Performance

Duration: 3 minutes, 8 seconds

Dealing with themes of isolation, repetition and distortion, the body works to consider performance art through the lens of existential philosophy. It becomes the foundation for abstraction and metaphor; a mimetic representation of the unease and instability of a life wherein one’s constructed sense of self exhibits an artificial quality.

More akin to a physical allusion than a conventional performance, the work organises human experience and cognition through a process of depletion. While this methodological template marks a shift in the performer’s persona, the work is not necessarily concerned with the act of personification; rather, due to it being drawn from quotidian, an ongoing process of embodiment is cultivated. Thus, the performer erases any kind of personhood or individuality, instead becoming a stand-in for something, a specifically shaped, organic void into which the reader deposits their own experience.

Performance/installation

Place: The Pharmacy, Scotland road, Carlisle, England (Movement, Change and Identity Exhibition)

Duration: 1 minute, 10 seconds (installation completed for 3 minutes)

Material: Human form with feet darkened by soil and hands painted white, sheet of glass elevated by stacked bricks, vinyl floor squares, dental records, photographic documentation of previous performances, saliva, white emulsion paint, hair, blood, soil

22^nd November 2019

Dealing with themes of identity, displacement and transformation, this allusion manifests itself as a record of prior reflection. It was conceived during a week-long residency, in which I worked alongside, and in response to, a Kurdish refugee.

Considering the extent to which a true understanding of external experience is possible, this collaborative climate encouraged a meta-cognitive approach to production. During which, I accentuated the process of responding to that which is in a perpetual state of becoming; that which provides no fixed point through which prolonged, conceptual identification may be established. Activated by my presence, the anatomical implications of the installation – a deconstruction of body and space – highlighted these problematic ideas; the inevitable failings of my endeavour ultimately informing the action itself. I, momentarily, became an artefact, one which embodied a previous set of experiences and unsustainable outcomes. Consequently, this cultivation and systemic relinquishment of identities rendered my comprehension of selfhood futile.

Performance/installation

Place: University of Cumbria: Institute of the Arts, Brampton Road, Carlisle, England (Breaking Ground Exhibition)

Duration: 3 hours continuous

Material: Human form dressed in black, white studio pillar, eight A4 photographs of previous performances, four A3 acetate brain scan images, lightbox, human hair, iron filings, soil, white cup, red and black glove, yellow and orange glove, plasters, bandages, paperback copy of Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

30th August 2019

Engaging in repetitive movements around a white studio pillar, I referenced the actions performed during Contexts: IX International Festival of Ephemeral Art and the behavioural lexicon developed through my studio practice.

The episodic continuity of these mechanical gestures, along with their trace and residue, would allow the exercise to exhibit hermeneutical traits. Such would be achieved through the implementation of symbolic signifiers planted within the works processes and the re-appropriation of post-performance artefacts. More akin to physical allusions than conventional performances, my actions work to organise human experience and cognition. I assume multiple forms, simultaneously strange and familiar, that I carry throughout. Thus, sacrificing all to appearance, I commit myself and become myself through the work, asserting my own perspective on the world and changing nothing of my circumstances. The deep feelings present in these allusions mean more than they are conscious of saying; they are, in a Camusian sense, symptomatic of individual universes – internal modes of being.

Performance

Place: Sokołowsko, Poland (Contexts: IX International Festival of Ephemeral Art)

Duration: 3 hours continuous

Material: Human form dressed in black, A3 acetate brain scan image, red and black glove, stone pillar

29th July 2019

Performance

Place: Sokołowsko, Poland (Contexts: IX International Festival of Ephemeral Art)

Duration: 3 hours continuous

Material: Human form dressed in black, A3 acetate brain scan image, red and black glove

28th July 2019

Making my way through the streets of Sokołowsko, I presented the brain scan image from the previous performances. The very presence of this image implied a pre-festival set of events and circumstances having taken place, all of which leading to its existence in the work. Such would act as a surface-level indication of my allusive, self-referential tendencies – further establishing the fluidity of art and life.

Performance

Place: Sokołowsko, Poland (Contexts: IX International Festival of Ephemeral Art)

Duration: 3 hours continuous

Material: Human form dressed in black, A3 acetate brain scan image, red and black gloves, soil, white cup, scissors, electric razor

27th July 2019

Alluding to Unformed, 9-hour Endurance, the physical and psychological duality I faced linked my physical attitude to a previous state of mind. This was indicated aesthetically through my immersion with on-site materials and the inhabitation of performance persona – a set of calculated characteristics. In this case, I incorporated dirt from the site of the preceding endurance and shaving of the left side of my head.

Performance

Place: Sokołowsko, Poland (Contexts: IX International Festival of Ephemeral Art)

Duration: 9 hours continuous

Material: Human form dressed in blue shirt and heavy duty trousers, A3 acetate brain scan image, red and black glove, bandages, stone pillar

26th – 27th July 2019

Transpiring in the outskirts of a forest opposite a disused Sanatorium, Unformed, 9-hour Endurance saw me engage in laboured movement around a single stone pillar – the trace of each pilgrimage being overwritten by the next, and so on. The works setting, a transformative space of social and psychological distortion, became a temporary residence for many visitors to the festival. Thus, the action was forced upon its audience – sharing their space, the place in which they ate, slept and socialised.

Place: Newcastle Street, Carlisle, England

Material: Black boots, two grayscale photographs

10th April 2019

Striving to expand the parameters of an allusive act, I set about encapsulating the experiences surrounding that part of me that lives on vague nostalgia. This would include; the journey to the site, scoping out the space and the post-performance walk home. Attaching the photographic documentation from the original action to the bottom of my boots, I would retrace my steps by returning to the site in which I engaged in the act. The aftermath of which would question that which is considered ‘art’ within a project’s timeline.