Talk and tutorial with Kira O'Reilly

from here. inthewrongplaceness performance. this piece has been performed in a variety of locations and documented bu a variety of photographers- responding to their style. the above images suggest death, haunting, through the natural light, blood red.photograher was a dance photograher and this element clearly is in there.

from here. this participant was the partner of the photographer so agreed to photo. ends in a pieta where audience can hold her.

really fantastic talk kira gave about her influences/connected ideas, and her work yesterday. a few points of particular interest to me- citing influences, audience and documentation;

• kira's work explores the private and public body- traces, cutting, marking, intimacy, internal made external. background in fine art then into performance. for the first half she talked through her influences, somewhat chronologically, before then talking about her work- through sculptors, painters to live artists, film makers- variety of materials, processes, contexts: including eva hesse, frida kahlo, louise bourgeois, fakir mugafar, ana mendieta, marina abramovic, rebecca horn, ron athey,franko b, orlan, david cronenberg
• she had worked with another person early on and found this difficult as always ended another to help facilitate/mediate- eve dent, early work involving leeches, audience surrounding her- drinking wine- dual narrative of blood red wine consumed and leeched consuming blood
  
• started the develop one-on-one performances, putting the viewer directly into the work. using a chair posed next to hers to encourage people to sit next to her- worked more effectively when clothed, and audience approaches her from behind, she uses mirror on floor to catch their eye over her shoulder- more at ease for people to then approach? the audience are invited to the performance through front of house sign up sheet, often giving the audience member a handout explaining what they need to know before entering- eg 'you can sit next to the artist'.kira walks through the audience members journey to the performance to see what its feels like/make any route changes etc
  
• 'wet cupping' uses brandy glasses on skin that the audience had drunk out of- implicating them in the work- very body as sculpture. people ate cake- bleeding after the cake- ideas of things entering and leaving the body. performance as an event- this was her birthday party in a function room of a hotel. 'wet cupping' has also happened in other contexts- backroom of a pub in deptford, a black box theatre in copenhagen. works had adapted to site, audience size set by venue, she responds to the architecture and context.
• not form theatre background so doesn't get theatrical about her work- not a gestural thing, a real thing. she explores real order and chaos- precision of the cut, chaos of the bleed.
• cutting body via a surgical tape grid- and leaving the mark, the trace on the wall
• element of risk-trust- when asking others to cut you- she prescribes where- places where arteries can't be severed- eg thighs.audience wear gloves.
• intimacy with strangers- carrying out intimate tasks, intimate feelings, but this isn't the real them. proximity- sometimes the action simply requires this- eg sat on a bench and to make a cut participant must get closer
• DOCUMENTATION- pieta piece where audience hold/cuddled her in front of a video. the intimate exchange of the cutting itself wasn't documented- these negotiations remain private- issues about what to document- the aftermath yes- with permission, kira with plasters on cuts. participants look into a video monitor to align self in the frame for recording the image, she also uses mirrors- as mentioned earlier. The inthewrongplaceness performance with a dead sow was also photographed by a fashion photographer who used over exposure in a white studio and slow synch flash to get the energy of the movements more 'hit and run'- a stark contrast to the very still, haunting photo above
• work with biotechnology exploring cloning cells- stelarc growing a third ear, experiments with body and lace.did a piece in Netherlands made for camera- performing body taken into the lab

this is pulling out the bits of interest to me-in the tutorial touched more on these and other areas;

• size of audience and event- different energies if do two events- should i do this.be true to the nature of the work- but can see that the one-to-one work on the private view limits audience numbers dramatically. if go for it- private view- possible 6-6.15pm show, 6.45-7 one-to-ones, then repeat at 7 and 8?
• what's the group experience of intimacy against one-to-one? consider this more
  
• talked about my shedseason presentation- so many ideas- especially drawn to the shed as a camera obscura, possible use of photo emulsion directly onto the wood of the shed- nice way of losing the photographic darkroom feel of the paper- perhaps trial this
• flower tributes ideas- discussed the post grad forum last week, liked this- mentioned my new idea of removing the flower from the bed, taking it into the shed for the performance, and then replanting it backs after-flower suspended in the events duration- relocated after wards so LIFE GOES ON, only the image dies
• need to devise a series of experiments to trial ideas but perhaps mediated in different ways- to see how other's feel about seeing me on a screen rather than in real life
• unsure about live feed between sheds- privacy of sheds in a CCTV obsessed nation....