INTERVIEW
STAGE
GOBSCURE
Image by Lindsay Nicholson
LAURA DOYLE TALKS TO THE INTERPLATFORM ARTIST ABOUT THE DANGERS OF APATHY AND THEIR NEW WORK ‘PROVOKED TO MADNESS BY THE BRUTALITY OF WEALTH’ Consider that old cliché which posits depression as a key fuel for creativity – a notion that gives far too much credit to a debilitating condition. We should really put that to bed. For interplatform artist gobscure, something else serves as the backbone for their latest work. “A so-called ‘support worker’ said, ‘What d’you need books for? You’re homeless.’ So I spent thirteen years reading. The show is about revenge. It’s about reading. One of the books was Engles’ Conditions of the Working Class in England. In 2003, I wrote down ‘provoked to madness by the brutality of wealth’, and a bunch of other poetic truths.” Devaluation and underestimation of those deemed ‘lesser’ because of social standing is all too common. Provoked to madness by the brutality of wealth not only proves that personal circumstances should never be considered as a barrier to personal fulfilment, but it also provides commentary on stigmatised and under-represented issues that have plagued society for millennia. Just take a closer look at that eloquent title... “This German in Manchester in the 1840s being shown around by Mary Burns, an illiterate Irish woman, more underclass than working class, who became his lifelong partner. An amazing, incredible woman. His family had factories in Manchester, and she showed him around. He wrote Conditions of the Working Class in England...This book, although it gives facts and figures and statistics, it also gives us the personal. The title comes from [Engles] having his eyes being opened to what was happening to people who were
HERE WE HAVE GOBSCURE’S CREATIVE TESTIMONY: A VOICE THAT HAS SEEN FIRSTHAND THE FAILINGS OF A ‘FIRST WORLD GOVERNMENT’ THAT CONDEMNS THOSE WHO HAVE ALLOWED THESE ISSUES TO FESTER UNRESOLVED
being crippled by circumstance…Victorian diseases are making a comeback. The stuff he was writing about back then is making a comeback. People being paid crap wages. The amount of money being paid on their rent was obscene, and now people paying way more on their rent. That book is living history. We haven’t learned the lessons.” Another misconception is that history is a straight line of progression. But if that were the case, we wouldn’t have vast swathes of society stagnating in poverty and ill health. It’s so difficult to rise out of such situations that these stories fall into the cracks. Yet here we have gobscure’s creative testimony: a voice that has seen firsthand the failings of a ‘first world government’ that condemns those who have allowed these issues to fester unresolved. “The people in Parliament, the people in ‘Drowning Street,’ the ‘Govern-mentals,’ they are the mad ones. But they are civil servants. I don’t like the language of ‘servant’, but officially they are servants. They are there to help us. There to make sure everyone has as much potential, as much right, as much access to food, education, housing. We don’t want palaces; we need social housing, and to give people stuff that they need. If you look at societies that are fairer, they are happier, more equal and they generate more money. If it’s about generating wealth and money, ours is the crap way to do it.” gobscure’s work combines the entertainment value of an interactive, personal performance piece with the forthright, educational testimony that constructs a narrative based on shared experience, and sheds light on true injustices. It’s deemed trendy to be detached and analytic about art – but don’t be afraid to feel something. Nihilistic apathy gets us nowhere, the time for actionable empathy is now. Watch gobscure’s performance of provoked to madness by the brutality of wealth via livestream, recorded at ARC in Stockton, on Friday 8th January. Further dates to be confirmed www.gobscure.wixsite.com
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