‘Infectious – pass it on’ Survivor or a lethal dose? Testimony, chapter & verse. (Abridged story excerpts) by Jeremy Lorne Inglis 1 Conception, birth and internet sampling (Sex, lies and virtualtapes) Early 2007, a proposal was accepted for the programme at limousine bull in Aberdeen. I had been introduced to various Aberdeen locations and creative denizens, via the 2006 fast&DIRTY workshops, facilitated by Ian Spink. On a return trip, a meeting at the tunnels club with venue manager and experimental collective Mickelmass chief, Mr Napier, led to conversation about instruments, experimental music, film and ideas. That led to research, checking out/sampling websites, exchanging ideas via e-mail. Collaboration between Dumkoppf and Mickelmass emerged from this process of dialogue. New collaborative work would later bemuse and engage the unsuspecting Aberdeen general public. ‘Infectious – pass it on’ had been conceived and could be developed piecing the jigsaw of artist’s vision, experience, people, place and partnerships. The two groups began prepping for a breach birth in public. Possessing a shared intent to merge the experimental sound/music scapes, touches of humour of Mickelmass with the Dumkoppf retro accessorised, seductive style, comic/fool/grande guiginiol, performance aspects, at the centre of the project. To be delivered with bombs away, rapid delivery sensibility. Not suitable for the nervous acting and performer type. This would be live performance in the raw, en plein-air – on location with the audience to confront, engage and interact with, a challenge for everyone. 3 Setting up, networks, partnerships (A godfather? A family, Granite City reckoning) For me as a director, instigator, lead artist, with over a decade’s experience in live art productions, I had not initially prepared for attempting to squeeze six month’s to a year’s research, process and development into a tiny window of 2.5 months. Some people involved still haven’t realised or respected the level of effort, sacrifice, determination and problem resolution I had to go through to deliver and produce a quality production of this scale. (The
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3,000+ hours over nine-month period pre to post-project, hundreds of e-mails, meetings galore, negotiations, contingency plans, a forced logistical juggle of finances to cover an escalated budget, which the artist raised single-handedly, just shy of £4,000, while also creating a micro organisation and having public liabilities for all events.) The actual cost of the infectious project should have been around £10,000. The micro budget made possible thanks to all who sponsored in kind, waived fees, put skill, effort and experience to productive use, at cost only or in gratis. In particular support from intimation design; for print and website and to mimac, who assisted with professional provision of new media and event documentation, while the mimac organisation were themselves under duress, in the midst of setting up as an independent, community-based company. I had to endure persistent uncalled for behaviour, from a minority of individuals and an organisation lacking any experience or comprehension of running a public hybrid arts project, of a level that would finish off most artists’ careers, functioning with unauthorised agendas and gains for their own ends. Making a mockery of the focus and success of a not for profit project, permitting public inclusion and melding a Scottish-wide team, as a creative tour de force, championing all of its participants. Recognising specific pitfalls, with many of the shortcomings and negative internal issues yet to arise, I proceeded with additional roles and tasks of: producer, national and general publicity, proto designer, promoter, project management, exhibition installer and whatever – otherwise, the project I’d invented, created and owned all the rights and licence to would have collapsed, before the public had the chance to find out what it could offer. In the process of which, I gained the nickname ‘papa’, like a Mafia godfather. As the person solely in charge of the arts project, harsh decisions and executions would take place, as deadlines approached – with mêlées of will to test how tough a skin I wore, what was important and superfluous elements of the creative engine,
equations and manpower of the project, as a whole. Underlining the project team process Is unlike the deadly violence of the Mafia, real or filmic. Where mobsters settle scores, exact revenge and end feuds, for the infectious hybrid art project, it is about creative and productive decisions: assembling a good team, appropriate people for performance, camerawork, and lighting roles. While it seems at times you are expected to do everything, groups, individuals, organisations and people helping all have their place – a situation frequently misunderstood by the inexperienced practitioner. This takes nerves of steel, specialised discipline, tolerance and armour-tough skin for the creator/director/ inventor/lead artist. So some contributors had to be put in place and a very small number had to be removed. The project, despite such problems, remained on target and purpose, delivering the payload, not designed for commercial profit or destructive effects. A creative cluster bomb of ideas energy, possibilities for public use transferred through the team’s healthy arts dialogue and exchange. The infectious – pass it on project I created and delivered in all its aspects, flaws ‘n’ all, worked well with the public. 5 Exhibition and event productions. (Like six men being sick struggle to the inland empire feat) The onsite exhibition included a photo archive and installed works, forming an introductory point for the public at limousine bull project space, in Torry. In an austere lock-up shed hidden away, at a hard to access location, stark white and grey floored, a history was displayed. A preliminary storyboard of prior work. A process over a decade of time lapsing imagery. An evolution from archival installation and performance work to a filmic hybrid language. Not unlike David Lynch’s creative arc, who also struggled with the difficulty of static painting limitations (see six men being sick) and moved to atmospheric films. Where complex human conditions, drama and stories could be addressed, such as: elephant man, blue velvet, the straight story and the recent inland empire. Painting had become a medium less suited to social kinetic sculptural explorations, made to function in the public domain. Painting being a mainly private and mostly static end-product artform, often isolating the artist from social contact and interaction. Live film and new media work, on the other hand, demand interaction, audience, social connection and communication due to its communal nature. After all – what film would be worth making should no one witness it, what performance worth the bother were no one to encounter it, what online
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work available without browser and wwweb connection? Accessibility, use, purpose, links and communication, sharing of info become paramount for disseminating of an event before, during and after. For this project a short film documenting the Dumkoppf performance, is in production capturing the highlights of the project, suggesting a path to be explored via the cinematic medium – this although I was once told at art school: ‘Please do not ever venture into film and video art’ by a staff member. How off the mark! Some artists take longer to arrive, taking a different route, from the art school assessment and module prescriptive. So what resources did I have, as an artist working in the micro budget end of a hybrid art form – dealing with a fusion of performative, site specific, visual art, sound/music, film/new media, street theatre/cabaret and elements of installation, sculpture all tied together with the kinetic, dynamic energy of live event? Apart from a fertile imagination, a gutload of bold courage, sustained motivational energy, a bank of ideas, my patent process was an arts-based approach – bolstered by a small, newly-formed team of people willing to work with me, pushing forward from initiative, notion, creative activity to eventual delivery through kinetic motion. There wasn’t much else, apart from a wardrobe of performance-worn costumes, collected notes on Word documents, and a project plan to shape and form the art project from scratch. It could be seen as a set of improbable, implausible, nigh on impossible jumble of tasks to set about. An art suicide attempt! Who would dare try to attempt such a feat from point zero? Just about nobody but this artist. Many people remarked: ‘No way. It just is not possible.You just can’t do it on your own. Even a team would struggle to manage this.’ The ‘infectious – pass it on’ project is a public project. It is also an act of will and positive outcome. To deliver an interactive project and test what happens, against all the odds, risk, potential and pitfalls, without a safety net. And what of this art house cinema-fuelled public hybrid performance feat, you may ask? The onsite exhibition itself had a small attendance for the preview, where Mickelmass created some situation sounds/music and I was interviewed for an article, which appeared in an artist newsletter web unedited. A two-week run with offsite parts in the middle. The Carnegie’s Brae collaboration between Dumkoppf, Mickelmass and the public provided the main project event; not easy to forget its impact in the usually quiet location, on
an otherwise regular night in Aberdeen. The site of the Carnegie’s Brae event was set in a concealed archway and entrance to tunnels and another club. The group consisted of nine Dumkoppf and four Mickelmass performers, plus Graeme Campbell and Revelate Films documenting the event, and Richard Lyons (smoke effects/technical backup) and security steward and photography by Ian and Jane Frazer – creating a once-off, live hybrid art experience, in which the audience was able to interact and become part of. It kicked off with a smog smoke, an atmosphere of tense anticipation. The public were somewhat intimidated and uneasy for the first 20 minutes and that changed to scared as they were approached by performers not sure if they were being offered a dance, a peck on the cheek, a press gang enrolment, a mugging or a swift end by cut-throat razor. There was a certain filmy haze, Dickensian time warp, unfamiliar outré aura, from these performers. They were humanoid, seemed mute till some screeched and screamed, in a less than human manner. Cue the barber’s chair and the audience started to revel in the mockery, as it lightened up a bit, faux pas, pas de deux and humour or horror, it was hard to tell with the sharp ‘n’ rusty sounds conjured by Mickelmass from an armoury of instruments and sound devices. The attending publics fear began to thaw. Maybe art could be fun, such a dirty word to many a serious artist/ performer, with their high art snobbery, oft elitist pretensions.Yes fun, art could be good, enjoyable, touch the funny bone and people could be heard to snigger and God forbid, laugh, as Dumkoppf’s antics progressed to silliness and the crowd had all but vanished, as people moved about and mingled and interacted, now part of the whole. Carnegie’s Brae had come alive with chatter, handshakes, paintbrushes, bodypaint, buckets, banter and noise, body contact. It was a hive of activity, a den of artistic creation. Then the performers ushered the intrepid audience into the tunnels for a different experience of bands, films, comedy/circus/dying to let their hair down and wonder about the consequences of being infected, contagious and passing it on. 9 The persistence of memories (Outbreak – infection spread, a Pandora’s box – the truth is out there?) The first manifoldor arts project experience has been delivered – sending a message, a creative infectious, interactive germ. Offering in its generous micro-scaled art process and people way: addressing issues of delivery, public interaction, a gamut of human experience, quality production, über value for money,
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imagination, art as human resource. A positive approach compared to a current nihilist state of contemporary art and its regular crisis of confidence on a global stageset. By a small energetic Scottish art project and micro art organisation, created from scratch, on a criminally small budget, demonstrating without apology that art can be vital, fresh, inventive, unconventional, bursting with imagination and an exceptional vehicle for expression. Proven through still receiving questions, interest and demand for more hybrid art events, many months after the project has run. News from people who were there, that it has stuck and stayed in some memories (one example being a musician, whom I met two days ago, who asked if there were further events planned and would like to participate). An Invitation and challenge then, to open Pandora’s box again and follow up with more? Existing groups and organisations have almost become a public plaything, functioning in urban public spaces, be it street or gallery locations. How will people react and find future hybrid productions and is this kind of art capable of striking a sustainable pact with public, location, performers, supporters, funders and the unseen aspects? No one can determine. Well I don’t know about ‘the truth is out there’, as a popular TV series catchphrased; a thought and question that can be applied to the mystery and complexity of the ‘infectious – pass it on’ hybrid public art project. I do know a metaphorical creative infection is being passed on. Whatever anyone’s thoughts, intentions, motivations at the time, the team created ‘infectious – pass it on’. It is still out there. No one can argue with that. It has spread and has gone beyond one person’s vision, comprehension; surviving, albeit mutating into something new, the effects and future of which refuse to be pinned down, boxed, packaged, contained. A disclaimer at the exhibition ‘blauprint’ work stated: ‘As the artist initiating such a process, I am not responsible for what may or may not occur after the event.’ Manifoldor is all about contemporarily challenging art for all. It is worth the effort and hardship. People participating don’t do it for profit and status, they do it for passion and experience. For instance: just witness the groups, artists, people and public who experienced the infectious project and now see the groups, partnerships, dialogues and exchanges which have sprung up from that experience – almost all of which would have not occurred had I not boldly crossed the threshold and ventured forth to deliver the project. Testimony to all, that art in public space can work and art for all is essential.
‘Therefore I refuse to rest my case; hybrid art is necessary, valid and the public wants it, in spite of its national rarity and all its attendant difficulties. Roll on the next event/project. Be warned: manifoldor and associated art groups could appear at a location nearby. They don’t come with a public health warning. They come with public commendation. As the art adventures produced are healthy, alive, active and bring something fresh, inventive, and vital to the contemporary art of today. While attention is given to the latest Tate nominees’ work, there are still new works being made in Scotland on your doorstep, available for direct public access – undertaken for a diverse audience, not just a select few culture vultures, looking to pick at, what is deemed the latest and greatest cultural art carcass. Winners at the likes of the Tate are often only in the opinion of a small group representing art establishment pretexts and hardly in the interests of a larger complex UK public, postempire, multicultural society. A rich, intelligent and demanding public, who contrary to assumed belief are willing to embrace and experience new, inventive, challenging contemporary art in its multifarious formats – to form their own conclusions about what is good, bad, ugly and sublime. The public therefore, with respect, reflect back the raison d’être of “art for all” and “art for people”. Such ethos and other good collaborative working practice are at the core of manifoldor, in its art for the public, from process to output. What comes next the public will help determine and be a part of. Early indications suggest there is further danger of life, for a newly born, evolving micro organisation. Watch the space at www.manifoldor.org and see what unfolds. It began with an infectious – passing on, what next? © Copyright, publishing right and license 2007 Jeremy Lorne Inglis. ‘Infectious - pass it on’ performance by dumkoppf, micklemass & public production photography by Ian & Jane Fraser creativespace Scotland manifoldor organisation, dumkoppf group, cabinet club have all been invented, created by the artist jeremy
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Lorne Inglis. The license, copyright and publishing rights are owned by the artist All of these groups and orgs are non profit making. Proceeds, funds and donations go to running, event, production, project costs.