Hi all, back again now I'm on the other side of the world -
read with interest the comments on cris's and my performance in the
archives. I did not think cris' performance was at all meaningless,
however it played with meaning - it started inducing a strange
poignancy in my watching, to do with various dislocatednesses - I've
been looking at a fair bit of (to me very unsatisfactory on the
whole) video/installation art at the Pompidou and the Tate, and this
struck me as more interesting than anything I saw. (Why? Because ti
had language in it... a dimension which matters, and here played with
in very interesting ways). Admittedly the liveness of the
performance made a difference; but the playing with meaning and
identity, the sometimes direct dive into narratives of childhood
playing against a number of other selves, created all sorts of
interesting collisions in my own head. I don't pretend that this is
anything but a subjective response... also, I really didn't mind the
assaulting nature of the blinking light. It seemed, somehow,
appropriate. Why not assault the audience? Should watching work be
a merely comfortable experience?
I realise that I have no idea what the experience of watching Specula
was like (and I haven't dared to watch the video yet - when I feel a
little stronger maybe...) But I do wonder, Dave, what "thematically
undeveloped" refers to? From what you wrote, it sounds as if I was
just standing there in some theatrical manner shouting "cunt" at
people at intervals. A little reductive, no? There was one
assaultive expletive, no more... The text, such as it is - the work
is still incomplete - goes a little further than that. And yes, it
was among things moving around ideas of "bad taste", which everyone
complains about when women talk about things like menstruation and
violence: it interests me, this area of taste and tastelessness,
especially in the context of work which deals in strongly sensual
referents: so often a denial of realities of experience, a means of
silencing. Though I hasten to say my experience of mystical
scourgings is ah somewhat vicarious.
Best
Alison
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Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead Online
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