I am molto perplexed by the current weather system. This in part because for the first stretch of it I was in Victoria and following what was happening up on the North of Vancouver Island. I have yet to entirely understand which way the system has gone since. I thought I was reckoning on it, and then today — what the heck ? Somehow someone turned on the sunshine. Er? I am still dipped in the green indicators on the map of epic precipitation.
See the weather requires adept daily study. You cannot assume you’ve got your eye on it, you literally need to be necking with a barometer three times a day. I am dissatisfied with my level of study. Plus things remain dubious on the swimming front. But I was watching a most uplifting sight! A bunch of women over 60+ who swim each day in some frosty coastal spot in Ireland. And only an ordinary swimsuit on them! Mna na h’E appear to be furlined against the deep freeze. There’s me with my swimming jumper heading into the indoor pool. I even wear it in the hot tub. Clearly I need new feathers.
In Victoria as of Oct. 3, 2010 they are introducing two seperate postal boxes beside each other. One will be for mail that is destined to remain on Vancouver Island and the other box will be for mail heading off out to the rest of the world.
I await with curiosity whether both boxes will look identical and will they be misfortunate enough to both be slathered in that unsightly graphic covering design. I think a post box should be a strong single colour or a two tone. Something you can spot in the distance. Heck I’d even take a dalmatian design over what we are getting. When it comes to the post I do not have an appetite for the vague!
Chaos
Lori Weidenhammer, my collaborator on Chaos, has carefully recorded her impressions of the other performances during Chaos over on her Beespeaker blog and has collated information on Sandra Johnston, Pauline Cummins and Sinead O’Donnell’s work. including some photos documenting the performances at Open Space and offsite at the Maritime Museum courtroom. I promised to do this but have been unable yet to deliver. My brain is rather seized at the moment, so for those who’ve been asking me for details please visit Lori’s blog and learn about the other artists work. Plus you’ll see a few goofy pics of us in rehearsal/prep mode and at the breakfast table aka larking about. We’ve no pics of our performance as yet.
Open Space also recorded video, stills and will produce a catalogue and essay on Chaos, plus the most exciting prospect of all… a flipbook.
Of note on a Monday
1) I ate a large green bean from my greenhouse contraption. Just the one, but what a bean she was and it almost October.
2) Ed Milliband scraped the labour leadership thanks to the Union vote. That dirty word New Labour hoped would go the way of the petticoat.
3) Extraordinary weather events on BC coast (or water events?) that I am unable to track and pay attention to due to performance art respiration and recovery.
4) Sean Fitzpatrick — LOB.
5) I still cannot yet swim to an acceptable standard.
Chaos
This was part of the video projection during our Chaos performance. The sound was mute, it was played on a loop along with Lori’s beekeeping sequence during two parts of the performance. I added the sound just now, since the original sound was just the racket in the gym and bad house music.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN1m80-vrcs&fs=1&hl=en_GB]
Powerful stuff in the two performances this evening at CHAOS a series of events at Open Space that I am participating in. We did our performance last night to a very responsive and receptive audience. More on that once my head settles.
Tonight though in the Victorian Courtroom in the Maritime Museum Sandra Johnston did a performance that was affecting and disturbing and I am still reeling from it. Again I will have to write more once my head recovers.
Back at Open Space Pauline Cummins did another powerful performance involving video, actions and a trumpet player.This is a very late night, wordless description, but I am flooded with exhaustion, exhilaration, too much laughing and beer!
We had our final Mna na h’Eireann chat and drink it up ensemble in Open Space afterwards with stories and laughter, roaring, (we know soo mnay of the same characters) and we then all walked back to the hotel in the rain — the first storm of the season. So great to get a good old blast of these women. This won’t be the end of it, we’ll meet again and hopefully take the project to other cities together.
I urge you to look up these artists work. Extraordinary work it is. Privileged to share a space with them.
Chaos III
aaaaah.
Chaos II
Prepping all day in the gallery space. Tech guys working v hard to accommodate the needs of our piece and the other artists. This evening the artists were all taken to a place called The Superior where we enjoyed an array of tasty appetizers and wine and swing jazz music. One of the musicians, an older male, had a interesting vitamin bottle which I investigated that was called Turbo.
Had a good old natter to the lovely, lovely Pauline Cummins about Irish feminism in the 60-70’s period. We’d great craic the lot of us. Inspired, divine company. So mighty to have these strong minds to exchange ideas with and to hear about art related actions and so on in Belfast and Dublin.
Mna na h’Eireann rocking it ensemble in Victoria.
Chaos 1
First day of the Chaos project here in Victoria with Open Space. Tonight three artists talks at Camosun College (sp?) — a full room of students and community. The artists Sinead O’Donnell, Pauline Cummins and Sandra Johnston gave engaging talks on their work. The prolonged physical component in Sandra Johnston’s work fascinated me and I discussed it with her in the bar afterwards. Both Sandra and Sinead have made actions where the performance takes place in a public place and sometimes people are not aware a performance is even taking place. There were several slides from actions/performances in Romania that were particularly compelling in this regard. It made me think of performance within documentary. Except the documentary is otherwise undocumented moments in life. There was a hearty discussion at the end about documentation and its interference with performance.
But the extent to which these three artists engage in collaborative processes was extraordinary listening and I can only imagine how extraordinary some of this work was to witness. Also hearing Sandra talk about Belfast still operating with an artist run ethos (artists supporting and encouraging other artists, spaces etc) reminded me of how much has been lost on this coast in that regard.
More from my notes tomorrow.