Improvising along the crack.....

using lena's action theatre improvisation techniques, neil, lena and i explored the crack at the tate, not my usual means of drawing/doodling/rambling notes in a sketchbook, but through our bodies- we moved in silence following each other's lead, crawling, sliding, tiptoeing along....mimicking the patterns in the edges at times, crossing the crack, positioning self parallel to it.....trying not to lose grip of each other...was a very liberating experience, ignoring those photographing and asking us questions til we reached the other end.....i looked up half way through and saw doug taking photos, he had spotted us from another level whilst on the phone and come down to watch us...it would have been good maybe if we'd encouraged participants to extend our line, but then we'd have come out of our zone.... afterwards a couple of school students came and asked us what we were doing which was a very wierd feeling, half the time i have spent in the tate has been as a teacher and here i was on the other side..great feeling to hold onto! i asked them why they did the rubbings of the crack, to which they replied..dunno, miss told us too. this made me think about our peformnace, it was a direct engaging one physically experincing the art installation, the path it ruptured through the floor, how it meandered and grew along the entire length of the turbine hall...i thoroughly enjoyed this physicality and didn't need to feel it was crucial to have drawn/photographed what i was actually doing, and in fact the photos doug showed me showed things i hadn't really noticed- that we drew a crowd and people were photographing us...recording experinces in memory is ok in itself, but a little visual prompt is ok too but it shows it from the outside not whats it was like inside so is subjective...have just borrowed the catalogue of the 'live art on camera' exhibition just finished in southampton- which looks at the relationship between documentary photos of performances and the usual line of photographic work of the photographers that took them- shame to have missed the actual exhitibion- think i need to start looking at photo style, recording and subjective nature of documentation- whats left in and out of the frame? WHAT'S THE STORY THAT'S ARTICULATED???? when not to document?

i started to think about whether this was a unique happening, and the master youtube speaks otherwise

thanks lena and neil for a great experinence!

shibboleth, participating in the crack at the tate modern....

now full of the world of participation,and other ways of exploring this, enjoyed watching and ear wigging on others interactions and discussions about this crack the whole length of the turbine hall. it seemed to be small children that were most eager to get their foot/head/ toy down inside it and be photographed. Would be good to go back and record this more. Looking at how people had recorded this on youtube, I found this i minute, walk the crack video- its weird but i would have started from entrance to back i.e. as crack opened up



From Tate website;

'Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall. Rather than fill this iconic space with a conventional sculpture or installation, Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.'

participation in a new way, a public art piece you can get right inside, no red tape.

this link also talks about peoples interactions with what has the nickname doris's crack, saying one old lady fell down it as she thought it was painted on and about other casualties. it is interesting in a health and safety, risk assessment bonkers society that this work is so openly there to inadvertently fall into, a crack this size on a pavement would have huge barriers around it sealing it off, but i guess this also points to that obsession in our culture.