An experimental performance at SHUTTERS! 

 

There is a particular type of non-space that we encounter at intervals in the city.  It’s a space where you are allowed to pass through so technically you are allowed to be there, there is a right of passage, clearly indicated by the gate being open and signs being up at each entrance to tell you who can pass through and when.  But are you allowed to linger?  If we do linger and pay attention to our response then we may experience a sense of dis-quiet which we cannot quite put our finger on.  I write further about this in Dis-Quiet - The Space

 

This performance is drawn from a sound recording of the ambient sound experienced in this space which itself has few sources of noise but sits in a place (the city) where there are many sources of noise - the road bounding the space just outside, the distant water installation outside the nearby gallery, the sky above where one aircraft after another processes to Heathrow or places far.  

 

I visited this space on two occasions, taking some photographs and making a number of sound recordings.  This activity required me to linger in the space and as a consequence I attracted the attention of the security guard...

 

I took the sound recording and the sense of the space and created a choreography in the form of shapes on the side of “choreography dice”.  You use these dice by picking them and throwing them.  Whatever you observe when they land, you move in response to this.  Then pick up and throw one of the dice again.

 

The video is a recording of a performance using the choreography dice at the exhibition SHUTTERS! in Arebyte Victoria in October 2019.

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With thanks to Johanna Bolton and Aaron Ossia for ably participating in this performance.