Open Dialogues (Iso-Britannia): NOTAMOLESKINE

NOTAMOLESKINE on kuuden kirjoittajan / taiteilijan muodostama yhteisö, joka kirjoittaa teosarvosteluita New Performance Turku -festivaalista ja tuo niitä yleisön saataville sosiaaliseen mediaan. Tekemällä tallenteita festivaalin aika

NOTAMOLESKINE-yhteisö tarjoaa reaaliaikaisen kriittisen massan festivaalille ja yhteiseen performanssiarkistoon. Kirjoittaminen itsessään toimii eri tavoilla, kuiskauksena, tallenteena ja lahjana niin taiteilijoille kuin festivaalin yleisölle.na mobiililaitteiden, läppäreiden ja muistilehtiöiden avulla – ja katsomalla poispäin esitetystä teoksesta tallenteen luomisen hetkellä – NOTAMOLESKINE korostaa uniikkia kehityskaarta, jossa elävistä esityksistä tehdyt muistiinpanot, kaaviot, haastattelut ja esseet voidaan paikantaa sosiaaliseen mediaan itsenäisinä teoksina.

New Performance Turku -festivaalille NOTAMOLESKINEn on tuottanut Open Dialoguesin jäsen Rachel Lois Clapham. Se on osa NOTAa, Open Dialoguesin tutkimusta, joka keskittyy siihen, miten aika, paikka ja muistiinpanojen laatu vaikuttavat performanssista tehtyihin huomioihin.

Open Dialogues on Rachel Lois Claphamin ja Mary Patersonin vuonna 2008 perustama isobritannialainen yhteistyö, joka tuottaa kriittistä kirjoitusta performanssista ja performanssina. Perustamisestaan lähtien Open Dialogues on toiminut pioneerina luoden malleja läheiseen työskentelyyn performanssi- ja esitystaiteilijoiden kanssa kriittisesti vastaten, tallentaen ja vaikuttaen elävän esityksen tapahtumisen hetkellä. Open Dialogues on työskennellyt yhteistyössä mm. Live Art Development Agencyn (Iso-Britannia), Pacitti Companyn (Iso-Britannia), Trinity Labanin (Iso-Britania), Performa Biennalin (USA) ja Performance Sagan (Sveitsi) kanssa. www.opendialogues.com

Rachel Lois Claphamin oma työskentely kattaa Tate Britanniassa nähdyn yhteisötaiteellisen Nahnou-Together Now -näyttelyn kuratoimisen, Live Art Development Agencyn julkaiseman Performance Writing -oppaan toimittamisen, kolumnistina toimimisen Dance Theatre Journalissa ja radikaalisen kirjoittamisen tuottamisen yhdessä Arts Council Englandin kanssa In a World -kumppanuudessa. Hänen tekstuaalisia performanssejaan on nähty eri puolilla Eurooppaa ja Yhdysvalloissa ja hänen kirjoituksiaan on julkaistu kansainvälisesti. Parhaillaan Clapham kehittelee nykyesitystä käsittelevää käsikirjaa Oxford University Pressille.

Facebook /newperformanceturku
Twitter #NOTAMOLESKINE @NPTurku

Introducing NOTAMOLESKINE Fellows

NOTAMOLESKINE -community starts writing about the performances on New Performance Turku -festival on Thursday. Here are small biographies of the Fellows of NOTAMOLESKINE so you can get to know the persons behind the critical responses that they are going to publish in social media during the festival.

We wish to encourage everyone to join the conversation about the performances here on the blog, on New Performance Turku facebook and on twitter using the hashtag #NOTAMOLESKINE

Emilia Karjula
Emilia Karjula’s interest in performance has its roots in a childhood spent in the rehearsals of a community theatre group, watching factory workers, alternative kids, young families, professional and amateur directors, designers and writers get together to make things happen, whether it be Shakespeare or an opening ceremony for a new village bridge. Originally trained as a folklorist, her understanding of performance is anthropological. She has applied the performance paradigm in her MA study on same-sex weddings as rites of passage. Currently she is getting started with a fieldwork process with a group of writers for her practice-based PhD research in Creative Writing, which explores writing as a form of ritual and play.

Venla Luoma
Through a chain of coincidences, Venla Luoma ended up studying live-art, chains of coincidences.
Wanting to explore more collective modes of practice, she did her MA at the Central School of Speech and Drama focusing on the sense of together in performance. After graduating she wore a hairnet to sell sandwiches to businessmen, continued working with experimental performance collective Present Attempt and teaching at CSSD until migrating back to her hometown, Turku. In Finland she has continued teaching, had a son, collaborated in interdisciplinary performances and worked as a director in community-based projects. Her work is concerned with live in performance and (becoming) structures of (human) encounter.
Currently she studies art pedagogy at the Theatre Academy, Helsinki.

Maria Säkö
Maria Säkö is a freelance journalist and theatre critic. Her main employee is the daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and she also writes regularly to smaller www-sites and culture magazines such as Skenet.fi, Teatteri ja tanssi –magazine and literature magazine Parnasso. She has studied comparative literature and theatre research and she also has a degree as a cultural curator with focus on environmental art. She is the chairman of dance and theatre critics section at The Finnish Critics’ Association and lately she has been writing more and more about dance and performance art. She has written articles about Finnish theatre in nonfiction books and currently she is working on an article about Finnish sound design.

Miika Sillanpää
Miika Sillanpää’s background isn’t perhaps the most usual one. He graduated from the University of Turku, majoring in classical philology with art history, sociology and linguistics on the side. After doing mostly freelance writing work during and after his studies, he somehow ended up working in the Union of Artist Photographers in Helsinki and from there continued to Artists’ Association MUU. In his free time (what little there is) he tries to keep up his Latin skills by translating ancient plays. In short: He works with words and artists.

Tuuli Suhonen
Tuuli Suhonen was born in Espoo and has been living in Turku since 2009. She is a bachelor for humanities and currently studying master’s degree at the University of Turku. She is mastering in media studies and minoring in cultural history, business studies, literature and German language. She also studied creative writing and literature at Oriveden Opisto in 2007-2008 and has attended various creative writing clubs during the years 2001-2007. CurrentIy she works as an intern at the Arts Support Center regional office of Southwest Finland. She is interested in creative writing, literature, popular culture and good and bad television. She keeps a blog on reality television and writes texts to the drawer.

Alex Eisenberg
Alex Eisenberg is an artist based in London. He works collaboratively across disciplines including theatre and performance, writing, photography, video and the web. His work explores improvisation, participation and documentation often through a series of humorous and tangental approaches. He was a member of the performance group Present Attempt (2006-12) and currently works with Kings of England on In Eldersfield. He curates and produces the performance platform SHOWTiME and works with the Live Art Development Agency on digital projects and initiatives.

Rachel Lois Clapham
Rachel Lois Clapham is Co-Director of Open Dialogues. Her individual practice includes curating Tate’s socially engaged exhibition Nahnou-Together Now, assembling The Performance Writing Guide for the Live Art Development Agency, writing a regular column for Dance Theatre Journal and producing radical writing with the Arts Council of England partnership In a Word. She is currently developing a contemporary performance handbook for Oxford University Press.

Group Shot

C. Hannu Seppälä 2013

Group Shot 2

c. Hannu Seppälä 2013

A Prologue

A Prologue, spoken almost in unison by chorus of nervous data collectors lost on
a fieldwork enterprise
Enduring generalizations about performance behaviour and culture will emerge
from a wealth of knowledge about the ways in which the different performers of
the world live:

DRIVES AND EMOTIONS Information on the nature and intensity of basic

impulses or drives (e.g., hunger, thirst, need for oxygen, sex, urination,
defecation, pain, heat and cold discomfort, fatigue); information pertaining to the
Data on the incidence and quality of derived drives and emotions (e.g.,
aggression, anger, hate, jealousy, fear, anxiety, depression, grief, disgust,
homesickness, love, sympathy, elation, excitement, mirth, curiosity, greed,
ambition, vanity, inferiority); expression and control of emotions (e.g., stoicism);
etc. Emotional reactions in religion
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE Expressions of emotions through gestures
GESTURES AND SIGNS Recreation
Sleep and elimination
Hunger
GRATIFICATION AND CONTROL OF HUNGER Behavior under the influence of
drugs RECREATIONAL AND NON-THERAPEUTIC DRUGS
Profanity SOCIOLINGUISTICS Ornament and body
alteration Sexuality SEXUALITY Socialization of impulses
Thirst and narcotic cravings Recurrent personality traits PERSONALITY TRAITS
Motives for waging war INSTIGATION OF WAR Thirst WATER AND THIRST
Expressions of antagonism INGROUP ANTAGONISMS LEISURE TIME ACTIVITIES
Legal offenses.

By Emilia Karjula

You might also like http://www.yale.edu/hraf/outline.htm

Performance Defined Undefined

Performance Defined Undefined

By Miika Sillanpää

Programme Approach 1

By Rachel Lois Clapham

Programme Approach 2

By Rachel Lois Clapham

First Time Confusion/Impressions

Artist as Art
13.6. after 6. p.m.

1. A maid out of breath
a jogger out of place
sweat (front: visual, back: real)

2. Please, don’t speak into the megaphone. I’m glad I’m already standing. Taking part in, parts of me don’t. He is taking parts of.

3. Stop explaining.

4. Passport kisses
not reaching the gates

5. Back to the skating park
girl in suitable gear
poetry reading
teenager i phone music
clap clap

somehow I find myself rather looking outside
rain pouring down
lilacs in the backyard

6. Not him again.
crowd smiling
something I’m not willing to understand
this must be something he
has been thinking for
a long time

7. Deconstructed
thin girl
not hoovering the macaroni
a mess someone else will deal with
she is wrestling with the blue mattress
beginning from the end

8. The annoying man.
Again.
in a flashy white suit
why no one says no (that’s all I would say)
we’re all breathing the same air
luckily he and I are not

9. Distance makes it difficult
Your voice from a foreign place
Understanding is not the purpose

10. I see that red is your color
only the suit is permanently touched
by your own hands

By Tuuli Suhonen

Artist as Art

By Miika Sillanpää

Field Journal, day one

Extracts from the field journal of a surrealist ethnographer
In preparation for an Index of Possible and Unlikely Performance Tales,
An enduring tribute to the Aarne-Thompson tale type index

MADE OF:
Fieldnotes of performance events in Turku 13.–16.6.2013

TO BE ORGANIZED INTO / READ AS VARIATIONS OF:
body parts
sensations
objects
forms of habitation
types of movement
recurring dreams
flora and fauna
meditations
etc.

SLOWLY FORMING INTO:
Possible and Unlikely Tales

FIELD JOURNAL, DAY 1, OBSERVATION STATION 1
18.30 – 19.30
Are they keeping him there for food? The Seabird Man, the Sword-fighting Bead-Covered WebFooted Man. Perhaps he´s wrapped in herbs and spices. So they will absorb through his skin, for
extra flavour.

This in the midst of:

slow, faltering, short steps
reverent steps
steps that turn around mid-step
running, jumpy stepsarms talking to the air
hands fond of other hands
a back seemingly without bones
several heads doing a lot of nodding

A blonde woman tries to enter a glass box without an appointment. Another woman rushes to her,
stops her. I see all this through the glass of the box. The glass must be very clean.

FIELD JOURNAL, DAY ONE, OBSERVATION STATION 2
20.30 – 22.16

A beautiful girl with brown hair and clear eyes asks me, very politely, what I think is happening in
Turku. ”It is raining and the water is gathering itself in small and large units”, I answer, quite
pleased with my phrasing. She writes my words down in a notebook. ”My next question concerns
Turkey”, she says, and I feel a thud of fear and discomfort: is she expecting me to analyze a country
I know nothing about? Before I have time to blush, I blurt out:”People are angry.” ”Thank you”, she
says.

Women serving cakes from plates the shape of rooms. The plates could also be used for serving the
severed heads and hearts of emperors gone sour.

People watching people thanking other people seldom seem to sit quite comfortably.

Are we all waiting for someone to run in, naked and screaming?
How happy I am that no one does.

Was it me, or just my muscles, that did all the work and stood up, when told to?

Emerging tales:
The Rebel Maiden and the Mattress who Fought Back
The Rebel Mother and the Food that got Smashed
The Woman who Mistook her Mouth for an Apple
The Reluctant Hero in White Learns How to Ask
The Reluctant Hero´s Last Meal with the Former Beloved (A tale to be filed separately, with cries of unrestrained sorrow: Roses ripped from the Navel of the
Reluctant Hero´s Former Beloved are Turned into a Sacrificial Meal and Eaten with Relish)

By Emilia Karjula

Field Journal, day two

FIELD JOURNAL, DAY 2, OBSERVATION STATION 1
15.00 – 15.30

I talk to a little girl about how mermaids breathe, and to a masked Seabird Man about how talking
to little girls can be so excruciating and so transforming and so right, sometimes.

I only blush when the talk turns to money, and then enter into a still, trusting sort of a silence.

Emerging tales:
Acts of Rain and Compassion Committed for all the Right Reasons
How to Talk to Strangers and Cultivate Trust Between the Sentences

FIELD JOURNAL, DAY 2, OBSERVATION STATION 3
20.00 – 21.00

I make sounds of anticipation and joy that I hope sound like tropical birds but may only sound like
an untrained voice getting its giggles and sighs mixed up.

Emerging tales:
How Hope travels between Yes and No, Eager and Agreeing, and Meets Some Long-Lost Relatives
The Hammer who Knew what to Do, but Couldn´t Decide on the Timing
The Grandmother who Taught her Grandchildren that There is no Place more Lonely than a
Campfire

By Emilia Karjula

Small Talk (Turku) – Alex Eisenberg

‘Small talk’ (or phatic communion) is conversation for its own sake, or comments on what is perfectly obvious. It is an informal type of discourse that does not cover any functional topics of conversation.

Small Talk (Turku) is a series of texts and images generated from conversations with audience members during New Performance Festival 2013. The conversations take place in the time just before the performance starts, as the audience is waiting for the piece to begin.

Through a series of subtle guides and gentle suggestions Alex Eisenberg will attempt to move the conversation beyond ‘small talk’, in order to delve into our expectations, our hopes and our desires about the coming event. The conversations will be recorded and published as transcripts, accompanied by a photograph.

I know we don’t have much time but I want us to have a conversation. I don’t want us to be strangers. We are all in this together and you are close to me now.

Prompts and Questions for Small Talk or how to talk small:
How are you?
Have you been here before?
What do you think of the weather?
These seats are (un)comfortable, aren’t they?
How long did it take for you to get here tonight?
Where have you come from?
Did you have a good day?
What do you think it will be like?

Read the transcripts here:

Small Talk (Turku) #1 – Object of Love, Joshua Sofaer

Small Talk (Turku) #2 – Untamed Thingliness 1 – Nada Gambier

Small Talk (Turku) #3 – Nightclub Lunch – with Mimosa Pale & Severi Pyysalo

By Alex Eisenberg

During Object Of Love

A series of diagrams made during Joshua Sofaer’s Object of Love at Waino Aaltosen Museo 13.06.13.

The first diagram features some questions . I was struck by the isolation of Joshua in the vitrine during the periods when no-one was participating inside, compared to the busy museum opening outside it. It had the effect of making me concerned for Joshua’s care.

This series also features the reverse side of the page where the pen bleeds through. I like such marks, I think of them as diacritical because they show the porosity of the page, its fragility, and the strong  flow of the ink in this instance.

The ink bleed creates the initial frame. I am wondering about Joshua’s mask here- the mask is a strong presence and seems to have several functions. Removing the performer’s face from view can unsettle the audience- they don’t know who they are dealing with or what to expect. At the same time, this erasure of specific persona or personality can also have an enabling effect of or give confidence – both to the artist and the audience- in a challenging performance situation.

By Rachel Lois Clapham

Small Talk (Turku) #1

Joshua Soafer – Object of Love

13^th June 2013

18:37 – 18:44

Wäinö Aaltosen museo

18:37

A: So, what time do you go in?

J: Quarter to…PAUSE

A: How are you feeling?

J: Okay….yes LAUGHS…it’s a very…it’s an opening feeling here tonight.

A: Very busy….

J: Yes

A: I thought everyone had come just for Joshua. I didn’t realise it was the opening of the…

J: No…

THEY LAUGH

A: I thought, ‘he’s got a big following in Turku!’

J: Yeah…no but I think its great that it’s errr…that it happens on the same day as the opening as well because then people will see it and maybe they will come.

PAUSE

A: And how do you feel about going in?

PAUSE

J: Quite okay but of course it’s like visible, it’s like I am an exhibition…but yeah…

A: Not nervous?

J: Not so nervous about the exhibitionist part but maybe more like, in the sense, like, how will the conversation go or….will there be anything…

A: Revealed?

J: Yeah, and how is it to do it in this context.

A: Sure.

J: Yeah, so…

PAUSE

Are you going in?

A: I’m booked in. Not tonight though, another day.

PAUSE

It’s interesting to me how some people look and some people don’t look. LAUGH

J: Yeah that’s true. But some people, many people actually, are looking at it for a long time…which is…interesting.

A: This is kind of like some seating, isn’t it?

J: Yeah…they sit there and they look at you.

A: This woman, with the orange, I noticed her.

J: Yeah.

A: What do you think she is thinking?

J: I don’t know. It looks like she is waiting for something to happen.

PAUSE

I dunno, what do you think?

PAUSE

A: I think she’s just enjoying looking…

J: Yeah, maybe.

A: Maybe that’s her husband next-door…he looks bored.

THEY LAUGH

Maybe he’s here every opening?

PAUSE

J: So how does he, someone told me he is keeping track of time, does he have a watch in there?

A: It’s a good question.

PAUSE

Hey look…!

J: Ah, there you go!

A: I’ve got sharp eyes…

J: Yes…

A: And now you know that’s there.

J: Yeah but I won’t be looking that way…or if you see me looking that way you know…

A: I know…!

We can…that can be our secret. LAUGH.

What do you think about this costume?

J: It was quite surprising actually, like err, okay…that’s the costume…!

A: Do you think you will touch it…?

J: Maybe the most surprising is this head thing, that he’s…

A: This mask…

J: Yeah…that he doesn’t really…it’s there with his face…

A: Yeah…

J: He’s there with this mask…

A: Do you think that might help or hinder?

J: Well immediately I would say hinder. What would you think?

A: I thought hinder but also…maybe it will be surprising?

J: Yeah.

PAUSE

A: Have you, are you okay with being on view, have you had experience of this before?

J: Yes, that’s okay. I am also a Performance Artist.

A: Ah okay! THEY LAUGH

J: So that’s not a problem. THEY LAUGH.

A: So you are in the ’in crowd’?

V: I think we are heading home. So I will see you later at the festival opening at 8.

A: Bye Veikko!

Do you get nervous before your performances?

J: Yes, of course. But maybe not now. I don’t get nervous now performing, because, now it not up to me. Now I can just be led.

I’m more nervous about the therapy sessions I think.

A: Have you ever done any therapy in your life?

J: Yeah I think maybe I have done one or two. But not a long, long journey.

PAUSE

A: How do you feel about therapy?

J: Well I, I…well it’s something of course about the attention on me which is….good but really I always try to push the attention away from me. So that’s why I feel like a bit like…I don’t really like it so much.

A: You push the attention away from you in life, or in your performances also?

J: In life, also. So it’s like…err…and also often in performances I try to push attention away from me so…

A: To make people look elsewhere? Or…?

J: Yeah, I very often do participatory things…so these kinds of things.

A: So you are facilitating people becoming active in some way?

J: So that’s why it’s…err…it’s err…being the one that has to be…

PAUSE

J SEES SOME FRIENDS

A: Some friends?

J: Yes.

J GOES AND GREETS FRIENDS

J TALKS TO FRIENDS

J GOES INTO THE BOX

18:44

[OBJECT OF LOVE]

19:20

Read an introduction to Small Talk (Turku) here.
By Alex Eisenberg

An Experiment: White Balance

An experiment: I wrote down only different words that popped into my mind during the performance, and afterwards compiled a poem using these words.

in a paper room
time travels
memories get lost (the dog with human eyes)
technologies as fragile as the mind
film tape covering us
— a reminder.

By Tuuli Suhonen

During White Balance

Robin Deacon White Balance 14.06.13

Robin’s tightly choreographed, very layered performance was difficult to diagram in detail in the time of the performance (45 mins). Instead, I focused on the various frames- actual, theoretical, contextual- in the work.

At one point there was quite a long gap whilst Robin tried different cassettes inside the JVC GR-C1. Meanwhile, no image was projected on the furthermost right hand screen. I could not decide between this being an unintended break-down of the equipment.

Or simply a routine changeover that, due to the age of the video cameras, quite literally took an age.

It is often difficult to say when these gaps or momentary lapses in intended direction are scripted or not in Robin’s work. He manages both well.

By Rachel Lois Clapham

During Action Scenique: Untamed Thingliness 1

During Action Scenique: Untamed Thingliness 1
By Rachel Lois Clapham 14.06.13

I decided that Nada Gambier’s improvisatory performance Action Scenique: Untamed Thingliness must have been rule based at some level. These rules were intriguingly out of  view in the performance itself. However, they must have been quite sparse (which is not to say inexact) as there was lots of room for the performers to develop their presence within the piece, and their relationship to one another and the objects. The openness of the performance left lots of room for writerly reponses.

Too much room? There is a chance that a piece like this can get easily overwritten by other factors.

Part way through I was feeling overwhelmed by the objects and was instead taken by the idea of trying the mode the performers were using to move between particular gestures. It was a mode in which one small movement could be seen to be isolated, repeated, then shift into a different position before being settled upon. The performers watched their own body with a detached and studied curiosity during this particular gestural becoming.

With my pen I attempted to pinpoint the moment when one line on my paper changed or shifted into something else. I tried to do this with a certain naivety towards my own hand; letting the grain of the paper, or the pre-destination of the diagram, manifest itself.

By Rachel Lois Clapham

Performance Voyage 3

PERFORMANCE VOYAGE 3
or
13 theoretical tweets that never existed

1. Annette Arlander: Day and Night of the Dog, 2007 (Suomi)
2. Filippo Berta: Concerto of soloists, 2012 (Italia)
3. Trine Hylander Friis: Voice Works #1-2, 2010 (Norja)
4. Essi Kausalainen: Last Little Donkey, 2013 (Suomi)
5. Mikey McParlane & Michael Mallis: Love Puddles, 2011 (USA)
6. Maria Nikiforaki: In the gardens, 2011 (Kreikka)
7. Anna Nykyri: Uurteet (luonnos) / Trails (an outline), 2012
(Suomi)
8. Andreas Pashias: For Starters, 2012 (Kypros)
9. Dana Sederowsky: Hasselblad Announcements, 2010 (Ruotsi)
10. Surya Tüchler: SpieluhrMund, 2012 (Saksa)
11. Tracy Valcarcel: Will To, 2012 (Kanada)
12. Eero Yli-Vakkuri: Art Must Be Original, Artist Must Be
Original, 2011 (Suomi)

FIRST TWEET
I have seen this video collection perhaps 50 times already. I know
the performances by heart. I could tell you what happens in them,
second by second, but I won’t. It’s dark in the theatre and I
can’t write during the screening.

SECOND TWEET
The woman probably isn’t sitting in the tree for all that time. I
think she is tricking us, the viewers. We have no way of knowing.

THIRD TWEET
I sometimes hate the sounds people make when they eat. For some
reason this video manages to make it not annoying. Perhaps it’s
because I know it’s a performance.

FOURTH TWEET
The first part is perfect. Maybe the second part could have been
left out? Or is there a third one somewhere?

FIFTH TWEET
Her movement looks very laborious and physically demanding. I
respect that.

SIXTH TWEET
More of a strange scifi film with sexually explicit alien material
than a performance. Still, an interesting, imaginative
piece.

SEVENTH TWEET
This would be fascinating to see as a live performance or a
looping video.

EIGHTH TWEET
A strong, evocative piece of work. Would probably need the
accompanying explanation though – does the audience know the
background of this? I know so I view it differently.

NINTH TWEET
Always the audience favourite in every screening. Funny, visually
interesting and slightly provocative. Everyone always laughs at
”tzatziki”.

TENTH TWEET
I think this was also part of a series of similar works by the
artist. It’s ok as a standalone piece, but would be interesting to
see in the context of the entire series.

ELEVENTH TWEET
This is again one of those performances that looks physically
painful, or at least very very uncomfortable.

TWELFTH TWEET
I like the idea and execution of the performance, but for some
reason (not sure why) this piece stays the most ”distant” in the
entire collection.

THIRTEENTH TWEET
I get a feeling that my own work isn’t all that original right
now. It’s pretty, but is it Art?

By Miika Sillanpää

Robin Deacon Notes

By Miika Sillanpää

Kristina Junttila 1+1=1

By Emilia Karjula

Festival Club thoughts

By Tuuli Suhonen

During Night Club Lunch

During Night Club Lunch
15.06.13

Mimosa Pale & Severi Pyysalo’s Night Club Lunch at Hamburger Bors Night Club was a sit down communal lunch with beautifully surreal cabaret acts and musical accompaniment in which I mostly sat and talked with close friends of Mimosa’s parents.

It was difficult to take notes in this scenario (for so many reasons to do with Mimosa, conversation with her family friends, lunch, eating and cabaret). Instead I took the objects and things from our table and drew around them, these include knives and forks, a glass, a metallic head piece, a serviette, a doughnut and some candyfloss.

By Rachel Lois Clapham

Discussing Joshua Sofaer’s Object of Love

Discussing Joshua Sofaer’s Object of Love

By Miika Sillanpää

Small Talk (Turku) #2

Untamed Thingliness – Nada Gambier
14th June 2013
20:02 – 20:10
Kutomo

20:01
A: Hello. How are you?
B: Good! How are you?
A: I am a bit tired.
PAUSE
But I’m…I sometimes get worried because I sometimes fall asleep in performances.
Do you ever?
B: No.
A: Never?
Have you ever?
B: No. LAUGHS I have never.
A: Oh…that’s an achievement!
B: Well…maybe I don’t go there when I am tired.
A: Okay.
B: Yeah.
A: Yeah.
But what about even if you really wanted to go?
B: I would skip it.
A: Really…you would skip it?
B: I’m…how do you say…PAUSE…I go for my own pleasure.
LAUGH
PAUSE
A: What do you think it’s going to be like?
B: I don’t know.
It’s my former flatmate, so I am curious. I only saw her for the last time ten years ago so it’s…
A: You haven’t seen her for ten years?
B: No…I don’t think so.
A: Wow.
Does she know you are here?
B: No.
A: It’s going to be a surprise…
B: Yeah, but I have to…I hope it starts soon, because I have to catch a train after. So I am gonna run.
A: Okay!
LAUGH
So have you seen her work at all since these ten years?
B: No.
A: So you have no idea what it may be like?
B: No, I don’t know.
What do you think?
A: I also don’t know. I know really…nothing!
Gambia, I keep thinking of the African country because it sounds the same – Gambia – but she’s not African?
B: No.
A: No.
Finnish and probably…I guess, English.
A: How do you feel about seeing your friends work?
B: Yeah, it’s great, that’s why I came. LAUGH. That’s the reason I am here.
A: Are you also making work? Are you an artist yourself?
B: Yeah.
A: Okay – so you are kind of in the system?
B: Yeah. I guess that’s a way to put it.
And you?
A: I am also.
How else would you put it?
B: I don’t know if I would use the word ’system’…but yeah…
A: What’s wrong with the word ’system’?
B: It seems like there is a system…how to do it. I don’t like to have the feeling that there is a way to do it. Then again I am not sure which is the way to do…it…so…
A: Yeah, no, totally.
B: I mean if you try to do it as the system, then…you are selling yourself or something…I dunno. I feel it has to do with such things like…okay I know about the system so I am going to try and work within it, rather than, there might be systems but I am going to react…
A: It’s complicated, these questions. Like, you know, whether there is a system…I think there is a system.
This is like a system, this festival.
Yeah, there are lots of different systems. It’s difficult to know, sometimes, how to work with the system.
PAUSE
B: Yeah, or work outside it.
A: Mmm…Where do you work? Inside or outside?
THEY LAUGH
Well you said you don’t like, you don’t so much like the idea.
B: No, I’m not so much interested in systems but I am working with state money.
A: Money from the government?
B: Yeah.
A: So you are in the system?
B: Yeah, in that sense. But I am not eager to push myself in any systems.
A: No, sure, I understand that.
PAUSE
B: I don’t know, which is better…this one or that. Maybe equal.
What do you do?
I make performance but I am here, actually, we are working on a writing programme. We are responding to all the works through writing but in a very broad sense of the term.
B: What is the system?
LAUGH
A: The system is…we see the performances throughout the festival and we make a response and then we publish it online in some way!
B: Okay.
A: And those responses can be quite varied.
PAUSE
Do you think…na…
B: Nadia…
A: Nadia…
B: No Nada…!
A: Do you think, Nadia…Nada is in the, in the system?
PAUSE
LAUGH
B: I don’t think about that question.
A: Really?
B: No.
A: Do you not like it? Do you not like me talking about this – the system?
B: Errr…PAUSE…somehow it feels depressing.
A: Mmm…why does it feel depressing?
B: Mmm…because it’s not really in the interests, like in the public interest, like it feels like it’s too…it’s depressing, even to the artists.
A: But we never said what the system is…which system we might be talking about?
B: What’s in my head is not what is in your head, I think.
PAUSE
In my head it’s something that feels…like err…it somehow tries to value things for others in a weird way and then it’s kind of selling these values as something we don’t discuss any more. Like you build up something, some like kind of image of an artist, the value you take away…
A: Yes, a fakeness?
B: Yeah…or like something, like, once it’s put there then it’s somehow…
A: Validated, or…?
B: Yeah…somehow…this is not…it goes really quite depressing in someway, it’s the same as like having the King and you know, the people below and it’s a hierarchical way.
A: There are all sorts of other systems as well…like the eco system that’s a good system… or…ermm…you know…
PAUSE
B: Yeah…
A: Well…very nice talking to you.
B: You too.
THE WHITE CURTAINS OPEN AND A AND B GO INTO THE AUDITORIUM
20:10

[UNTAMED THINGLINESS 1]

21:00

Read an introduction to Small Talk (Turku) here.
By Alex Eisenberg

Small Talk (Turku) #3

Small Talk (Turku) #3

Nightclub Lunch

With Mimosa Pale & Severi Pyysalo

Hamburger Börs Night Club

13:08 – 13:13

15th June 2013

13:08

A: Hello, how are you?

N: Good…yeah…LAUGHS…I thought I was late…

A: But you are not! I also thought I was late and I went in the other door.

N: Me too!

A: Oh you too!

N: And we went out to get money because we don’t have any cash…so…LAUGHS…it’s good that it’s not…

A: Yeah it’s…quite relaxed. PAUSE

What do you think it’s going to be like?

N: I don’t know….I’m just actually…waiting to eat! THEY LAUGH

A: LAUGHING You are here for the food!

What do you think the food is going to be like, have you had food here before?

N: Yes and err…I don’t know what to expect.

PAUSE

A: Do you know anything about the artist?

N: No…

A: Have you ever had a lunch in a nightclub?

N: No…I don’t think so.

A: I definitely haven’t!

And of course today is the one day when it is really nice and sunny!

N: Yeah…

PAUSE

A: Have you thought about what this might be like?

N: Mmm…yeah, I was wondering about the hats.

A: Yes she makes hats right?

N: And I think…the audience will…well, there was like a suggestion that the audience can wear hats, if they want to and I…I wish was a hat person because…LAUGHS

A: Oh you are not a hat person?

N: No, no…

A: Really…

N: No…

A: What makes a hat person?

N: I dunno…

A: Why do you think you are not a hat person?

THEY LAUGH

N: No, you really need to be an enthusiast to be a hat person because…

A: I like to wear hats sometimes but I don’t consider myself a hat person.

THEY LAUGH

N: Well if you like to wear hats you are a hat person…

A: Ah…

N: Because…I think people who never wear hats know that they can’t…at least I do.

A: But do you never wear a hat even when, like, it’s really hot?

N: In winter, I wear a hat…

A: In winter, okay in the cold, okay, of course…

N: But…

A: You can’t get away here without wearing a hat in winter, right?

N: Yeah…but in summer, I cannot because then it would be…err…an accessory and…

A: You don’t like accessories?

N: No, I like accessories but cannot do it…you have to be a more confident person to wear accessories…

A: Ah, I see…do you think the hat has something to do with confidence?

PAUSE

But I actually think, sometimes people wear a hat to hide.

N: Ahh, ohh, yeah…

A: I have a friend who is loosing his hair…which I am also…THEY LAUGH and he is always wearing a hat, the whole time…

And so it’s kind of like a disguise.

N: Yeah…I didn’t…think that. Yeah. True.

A: And also when you, it’s also…when you touch your head. Feel your head. It’s quite comforting to have it…

N: Yeah!

A: Maybe…?

THEY LAUGH

A:Yes…

A: Hi

S: So that’s your ticket already.

A: Oh good, thank you very much! I like your hat!

S: Thank you this is one of Mimosa’s.

A: This is one that you need some confidence to wear.

S: Yeah.

A: We were just talking about…yeah…well nice talking to you. Enjoy your lunch. Which way? This way?

PAUSE

Mmm this is kind of exciting.

13:13

[NIGHTCLUB LUNCH]

14:45

Read an introduction to Small Talk here
By Alex Eisenberg

Field Journal, Observation Station 4 & 5

Field Journal, day 3

Field Journal, day 2

By Emilia Karjula

Live Cartography – Becoming Map

Live Cartography – Becoming Map

By Venla Luoma

Oblivia: Museum of Postmodern Art

By Miika Sillanpää

Watching Oblivia

15.6.2013

after 6.pm.

X: Are you afraid of the dark?

M: No, not really. I would just like to see what I’m writing.

X: What are you writing then?

M: A brilliant critique of this performance.

X: You must be very clever then.

M: I don’t know about that.

X: I think it’s starting. I can see something.

M: Like frozen hattifatteners –

X: – – trying to walk forward. It seems very hard.

M: This is very physical, more physical than most of the performances I’ve seen.

X: I like looking at this. Like insects stuck inside wobbly jelly.

M: But with the wind howling and the darkness this feels like a winter.

X: That’s how I feel most of the time in winter. Trying to walk in deep snow and not getting anywhere.

M: That sounds depressing.

X: Winter is depressing.

M: I think they are transforming now. They look like birds being set free.

X: Or really mundane angels.

M: It’s very convenient that they are explaining what just happened and what is about to happen. It makes writing this thing much easier.

X: I don’t really get it.

M: Don’t worry. I don’t think it is necessary to get it to understand it. Or at least that’s what I’ve heard.

X: I like this idea of 100 actresses as trees, though. I think it would look interesting.

M: I think their ideas sound crazy. Trees falling into orchestra pit sounds painful and useless.

X: That’s what artists’ life is all about.

M: About pain und uselessness?

X: I don’t know. It seems to me that it takes a long time to create something, then after it’s done and you’ve showed everyone what you have made, it’s all gone.

M: It isn’t all gone. Art lives in people’s memories, on walls and on book shelves. Art has an effect on things.

X: I still wouldn’t want to be an artist. Just look at that man on the stage. He feels emotional pain and it turns into physical? He wakes up and is like what’s the pain of the day?

M: I think it’s all worth it.

X: I’m sure you’re still glad that you’re not up there but up here, writing about those people on the stage.

M: Well, yes, I think I am. But not because I wouldn’t want to be an artist, but because I would be a very bad one.  I wouldn’t want anyone to see that.

X: That’s stupid. Everyone gets judged every day, anyhow. Not depending on whether you are an artist or not.

M: Maybe I’m afraid. The stage –

X: Look, I think it’s ending.

M: I hate smoke machines, they make me sneeze.

X: This is very dramatic.

M: They are disappearing into the same mist that the first human beings came from.

X: What do you mean by that?

M: Nothing really, it just sounded nice.

X: You really would be a bad artist.

By Tuuli Suhonen

Live Cartography

Untamed Thingliness 1
14.6.2013

Untamed Thingliness 1
14.6.2013

Untamed Thingliness 1
14.6.2013
Alex Eisenberg

Mimosa Pale (Festival Club) 14.6.2013
Venla Luoma

Mimosa Pale (Festival Club) 14.6.2013
Alex Eisenberg

Mimosa Pale (Festival Club) 14.6.2013
Miika Sillanpää

Nature Morte in Turku 15.6.2013
Venla Luoma

White Balance 15.6.2013
Venla Luoma

Object Of Love Joshua Sofaer 15.6.2013
Alex Eisenberg

Object Of Love 15.6.
Venla Luoma

Life in Bytom 16.6.
Alex Eisenberg

Life in Bytom 16.6.
Alex Eisenberg

Life in Bytom 16.6.
Venla Luoma

1+1=1
16.6. Venla Luoma

Rachel Lois and Joshua Interview

For Object of Love at the New Performance Turku Festival members of the public are invited to sign up for a one-to-one coaching session with artist and PCT accredited Relational Dynamics Coach Joshua Sofaer who offers them a confidential 25 minute coaching session in a soundproof glass box in the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art.

Rachel Lois Clapham (RLC) is one of the festival’s Notamoleskine Fellows and participated in one of the coaching sessions. She caught up with Joshua (JS) and they talked about Object of Love outside the confines of the glass box.

//

RLC – How did Object of Love come about?

JS – Christopher (Hewitt) invited me to consider making a piece within certain parameters and conditions, some of which were implicit, to do with what the festival was about. And some of which were explicit, to do with budgetary remits and possible spaces. I started training as a Coach a couple of years ago and had been gently incorporating it in different forms of art making. I wanted to see how an explicit use of a coaching session in an art context might function. So I brought Christopher’s invitation and my concerns together.

RLC– How was the coaching element in Object of Love different from other pieces you have made?

JS– I did a piece called Operahjälpen in Stockholm where I trained Opera singers in how to listen, how to listen to a problem and bring a problem into the air. Then members of the public would apply for a ticket with some kind of problem. Opera singers would then go to their house and listen to the problem. When the problem was in the air, they would then select an aria from the Classical 19th Century repertoire and sing it directly in somebody’s house with a pre-recorded professional backing track. My hunch was that when you go to the Opera you bring your own life, and you are hoping that some magic will happen on the stage and you will leave somehow better for the experience. I wanted to see if by fore fronting the problem, paradoxically, people would listen to the music more acutely. Actually, that is what happened, people felt uniquely addressed. And the feedback we received was that people would go to the Opera much more often. That piece was not intended for a huge audience but it garnered a lot of interest and was considered successful on its own terms. In Object of Love, I was interested to see whether a more explicit and direct use of coaching could work in an artwork.

RLC– What is PCT?

JS– PCT is the accreditation for the particular form of coaching called Relational Dynamics. A lot of coaching is unregulated but there are bodies set up to try and establish a best practice and PCT is one of them. I was extremely sceptical about the training in the beginning. I was really unprepared to understand the potentiality of it. Whether or not that scepticism translates to the piece itself is something that maybe you are better placed to answer than me.

RLC– Yes, I have never been in a… therapy… is that the word for it? I’m not sure that it is the right word…

JS – Some people in Turku were conflating the work with psycho-therapy or with therapy in general. It’s really not. Therapies tend to be backwards looking, they look at origin causes and try to interpret. Therapists often offer advice. Coaching is forward facing, goal oriented and solution focused. Coaches do not offer any advice. The most they would do would be offer an observation or a suggestion if they know something in the world that a coachee is looking for.

RLC– I am very interested in the style of the conversation; it seemed to rely very much on your presence. I’m not sure if that is the coaching or part of the work as you created it. Your presence seemed to have a channelling effect in the sense that your being there was clarifying what I was saying and you also were repeating some of the things I was saying back to me. My thoughts were crystallizing but it wasn’t revelatory, it was more of a focusing.

JS– ’Reflecting back’ is one of the cornerstones of coaching. Coaching has a lot of different techniques but in 25 minutes there is only a certain amount we could do. One thing I was interested in is trying to affect some transformation in 25 minutes. In most cases it probably was just a moment of clarification for someone. The tougher the problem the easier it is to coach. When people came in with simple things they were not invested in so much, I found it much harder to address because the work is done by the coachee. The higher the stakes of the question that is brought, the higher the return and the easier it is to deal with as a coach because people are invested to the degree that they want to see some solution, or rather some clarity of the situation, a next step. That is one thing that I tried with as many people as possible; to at least enable them to find a next step.

RLC– Did anything unexpected occur in the vitrine?

JS– I totally believe in coaching and I believe that if i am doing my job well, and if the coachee is engaged, then the process will work. What I was testing in this particular context was a further level of seeing and not seeing, and what art practice itself is doing. So the idea was that these conversations could be witnessed and not heard. That people on the outside could see the coachee undergoing some kind of change. Looking at the video that was shot externally to the vitrine, or the booth, what you see is me sitting there and somebody next to me going through all these thoughts. It is quite interesting to look at that.

RLC– They did gesticulate didn’t they?

JS– A lot, a lot.

RLC – For me, your mask provided an erasure of your personality, or a distancing that made it easier for me – as the participant – to deal with such a unique one-to-one live experience. Was it easier for you – as the performer – to be objectified in that situation by having something covering your face?

JS – I found that people would try to find my gaze in order to find re-assurance from me. That slows down the process. What I wanted to be was a symbol or figure. I’m interested in the figure of the Shaman. As coach, I want to be an object that precipitates or moves the coachee rather than a figure of authority, or a reassuring, validating factor. When the coachee looks for that validation from the coach – which is very understandable and a common therapeutic model – they become reliant on the therapist for validating their existence. The coach wants to be a neutral figure, almost an irrelevant figure. It is a different kind of role. And I am interested in what the costume produces in that regard. So the one thing I might change would be to explicitly blindfold myself. My hope is that the coachee then thinks ’I can’t get reassurance from this person, they are simply a symbol. So I have just got to deal with the issue at hand.’

RLC– I searched out your eyes. Not because it would be rude not to (and I think that is a factor), but because if you were offering your gaze then I would explore what it meant to look into your eyes in that moment.

JS– There was one very practical problem which I could not solve during the festival. I had to really keep my eye on the time in the sessions. Keeping the time is very much part of the coaches’ job. And moving the conversation on within certain time frames is a very important factor. I was scared to make the alteration to the blindfold without a way to manage the time blind.

RLC – I had no idea how you were managing the time. I could not see any time pieces anywhere inside the box or in the museum. I knew something was at work but I couldn’t quite understand what. It was quite intriguing.

JS– (Laughs) I’m tempted not to tell.

RLC– I almost don’t want to know…
…Can you talk more about the costume, I understand it is itself a labour of love?

JS– From the moment I was contracted late last year, I started the costume. My aim was to find something that would be wearable, transportable, not so ornate that people would be lost in it. But enough that people would feel a thrill from it. It had to be non narrative. From a practical sense, I also wanted to do something with my hands. My working process is often quite cerebral. But I had not anticipated how long it would take to make. Each jump ring had to be sewn on by hand. Then each knot had to be glued because the thread on the metal has a tendency to undo.

RLC– I know performers stay very close to every aspect of production, but quite how much of a hand you had in its making I was surprised to hear. I like the labour you invested in it. However manual or detailed or time consuming it was, it is something you have completed, and in a practical way. It is an object of love …

JS. This relates to the museum reference, I wanted to be an art object in the gallery. It was important to me that my skill was brought to bear both in the aesthetic visual representation and in the encounter that is held in language. Everything is made in collaboration to a certain extent, but I did as much of the costume as I possibly could. For instance, I hand dyed each of the coloured ties. In terms of materials, I wanted them to be quite readily available, domestic materials. There was something about the cable tidy, the idea of neatening up the wires, that fit with the themes of coaching. The mask is formed from a badminton racket and batting about a shuttlecock from one person to the other is a useful metaphor. The costume was not initially recognisable but if someone delved into it they could begin to make associations with these everyday objects that had been transformed and made into art. This is also partially what Object of Love does, it takes the readymade performance of coaching, which I do outside the context of art, and brings it into the gallery. There was a correlation between what was happening with the costume and the narrative of the encounter.

RLC– When I took my turn and walked inside the booth, your usual shoes and clothes were left just inside the entrance. It confirmed I was moving into a different zone, there was an artifice being signalled. But it also brought me back to you, Joshua, in a small way. That was quite a potent moment for me.

JS– The coachee is the only one that can see the leftover ordinariness of my clothes. If you look from the outside you cannot not see that. I hoped that that small gesture would create an intimacy between me and the coachee in the sense that they can recognise my humanity, leave it at the door and concentrate on their own problem and work with this surface I have created.

RLC – Where do these ’confessions’ or conversations sit right now?

JS. I felt afterwards that I had been the audience of the entire work. I had been witness to this vast array of issues and questions that people presented. I can’t really associate a particular problem with an individual but what I have is a sense of our collective human need to share. To interlocute, to talk to others in order to better understand ourselves. The overpowering sense for me is one of feeling humble in the moment of presence of other people.

//

Joshua Sofaer is an artist who is centrally concerned with modes of collaboration and participation. joshuasofaer.com
Rachel Lois Clapham is Co-Director of Open Dialogues, a UK collaboration founded in 2008 with Mary Paterson that produces writing on and as performance. opendialogues.com

Photography by Hannu Seppälä for New Performance Turku Festival

Interview conducted for Notamoleskine at New Performance Turku Festival 2013

Vine-ing my way through the Festival – Alex Eisenberg

Throughout the festival I have been making Vine’s – 6 second videos which draw inspiration from GIF’s, include snippets of audio and loop their way into existence.

Below is a ’Vine Film’ which narrates my experience through the festival. To play each Vine click on the image and to hear sound (which I recommend) click the speaker icon in the top left hand corner.

Veikko’s approach

I approached this task of noting/writing with (not about) the events occurring with no particular approach.
I came to the first gathering to see what emerges.
Aim was to (ad)venture with a hope for the (ad) to be added as we go, as we come, as it happens.

As it happens, I had my son three year old son to accompany me for the first two days of the (ad)venture.
Being accompanied by him became accompanying him, as it happens.

Instead of pretending he is not there, I invited him along.
We attended two events together as fellows at work. Me assisting him (sometimes with technicalities, sometimes in the toilet).

He had a camera. When looked back at the photos taken, for each one, he answered the question “what is happening here?”

There are many shots of the ground and of me (nose, mouth, hair, chest), of pavement chalks (yellow, green, pink, blue, blue, blue, blue).
His approach is not about capturing, but rather an outline of the very act of it.

3 years and 6 months, 100cm. He is there as it happens.

(Thank you Veikko. Love, äiti)

Veikko’s Approach: Opening at WAM

Näyttelyavajaiset/ Exhibition Opening for Suurin kaikista on rakkaus
With Joshua Sofaer: Object of Love
Wäinö Aaltosen Museo – To 13.6.2013

Noter – Veikko Rautaheimo :

”Siellä katseltiin pukuja. Ihmisiäkin oli. Vanhoja. Korva, nenä, silmä.
Ja Aimokin oli siellä. Siellä oli mitä vain! – Dresses were looked at.
There were people also. Old ones. An ear, a nose, an eye.
And Aimo was there also. There was almost anything!”

Veikko’s Approach: Eero Yli-Vakkuri

Eero Yli-Vankkuri: Mysteerikone, käsityöpaja lapsille/
The Mystery Machine, arts workshop for children
Kuvataidekeskus Manilla – To 13.6.2013

Noter – Veikko Rautaheimo :

” Siellä tehtiin remonttia. Tein töitä. Siellä oli puita, saha, ruuviruuvikone. – Renovating was going on. I worked. There was wood, a saw, a screwmachine.”