#msuperformance

Brevity is the Soul of- is a piece that demonstrates the struggle for the artist -or really for anyone- when dealing with the constraints of time. While I am acting in the scene I spend the entirety of the piece setting up and then taking down. When we set out to a project there is so much time that goes into not only physically starting but also mentally preparing oneself to work. Often times this “readying” duration results on one being pressed for time and sometimes finding themself out of it. I spend all my time setting up, prepping both my area and myself, only for my timer to go off and for me to then have to begin the clean up process short of having actually accomplished anything. While one in a sea of complaints to the structures and bindings of time that proves unconducive to work this work is still relevant as the problems persist both in and out of the academic setting. Over and over we are told that our ‘petty’ grievances are ubiquitous and characteristic of the ‘real world’ and slowly by this we are conditioned to follow regime and structure. One of these structures is time and we are all slaves to it. We live our lives and schedule our days around things like deadlines that are framed in windows that simply cannot happily accommodate that which is expected to have been produced within them. This is to say nothing on the nature of how some days are simply more productive than others for no explainable reason, ‘least not explainable to an official satisfaction. This is potentially a struggle without solution as life is unpredictable and so even if there weren’t deadlines and predefined durations there would still be those things that come up and interrupt the creative and working processes. Even isolation wouldn’t work as there are things internally that would keep one from maintaining a consistent working pace. Interruptions are inevitable but whether or not they can simply be moved past or if they bring the entire process to a halt define this struggle for those who just need the time to work. As this statement is for the class I will also address some of the choices I’ve made regarding my final result. I chose not to go with having multiple timers as the timer was to clearly punctuate the transition between my time to work and my time to clean up and go. The timer only sounds twice to act as the transitory tool to change the scene and then as a second reminder that I like everyone are controlled by time. I felt that by having more alarms going off and silencing them I was delaying the inevitable which, while a similar idea, shows some manner of control over my environment when I am supposed to be directly affected by it and be powerless to just how much time I have. There is no snooze on some deadlines and while having multiple alarms is a neat idea it doesn’t really match with what I wanted to say.

This piece is a revisitation of an earlier piece RailsAtMetro (https://youtu.be/DYrxkm7OOH0). While the original piece was following the assignment of walking a straight line over something it became a comentairy on a situation I have found myself and others encounter: getting trapped on the access ramp at the Aurora Metro Train Station only to realize -after running eight times the distance- that there is a much quicker set of stairs. This revisit returns to those stairs and to the villainous ramp only now, while I know the stairs are there -even after using them a few times- I openly choose to climb down the ramp railings as I had before. There are many things that we as humans get into trouble for or suffer embarrassment over simply because we did something that we knew better than to do. Why then did we do it in the first place? Assuming that the individual isn’t a complete moron and was operating deliberately against what they should do: what small victory therein can be found? Now that I’m not scaling the ramp to get somewhere but am doing it despite the superior decision -what do I stand to gain? Is that even the point?

For me life feels like a constant uphill battle. Some who share this sensation seem to take pride in their accomplishments and their participation to continuously trekking up their own staircase. I however find the process a bit redundant: constantly working one’s way up while keeping your eyes on the ground and for what? There may be a plateau at the top where there’s nowhere to go, there may be a descent of ease and luxury after all your work, or there may be more stairs to climb until you can’t climb anymore. Then where will we be?

A piece about the meticulous process of creation and the destruction there of then the picking up and starting again. This work addresses a situation of monotonous repetition and the closure of completing the task at hand only to stop moments before completing and starting over. This work illustrates the obvious metaphor for running the track of life but without any of the closure of ever actually finishing anything. To make matters worse it isn’t even a task that needs doing and the materials aren’t even particularly valuable. The question there being would anyone even care if the job wasn’t done and just how many things that we do for hobbies are the same way and could go without doing to no one’s detriment.

A hobby of mine, and evidently millions, is gaming and often for way too long. An example of this that comes to mind immediately would be the popular game League of Legends that is infamous not only for its horrible community but also its rather lengthy game times. During these thirty minute to an hour windows users veg out and are hardly flattering or icons of the popularized, commercial gamer image -what, with their tidy hair, clean skin, and exuberant participation over every little event ingame. For thirty-nine minutes I played a (winning) game and recorded my face straight on. While it didn’t feel like any more than fifteen the final time came down to thirty-nine minutes and one second. This bizzare accelerated passage of time is inherent to any moment where we lose ourselves in our work (or play) and an hour becomes a few minutes. For these ‘few minutes’ I have captured what the object of attention, the screen in this case, sees in a timely format that also reflects the passage of time as thirty-nine minutes becomes just less than five.

OffPhone I try to make a phone call on my phone. Typically a simple thing to do but not when one’s phone is off. Refusing to be deterred I try whatever I might to make a call on *specifically* an off phone before deciding to leave it to “charge” and try again later. The definition of insanity is never learning your lesson when faced with failure: that is why I try many different things in vain hopes to one day accomplish my mission. 

Performance walk from the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art to The Railyard Dog Park via the directions for Trafalgar Road (London) to the Yogscast Studios (Bristol) but vastly smaller. A bit structured for a Dérive but vastly educational nonetheless. 

A quick performance about my favourite little zig-zag that I have seen many a person attempt to run down after getting off of a bus in order to catch a train that wasn’t going to wait for you anyway. If only they had seen the much shorter stairs adjacent rather than getting trapped in what is otherwise a bit of a commitment.  https://youtu.be/DYrxkm7OOH0 (if It doesn’t work)