Ruth Buchanan

PT I steve reads introduction from Ruths gallery and Jan Verwoert then we will see work and there will be a discussion between steve an Ruth, with hope space, time and archival elements will reveal how they interact with text or persona

ruths text; a room a table a pile of fruit, a body.......

jans text in the metaphoric imagination the abstract and the concrete exchange places. -

"artists?" brain as metaphorical map - or rather the installation as something which cognates this breadth of information. sources. voices. etc.

no solitary beat - departs from a text/script about someone viewing someone viewing. installed 3 times. spatial constellations which split/double the body. and vassilates the viewer between being the performer and the viewer as you encounter it and yourself as a listening viewing body. as the text details this. implicates you as the viewer as a productive or performative element. - english voice with german translation projected. doubling the language as a reading or aural moment and the contingent diffusions of meaning form translation, presumable. the script is not meant as an illustration but that the acting of viewing it and the audio script perform a circuit and fold back into each other.

audio on headphones. various points of interruption to increase the sensation of your own bodily presence, that the audience views the other audience membrane you are multiplied as roles in performer viewer position hierarchy constantly shifts.

multiple points of entry is a mechanism for "short circuiting" standard viewing strategies and playing out the constraints of theatre and viewing spaces and how they can be manipulated as less of an artist performed things. SR what is gained by removing yourself as the artist from the scenario

RB i camera to performance from an interest in language and space. not from the body, etc. but using herself as a particular performing body for language and space and their interaction. she isn't comfortable using an actor here, it doesn't make sense she enjoys the constraints. the limit. the timeliness.

no interest in doing something about the liveness of performance, at an opening or in a large group space. became uncomfortable with the access infrastructure for her perfuming how she wanted, it being brief invites to perform at openings etc.

a couple of performances she felt pushed her interest in particular ways which left behind the mime-y spelunk of openings and no audience of people passing through

the line where over generosity (particularly with time and content) becomes an aggression - you have to stay for 3 hours.

wondered if it would shake things up in her production of space if she stepped out and let these questions of theatre , space and performance come to the fore when her body itself as agent evacuate. rather than mediating this all through the live figure of HER as the performative body.

SR position of figures which become present and absent in the text. fluctuate between varying positions of occupancy/concretion/reality

@strome. no solitary beat. [ 3 points with particular spatial marker. curtain, colour field or spotlight. 2 chairs in each with regards to the vantage over the rest of the space. doubling or splitting the roles of the audience listening becoming a performer for another viewer as they listen at another point. the circuit of viewing destabilises itself.

and punctuate the space and the meaning and the structural stability. utilises the point at which you become aware of being watched as you watch and the more global implications of these situations are

FLOORPLAN "conditions drawing" originally made as the cover of the second exhibition of to the lighthouse, for showroom using Virginia wolf as a key protagonist in the text somehow. began to think about the form of the rug/drawing as a means of thinking about spactial organisation in another form. how to get these spaces and forms to work in the gallery space. and to think about them through time, in that the rug is a very time heavy production method. to rationalise these problems. these things, these graphical participants, when passed through the demands of another form (in that they become book covers, or drawings or in fact the spaces they describe) how they alter and become reconstituted in meaning, etc.

HJ the solitary beat - did this come from a personal experience?

RB no, this was external, i was looking at examples of TV where artists and artwork was represented in TV. this break which maybe happens in TV where the private and seemingly public short circuit.NZ tv archive. - one clip was a group of school children visiting an exhibition of ceramics at a regional gallery - first with education officer, mediating contact with artwork as a message for school, early 80's. ED officer. "you can touch everything!" orgiastic thing of these kids rubbing themselves all over the ceramics and the teachers/ed officers reaction observing this [very specific scene somehow] wanting to unfold some of these thns, in the scipt a person is watching a group of people interacting/touching an object or something. 7 or 8, peculiar age, where not wildenough to be embarrassed but young enough to react that noone is watching, to get quite libidinal and sweaty.

SR how much did this libidinal thing translate?

RB not so much. it became more about a physical viewing. embodies an awkwardness or intensified sensation of BEING. would be surprised to hear of any orgiastic behaviour, but aimed for an intensity of sensation in the viewing - but not so graphic.

PE perhaps the contrast between building this intensity in the space of this very cold contained restrained environment and the intimacy/privacy of being on headphone/listening can by conrast build the sensualism. build the sense that this is a SCENario not just a curtain.

another piece at kunsthaus bregenz

"sculptor"

2 screens, 1 two way mirror. the other one used old cinematic technique with striped bands so bodies moving past would jitter, like a stop frame animation.

3 viewing points. all had access to a clip playing on a monitor. somehow filtered/disturbed/watched

woman artist being interviewed about her work in an installation of her work. - sound so low you just hear mumbling, no words. TV early 80's New Zealand. all panning shots of the journo and artist or static shot of a sculpture on a rotating plinth. pan/rotation/pan/rotation/pan/rotation with spatial setting wanted to repeat the establishment of this camera performativity

she sat live in the audience and spoke to them over a closed circuit wireless headphone. mediating her voice from within the body of the public

the script was in a way a narration of the monitor content and the experience/rotation within the space. first time using the logic of this multiple viewing points, multiple entries, her position as within the audience changes, the relationship is less charged more complex as a performer.

seated everyone individually to disperse them. she took them personally to a seat. clumsy somehow, in a way which would have suited another audience somehow. it may not have been as clumsy with an audience more willing to be taken and controlled, and less confused. also introduced the technology - put it on channel 1, here is how to turn the volume up. wealthy aged audience from geneva.

attempting to take the rolled of the butler. disappearing into the object or the performance. there was still something important for her to be repeating the image of the artist walking through the space with another person. rather than an invigilator leading them. even though

power or control in oversupplying or undersupplying , in the presence or absence of the artist, where is the governmentally in the relationship. and survalliance model - a form of narcissistic panopticonism. and the possibility of substitute bodies where, i can watch this person watching me, and that coulee be reversed, that could be my body, that could be me. the roles of the durational and the spatial being flipped.

__________________-----------------------------

ruth introduces the floor plan.

SO.....

text (quite informational) written for print, the space doesn't exist any more. the floor plan/rug is for the space the text describes/perimeters.

as its written for print its informational in way which is difficult to present as a vocal intro. etc. and permits rereading or trackbacks, etc.

"make a case for movement, always of moving. start with a spec with a pattern set of uses of tines with a rhythm... certain type of physicality here.

quite filmic - 'an angle, a curve, a wavy line.

draw a line through and across. sightlines, acting out concurrently

a photograph of the space encountered in the actual space. [repeat]

greeting an entry, a frame. viewed from a distance up close the photograph produces a circuit.

"a small room with tables organised in a group"

i mirroring emerges between the two, producing a loop. the drifts of the gallery

seen through the logic of the circuit of an encounter. the relationship is particular the relationship is trope

1 the relationship is particular - the curtain and the reading room appeared in the 50's / the boxing in of decoration, palasters. - details of the institutional history of the space and its structure. modernising the physical and social gallery. (resulting in reading room and curtain, etc) - multipurpose curtain. - no info presented with them originally (in 50's) - categorised not as art or craft but in a weird category with the glass wall, the fire alarm, all sort of renovations. - current presence, position of curtain

2 the relationship is a trope. - archive and curtain appear as characters in this drama - become a trope. they are the same they are encountered as the same, a reflection and presentation of the other. - an organisational system through the curtain. a pile of boxes. § - they are they same because they rely on movement in order to function. a curtain that doesn't move is wall, an archive that doesn't move is a storage facility. draw a diagram of this - both - - repeats, repeats. production of its own taxonomy through ruptures through movements. - actions of use - pulling, pushing, etc.

- this mirror is an object. one which casts shadow and fills rooms. - an object that will not keep still -

to try to gather material she gathered in one frame and see a way to move forward. its informational in way unusual for her. the information original is quite scant > initially very clear intro to the space as it exists now, but as an occupied space (but without a clarity of function) its values not its particularities.

the place and personal relationship to it end up constructing the means for understand g relating it back. talk about the experience of seeing the photograph of the space, as it no longer exists. feeling a strange sense of vantage point, and sightlines through time. what to do with gaps, or what is a gap, and the material of the space and the possible, lost archived space. this did exist and now its the directors office, but im still somehow in both. writing as an exercise in naming something and relating or positioning against it.. taking a position before acting.

FLOOR PLAN and its relation to the text.

acts clearly as a floor plan. as it was circa 1958 (as in the photo) is this a way of embodying yourself in the space. producing an Addition to the archive. something on a movement. something extra to requirement but that would make the archive motive again. what to do with a gap/space/hole.

archiving of art gallery notes run by the same body as parks and rec. so shared budget meetings with zoo!

with the curtain. no notes for deinstall, transport or anything. perhaps as it occupies a weird mid space, its not categorised well. its no included in the collection. its status isvague. its just in a roll in a basement in the war museum (?)

something in the provisional description in th text is reflective of her awareness of the chase for the meaningful and the present - aukland gallery being particularly schitzo in chasing this meaning. ending up stuck between times. and becomes too complex.

thinking about how the archive works, through the curtain. using the curtain a s a gatekeeping character who mediates the potentialities for behaviour in the space. "think one think through something else"

an investigation of commissioning. as a curious relationship a curious dialectic. the organisational logic that appears in the narratives.

SRI can you disengage the format of the bringing to being of the thing. is it possible to disengage the work (the curtain) from the structure of its possibility? brings them in as ghosts. removed from the structure that calls it into being........? RB a process of evacuation that takes place, in htta the curtain IS gone. and this makes a space ruth can move into an occupy. until its gone it hard to understand watt she can do.. fill up the qualities that are absent.

to me this feels like last year at marienbad somehow.

ALICE use of institutional space - is this because these are the spaces that invite you?

RB no this has come from my approaching a space. my own initiative. so she has a particular freedom when investigating the historicity of the space. constraints or particularities of how these spaces operate and organise - how they mediate their operation. (or how to mediate this in fact ) she likes having something to move against, to push at. something agonistic. an almost physical engagement with the institutional structure. they are such specifically scripted spaces. something exciting to shift or disturb or interfere. not sabotage or secrecy, but a tilt or a shift. thinking of these institutional structures as a formal material.

the level of investment is greater when she initiates the project. it comes from an awareness of a weirdness. more investment in the constraints.

filling a hole they were planning on keeping - they had no plan to discuss the curtain or the archive. the plan was that this would remain a hole.

how to establish relationships yourself and the fall out if you accidentally set something in motion. and the ease with which things can be co-opted.

it maybe needs physical distance to retain agency. so needs to be shown elsewhere. needs the charge that comes from distance. "abstract agency"

last year at marienbad.

ALAIN RESNAIS TOUTES LES MEMOIRES DU MONDE

TEXT 2

follow on _from earlier text

numeric strucutre

again repetitive structure. this maybe particularly suits the spoken form.

1. conditions, this is a commonality. it may be helpful to introduce a method for situation oneself.

a room. a table. a stack of papers, instruments, a body, other objects and dim wisps of air.

suggested positions or perameters. communication rarely moves in straight lines, rather it collects interferences along the way

rather it is rather t is

2 conditions a turning away.

ian white.

still very provisional. the unknown coming though in a purely spoken description. the sibilance hush hush hushing

using onomatapaoec description as diversionary tactics. like a diagonal strike across a canvas which describes and is the mark a gush of wind.

a graceful turn. then the shape of that S. the freedom given to you as a hearer.

brush brush brushing. hush hush hushing.

precise and provision need not be underscored. this is both precise and provisional

(repetition again)

3. or this. a condition

ursula bell.

"established is a good word, much used in gardening books, the plant when established, oh become established quickly quickly garden, for i am fugitive

cornelia parker, worlds which defy gravity. throwning "aloft" of a cliff

an interior and howit speak of itself.

dim wisps of air. repeat. an interior and how its speaks about itself.

not about a particular place. but trying to produce a method for articulating a collection. how things come together. and how these decisions manifest and describe. as a language. trying to address a condition the condition of collecting in this case.

it isn't necessarily key that its encountered under the control architecture of the exhibition or whatever but it carries with it the framing when its seen after. it carries the suggestion of the gallery or the performance.

Time' by Ursula Bethell

‘Established’ is a good word, much used in garden books,

‘The plant, when established’ . . .

Oh, become established quickly, quickly, garden

For I am fugitive, I am very fugitive – – –

Those that come after me will gather these roses,

And watch, as I do now, the white wistaria

Burst, in the sunshine, from its pale green sheath.

Planned. Planted. Established. Then neglected,

Till at last the loiterer by the gate will wonder

At the old, old cottage, the old wooden cottage,

And say ‘One might build here, the view is glorious;

This must have been a pretty garden once.’

From a Garden in the Antipodes (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1929)

Ursula Bethell, (1874-1945), "New Zealand’s foremost garden poet."  (ACCORDING TO THE INTERNET)

starting from scratch with writing is a terrifying point. but finding some point, some line, or a paragraph is great point of departure. and then EDITING. so therein originates the repetition.

emily dickenson

words set in a space - apparently whenever she had visitors she wouldn't see them, she would stand behind a screen, a paragon but not see them, and would play piano from behind a screen.

in turning away from the person arriving it maybe increases the sense of being there I

writing as a way of literally being there. so does the writing become very performative. in that it solicits an affect, and exercises a change.

the point of encounter. and meeting. and that a meeting can only produce. in the other experiences of the work. and its repetition and mutability of setting its no longer performative but it carries a charge and it produces a new meaning in a new meeting each time.

WISP

the work is the noise. its not the signal. its not the channel of communication its the vibration in the meeting. in communications theory this is degenerative, but in the work here its productive, somehow. some interruption and some production shaking.

sets of conversations

that things are noisy as things, and they don't keep still, and that they can enter another form. that the sculpture can become a text, can beam a video, can become a voice piece, can become a performance.

thinking as a material practise. - as well as making - in order to think through this [x] its necessary to weave it. or to write it. or to .........

using the curtain as an editing tool to order the negotiation of the space.

it blocks and opens, its durational somehow, the transparent one particularly And by extension then the sibilant swish of the brush brushing, operates as the semi transparent mirror character within the texture of the verbal (texture of the text) and its position at the middle point, and bookending the temporal heart.

it operates the durational space that a semi transparent mirror could.

that things can perform or act in a variety of register. that these can shift or swist. or be renegotiated. the agency of the work beyond the capacity of the author/artist. that the work WORKS, that it has a job.

inclination in that to a multiplicity and how the spaces between these works and forms and materials creates a noise that has its own work. and that they don't exist as translations, but that they have their own material space. that they are positions of transformation. not translation.

the aloe - katherine mansfield. published in the page by page published/edited form and the manuscript (each page beside one another) splitting of the public and the private setting.

my emily dickinson susan howe. writes into it. as respond, commentary, expansion. its not reflective, it projective/productive somehow.

emily dickenson and the acusmatic voice - the voice without a body.

Susanna's Notes

Steve’s Class November 21 2013 Ruth Buchanan

Compiling a text to negotiate a work, as a way to sort through a work in progress.

Space and time

A persona that haunts the work

Maps or diagrams of cognitive brain – the description of an artist’s? brain

No Solitary Beat: An encounter of a viewer viewing someone viewing

Setting up a situation of doubling—where the viewer is the performer and the subject. points of encounter and concealing. hearing but also viewing but also enacting. Creating a moment of implication.

Possibly a producing form/body.

That the viewers position or hierarchy isn’t fixed.

coming to performance not because of an interest in the “live” – rather language etc. not wanting to be the performing body.

when does generosity of the viewer become aggression of the artist in performance?

Think through one problem with another form.

On the idea of how the viewer watching the viewer came about: How art or artwork can be presented through television

80s art TV shows as inspiration,

Panopticism? Narcissism? not about surveillance

Understanding how the entrance and the exit work

Writing text to be read as opposed to being written for print

A vantage point, sightlines and timelines, looking at a photo of a place that doesn’t exist anymore and yet I am still occupying that room. what is a gap? the space as well as the material that is encountered there.

carpets as floor plans

The curtain could be the gatekeeper? Permanent fixture…everything has to pass through the curtain

Thinking one thing through something else

Following the life of an object

The material can tell you more than you know, i.e. the exercise of writing and what comes out of that

Something to work against…to have a stronger conversation with. a physical engagement is important.

not sabotage but tilts or shifts, in terms of institutional structures

how easy it is for things to be co-opted.

Points meeting, touching, maybe even turning away

choose an image to think about a word

not writing descriptive things about work…the writing is the work but it is a work that is working out while it’s made.

I never start from scratch

carrying past projects with you in your pocket

the condition of collecting

a fugitive thing.

two turned away figures facing each other, photo of woman and bust at Auckland museum

bust as trope of collections

self plagiarizing

curtain as threshold, defines intimate space but also performance/staged space

entropy. they are noisy as things and they will not keep still

thinking as a material practice, one that is as valid as making

the curtain without movement is a wall and the archive without reading is a storage facility