Speaking From the Diaphragm
The Vaginal Davis Blog
. . .From the Counsel of Inter-Continental Balistic Principalities
Thursday, February 17, 2005
DEVONSHIRE DOWNS
The last days of the NRLA festival in Scotland---Franko presented an open salon which really picked up a lot of steam. Richard Dedomenici is a scruffy, funny little man who made a hilarious presentation along with Ange Taggert who works with a collective that do a lot of filmed actions. Richard showed himself involved in a loopy piece on the streets of Chicago that was wild, inventive and spontaneous. Europeans can get away with double homocide in America, we always find their accents so charming. Also Chris Barton presented documentation of his work with the Artists in Residence Young Offenders Institution, which featured his baked excrement sculptures. Ms. Taggert and her group involve themselves with such stirling projects as: Cleaning Up After Capitalism, where they go into places like Starbucks with a Vaccuum cleaner and start cleaning. Almost immediately they are asked to leave, but at Barclay's Bank no one even notices. They even have presented these actions outdoors cleaning tram tracks. oh and one project involved a fake business called my dad's strip club. i've always felt it was important to get art out to people on the streets and these young artists are really doing that with gusto and clever art strategies and system interventions. unfortunately they run into resistence in shopping centers, where dialogue that interrupts customer spending isn't tolerated. in an action piece called War Against Shopping, it was hilarious how really young kids responded favorably and were willing to participate and be a part of the parodic pranks.
honey baby i'm all for creating more actions, and really going for that corporate jugular and attacking their profit margins. Regular forms of protest just don't work. no one pays attentions to marches, you've got to device new ways of sticking it to the man, and changing corporate logos like coca cola to Coca Colon, and going into supermarkets and breaking out in a ritualistic worship of the products on display----praying to Whiskers Catfood and asking people on the street---What is the best company to run IraQ?----Mcdonalds or Virgen Airles. now that is my cup of camomille tea.
i'm feeling low energy so i have to report on my performance piece and DJ set at the closing party a little later
.: posted by Vaginal Davis 11:11 AM
Sunday, February 13, 2005
LOCH LOMAND
The NRLA at the Arches, Saturday the 12th. for some strange reason i have not been able to get a good nite sleep. i usually never suffer such intense jet lag. my sleep friday night was the best so far, but still underwhelming. There is a lot to report about being at the new moves festival, but i'm not in a very clear space, so please bear daddy with me. Saturday's highlight was a nice lecture/discussion between franko and ron athey that was packed to the high rafters and was very exciting. Ron was his regular fatherly self charming and delighting and he and franko are such brothers that their interaction was very cute together and a lot of issues were raised. Ron really articulated the NEA scandal and his latest with the UCLA class he taught that has become an international cause celebre. everyone here in europe seemed to know about it. of course i almost missed it because the queue was so long at the door. also loved a peace from the art collective Breath where you enter this tiny environment and are presented with a gift of wondermint. of course my tall lady self didn't quite fit in the pitch tent, and my arthritic kneebows started to ache, but sometimes you just have to give yourself up to the art process.
saw two dance pieces one by Jerome Bell who is very popular--was packed. i loved some of the movements and the naked man in the piece had a very powerful built, but with my lack of sleep i just couldn't handle something that methodical. it was lulling me into a deep sleep. and the space wasn't the best for what was being presented.
Michele Murray's dance company was too schitzo for me. one black dancer had the worst body i've ever seen on a black person. no butt and skinny shriveled legs, and he had major bitch titties. is he taking hormones? and then there was a pony tail queen, i wanted to cut that thing off. some of the girls had interesting faces but with this particular piece either be completely avant garde like jerome bell and remake the vocabulary or stick to those stuccato modern dance moves of yore. you can't mix and match. it doesn't work, oh and the music---modern music like the chemical brothers and techno crap-----snore city. there shouldn't have been any music like mr. bell's piece. also saw some cute video installations and a humourous sound installation with a nelly boy going through a strange lament. monday i'm off for london. hooboostooboo
.: posted by Vaginal Davis 5:18 AM
|
