THE PROTAGONIST

 

 

song by Paulette Humanbeing (John Kilduff's musically-talented cousin!)

Are you a person of many talents, charm, intelligence, with a great sense of humour, but you still can’t get a date? Finding it difficult to balance a busy work-life with a hectic social calendar? Torn in many directions but still want to find that special someone with whom to share all of life’s joys and challenges? Here’s your chance to put your multi-tasking skills to the test – all in the name of love! Become a contestant on ‘The Do It All Dating Game’, hosted by John Kilduff (a.k.a. Mr Let's Paint) and his doting assistant, Oriana Fox. It’s just like ‘Blind Date’, but updated to suit our frenzied, 21st century lifestyles! Available bachelors and bachelorettes will compete for one another’s affections and the chance to win a fantastic evening for two.

 

Here's a couple of clips to refresh your memory of the gameshow format:

Are you as hot as Arnie used to be? Come and be one of our main contestants and have people multitask to win your affections! You'll automatically win a romantic evening for two (and a free roundtrip train ride to Nottingham)! Shoot an email with your pic and brief bio to: doitalldating@gmail.com

Can you see yourself as one of these contestants delivering cheeseball answers whilst simultaneously exercising, cooking and drawing? If the answer is yes, send an email to: doitalldating@gmail.com

This is the view from outside my hotel in Scarborough. When I arrived on Tuesday I went straight to the university and into the classroom. I didn't leave campus till nightfall and took a taxi back to the hotel. So when I went outside yesterday morning to run an errand I was shocked to find out the hotel faced the ocean. It's a not so subtle reminder of how often I go buzzing through my days without taking time to appreciate the world around me. I forget to savour each and every precious moment of life.

I didn't have much time to enjoy the sunshine and the ocean air before getting back to campus for our second length session. I told them all about the performances I did at the Once More With Feeling event that I had produced at Tate Modern in 2009 as the recipient of The Women's Art Library/Feminist Review bursary. Then I asked them to perform their very own re-enactments of a few different performance art peices from the 1970s. The time flew by much faster than on Tuesday which was odd because I believe for me and for the students the first day had been much more engaging. Maybe it's just that a bit of fatigue set in - the calm before the storm, the storm being tomorrow, the day before the performance when major decisions need to be made.

At the very end of the day I tried out an exercise with the group that I'd done as a participant in a workshop run by Oreet Ashery. It involves coming up with a performance piece based around a variety of predetermined elements. In this case my students could choose one option from the following four categories:

1) use of language: english, bilingual, whispering, shouting, baby talk, gibberish, body noises, etc

2) form: TV chatshow, audition, telephone conversation, silent abstract video, immersive sensory experience, public intervention, etc

3) re-enactment: a list of live artworks made from the late 60s to today which I had introduced to the students during the various slide presentations of the workshop so far

4) a quotation or phrase that means something to the student 

I also had a variety of props and costumes that they could use if they wished. There wasn't much time left at the end of the day to follow through with this exercise and come up with a performance. Instead the students got really into playing around with the props and costumes. They had been struggling with how to incorporate the work of other artists into different contexts and use all of the various elements. I gave them some examples from my own work to demonstrate how it was in fact possible to do so. We're going to try again today - I haven't given up on the exercise. But something good happened at that moment when they were playing with the props and started to perform, ignoring my instructions and the exercise altogether.

They had picked 'audition' as the form but ignored all the other categories. One student took the lead and asked the others to each audition to play themselves. I thought this was a great idea and in a way related very much to my work and what I had been trying to teach them about performance art and authenticity verses theatricality etc. I had spent half the previous day telling them about myself and then discussing how I play with sincerity and artifice in my work. I explained my fascination with performance art as a confessional medium in which the boundary between art and life is blurred. In this way, I believe we have found our theme for the final performance - just in time. It was through playing - playing out of exhaustion and out of not knowing what to do. 

I went back to my hotel with a healthy dose of optimism. Ending the day by taking advantage of the hotel's spa with jacuzzi, sauna and steam-room, for the first time since I arrived in Scarborough I allowed myself to relax....

I guess I'm on an exercise kick these days. So my role model this week is an award winning actress, a great singer and someone who in her own words is 'naturally good at her body'.

I arrived in Scarborough yesterday to do a teaching residency with Theatre and Performance Students at The University of Hull. As a result of this residency, on Friday 25 March at 7.30pm I will be performing alongside my 7 new students in a professional collaborative piece. The pressure is on.

Yesterday during the first session, to get them inspired I shared my story of personal transformation from a shy and mousy painter to the confident and poised performance artist I am today. Then, following in the footsteps of consciousness raising sessions and group therapy, we sat around and shared stories, expectations and concerns about the workshop days to come. Because I believe strongly in physical as well as emotional wellbeing and the connection between the two, we also did some folk dancing and aerobic exercise. We listened to the words from Cher in this clip and felt as if she was in the room with us. Her energy fueled our steps as I lead the students through a series of hot dance moves including the hitchhiker, the swim and my personal favourite, the roger rabbit. That was the best part of the day for me.

The workshop was an intensive 6-hour session and this cardio-routine provided the necessary endorphins to plow through the second half of the day. I delivered a slide-show presentation of 5 works of performance art from the 1960s to today. The students then had to come up with ways to re-enact each of the performances by changing any number of elements such as the identity of the peformer, the props used, the context in which it is performed, the intended audience(s) and the media employed with which to document and/or disseminate it. They came up with some really thought-provoking ideas. It's my job to enable them to continue in that direction in another 6 hour session today. Wish me luck!

 

 

I made this video in collaboration with The Hayward Huddle (the gallery's group of 16-19 yr olds) for Happiness Happenings event at The Royal Festival Hall this past November. I just got an email from one of the Huddle's mentors who was gathering together documentation from their activities and he asked me for the link. So I thought I'd share it here too.

Today I'm working on the logo for The Do It All Dating Game - the game show performance I will be presenting with John Kilduff (a.k.a.) Mr. Let's Paint at Nottingham Contemporary on Tuesday 12 April 7pm GMT.

Not sure if I should go for the slick and sophisticated 1980s look of the 'Blind Date' logo or the quirky 60s, semi-psychedelic bubble letters of 'The Dating Game'. Any suggestions? I wonder if I will find the time to then sculpt it as a set piece.

This is hilarious...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcmillan/why-youre-not-married_b_822088.html

I went to a workshop last night at The School of Life called 'How To Realise Your Potential'. It was run by a man whose vocation is writing for The Sunday Times and whose hobby is to sew his own clothes. When speaking of the latter he said: "I'm all for women breaking through the glass ceiling if they want to, but why is no one urging men to break into haberdashery shops!?" Perhaps the lesson in this statement is that if we seek to fulfill our potential we can go beyond society's expectations for our gender, race, class, sexuality etc. His point in telling us about his venture into craft was to emphasize the importance of taking pleasure in every step of whatever process with which we are engaged. He also quoted Friedrich Nietzsche on this point: "Not every end is a goal. The end of a melody is not a goal." He urged us to celebrate little victories along the way.

 

 

 

Went to see the Susan Hiller show at Tate Britain today and found it really inspiring. The above piece was probably my favourite in the show and possibly the most overtly feminist and autobiographical in the exhibition. She took pictures of her belly ever day over the course of her pregnancy, the form abstracted to look like the moon. She also wrote a diary of her emotional experiences and each lunar month of photos was accompanied by a short statement. The above statement reads:

She speaks (as a woman) about everything, although they wish her to speak about only women's things. They like her to speak about everything but only if she does not 'speak as a woman', only if she will agree in advance to play the artist's role as neutral (neuter) observer.
She does not speak (as a woman) about anything, although they want her to. There is nothing she can speak of 'as a woman'. As a woman, she cannot speak.

This piece and indeed her work as a whole strikes an elegant balance between speaking 'as a woman' and speaking as 'the artist' or 'neutral observer'. This piece is also, however not truly indicative of her oeuvre. Most of her artwork does not deal overtly with the representation of women or gender identity. The fact that feminism is only hinted at in her work does not suggest to me that she is avoiding the label, but rather in my opinion it is 'feminist' of her not to make these concerns the central guiding force behind her work. At the same time, this is what separates her from many women artists of her generation who whole-heartedly take up the label of 'feminist artist' and have made their identities as women the focus of all that they produce. To clarify, she investigates her interests as anyone might do regardless of their identity, but her identity is still present in the work and makes itself known in a 'natural' (for lack of a better word) way, it isn't forced. I read feminism into her concern for the marginal, for the lost and nearly forgotten and into her persistent attempts to illuminate and explain the mysterious and the unconscious.

On the evening of April 12th at Nottingham Contemporary John Kilduff (a.k.a. Mr. Let's Paint) and I will be bringing you The Do It All Dating Game - a live interactive performance / web TV show in which people will compete for a date by taking the ultimate multi-tasking challenge. We asked John's cousin Paulette to write the theme song for the show and she has produced this jingle for your listening pleasure:

 

More Info to follow.