Personal Cartography

I stumbled upon these questions in Tim Etchells' Certain Fragments today. They were the starting point for Forced Entertainment's Nights in the City, which was a 'mischevious guided coach tour of Sheffield'. I wish I'd had them when we started Memory Map. I think they provide a useful starting point for thinking about space- and they suggest many similar questions in the same vein- I'm sure I'll use them elsewhere...

They asked a locally based helper on the project:

'If you had killed someone and had to dump the body where would you take it?
If you had to say goodbye to a lover where in this city would you most like to do it?
Where in the city might be the best place for a spaceship of aliens to land?'

Memory Map

I wanted to share a few pictures of a project I did recently, to add a bit of colour to this blog! Memory Map was an audioguided piece created with Bath teenagers. Listening to an MP3, audience members were guided around the city, encountering live performances that corresponded to the audio en route. The work provided an alternative perspective on the city to that offered by the typical tourist guides so prevalent in the town. It was performed in late June. I think pretty much all of these pics were taken by the lovely and talented Miss Lise Marker, my co director on the project. Enjoy!

On longing...

I was asked to write 'An Introduction to Longing' in response to the Kings of England DIY weekender I went on in August. Here's my intial draft... apologies that it returns to a couple of points I've written about recently, I wasn't intending to publish it here but thought I might as well:

I was at a short film night the other day, and one of the directors shared a great quote (I naturally forgot almost immediately who by and exactly what it was) to the effect that artists should create work without fear and without hope. The simplicity of this appealed to me, the implication being that we make our work on its own terms and for its own sake, for no other reason than that it demands to be made. It’s a rejection of the immediate gratification we’ve been brought up to expect in this country at this time, which drives us to act not for the act’s own sake but with a hope- to achieve, to be recognised, or to gain- and with a fear- of failure, of not realising our desires, of being judged and found wanting. As a mantra it demands a truth to self: we do because we do, and we are because we are, which must hold a resonance with any artist who, like me, has been brought up to worry that they won’t one day have a mortgage, or a pension. If there’s not an alternative choice, then why should we worry about it?

It’s a pretty neat summation of the point at which I’ve recently found myself in my own creative practice. After graduating from drama school with a decent degree, I spent a year trying to make it as an artist. What did make it mean? Simply, to be able to make work, and to support myself doing it. In this quest, I wasn’t entirely unsuccessful; through a combination of writing commissions and teaching in drama schools and youth theatres, I managed to make ends meet. But the constant pressure to make work that I thought would meet the criteria of the funders and the ongoing battle with my overdraft proved overwhelming for a young artist still innocent in the brutal ways of the arts economy. I gave up and got myself a day job, because it turns out publicising theatre is a lot better paid than making it...

Two years later, I’m over that first shock, and back to making work again, but this time, purely because I want to make it. Of course I care what the powers that be think of my work- after all how many artists have you ever met not driven to some extent by ego?- but I’m not making the work for them. I am making it because it fascinates me, and because, I feel, I can’t not. It’s not created entirely without fear, and it’s not created entirely without hope, but it certainly has a lot less of either.

At the same time, I’m conscious that allowing myself to work ‘without fear and without hope’ feels, sometimes, like a bit of a betrayal of my community- and one of the conversations that began this document did identify artists as a ‘marginalised community’. On the cusp of funding cuts and a greater demand than ever in my lifetime to justify the value of the arts, I’m aware it’s never been more important to project our sense of ourselves as artists beyond the realms of the work itself: to articulate our hopes and our fears loudly, abruptly, and in inappropriate places. To get political.

So I took up the challenge to participate in this articulation of longings, in spite of my battle wounds from the past. The location was well chosen. Over three hours from the mad theatrical market that is the Edinburgh Festival, from whence most of us had come, somewhere in the depths of a forest, we found ourselves in a space beyond the clutches of mobile phone reception, where the only sounds were the gentle chug of the generator and the crackle of the wood burning stove. A place where, if we were ever going to truly listening to our longings, they had a pretty good chance of being heard.

This collection of writings intends to communicate what we discovered together that weekend, and the journey we began.  I don’t think we necessarily defined a shared understanding of what longing might mean, but in my notes from the weekend I’ve scribbled down in huge letters ‘TAKE THIS LOOOOOONGING’, and I think the clue to the word’s meaning lies in the name. Your longing will be with you for a long time; in fact it will probably be with you for a lifetime. Sometimes the component parts might be small- a bit of money, a bit of space, a bit of time, a bit of an opportunity were all mentioned in the depths of forest- but they all connect to something bigger, a desire related to a sense of self, that it is this that drives me. I long therefore I am.

But significantly, what I discovered through the process (and perhaps more important than the longings themselves) was how to listen to my longings again.     

So, if like me, you find the voice of your longings is easily drowned, follow these five easy steps:

1)      Find a quiet place to listen. Better if it’s in the countryside, better if there’s no mobile reception or wi fi. Pick somewhere where you can stretch your legs and stretch your eyes. A wood burning stove powered hot tub is not entirely necessary- a large table, pens and paper probably are.

2)      Find some sympathetic people to take along with you. You may find it easier to talk frankly with strangers,  but either way they must be people with whom you have a sense of be- longing: this is about identifying yourself with a community and figuring out what, collectively, you want and need.

3)      Talk. And listen. Walk, cook together, chop logs, drink wine, talk some more. Talk beyond the point of exhausting the subject. And listen.

4)      When you discover your longings, declare them, write them down, tattoo them to yourself if that’s what you need to do to stop yourself from forgetting them.

5)      Keep your longings close to you- somewhere where you can’t ignore them. Keep them in your sights, and give chase.  

Paradoxically, I think a lot of great art work is borne out of frustrated longings. It may be that part of the journey of understanding our longings is coming to terms with the fact that the true value of them may be the struggle to reach them. Part of me suspects that my true, deep longings are like the soap bubbles and the butterflies: beautiful and mysterious as they float just out of my grasp, but bound to fade as soon as I touch them. And at risk of a slight betrayal of my community again, there’s something perversely thrilling about belonging to a world that’s so vulnerable, shifting and uncomfortable.

So, I’m going to end this introduction by offering my own twist on that half remembered quote from the film night, and suggest a particular strategy to longing that may be useful to the artist in this moment, and that’s to long without fear, and without hope. Which is to say: don’t be afraid to long for the impossible.

On the cusp of autumn...

Because it's starting to feel autumnal, and because his new book's out soon, I had to share this- the first paragraph of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. Just sensational...

'The Madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end. No children in the yards here. Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rained acorns on houses with no mortgage. Storm windows shuddered in the empty bedrooms. And the drone and hiccup of a clothes dryer, the nasal contention of a leaf blower, the ripening of local apples in a paper bag, the smell of the gasoline with which Alfred Lambert had cleaned the paintbrush from his morning painting of the wicker love seat.'

The Promise...

I'm developing a piece at the moment with Honour for Theatre Souk and the Lyme Regis Arts Festival. It's a one on one performance piece dealing with authenticity in the relationship between performer and artist. It's a very experimental piece for me, firstly because I am performing in it- something I haven't done in years!- and secondly because I think the ethics of the piece are pretty troubling, and I don't usually make works that I'd consider to be ethically problematic- even though many of the works that I've found most stimulating over the years have dwelt in this realm. I am also not entirely convinced it's going to be very good... but it's part of the personal development journey I'm going on the moment to allow myself to make work that I think might not be great- as long as it interests me! I went to a short film night the other night and one of the directors came up with a rather brilliant quote, which I have of course forgotten, along with who said it, but it was something to the effect that an artist should create work without fear and without hope. Which seems a little cynical, but rather apt for where I am on my personal creative journey- my intent, at present, being to make the work on its own terms, without any higher motive- or restraint.

Anyway, my purpose with this blog was to reflect on why I am making this piece. Here are some thoughts that correspond to the promises I made to myself in a previous post.

What do I want to learn about myself?

How much I am willing to put at stake personally in the name of art. Whether performing is something I'm interested in/ at ease with. Where my ethical boundaries lie in the work I make.

What do I want to learn about theatre?

What are the ethical boundaries and responsibilities in the relationship between artist and audience member. Where does 'art' end and 'truth' begin?

What do I want to learn about the world?

Who do we trust and why do we trust? What makes a person a stranger? What is our responsibility to a stranger? How honest are we in everyday life and how much do we construct our own character?

What does the introduction of money do to a relationship? What are the factors in a relationship that disrupt the usual social norms?