New Ground

Tomorrow is the last day of the installation and at 8.30 pm there will be the last performance by Bridget and Esther, of the movement material that we have developed. It has been really interesting to see the way the movement material has gone through different phases since the opening. The first couple of performances felt exciting and special but they were followed by one or two rather dull ones. After that we went back to the rigour of the embodying process. Emphasising again the fact that the movement as performance is simply real movement in real time and real place. This is the reality of the compositional material. However the rigour of the real time composition is sustained by the understanding that the roots of the movement decisions lie in the attention and the way that creates the basis for intention and then action. So the issue is the way the attention is guided. In this case the attention is on the specifics of memory.

Not the generalised memory that degrades into nostalgia but the focused memory of the specific locations in Port a Doris that were the sites of the deep sensory, kinaesthetic, and affective investigations. So the movement is just movement but the micro-compositional and interpretative decisions are guided by an integrity of the attention. This rigorous process liberates the intuition. Relying on the fact that the work has been done and that the attention is focused on the appropriate things the intuitive taste to make one particular sequence of shapes or one specific tonus pattern or rhythmic form can be relied upon to produce some form of “sense”.

It was interesting that after re-focusing in this way Esther said that the performance seemed so normal and easy. The quality of the performance was amplified enormously and it began to develop textures and depths that had only been hinted at in the early showings.

We used various versions of the soundtrack; sometimes just the sea, sometimes with the clips of the discussion between me and Dan, sometimes the ambient sounds of the flapping tent, bits of chat, the swirling sea and crunching pebbles. It feels more and more that the sea on its own is really enough.

I’m very happy with the outcomes. It feels like the ground has been broken for a major development of working methods and performance approaches.

The installation grows on me day by day. I’m around it all day most days submerged in hours and hours of the sea on the sound system. Beautiful. Relaxing in a way but also full of variation and tension.

Favourite bits? They change from day to day, but most days the slow motion rolling on the pebbles attracts me. The sound is fantastic. The Rope God is a very “balanced” piece. It is very acceptable, satisfying without being demanding. It just sits there. Of course the platform itself is wonderful. It still has this amazing quality of “belonging” where it is. It was just like that in Port a Doris too. It has a very gentle presence. Of course you can’t miss it, but on the other hand its effect on the memory is rather subtle.

It is interesting to see who bothers to spend time with the video pieces. I know that when I go to an installation piece, or any exhibition really, I am quite obsessed with getting everything I can out of it. I try to see everything and to spend a lot of time with each element. Most people who come into the space seem to just drift really. They get a feel, an impression, but I worry that they miss a lot of the layers and depths. When someone really bothers to explore by reading the blog, watching the videos right through, sitting and thinking a bit, they evidently get very engaged and drawn in to the work. It is also noticeable how these people begin in different places. For some the entrance point is the blog, for others the photo’s, for others the videos. I wonder what are the ways of encouraging people to put this effort in. With too much explanation, on a gallery guide for example, or a written distilled explanation of the project it feels that it would be too leading, too much with a tendency to explain, to close the doors of the imagination. On the other hand one can see the lack of confidence that some people have to begin to engage with the work independently.

I don’t mean at all that we’ve had negative responses: quite the reverse in fact. However I feel a certain restrained diffidence in many peoples engagement with the installation.

Perhaps there is simply too much in it?

I miss Port a Doris. I am in the memory of it so much because of my daily proximity to the installation. It is so different to sleep in a bed. To hear the cars not the sea. To be dry most of the time. What I most miss is the consistent practical physical effort necessary for living at the camp. Everything demanded some form of disciplined attention. It wasn’t a holiday, but somehow, for me, there is a relief and a serious pleasure in the necessities of daily existence when they are so closely framed.