Debate

This is an account of an art project entitled 'Debate' which I was involved in at Speakers' Corner, London, on Sunday 21st November.

The event was organised by London based artist group The Dogfood Idea. It involved a group of artists going to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park and conducting an 'exhibition' by engaging in the etiquette/process/traditions of Speakers' Corner. My contribution was to conduct a questionnaire, which I filled in as a I asked members of the public questions. 

Questions included 'So what are you doing here today?', 'What is most important to you, or what do you love most?' and 'Would you like to ask me any questions?'. The questions essentially were aimed to open up conversation. At the end of the questionnaire I would offer it to the subject to keep. Most people were quite willing to talk to me, and most kept the questionnaire. The event was mainly focused over a one hour period, so I didn't speak to a huge number of people. 

The questionnaire also included some images of my photographic artworks, so I came away with some interesting comments on them. Some people were pretty indifferent to them, one guy criticised an image's ISO (I explained it was taken with a camera phone). Because of the atmosphere at Speakers' Corner, other people would gather round and sometimes join the discussion while I was talking to someone, which was good, and wouldn't have happened somewhere else.

I think my key interests were speaking to strangers, (more exoteric?) public responses to my (photographic) artwork, the questionnaire as an art form and exploring personal versus institutional validations of my artwork (i.e. what did I get out of the project, and what did anyone get out of my artistic contribution?). It was good to go outside, practice 'art', and to discuss with strangers. It was sometimes like an art college crit or tutorial. I think this owed to the Speakers' Corner tradition. The questionnaire format seemed like a good platform to exhibit my work. I often feel like the explanations I give when I'm discussing my work is actually part of the work, I like the idea of personal encounters as artworks.

The event curators/organisers commented that Speakers' Corner is currently dominated by (Male) Christian and Muslim orators and assumed that the artists' participation would make for some alternative contributions. I think that an interesting element of my involvement in the project then, is the fact that I am a Christian, although I didn't discuss this with the curators. I included the following references in my project proposal for Debate:

• I am currently working as part of a collective called Archipelago, which has received a commission from Cornerhouse, Manchester as part of their projects program. The project is due to go ahead in January/February 2011. Part of my contribution involves a questionnaire.
• Medical questionnaires (I am currently training to become a healthcare professional, and use questionnaires with patients).
• Evangelism. The artist who brought this project to my attention once told me that my approach to art was 'evangelical'.

The 'evangelism' inspiration really spanned two ideas. Firstly the idea of wanting to take art to everybody, and secondly the phenomenon of approaching strangers on the street, which also happens within Christian evangelism. 

http://www.thedogfoodidea.com/ (information, pictures etc under 'newsblog')

Plastique Fantastique at 1-2-3-4

Plastique fantastique is a variable art collective, described by the artists (David Burrows and Simon O’Sullivan) as 'a mythopoetic fiction - an investigation of aesthetics, the sacred and politics - produced through comics, performances, text, installations and shrines and assemblages'. I see them as part hyper-fashionable, part appealing to teenage subculture and part mock religion. 'Inversion Ritual (against the Plague that is Capital)' was a performance at 1-2-3-4, Brighton in 2009. Other artists included Martin Creed and Bob and Roberta Smith.

The performance's script notes that it occurs in a deconsecrated church. During the 'ritual' a 'demon' is summoned, via projection screen (see below). The demon rants angrily about the viewers 'stupid habits and ROO-TEENS, your vegan-campers and organic-converses (I DESPISE your socalled life-styles)'. It chews up pop music/ culture references and spits them back out - 'So, all you Beyonces and baby dolls, and lucy loos, you independent ladies, wave your hands in the air like YOU JUST DON’T CARE'. 

Its a clever way of relating to culture, appropriating a religious format allows them to transform viewers into members (religious angle) or participants (art angle). It also allows, through use of ritual or worship, the speech to not have any particular point. Although political, it has no propositions like a manifesto would ('I HAVE NO MESSAGE'), its just focused opposition, anti-worship of capitalism. The speech is full of repetition, which suits it's content ('Again and again and again you will do the same thing'). I didn't see the performance but just looking at the script, its pretty dark.

The least hopeless part of the script is not spoken by the Demon, but one of the summoners:

'Goods will become SHADOWS!'

Plastique Fantastique

Inversion Ritual script

1-2-3-4

Freee at Zoo

[italics re-posted from freee.org.uk]














Following an elaborate series of scripted ceremonies, Freee and a small group of invited ‘witnesses’ took to the streets of Cambridge to rename a selection of the city’s streets along a route from the Court to Kings College.

Existing place names such as King Street, Jesus Street and New Street are renamed by the group through secular ‘christening’ speech acts temporarily occupying the streets of Cambridge with the names, anecdotes and legacy of those 18th century activists who were inspired by the French Revolution to engage in radical political movements in the UK.

The script divided the participants into ‘chalk-holders’ and ‘witnesses’, the former responsible for writing the new names of the places on a blackboard held near to the existing place name; the latter responsible for acknowledging the renaming and proclaiming their assent to the new name in a spoken exchange amounting to a secular christening.

Having studied with Dave Beech from FREEE for a little while, I hardly dare to say anything about this, because I know I'd get rinsed! I suppose its quite neat that they can't actually rename the streets, they have to just make the gesture, because obviously once a street is named after something the meaning of the name is forgotten. Naming a street 'Jesus Street' could probably undermine christianity as much as promoting it.

The weird red hats give it some sort of currency(?) as a performance, I don't know if they have significance but they must have had balls of steel to wander round wearing them!

Its appropriating Christianity in the loose western (rather than religious) sense in that it uses 'christening' as a cultural reference point to explain what they're doing. You wonder why they couldn't have just said 'naming' though? I suppose christening suggests a link to something greater (union with God?) which maybe in this case is something else.

The post goes on to say that through the presence of 'witnesses' to the event, a 'temporary counterpublic' was created, which seems to be the most important thing. I get the feeling that its a really clever link between participatory art and radical politics..