Digital traces

Anyone that knew me while I was studying my MA would know that documentation is a hot topic for me. I think it's because, personally, it extends beyond performance; documentation of live art represents the same debates that we have around documenting our own lives. We take photos, we write diaries (or blogs), we film things - all in a bid to capture the traces of life that we will never re-live or experience again. In many ways, I think documentation reminds us of how precious and fragile the passing of time is, and also how we frame these documents in order to remember the past times and to echo some kind of rememberance in the face of our mortality.

I have to say that I am a terrible documenter. And I think sometimes this is through choice. The reason being that occasionally I think life is meant to be lived in this manner, with only memories left at the end rather than bits and pieces of paper and film and photo. However, some nights I panic. I panic and I think about ll the ordinary, average days that I can't remember and have faded into oblivion and I want to reclaim all of them. I want to be able to recall any given date at any given time and yet my memory fails me. I just have flashes of things that seemed so poignant and alive at the time. I am saddened by the limited capacity of the brain and wonder what happens to all those lost days.

Recently, I went to the end of my sent e-mails and they started in 2002. I re-read a few choice ones and I laughed - remembering that day I thought I had forgotten, but was stored somewhere in my cranium. And then suddenly I thought about all the tweets I'd ever made, or comments on Facebook, or on threads on internet forums and I thought about all of our digital traces embedded in the internet. It's like we all have an ethereal digital soul floating around in the binary world and yet, if technology keeps up to date with the ability to archive this, it seems a bit more concrete and solid than the memories that pass us by.

Whether we like it or not, we're all scattering our digital traces through the world every day and, by default, it seems a more consistent way of documenting one's life than any other.

Contractual obligations

For some reason, when I have been talking with other artists recently, the subject of audience participation has come up quite frequently. I always think participation is a delicate issue and, as an artist, one has to negotiate this by an implicit contract before the audience members enter the space.

Firstly, do the audience know what they're getting into? If the answer is no, the participation becomes a difficult task. It may, at times, be forced, abrasive and unwanted for some members of the audience who want to be 'passive'. In fact, would they even visit the event if they knew participation was involved? The more informed they are, the more enthusiastic - and less surprised - they will be by participation.

Secondly, is it clear what they have to do? If it isn't, or if it is too complex, the audience are going to be hostile towards participating. Keeping actions limited to clear, concise interactions lessens the personal risk factor of involvement.

Thirdly, are the audience safe in your hands? An audience needs to be reassured they won't be the victim of ridicule or rejection if they participate, so open, encouraging approaches are much better than fixed ideas and gestures aimed to victimise the audience.

The house where the universe ended

I've recently developed a bizarre interest in quantum physics, largely because it is a science that seems to explain how we still know relatively little about this universe. I mean stuff we can actually touch or see only accounts for 0.4% of the total stuff that makes up 'space'. And we don't know this because we can see the particles of this 'other' matter. We know it because of the effect it has on the matter we can see.

Anyway, as a consequence I've recently been researching the ultimate fate of the universe and there are three ways that we could go. The one I found most interesting was 'heat death'. It is the theory that everything in this universe will eventually die – every planet and every star will in billions of billions of years eventually die out leaving a 'dead universe'. What I found so fascinating about this idea is that it is so... Comforting. That there is a shared fate for everyone and everything regardless of how big you are or how much energy, or even how long you exist for.

But don't let it start you on a depressive spiral about how futile everything is. Instead, I really find it's something that should be embraced. Live, do what you have to do and know that no matter how many books you write, songs you sing or pieces you paint, one day they'll be part of a world of lost knowledge. Then breathe a sigh of relief, and stop being so hard on yourself.

Pleasure and Pain

A student e-mailed me the other day with some questions about my artistic practice, which is always really great in the way that I could talk about myself and what I do forever, but it's always better when someone invites that dialogue. Anyway, one of the questions was about live art and why people would choose to cut themselves under the bracket of 'performance art' and defy natural instincts of not cutting oneself.

Before I go any further, I wouldn't like to say I am advocating self-harm. I have never judged anyone for their desire to self-express inside or outside of the context of 'art', BUT I proposed those artists who are actively engaged with pain do so because the aesthetic of performance art lies within this dilemma. Live art's aesthetic lies in that relationship between pleasure and pain in order to achieve beauty.

My conclusion was "To bring it to a more down to earth everyday level, when you really love someone it is the best feeling in the world and yet it hurts so much at the same time. That is what true beauty is all about - feeling pleasure and pain simultaneously."

For some reason these words came back to haunt me tonight when I listened to 'Summer In Siam' by The Pogues. It is a song that reminds me of someone I loved. It is a song that reminds me of falling in love on a warm summer's day. And yet the lyrics simply state "When it's summer in Siam, then all I really know is that I truly am in the summer in Siam." It makes my heart ache because of the simplicity of the words mixed with the memories.

I have avoided listening to this song for such a long time until tonight. And I felt it: it was a small reminder of what love is, what beauty is. An indescribable joy mixed with a pointed melancholy. The pleasure that seems to fill you with mindfulness, with wanting to be right there in that moment, and yet seems to ache only in your heart.

Money by Shunt

I had no idea what to expect, but judging by a few reviews, I was afraid I was going to be disappointed, especially after David Rosenberg's triumph, 'Contains Violence' at the Hammersmith Lyric last year.

However, they managed to pull off an immersive theatre experience that didn't make you, the audience, feel as though you were forced to participate but co-erced you enough to be exhilirating. My prescription? Go and see it. I attempted to explain it but I am still on a come down after watching it. It's scary and exciting in one breath, and contains a lot of relevance in a post-credit crunch society

I met Anna Friel and I felt like an extreme communist

So, by the grace of my job, I do get to go to some wonderful events. Yesterday, I was at the announcement of the stage play of Breakfast At Tiffany's which will have Anna Friel in the leading role of Holly GoLightly.

A couple of Chambord and champagne cocktails and all was going well, until they started the speeches. And I suddenly felt like a communist who'd walked into the plans for Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch.

Now, okay, I'm willing to admit some snobbery on my part, but when you hear people who more or less control the theatre world proving how little they really know about the genre as a whole, and leading on from that how the majority of people are being spoon fed shit from idiots, then it really starts to get your goat.

Speaker number one comes up- the co-producer.

"... and yes, it was me who first put Beckett in the West End, proving that something obscure and contemporary can be appreciated."

Oh yeah... Really? Obscure? The play of which a film was made starring Peter O' Toole?

The play which launched and inspired hundreds upon hundreds of of wonderful cutting edge theatre?

The play that's on curriculum's everywhere?

The play by one of the most famous Irish playwrights of the last centruy?

The play that's over fucking 50 years old? Contemporary?

At this point, I was midly miffed, and wanted to scream at him, "Why not put on 'Blasted' by Sarah Kane and really challenge people to fucking think, you tosser."

But it didn't end there. The writer comes up to speak and says:

"It's an adaptation of the book..."

Right. So no Hollywood ending.

"And as iconic as the film is, we just wanted it to be something different."

Right. So no Hollywood ending.

"And what we want to stress is this is a different entity taken from the book that Capote wrote."

OKAY JEEZ FOR FUCK'S SAKE! We get it- there's no Hollywood ending. Just say to people, "Sorry- there's no teary ending where George Pepard runs off with Audrey Hepburn."

Except, I look around the room at all these gleeful, expectant faces who have absolutely no fucking clue, because no-one's bothered to read it in their lives and I have this niggling thing at the back of my head that knows they'll watch it and be disappointed. Well no- they won't- they'll shell out £40 for their seats and be placated by brainless crap.

"The musical crowd aren't going to be happy because there's only a few songs in it..."

A few? A few? Hell, we all remember Moon River, but when the fuck did Holly GoLightly start singing and dancing around? I think they're getting confused with that other movie that Audrey Hepburn was in.

"..but hopefully people will respect its intelligent" Burn in hell

"...witty..." I really, really want to ask you some challenging questions on theatre right now but I'll keep quiet

"intelligent storyline" You've already said intelligent you brainless fuck

Okay, I am miffed because the area of performance I work in is very niche, but its establishments and institutions like these that make it impossible for live art to thrive. If people could make more informed decisions on what they wanted to see instead of being told 'what theatre is' then I'm sure it would lead to a livelier artistic community with increased diversity.

I'm not trying to be a snob... what annoys me is that these people control the theatre world. They control the money and they control what people see. West End theatre is not really art- it's rehashed ideas with a lot of money behind them. And the sad thing is it continues to be a world of safe bets where no one is challenged.

Added to this, I'm surprised more people aren't angry that they're being treated like a nation of idiots. A nation that can't handle anything too risky or upsetting. And to me it's an insult to our collective intelligence. If people remain unchallenged, things remain the same. How can we ever evolve the arts scene if we're just producing the same stuff en masse?

Something really needs to change.

Next phase...

I think there's a phase in every emerging performance artist's life where they wonder "After this, what next?".

It's such an interesting question- Mainly because I believe that the 'what next' is the default mode of an artist. One of my heroes, Paul Draper, once said that "nothing is ever finished- you're just happy to abandon it at a certain point." And this is true. While there are the perfectionists out there, I find that I work better with pressure and deadlines- there's more importance for the piece to happen. And yet, at some point it has to be left... otherwise you'd end up doing the same piece forever.

Another one of my favourite artists, Laurie Anderson, said that no-one is ever bad at what they love to do. And that's a thought to keep you going through all your artistic self doubt