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Plucking up a great amount of courage, I decided to attempt to perform 'I think :. I am' live yesterday in front of an audience. It was an unprecedented disaster due to a number of issues ranging from my nervousness nausea to foolishly allowing my audience to sit too far away to read the projector and (the proverbial icing on the proverbial half baked cake) having to entirely grind to a halt 3 times and ask my audience for technical assistance due to an abrupt argument between my laptop and projector. All in all fairly mortifying I am usually a firm believer in the value of carrying on like nothing is wrong, but i really couldn't do that with this, chiefly because I was really hoping for some useable documentation. No one but me has ever seen this work in the manner in which it was intended from start to finish! I realised though, bar the par for the course cringe of showing my embarrassment and anxiousness in front of strangers, I was upset because I have decided that I actually like the work. Now that I have finally worked out how all of this needs to function, I intend to try to finally do this live, perhaps in a setting which gives me more control over the outcome. here is a brief, salvageable clip from the appalling documentation I gathered (I cannot work out how on earth to get the contrast and focus right for filming a powerpoint in the dark!)
As part of Jayne Dent's Underscore, I performed as the novice member of the Anima Collective I am! This was our interpretation of Martin Eccles score, a drawing he completed based around a walk around a stone circle.
which, I swear, I meant to talk about but somehow I got stuck on bouncing dungarees.
Taxonomy from IsaacLacklustre on Vimeo. They woke up with clouds on the brain and their consciousness turned to fluff. Cotton balls and cue tips bound up with floss. And the damp set in.
They stopped in the bathroom for a while. Staring at a face that wasn’t theirs. Rubbed cheeks rougher than their own. And blue tinged lips. They stared at their hands for a good ten minutes, which wouldn't do as asked. They had stood waiting for the spoon to reach the mug. And now paused for hands to tug the cloth towel dispenser round soft as their mind. This was a public place but mercifully empty. They missed their feet. Small grey distant. The land around was dark around the edges. Flat vignettes. Watching themselves through tunnel vision. Controlling a dumb body from a hampered control centre. a tiny figure behind the eyes giving up on the joy stick. They had sickness in the stomach. There was shivers in the arms. It was cold. It had gone.
Ahh
(I felt my bones becoming teeth and fancied them inset inlayed encrusted unla a cluster of molars in plaster polished crown jewels white/dusted rupturing forth biting off and spreading a virus growing like geode crystals flash/bang sprawl for champing and I was rigid brittle my mouth couldn't sing my legs couldnt dance my body was silent bald stonelike all mouth no moves flattened bruxist teeth to grind spiking wretched marrow wrenching free chewing through splitting spitting out teeth splintering shins elbows shattered tatty ratbag brushed enmassed colgate cold collagen flex capped clatter a structure heavy set with substance stretched over teeth Dead to the roots Fading enamel Receding In threat: They were bared. As in stuck: They were fast. Gumming the works They were snaggling Incisive Dogged I was set in stone Set on edge I was calcified Fossilised Molarised Fragmented I was shining Solid Rooted to the spot Rotten to the core I was Braced I was Sweet I was Aching I was teeth.) And spit. AgainstTeeth: Dentist from IsaacLacklustre on Vimeo. The other day, Deanna had her work all arranged exhibition-stylee in the project space. I particularly loved her drawings and wrote a response to this cheeky number on the left. I then past the text on for her to annotate in the manner she does her performance scripts, with dry and abstract little phrases boxed up in parentheses. I thought it would nicely contrast the weirdness the image had stirred in me, and I think her alterations are a nice example of a deflective tactic we both use: shrugging things of and making light as a defence mechanism. It all began with the beige soft lemon attempt. Flat and cold. (exhale of breath// drinking orange juice in the morning) It was raw like bulsa wood, and dead. (cue dramatic wistful gaze) They had stretched out the equipment. I remember the thick shag pile rag that was an island. Laid out, with its bristling hairs. Pale and thick. (like my thighs) White, I think, but flat and insubstantial.(exhale of breathe) And then there were the arches, bending buckling legs of insects. (heavy breathy tone) More than millipedes. Like arachnids but vast as whale jaws. Lost the sternum just the limbs, lost, left, bereft redundant. (exasperated) Stretching and uneven with their joints knobbling crooked. (voice is getting a little dramatic// might want to tone it down) Twice as dense in places. (suffocating// or not) They were hooped up. Round in archways. Tunnels. (hand actions make a show) But only arched on flat. For it was fake. (seriously?) Bodies, curved and snapped along their folds. Too close for comfort. Too many legs to walk. (breathe out again)They tripped over themselves and cascaded. (it’s really not a surprise considering) Tumbled and cracked. They were splayed. (deep breath// look up wistfully) Dragged as bridges from the island to the portholes where light came in. It bathed the room in a gentle peach effort. (and relax) Ineffectual but burning. (actually don’t)Soft pink spurs across the walls, flooding the ground and caressing the shag pile. A rug furry as a thirsty tongue. (mouth dries) Cinema session hyperglycaemia. A blank rooms, unlit bar the soggy daylight. Like morning winter sun. It was wrong. (you can tell) They had opened the walls and windows. (intake of breath) Lifted them out and folded the portholes. They had built new ships to travel in and broken the bones of mantodea.(time to pray) Folded tunnels into flatness. (again suffocating) All was strictly horizontal. (lie down) 2 dimensional. (press against the floor) Corresponding but cooly to the x-axis. There was a window in the air. Hanging with a limp rigidity. It was an abstract space. (you’re telling me) Nothing to breathe and no one to breathe it. (suffocated) All dark corners and walls with too many doors to choose from. (remain static// crunch those eyebrows) They were spreading out- the walls. Not closing in.(maybe not suffocated// maybe alienated) Stretched out to bigger expanses of nothing to fill with spiders webs and carpet blends and echoes; furnishing-free.(definitely university) Beyond this island-rug there was nothing but nothing.(everything?) Just the sickening inertia of winter sun mornings and the beige soft lemon attempt. (exhale of breath// look down) documentation from a live performance. This took an inordinate amount of patience because the projector just wasn't having any of it and every other part of my kit was running out of battery or was misbehaving in some way. As documentation, I think this is pretty lousy because of the cameras focusing and refocusing and lack of clarity. Preferably, I would have had the whole video as a screengrab but unfortunately I can't find a programme that allows me to do that without watermarks and delay! a friend of mine also shared this artist with me, Camille Henrot who uses a similar format of open browser windows |