AND YOU WERE WONDERFUL, ON STAGE

A few weeks ago I participated in a workshop for this forthcoming performance, at Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge.

The work is currently being performed in New York and I hope to join the chorus for the London edition at the Tate in the new year.

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PERFORMA 13

CALLY SPOONER
AND YOU WERE WONDERFUL, ON STAGE

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Friday, November 8, 6:30 pm and 8:30 pm
Saturday, November 9, 6:30 pm and 8:30 pm
Sunday, November 10, 6:30 pm

National Academy Museum, New York

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MOTINTERNATIONAL London and Brussels are delighted to announce Cally Spooner's most ambitious production to date: "And You Were Wonderful, On Stage", a new Musical presented by Performa 13, in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and Tate Modern, London.

"And You Were Wonderful, On Stage" is a musical for an a cappella Chorus Line, relocated from the margins of the musical form, to take on a splintered lead role.

Spooner draws on the genre of the Broadway Musical to articulate the constructed mechanics of behaviour and a loss of live delivery in contemporary life. Teetering between moments of comedy and tragedy, the production is structured as a series of prologues and overtures, as the Chorus Line ruminate on fallen idols and dashed dreams, channelling distorted media feeds from current affairs. Prominent figures who have stumbled at a moment of liveness or authenticity, appear abstracted and episodically; Beyonce’s lip-syncing at Obama’s inauguration, Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal and public apology, and more besides, become dramatic public moments of standardization or mechanisation. Spooner sets up an interplay between the elegant, authoritative permanence of the National Academy’s architecture, and the ephemeral movement of songs, bodies, and conversations, asking ‘what it takes’ to become, and remain, visible. As the performance continues, the light, gossipy phrases become infected by an emerging language of “high performance” PR speak, which reaches toward sameness and automation, leading the performance to its climactic, spectacular finale.

"And You Were Wonderful, On Stage" is a Performa Premiere, curated by Charles Aubin and Laura McLean-Ferris.

The project is evolving and itinerant, with musical composition by Peter Joslyn and a core ensemble of singers who have been collectively developing the piece with the artist. The preliminary structure was commissioned and produced by the Stedelijk Museum, curated by Annie Godfrey Larmon with Hendrik Folkerts, and will evolve at and tour to Tate Modern in January 2014.

With very special thanks to Annie Godfrey Larmon and Wysing Arts Centre.

Supported by MOTINTERNATIONAL

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Cally Spooner (1983; Ascot, UK) is an artist based in London.

Using theory and philosophers as alibis to help her write, and casts of arguing characters to help her perform, she produces plotless novellas, disjunctive theatre plays, looping monologues and musical arrangements to stage the movement and behavior of speech.

Spooner’s productions have been presented at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunsthal Charlottenburg, Copenhagen; KW Institute, Berlin; Wysing Art Centre, UK; Jeu De Paume, Paris; Serpentine Gallery, London. She is represented by MOTINTERNATIONAL

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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Recent Readings

so you want to invent your own currency...
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/so-you-want-to-invent-your-own-currency/

Belief systems

Faith and understanding

Nicolas Jaar & Joshua Light Show @ The Barbican

MEGA.

The Source Family

The Weather Underground

VINCENT FOURNIER: Unnatural History

“These creatures are coming from the future. An imagined future caught between memory and projection, and based on current research regarding synthetic biology,” explains photographer Vincent Fournier, of his new publication Post Natural History.

MONITOR LIZARD [Varanus imitabilis] Mimetic lizard

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At first glance, the book is simply a collection of beautiful photography in the style of natural history documentation, but hidden in Fournier’s images of insects and jellyfish are a series of genetic quirks – the glass body of a dragonfly, adapted to detect volatile inorganics, the strands of a jellyfish, able to function as a data transmitter, and the colour-adaptive scales of a climate-tolerant pangolin.

“The viewer is not certain whether these species are real or not, or even when and how they were made” Fournier explains, “to me it is important that the species themselves are objects of beauty, with the reasoning of the transformation being uncertain.”

The book borrows from the style of traditional scientific illustrations, but portrays creatures taken from an unspecified point in the future, when genetic modification has played a hand in evolution, evoking an unsettled feeling that these creatures are at once real and unreal.

“These living species have been re-programmed by mankind to better fit our environment, as well as to adapt to human desires,” Fournier says, “it’s important to me that my stories are based on science, so that they can potentially be true. I like to play with the idea of a true/false archive, like in some Jorge Louis Borges novels, with several levels of reality.”

As well as borrowing from the displaced reality of Borges stories, Fournier turned to the Muséum National d’Histoires Naturelles in Paris, in particular, for real-life inspiration. He met with a synthetic biologist to explore the ways species could evolve in line with our current technology and changing environment, ensuring that all his modified species retained a tentative basis in reality.

“I was interested in the idea of exaggerating the present in order to create speculative fiction,” he says, “these hybrid creatures are also inspired from the refined and particular style of the encyclopedic board.”

Fournier describes science as a ‘link between the visible and invisible world’, and it’s this link he’s teased out in his Post Natural History project. The creatures function as a bridge between the world of imagination and the complex possibilities of genetic manipulation.

“I found in science the material to imagine possible fictions and generate a collective psyche. It is the imaginary and dream side of science that I am interested in, its fictional and extraordinary potential.”

http://postmatter.com/#/currents/unnatural-history/

Detroit

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rkm3y/Requiem_for_Detroit/

Julien Temple's documentary is a vivid evocation of an apocalyptic vision - a slow-motion Katrina that has had many more victims.

Detroit was once America's fourth largest city. Built by the car for the car, with its groundbreaking suburbs, freeways and shopping centres, it was the embodiment of the American dream. But its intense race riots brought the army into the city. With violent union struggles against the fierce resistance of Henry Ford and the Big Three, it was also the scene of American nightmares.

Now it is truly a dystopic post-industrial city, in which 40 per cent of the land in the centre is returning to prairie. Greenery grows up through abandoned office blocks, houses and collapsing car plants, and swallows up street lights.

Police stations and post offices have been left with papers on the desks like the Marie Celeste. There is no more rush hour on what were the first freeways in America. Crime, vandalism, arson and dog fighting are the main activities in once the largest building in North America. But it's also a source of hope.

Streets are being turned to art. Farming is coming back to the centre of the city. Young people are flocking to help. The burgeoning urban agricultural movement is the fastest growing movement in the US. Detroit leads the way again but in a very different direction. 

Seen: Renzo Martens, Episode 3

Marshall Mcluhan Full lecture: The medium is the message - 1977

From Beyond the Coming Age of Networked Matter

http://www.iftf.org/fanfutures/sterling

http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/th/IFTF_SR-1590C__AnAuraOfFamiliarity.pdf

OPEN HOUSE - Matthew Mazzotta 2013

Visited: Sounding The Body Electric @ Calvert 22

Sounding The Body Electric: Experiments in Art and Music in Eastern Europe 1957–1984 is an exhibition on the first experimental approaches to sound and image in Eastern Europe during the 60s and the decades that followed, featuring artworks and recordings by Fluxus artist Milan Knižák, plus works by Sots-Artists Komar & Melamid, Hungarian artist Dóra Maurer and composer Zoltán Jeney.

In the aftermath of Stalinism, composers and artists in Eastern Europe were given new opportunities to experiment. New recording studios equipped with magnetic tape recorders and, later, synthesisers were established, first in Warsaw in 1957 and then throughout Eastern Europe. New and often challenging forms of music were produced in these laboratories of sound.

The connections between the visual arts and experimental music were closer in the 1960s than perhaps any time before or since. Sound and image combined in artists’ films, ‘happenings’ and sounding installations. Experimental forms of notation were also created to stimulate uninhibited musical expression.

The early happenings and actions of the 1960s were associated with intellectual freedom and reform. The exhilaration of experimentation declined during the decade and in the 1970s new critical forms of art emerged which associated sound with surveillance and censorship.

This exhibition explores both the optimism and the anxiety that was to be found in the experimental zone of art and music.

Curated by David Crowley and Daniel Muzyczuk

Artists: Walerian Borowczyk, Collective Actions, Andrzej Dłużniewski, Szábolcs Esztényi, Bulat Galeyev, Milan Grygar, Zofia & Oskar Hansen, Zoltán Jeney, Milan Knížák, Grzegorz Kowalski, Zygmunt Krauze, Komar & Melamid, Katalin Ladik, Jan Lenica, Dóra Maurer, Henryk Morel, Vladan Radovanović, Józef Robakowski, Eugeniusz Rudnik, Bogusław Schaeffer,Cezary Szubartowski, László Vidovszky, Krzysztof Wodiczko

http://calvert22.org/exhibitions/show/955/sounding-the-body-electric-experiments-in-art-and-music-in-eastern-europe-1

Seen: The Act of Killing

Incredible film.

'War crimes' are defined by the winners.

Protest By Way Of Marketing

http://www.dezeen.com/2013/07/27/opinion-sam-jacob-protest-through-media-and-marketing/

"I'd argue that the fact that there seems to be no single point is the point. The act and the subject of these protests have become delaminated. It's as though any subject can be attributed to any act, and the interchangeable relationship between the sign and signified makes it a postmodern form of protest. Doubly so, because the shifting arrangements of form and content take place within the media - in the representation of the act, not the act in and of itself. It's protest by way of marketing, PRotest, to coin a phrase. The worry is that by operating as a form of marketing, this kind of protest only serves to reinforce the mechanisms of contemporary society, only makes us more alienated, further from a position where we might be able to achieve anything.

Perhaps this kind of non-specific protest is a function of our own era. Maybe it's just harder to pinpoint what exactly is wrong because, quite frankly, everything is kind of wrong and there's nothing anyone can do about it." 

Bruce!

Capitalist realism

continued from 'Monoculture'...

The term next appeared in 2009 with the publication of Mark Fisher's book, Capitalist Realism. Is There No Alternative?Fisher argues that the term "capitalist realism" best describes the current global political situation. His argument is a response to, and critique of, neo-liberalism and new forms of government which apply the logic of capitalism and the market to all aspects of governance.

As a philosophical concept capitalist realism is indebted to an Althusserian conception of ideology. Fisher proposes that within a capitalist framework there is no space to conceive of alternative forms of social structures. He proposes that the 2008 financial crisis compounded this position; rather than seeking alternates to the existing model we look for modifications within the system. The crash confirmed within the populace the necessity of capitalism rather than shake it loose from its foundations.

"Capitalist realism as I understand it cannot be confined to art or to the quasi-propagandistic way in which advertising functions. It is more like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action."^[6]

Toril Johannessen

http://www.toriljohannessen.no/

IAIN BAXTER& / Adam Chodzko @ Raven Row

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.E._Thing_Co.

http://www.barnism.com/2009/12/15/n-e-thing-co/

http://www.ravenrow.org/current/

Massive Attack V Adam Curtis

Wish I'd seen it!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jul/07/adam-curtis-massive-attack-review

Francis Alÿs: Guards

Francis Alÿs: Guards (2004-5)

Available to watch in full until the end of Armed Forces Week, 24 - 29 June 2013

Guards
Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Rafael Ortega and Artangel

64 Coldstream guards walk separately in the City of London, unaware of one another’s route. The guards wander through the City looking for one another. Upon meeting, they fall into step and march together. When a square measuring 8 by 8 guards is built, the complete formation marches towards the closest bridge. As they step on to the bridge, the guards break step and disperse. These instructions form the basis of the film.

Brazil

SO GOOD.

DIVERSITY

Of thought

Of living

Of culture

Of rituals

Of actions

Of imagination

Of futures

Of realities

Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything

F S Michaels 

"A monoculture doesn’t mean that everyone believes exactly the same thing or acts in exactly the same way, but that we end up sharing key beliefs and assumptions that direct our lives. Because a monoculture is mostly left unarticulated until it has been displaced years later, we learn its boundaries by trial and error. We somehow come to know how the master story goes, though no one tells us exactly what the story is or what its rules are. We develop a strong sense of what’s expected of us at work, in our families and communities — even if we sometimes choose not to meet those expectations. We usually don’t ask ourselves where those expectations came from in the first place. They just exist — or they do until we find ourselves wishing things were different somehow, though we can’t say exactly what we would change, or how.” ~ F. S. Michaels"

"The independent life begins with discovering what it means to live alongside the monoculture, given your particular circumstances, in your particular life and time, which will not be duplicated for anyone else. Out of your own struggle to live an independent life, a parallel structure may eventually be birthed. But the development and visibility of that parallel structure is not the goal — the goal is to live many stories, within a wider spectrum of human values.” ~ F. S. Michaels

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/09/02/monoculture-michaels/

“Legislators don’t appreciate that if players introduce novelties into their games, they’ll become different people. Being different, they’ll demand a different kind of life; and that will make them want new institutions and laws. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that the game inventor is biggest menace that can ever afflict a state.” – Plato

http://www.classwargames.net

Open-source Architecture

Down with design elitism - power to the people!

Janet Cardiff Forty Part Motet

The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of “Spem in Alium” by Thomas Tallis 1573)

Forty separately recorded voices are played back through forty speakers strategically placed throughout the space.

Comments by the artist: 
"While listening to a concert you are normally seated in front of the choir, in traditional audience position. With this piece I want the audience to be able to experience a piece of music from the viewpoint of the singers. Every performer hears a unique mix of the piece of music. Enabling the audience to move throughout the space allows them to be intimately connected with the voices. It also reveals the piece of music as a changing construct. As well I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.

I placed the speakers around the room in an oval so that the listener would be able to really feel the sculptural construction of the piece by Tallis. You can hear the sound move from one choir to another, jumping back and forth, echoing each other and then experience the overwhelming feeling as the sound waves hit you when all of the singers are singing.”

Miranda July on Strangers

Miranda July on Strangers from The School of Life on Vimeo.

Stop looking after No. 1

When Britain stops blaming itself, it can overthrow the existing order

A depressed, introverted 'look after No 1' mentality has ruled for 30 years. But a poll shows we may be ready for radical change

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/16/britain-stop-blaming-itself

Open Air / Artangel

Trippy Radio 4. Christian Marclay

Kids and politics. Ruth Ewan

More Radio 4 Sound art. Peter Strickland

J.B. Ballard

In many respects this fusion of past and present experiences, and of such disparate elements as the modern office buildings of central London and an alligator in a Chinese zoo, resembles the mechanisms by which dreams are constructed, and perhaps the great value of fantasy as a literary form is its ability to bring together apparently unconnected and dissimilar ideas. To a large extent all fantasy serves this purpose, but I believe that speculative fantasy, as I prefer to call the more serious fringe of science fiction, is an especially potent method of using one's imagination to construct a paradoxical universe where dream and reality become fused together, each retaining its own distinctive quality and yet in some way assuming the role of its opposite, and where by an undeniable logic black simultaneously becomes white.

Without in any way suggesting that the act of writing is a form of creative self-analysis, I feel that the writer of fantasy has a marked tendency to select images and ideas which directly reflect the internal landscapes of his mind, and the reader of fantasy must interpret them on this level, distinguishing between the manifest content, which may seem obscure, meaningless or nightmarish, and the latent content, the private vocabulary of symbols drawn by the narrative from the writer's mind. The dream worlds, synthetic landscapes and plasticity of visual forms invented by the writer of fantasy are external equivalents of the inner world of the psyche, and because these symbols take their impetus from the most formative and confused periods of our lives they are often time-sculptures of terrifying ambiguity.

Richard Wentworth