First Class (II)

First Class

In this space there should be a photo-collage of George Gideon Oliver Osborne, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. The image portrayed Mr Osborne with donkey's ears and teeth, an enlarged right eye, a dollar-sign badge on his left lapel, and the words 'First Class' stamped on his forehead. For some reason, it has disappeared from this space, since being posted on the 26th April. It would be tempting to imagine that some act of clandestine censorship might have occurred, in the not unjustified belief that we are all 'being watched'. Of course, we are. Our online activities are potentially recorded and monitored, constantly and at any time. The myth of democracy is to create the illusion of 'free speech', whilst carefully mediating what can actually be said, heard, and seen. It would, however, be an act of grand delusion to think that posting the image of a simple piece of glued paper, lampooning the idiocy and arrogance of a rich politician, might court the attention of some notional 'higher power', which might then act to remove it from a simple blog such as this one. It does, however, beg the question 'where is the donkey Osborne, now?'. We often joke about things disappearing into cyberspace, but what might that actually mean - and does 'cyberspace' exist in any real sense? My image will have been stored in digital form, waiting to be called upon as a series of reconstituted codes to give the illusion of the original image. Where is that digital information now, and does it still exist in the same coded format? Is it possible that this coded information may be interacting with other digital code and reconfiguring itself, in new forms, perhaps to reappear here, or elsewhere, at some later date? If so, then what form might it take? I will be watching and waiting for any such reappearance. In the meantime, if you should happen upon a donkey/Osborne hybrid during your Internet travels, please let me know. 

The starting afresh. The newness and the 'knowing-without-knowing'. Familiarity partnered by strangeness, like an awkward reacquaintance, after years of separation. In these moments of stumbling uncertainty there is a comfort - a reassurance that has been honed and polished by many years of having to find a way through uncharted territory, even though this 'land' is my own, and of my own making. Indulgence, some might say. Necessity, others. Either way, it matters little - the deed must be done; the marks must be made, the words written, or uttered. That is simply the nature of it. The words are on the surface. Committed. Ever was it thus. And so it continues........

The waiting. All the while. Waiting. So much time has passed; gone. It wasn't worth it. I'll keep watch.

• Wait
• Watch

An Affective Document of Performance, Made Throughout OUI#1 - A Durational Performance Held on 13th November 2010 at Barlane Studios, York, UK

Physical pain; physical deterioration, the possibility and certainty of duration, A yellow liquid, urine, but not urine, transferred from one bowl to another; a man claps, a man claps, a man claps, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap…….Repeatedly you will genuflect; rise; and repeat; your pain is palpable; pain. Another man claps – is he a rebel? Or a conformist, or is he a red bull – is he regurgitating Red Bull? Red Bull=Rebel=Red Bull=rebel=redbull=Rebel=Red Bull=rebel; one vessel (One Vessel) drained, one vessel filled; to the point of overflowing; cascade; a steady trickle (piss); you are a vessel of transference – a receptacle; A man urinates (piss) against a board and uses a tee-shirt to mop up his own urine (t-shirt);

Meditative

Rebel Rebel – your face is a mess; Every me and every you – songtitles might aptly be the measure of a life; 

Can I join in? Can I join in?

Redundancy of labour; wasted effort; dysfunctional labour; and back again – vessel to vessel; labour intensive;

Labour – the act of giving birth – the ultimate labour; that which imagines a life; that which produces outside of a cheap fiscal judgement (system); beyond price;

A wall that is not a wall; a wall that is not; a divide; a division; a division of means – a socially divisive device; a device to divide; division; social division; (anti-social) that which cannot be breached; that which cannot be reached – you who cannot be reached; beyond reach; beyond connection; out of touch.

Bound; an arm bound; and unbound; binding and unbinding; (bonds) all that I have seen; all that I have not seen; all that I have not (seen) – scene;

Binding and unbinding; binding; unbinding; bound by convention and unbound; boundless; that which is; that which is; that which is not;

That which is not (is);

Lucky rabbit; dead rabbit; lucky dice; furry dice; rabbit without fur – naked and eviscerated – One bowl emptied and one bowl filling up; one empty; one full – temporarily; one being emptied, one being filled – in the process of emptying and filling (process)

A bowl of milk; a coffee; Bound arm; bathed milk; a balm; soothed but with no comfort

(no relief)

The milk is spilt – there’s no point in crying over it; what’s done is done; there is no point in regretting what has passed; the past is done; the past cannot be changed (the past is a lie) I cannot change what has been done; neither can you – we are all products of the past; the future is not known and the present only exists when it is already done; the present does not exist; 

Polish your shoes; polish your shoes – is it school tomorrow?

A wall that moves and wobbles – an imperfect wall; a wall not fit for purpose; (wall)

Put whisky in your shoes – will it make them shine? 

Trousers off; shirt off; t-shirt off; are those shoes shining yet? Put on your whisky shoes; put on your shoes;

put on your piss t-shirt;

Keep filling the bowl until it overflows; keep filling the bowl; badly done DIY;

Please keep swinging that t-shirt (keep swinging) a different one; black this time and not white and piss-soaked (piss); Lemons; boots and shoeboxes; Strings and threads; walk around; walkabout; walk the walk but don’t talk the talk; Smash a stool and make a banner-stand; Harold Pinter – The Caretaker – has care been taken? Whose duty would it be to care? – who fucking cares? Who fucking cares?

Shadows and lights – reproductions and copies; in focus and out of focus (focus)(focus);

Redundancy;

Children – what are they making of this? – this pointlessness; this redundant labour?

The Caretaker – take good care, my friend – always take good care; take care of that which needs to be taken care of; always; what are those things that need to be taken care of? – how is that decided; how does one decide? I don’t care; I don’t fucking care – nobody fucking cares; Rabbit skinned; rabbit-skin glue; rabbit come unstuck; unstuck; you have come unglued; unhinged; you are a loose cannon – a fucking liability; liability; lie-ability; able to lie; you are a fucking liar; able; capable; a capable liar; culpable; a culpable liar; we are all fucking culpable, we are all responsible; for our actions and for our words;

Rabbit – man; man – rabbit 

man = rabbit ; rabbit = man

man|-----pole-----|rabbit|(wall)

clearing up the pieces – picking up the bits; tying up the loose ends;

Swinging the lead (keep swinging)(boys)(and girls); swinging a dead cat; swinging a t-shirt.

A stag; caught in the light; a photograph of a stag, stapled to a piece of wood and held in the beam of a projector.

Let it shine; let it shine on; let it shine on; shine on; stag; shine on – moon; moon-stag.

Caught in the glare; caught in the light;

Bone, a piece of bone; a scapula; a shoulder blade (bone); A board with nothing on it; held aloft; like a banner; display; a display; proclaiming something and nothing (nothing);

Converse; Allstars;

The converse; spit and bile spit and whisky; let it all out; letting it all out; physically degraded and mentally focussed;

A false wall; falsity (=);

You write; I write;

whisky and spit; more spit than whisky; what is done and what is not done; that which is liked and that which is unliked;

That which is liked;

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Castor – spin; castor spin; castor spin; spin; spin; spin spin sugar – caster-sugar; castor, sugar; (sweet)

Eyes covered and trembling – with fear? with excitement? with anticipation – pants around your ankles; gaffer-taped eyes – that which can be seen and that which cannot be seen (seen); a woman drinks juice – slurping loudly;

Furry dice tied to your cock – lucky?

Trembling hands carrying a bowl of an unknown liquid mixed with saliva – it looks like urine; walkaround walk around; walker round; walk – a – round walker round this cool damp space; these dice may bring no good fortune – empty totems hanging like a sad scrotum in this cold air (scrotum)

rabbit cold and naked is hung on a nail driven into a wall – already there; conveniently driven; a repository, a resting place, a convenient perch.

Wood and ribbon; ribbon and wood – percussive clatter on bare tiles. It’s all bared; bare-arsed and open onto the world; clatter, bang, clatter, bang; keep turning the castor; keep turning the wood;

muscle rub; embrocation; deep-heat – feeling the heat; smell the liniment, smell the ointment; smell the coffee; spit in the soup (wake up) – 

red ribbon; wound and unwound

red ribbon – a wound

wound = wound;

a biscuit up the arse – with a bite out of it; audience participation; an invitation, of a sort; (digestive) (alimentary);

candle and red binding; but not bound together in the same person (bound, separate);

Dead rabbit procession; finding balance; a hand also bound in red ribbon; bound and unbound (wound and unwound);

rabbit – man ; man – rabbit 

(wall)|rabbit|------pole------|man

rabbit

    |

    |

 pole

    |

    |

  man 

 (floor)

Fork ; red-ribbon-bound-hand; fork; red ribbon; fork; red ribbon whisky and shoes, shoes and whisky; knife and lemon; lemon squeezed into shoes; lemon shoes (squeezed)(tight);

whisky on shoes; whisky shoes; that will not burn (burn);

whisky shoes – that will not burn;

whisky = shoes

candlelight; rabbit; rabbit; candlelight; 

Totem; photographs; images; shoe burn rabbit; burn; burn;

whisky; spit – dribbles down your totem-pole; dribbles under your shoe; candle wax; dripped onto printed images; printed image; the re-presentation of the re-presented;

burn marks on the non-wall; wall that is no wall (wall); whisky and spit passed from one mouth to another – an alcoholic blowback;

spit and whisky; whisky and spit – a banner and a stool inadvertently fall; a binding becomes tighter and looser; undesigned and unchoreographed;

green hands; green feet; red shoes red ribbon – bound and unbound; a totem and shoe – leaned casually against a wall; proximal; proximity; close in space.

Dysfunctional labour; ways of thinking about and relating through art; (fart)

a man with a stool on his arm walking the floor on all fours.

A red-ribbon – wound and knotted and un-knotted and wound and bound; a wound – shared and unbound between two people;

drawing with urine – urine drawings; finely traced (piss) 

Four legs of a stool; placed into holes punched in a wall with a claw hammer;

echoes of a ‘ghost’ playing repeatedly; strapped to a left leg; (a ghost on the left)

A piss-soaked t-shirt (urine) – lovingly treasured and held like a child on a left shoulder; wash your feet with whisky; ghost; ghost; ghost; ghost; ghost; ghost; ghost…………………………………the word is and isn’t; is both ghost and is not – trace and re-presented thing that speaks of ghost and is a ghost of a former incarnation and presence

 – a re-presenting (in this space); 

a lucky black cat; or an unlucky one? loving; cosseting, loving t-shirt (piss); loving the ghost knocking on the wall; let the ghost in;

dressing; undressing; dressing; undressing; dressing; undressing;

loving some dead thing – like a stillborn child clutched to a shoulder (a ghost on the left); knocking; knocking; knocking – is there anybody there? – OUI, JA; no – there is nobody;

pleat; unpleat; repeat; dress and undress; ritual; ritual; ritual; ritual; ritual; ritual; ritual; repeat; there are no ghosts here; only the ghosts of a previous incarnation; ghost; ghost; - a ghost; a ghost; a ghost; aghast; aghast; aghast at a ghost (ghost)

possibility of performance; certainty of duration; possibility; certainty; keep knocking, but you can(‘t) come in; see – you’re already here; already present; arrived; present and correct; (pre-sent); a ghost; recognised and familiar; you are here; I am here; haunting; familiarity; known and unknown; knowing and unknowing; know and unknow; dress and undress; ghost; ghost; ghost; ghost; ghost; welcome and unwelcome; sleeping, walking, sleepwalking; dressing and undressing; rabbit dressed as dead baby; stillborn? (still born) binding and unbinding in red ribbon – head bound; head unbound (headlong) bound; unbound; skin cleaned with cut fruit; split apple caressing skin and removing colour (duty of care); lemon juice drizzled on skin, this colour cannot be removed, green stain (remnant); no more ghosts; dissipated into the night; gone from whence they came – audible apparition; wash feet with whisky; this stain will not be removed (residue); wound and unwound, bound and unbound, boundless, unboundaried, boundaried; all bound (bound)

columns – columns make up a body, a print of columns, an image which might make up a body; a body of columns (support)

DRAMAINVOLVINGAROPE

rebel rebel; rebel rebel; rebel rebel……………………………………………………………………………………............................

two pieces of wood are clattered together – re-visiting the past – recent and long ago – your face is a mess; rebel rebel – you’ve torn your dress; to untangle and to tangle; to tangle; to re-tangle; to untangle (tangled);

rebel, rebel – your face is a mess (you’ve come undone)

rebel rebel, red bull red bull, you’ve drunk too much; red bull red bull, you look pretty fucked; stress makes people smoke more; I don’t smoke; smoking is an unhealthy habit – it is not a ‘bad habit’ – there are no bad habits; in fact, smoking is a pretty good one – it’s habit forming fairly easily, in a compulsive way (addict)(add.); my habits are my own fucking business – I don’t ask for yours; you don’t need to ask for mine; a photograph is stapled to a piece of wood, these totems are amassing; screensaver – everyday life is a screensaver for when the real stuff begins; no projection – the projection has left with the ghosts; no ghosts, no projection; goodbye to the rebel; goodbye to the rebels; goodbye to the ghosts; (ghost);

knife; microphone; knife-edge; a trembling body – trembling with exertion; there was something I wanted to tell you; it was funny – but not anymore; covering yourself with boot polish will not help you to blend in socially;

the shape of things to come

Walker’s Bitter

If you are short of ideas, a glass of Romanoff will stimulate your imagination

Lucky dice; furry dice – hang them in your windscreen; hang them from your washing line……(hang them from your cock)(hang them from someone else’s cock); it’s all the fucking same to me;

Joules’ Bitter

(bitter)

nailing photographs / postcards to the ceiling; a lull (hiatus)

equivalence between a head bound in string and a ball of string – if a head exists inside a ball of string then does a ball of string exist inside a head?

dead-rabbit; dead-rabbit wrapped in piss-soaked t-shirt (urine) and immersed in yellow liquid and saliva; placed in a bowl; wall that is not a wall; disappearing behind a wall that is not a wall; carrying totems; carrying charms; bearing and forbearance; winding and unwinding; binding and unbinding;

to crawl; to crawl and hold your head; pacing; pacing and carrying totems (charms); walking – Walker – walking – a walker; pacing and circumscribing the space; to sit and pause to reflect; to think; to decide on next moves; to consider the next action; to wait and to be unsure, but to wait, anyway, for the thing that might happen next; or might not – but something surely will; to get up and walk away – walker – a walker;

welcome; welcome and unwelcome; welcome to this space; leave when you will; leave and walk away; balance – all a question of balance and unbalance; finding a balance in this space; finding space in which to balance; to present a dead rabbit in a golden liquid; wrapped in a piss-stained t-shirt (urine); to be wrapped in red ribbon – bound and unbound; a spring-link (link) a karabiner (link) a spring-hitch (link); click and click – open and close; punctuation (possibility|impossibility); that which is; that which is not; that which is this;

backwards; unravelling; backwards – re-visiting; backwards; (measured)

Marx; Marx; Marx; Marx; Mark’s; Marx?

Marx English; Marx Jewish; Marx Victoria; Marx wolf; wolf; Wolfe; wolves; Marx wolves; keeping the Virginia from the door; your arm is tiring and your muscles are trembling; balance; it’s all about balance; tethered and untethered a bone scrapes the floor as a red ribbon is paraded your arm is tired; and there are ghosts – Virginia’s ghost; red ribbon and scraping bone; your arm is tired; a quiet ghost, a gentle haunting; bone on floor; your arm is tired; ghost; ghost; ghost; ghost; unravelling backwards; back in time; (ghost); back through time; (ghost); bone on floor; (ghost); your arm is tired; time; your arm is tired; ghost; ghost, ghost; (arm); ghost; your arm is tired; ghost; ghost, ghost; no more.

http://www.ouiperformance.org.uk/

Artists: Judit Bodor; Victoria Gray; Mark Greenwood; Justin McKeown; Kiki Taira; Nathan Walker.

 

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