Other antics...

02/12/07
To give you an idea of other creative projects I'm currently engaged in I thought I'd mention:

'The Performance Re-enactment Society', a Darkside Live Art event @ Arnolfini, Bristol

I developed this event with Tom Marshman, in collaboration with live art archivists Bex Carrington and Julian Warren, costume designer Pam Tait and director/research fellow Paul Clarke. Here's the blurb from the Arnolfini brochure to give you a flavour of the event:

"Bristol-based artists Tom Marshman (Spaghetti Club) and Clare Thornton are on a mission to breathe new life into your memories of performance through re-enactment and 'tableaux vivants'. Bring your performance memories between 4pm-8pm when they will be on hand to make them come to life once more before capturing them forever in a photograph. Return at 8pm for a glass of wine and look through this unique collection of images created over the course of the day. All the photographs will be collected in an album and added to Arnolfini's archive"

We met some wonderful folk that day who generously shared their memories of performances or live gigs they had seen from the past 40 years. As diverse as a fight at a Little Richard concert at the Colston Hall, to Yoko Ono's 'cut piece'. Each memory deposited with us was recorded via a detailed questionnaire/interview, the participant could choose from wracks of costumes and props to help re-create the action/scene and once the moment was set a polaroid and digital photo taken.

The event was supported by Theatre Bristol and New Work Network and 3 artists (Michael Pinchbeck, Tim Jeeves & Calum F. Kerr) received NWN bursaries to attend and participate in the gig. Michael has written a blog about his experiences and reflections upon the event.
Please visit:
http://performancereenactmentsociety.blogspot.com/

Also
check out the documentation (photos):
www.whiteboxphoto.com/prs

Its worth mentioning perhaps that I work part time as a research project assistant in the Live Art Archives at the Department of Drama, University of Bristol. I'm really interested in the documentation of performance/liveness and ways that ephemeral art experiences are recorded/captured, remembered/re-enacted.

Currently on the bookshelf: 'History Will Repeat Itself: Strategies of re-enactment in contemporary (media) art and performance'