In the initial wave of investigation and articulation of what this performance would be, months ago now, I articulated a key concern for myself; that the work “rest upon the central ideas of entropy and disintegrating communication, but not fall into obtusity itself."  The resulting process led me through extensive research, in terms of study and performative exploration, to a form which led me back to this key consideration; as a work concerned with the fractures between people, how do I communicate the feeling of that disconnect without falling into it?

My research was an integral part of my process, and of the final work; it enriched it acutely.  I spent weeks reading and analysing data, giving myself the freedom to follow tangents and hone in on ideas that, from a processual perspective, were far from the initial point of investigation.  However, the wider I researched - through books, through transcripts of lectures, academic articles, old newspaper reports - the more points of connection and the vastness of what I was looking at become apparent.  From the initial seed (that in retrospect I had been ruminating on all year) of the dissatisfaction I felt with text and language as a conduit for connection and communication, I grew the stimulus outward to encompass international miscommunications; the global effects and conditions of peoples unwilling and unable to understand each other.  From this also developed a sense of the timelessness of this condition; both an ancient archaeology and a futuristic consideration of  the fractures that occur within humanity, and the tenuousness of the unions which form and crumble, on gross and intimate scales - between two people or millions.

The regard of this work having grown exponentially thus in the weeks of research, the next step, in actualising, was to reduce the form of the work down.  This stage of the process came somewhat rapidly and instinctually to me.  Within a number of variations, I landed upon the image that I want to explore fairly quickly; and having undertaken a long and expansive process of research, I feel that the eventuating physicalisation was resonant with the ideas of what I am exploring.  That it does not speak of the specific images I have explored is not important; it is better, in fact, that it does not.  For the work to explicitly evoke any of my starting points would be to rely on them as a crutch to transfer the ideas, and affect the audience in the way I seek to.  What is aimed for is creating a work that has the concepts of the research at its core, without the weighty starting points.  To state them explicitly, for this work;

- the tension between individuals and cultures; without images directly referring to conflict.

- the ineffectuality of language; without words to that effect.

- the systematic disintegration of the world, effected by our notions of ‘civilisation’ - without blunt reference to our culture of waste and destruction.

To consider these ideas in light of that first concern; were these ideas inherent in the work?  And were they, then, accessible? We will come back to these questions after some further reflection.

The process of enacting the work went through a further series of changes in the week leading up to the performance.  Following the method of reduction, I had forged the task I would undertake as within quite a firm stricture of rules and concerns; I was to remain stationed within the performance space, surrounded by the concrete objects, in their varying states of collapse/decay, meditating only on one piece.  I would then proceed over the course of the exhibition week, to tend only to that one structure, continuing to assemble it with the silent maxim that I was working on it to a point of completion.  This was a task of Sisyphusian consideration; the re-assemblage of a power that was in some parts ground to dust could only be truly complete when every speck of that dust was back in relationship to the rest - and the tower, its bindings dissolved, would continue only to crumble under its own weight and my relentless interferences.  The natural resolution of the work, then, was not the tower’s reconstruction, but in its further deterioration in part due to efforts to reverse it.

This was an intellectually sound mode of operation, but one that it became apparent left the relationship with the audient as secondary.  It communicated the core of the work, but failed to engage the audient as a viewer of or participant in the action; and thus communicate a wider understanding of the weight of the work.  The door was unlocked, but not open.

In reflection, that approach would also have not yielded for myself, investigatorily, as much as the subsequent work did.  As a work that was to take place on a single evening, over a longer duration (say, at least five hours), I feel a deeper state would have been entered into for both myself and the audience (free to engage for as long or as little as they wanted, and to come and go); but as a framework it would prove deficient for an exploration that would take place for only two and a half hours, and repeat for five evenings.  Without the state that the performer enters into in longform work, and the changes that would be more apparent as both the object and the control and detail of the performance crumbled, the work would essentially repeat on each evening, unable in such a short timeframe to reveal all it could.  

The divorce between the audient and the performer thus clear, the following week began a series of experiments and shifts in performative consciousness to open the work further.  

The relaxation of the restrictions I had placed upon myself was key.  It was important to me that the work was not repetitive in nature; that the state of the work that each evening’s audience encountered was not a reset - not a contrived starting point that the work began at each evening - but a continuing investigation and relationship between the performer and the objects.  The decision to free myself to move within the space; to engage with different assemblages of the objects and eventually alter their relationship to the space; was the spark that first knocked the door ajar.  The decision enabled me to invest in a greater rhythm in the work in how I traversed the space, and gave import to the amount of time I would spend in relationship to one tower.  It also allowed me the option of occasionally moving outside the work, echoing how the audience would stand and look around, sit against the walls of the stairwell, watch from near or afar.  The direct relationship between the audient and the performer was thus problematized, to exponential growth of the work.

The audience thus coming increasingly closer to the work - both physically and in terms of their conceptual consideration - my behaviour in regard to them also began to grow and change.  I could look at them from afar - usually within a short amount of time of the fall of a tower - and thus imply their involvement or concern.  Most often it was a person who had spent some time with the work already, engaging with the task and the environment for some duration.  The subsequent occurrence of the contact was not a reward, it was not to answer the question of the work; but to enable more questions to arise for the audient.  Were they in close quarters, however, as increasing numbers of audience came to me, I refrained from eye contact.  Reflecting back to the starting point of language; were I to engage with them so directly, so closely, the question of why I was not talking would be explicit; language would emerge as immediate and absent.  It would be something that would aid 'understanding’ the work, and my silence would be a hindrance.  How to engage with the adjacent audient became as subtle as they were near; I would engage in silent communion; examining the pieces I was working with with my hands, slowly and thoroughly, and lay them out before them; ’this is the task’.

(All of these justifications became apparent only in reflection.  In the space, I was reacting instinctually and immediately.)

The relationship between task, performer, and audient was to come to a head on the Monday night of the season.

From the first night of performance conditions, the way I approached the work was to grow and shift.  Accordingly, the relationship with the audience grew and shifted as well.  Part of the nature of the work, in how it was placed in the building and the slow and methodic form it took, was that it could easily be bypassed; I have reconciled myself to the fact that my work is not appealing to all audiences - but I do pride myself that the audient who will commit to and engage with the work will uncover layers within it.  Evidenced by their entering further into the work each night, it became clear that the work increasingly unfurled; I felt it as my task and the environment changed.  On the Monday night, two audience members entered the work performatively; taskwise, they were engaged with the space as much as I was.  They first engaged with me directly, at which point I laid out the pieces of a tower before them.   They continued to shadow me, the woman moving the pieces of a tower through the space, and the man entering into co-operation/assistance with me; my finger caught as the keystone in a tower and under its crushing weight, he freed me, found a small piece of concrete to take my place, and together we completed the tower.  From this point of complicity, the three of us were silently in league, completing towers, and - an aspect of the work which emerged instinctively and had not previously occured - relocating them through the space; constructing a close-knit knot of towers.  City? Conference of totems? As an extension of the task, it had instinctive echoes of the state that we had come to as collaborators.

Before the week commenced, I had freed myself of the task of duration.  I would not perform for a set amount of time, as I had initially though, but would leave the work each night when circumstances aligned; when it felt right to leave, like the work had revealed all it could that night.  That Monday night, I left soon after the three of us began work together; at the point that the pair of audients were autonomous.  Initially following my lead and subtle direction in the work we were doing together, they eventually fell into a rhythm alongside me, engaged beyond a relationship with or curiosity concerning me and my performance; they had felt the weight of the task.  That mutuality invoked, was where the work needed to rest, and I left the space whilst they were undertaking the work.

And here we must consider again those questions left earlier; were the ideas inherent in the work?  And were they acessible?

Following that Monday night engagement, the male participant, and I have engaged in further dialogue via email.  The particulars to the side, this discussion has enabled direct reflection on the work, by both of us.  It is apparent to me, more than ever now, that the work was concerned and imbued with all the starting points of my research.  That the work was conceptually sound and solid, I have no doubt.  The extent to which it problematized those matters, it fact, plays greatly into considerations of the accessibility of the work.

The aforementioned email dialogue, and several other conversations I have had with other audients, have brought the question of accessibility to the fore.  Indubitably, the concerns of the work have affected those who engaged with it.  The questions they have articulated reveal that the core considerations of the work have resounded with them; they have been caused to question the very things that I set out to investigate.  The level of satisfaction that this has occasioned for them has, resultingly, been varied.

I have a strong belief that artistic work should be challenging.  It should try held ideas and beliefs, and notions within the art world itself.  Creative work should be concerned with asking the difficult questions; questions for which the answers are too great to answer within that form; that require changes to the audient and the world to accommodate.  If a question is worth asking, the answer must be difficult; and if a question can be answered in the same breath - or in the same work - it is trivial.

My work doesn’t hold answers, and I feel that makes it stronger.  What this work, particularly, provoked were ideas too vital to answer within it.  Engaging further with the work would not be a way to reach answers, as I think that some people assumed; it was a way to unlock more questions.  In that sense, it would not be complete satisfying experience for everyone.  I have resolved this within myself, because what the experience would be is accessible, beyond a sense of satisfaction or contentness; it would enable the concerns to array themselves for the audient, to affect them and effect their thinking - in some cases, to the point of extreme provocation.  The points from which I began my investigation are mighty, and crucial in regards to how we live our lives.  The work, it follows, would hopefully evoke some small sense of these disquieting ideas.  It would perhaps not answer them - but perhaps there are not answers.