Hi,

bunch of takes on marketing and such without priority order, offered
without value judgement as to the effectiveness of marketing in relation to
audience / expectation generated /

-  read in the South Bank Voice Box in the summer with Aaron Williamson and
Brian Catling. Met the organiser about ninety minutes before reading and
was starting to say 'hope some people turn up' sort of thing (typical
self-deprecatory defensiveness  -  now that's proactive) when she stopped
me short and said something to the effect of 'go downstairs, there's a
queue for returns. Which was true, the room was packed. YET afterwards
Aaron, somewhat bemused, was sayng he'd read about a week or two previously
at SVC and had only a handful (or generous handful whatever) present. So
what's to be learned?
Despite the anodyne qualities of the venue (perhaps that's what attracts)
and the relative massiveness of the South Bank's marketing machine. ALSO
many of those in the audience were unknown to any of the readers  -  we
commented on that. That's a genuine pleasure, to read to an audience that
doesn't know your work. Now that's valuable to me. PLUS many were young  -
students and so on, with a tangible excitement at what they were hearing.

-   Aaron (again) got a difficult card ealt to him bu us when we did 'Night
of the Living Tongues' at Colchester Arts Centre. He was on with Orphan
Drift, Josefina Cupido, Ronnie Fraser - Monro and Asian Dub Foundation. The
only publicity we did was a card saying 'FREE' which the event was, with a
list of names (no description). 350 people turned up wanting the drum and
bass. What happened when he came on stage was remarkable. The audience was
locked in because so many were outside trying to get in who were locked out
after we'd passed the legal limit. Some people had their lives torn into by
Aaron, but it was very hard for him.

-   Brian Catling performed a remarkable 'Cyclops' version. John Cayley
played Kenny Goldsmith from New York and projected versions of his Indira's
Clock for a languid and entrancing couple of sets, (both using Brian and
John used a data projector). Ian Breakwell played mephisto on a pair of
slide projectors, dESPERATE oPTIMISTS performed a one-off piece, as did
Blast Theory, Stewart Home read a couple of caustic provocation. Sianed
Jones and Kaffe Mathews wired up the bar and sampled all and sundry,
playing bar conversations back into their mixes throughout the event. Matt
Rogalsky rumbled the bones of the building with a light-interferent
electronic music performance. There was a bmx trick cyclist (now that's
syntax) and the 'blipvert' cinema interventions were premiered. All at the
Junction in Cambridge to an audience of about 120 people. The Junction is a
major 'multi-media' player  -  this was the programme i devised, at their
request, to bring writing into such a performance context. It was the
biggest crowd they'd ever got for such work (still too small considering).
The publicity was a tongue in cheek sci-fi elongated card with an ironic
'into the unknown' feel about it.

-   Sianed and i programmed a few events at Community Music and the Union
Chapel in London under the title SoLo (with the first o underlined). (SL
for Sound & Language silly). Mixes of sound and language brought Allen
Fisher, Robert Sheppard and Jo Blowers, Sianed (performing 'The Bait'  -
it's on the forthcoming Reality Street book/CD 'Songs From Navigation'  -
yes, this too is marketing), Caroline Bergvall (once with and once without
Kaffe Mathews), Sarah Goldfarb, SLANT, Samia Malik, film and installation
work from Tim Flittcroft (first one involved 9 simultaneous projections
from 9 different film-makers onto a huge syche wall, Ros Mortimer, Clive
Bell, and Ansuman Biswas. We did simple black and white cards (xerox onto
card) posted out  -  the only publicity. We did our own cash and carry bar,
we sold food we made blah blah. Kind of friendly chaotic flowing evenings
that people said they enjoyed. The idea was to get one thing to flow as
closely as possible into another. So that a film would end and someone
begin reading with just a simple shift of lighting and so on, a reader end
and someone else begin. Mixed audiences of about 90 people each time.

-   I'm also going to mention 'Breathing Form' curated by Brian Catling in
Oxford in 1992 (?) bringing together performances from such as Aaron,
Caroline, myself, Gary Stevens, Stuart Brisley. It used a variety of venues
in a weekend festival format  -  almost everything was jam packed. Mixed
audience brought in by posters and mail out. The poster was pretty strong.
There was the back-up of Ruskin College and a general 'performance art' /
'Live art' scene feel throughout. The audience was certainly not a poetry
audience. They engaged with the work  -  there was respect, dialogue. Very
healthy situation.

All my experience of programming at Chisenhale and for Voice Over and the
above leads me to suggest that audiences follow:

*   specific poets / artists (yes)
*   certain venues (the point about X6 last week) and go there for whatever
happens there, because place and work are 'sympatico' for them
*   certain programmers and curators whose events they come to 'trust'
*   where they can meet those peers with whom they 'identify'
*   their noses in respect of publicity that does not obviously meet the
above (although marketing gives many strong signs that inform the decision
whether to go or not to go)

It's pretty simple and interminably complex stuff  -  there are no recipes,
only specific examples and experiences.

What i do suggest is that if you don't like what's going on then organise
what you want to see. That's why younger writers such as Miles Champion and
Tim Adkins are beginning to do their thing  -  because they get only part
(if any) of what interests them elsewhere. The same will hopefully be true
for other emerging performers and curators and editors.

What we really need is a blooming diversity of approaches  -  more space,
more series, more hybrids.

The example of X6 has yet to picked on here. Maybe it was as far down as
this and noone read it.

Miles and Tim and just gagging to join this discussion. I just know it.

enuf for now
love and love
cris









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