group exercise we agreed we would present performances at a ‘Sloppy’ dinner of soups at Madison and Clara’s home. We set one strict parameter on the work, to which I adhered; this was the overall length of the performances, which was restricted to 2.30 minutes. The framing elements in the writing machine - the adjective and chosen substance are taken from memory or researched, the ‘story’ that is told in each statement are from memory, true experiences and fiction.

W Having only recently become acquainted with writing machines it seemed an interesting new way for me to write and generate new ideas. The seemingly inhibitive writing machine in fact is so that the framework lends itself to a self generative mode of working. Also, I am interested in reading aloud and storytelling, with particular interest in reading to a multi-lingual audience at a quick speed, so what is remembered by the audience is more fragmentary and abstract. As if what they are recalling during the memory of the performance is confused with their own.

DEVELOP The performance of the text is very much unique to my own delivery and so I would not consider someone else standing in for me. Based on a recent performance of Sloppy I have been invited to work with another artist (Dan Mitchell) on a new issue of his publication (Hard Mag) using the text and developing it further with images and collaging, working with Dan who predominantly works with text and collage. Developing the texts alongside another artist would be a very exciting prospect as well as an interesting step forward; this of course would then include images. I have never worked on a publication so this would be an interesting new artistic output.

LOOK DOWN AT YOUR FEET

WHAT LDAYF is a performance lasting approximately 10 – 15 minutes. LDATF is a dialogue between two individuals, the Pilot and the woman read by the same person / performer in distinctly different voices. HOW I enter space. I gradually and quite slowly begin to assemble the “set”, lights will be established and augmented, possibly with the assistance of the audience members. I quietly test microphone. Which will be used throughout duration of performance. I must sit at the same general height of the audience. The door – entrance to the space must be regulated or closed thought the duration. LDATF is read to a precise score of specific timing. With the responses to questions asked becoming increasingly drawn out - including long pauses. LDAYF is read in a female English accent imagined as a middle-aged, middle-class woman with a therapeutic voice. The executions of the words are particularly phonetic. The second voice (the Pilot) is read as a broken, American-tone, vulnerable, tired male. My body must remain physically rigid throughout performance. WHY The performance came from unused text that I developed in 2011. I wanted to experiment with performance, style and the written word. I wanted to see if I could embody the voices and carry the audience through a particularly slow rendition of this text.

HOW COULD IT DEVELOP? It is possible the work could develop to a play or video work but essentially I consider it a performance. At the moment what feels important for me (whilst at school) to try several new working methods. I learn from practice. The first rendition of this performance was at the Piet to an assembled audience and I felt the version was successful. However, the second rendition was a failure. Through this failure the parameters of its success have become evident.

Influences Spalding Grey – Narration, style charisma, confessional, storytelling, to camera, satire, theatre Peter Brook – The Empty Space Bukowski, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

Wooster Group

Cedric Price and the Fun Palace, Joan Littlewood theater director, egalatarian philosophies – Fun Palace and the Cybernetics Committee (Gordon Pask), Pask was interested in how human organism learns from its environment and relates to others through language. Bad reputation - behave more like a child/queer//Just say NO to feminism, not an indicator of identity but a refusal of being identified, fixed and assimilated. Jim Shaw – walks line between empiricism and esotericism, earnestness and irony, Oism, invented and developed own religion -> connection to Margritte. Jan Svankmajer Chris Morris – Blue jam, radio comedy, story, Sue’s wedding Hans Magnus Enzensberger – In praise of Illiteracy. Features of the true illiterate: voice and ear, agility, cunning, concentration and memory. Annika Strom: Ten embarrassed men Cronenberg and the body – crisis/disease of identity. What is the you that controls the I? Andro Wekua Deathwish: Dylan Thomas, Rab C. Nesbitt, Frances Stark Lynda Benglis Rene Magritte and language games Vivian Mayer – self portrait // “what do you do for a living?” “I’m sort of a spy”. The nanny’s life allowed her to be with the people but not of them. Cultivating her own unknowability as a way to maintain the separateness.

Bibliography Kim Noble : how I learned to live with the many personalities sharing my body. Split Brain, New Scientist Essay. Prof. Deborah Cameron: The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages? Patrick McGrath, any novel, Trauma / Spider – unreliable narrator

Silent understanding between lunatics DON’T TALK TO ME ABOUT NONCHALANCE WE WILL NEVER DIE Irrepressible dynastic families