20
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2020
Project Profile
Collective Self-Consciousness ANNE TALLENTIRE AND CHRIS FITE-WASSILAK DESCRIBE THE DEVELOPMENT AND DEVIATIONS OF HMN – A QUARTERLY SOUND-BASED TEST CENTRE EVENT, RUNNING IN VARIOUS VENUES THROUGHOUT LONDON SINCE 2015.
The Village Club, Barrow Housing Estate, London – the location of hmn19; photograph by Anne Tallentire; courtesy of hmn
EVENTS ARE, by nature, limited in scope: cemented into a
time and place, only a certain amount of people can make it or fit in. As a way of delivering ideas and reaching people it can seem proscribed, delineated. But it also enables a particular kind of atmosphere and connection, sharing those very limitations with a group of other people for a moment. Exhibitions tend to carry with them an optimism of exposure, that any number of unlimited people might encounter the show, despite the circumstances and choices that led to the works that end up appearing in front of an audience. Which is to say, both events and exhibitions are subject to the same whimsical forces, but still appreciated in very different ways. Hmn arose out of a mutual desire to try and foreground the energies that go into making new work: the temporary gestures, the uncertain movements, the unsettled tests. These are aspects usually lost in the desire to present a finished, professional, confident artwork – but things we both felt were essential parts of the work that we treasured. Working backwards from this urge, we attempted to create a set of boundaries that might enable this to be explored. An event, with its specificity and need for focus, as well as its very disposable or temporary nature, seemed the necessary choice. Having worked, respectively, as an artist and a curator and critic, we both had a sense of what we didn’t want – the format of a ‘performance night’ set in a gallery or studio meant certain habits and pre-expectations for both artists and audiences that we wanted to avoid. So we decided: a set time period, which both the participants and the audience would be aware of; in changing locations, no galleries or studios, so that everyone involved (us included) would remain unsettled; and no documentation, so that participants could feel free to try or fail without that kind of consequence, but also that people who attended wouldn’t divest themselves into taking pictures, video or online posts during those few minutes. Seven minutes seemed like a good mid-point: long enough to get lost, short enough to stay concentrated. We ended up describing it as
‘sound-based’ so that people coming along would understand it was time and attention-based. We don’t ask participants to tell us what they’re doing, only if they want to chat about ideas – we are part of the audience, too. Our guiding principle has always been to promote, pursue and work with doubt. The first hmn was in February 2015, in a library spare room, and we are later this year having the 20th edition of the event. The most recent was held in a housing estate community hall; one person made an interactive synth sound-work based on people calling and texting their phone; another took the seven minutes to fill pistachio shells with beeswax, to give a sense of the range of modes one evening might bring. Neither of us planned to keep it going for so long, but the thing has seemed to create its own energy and momentum that carries itself. We have run from a loose invitation system, asking people we encounter or sometimes hardly know, or people who seem that they might benefit from this sort of aside or test space in their work at this time. In such a career-oriented space as London, it felt necessary to partially formalise the real energies that drive artistic exchange, to try and encourage an ecology of informal but serious attention. Several things have become clear over the past five years; one being that hmn is an austerity project. It is low-fund, based on a system of exchange, where we provide a platform and conversation in exchange for someone to share their time and ideas. In a climate where opportunities are given mostly to those who already have the means, it has been rewarding to create another sense of circulation. The other notion that has emerged as being the true centre of the project is simply the issue of attention. Quietness goes many directions, in being something someone can ask for, but also something that people, together, create. We are ostensibly ‘sound based’, and every event inevitably has a sonic element; but the main material of hmn has been the thick sense of attention that is shared between attendees and participants alike. The contributions on each evening frequently
require us to place ourselves in view of what we imagine is about to happen. The spaces we use are generally everyday public venues – community halls, libraries, outdoor walkways or public greens – more often than not, located in unfamiliar off-track parts of the city, almost generic spots that are rented, moved-through, used by lots of different people. The spaces quietly emphasise impermanence in place and time, removed from the more knowing expectations and habits associated with art-making. In such spaces that do not readily offer the certainties and conventions of an art venue, this can create a collective moment of self-consciousness and uncertainty that prepares us differently for the act of attention. It is this sense of attention, fragile and tenuous, that turns a group into something cohesive, that creates the links between a wider group of people, that in turn has created a wider sense of what we might call a community or a web. Just like all events and series, hmn is just a short thing in time, one that we hope kickstarts new energies and work, and engenders and continues long-running conversations. The model is not precious or proprietary, and in times like these is a method to proliferate and mutate, to encourage the creation of alternative gatherings and alternative institutions and ecologies. Like Dublin’s Foaming at the Mouth series, which we took inspiration from, or Tai Shani and Anne Duffau’s Dark Water events also in London, Pre-ramble in Glasgow, and the No Matter poetry and performance events in Manchester, long may such public conversational and casual spaces for trying out ideas continue to spread: hesitation for all! Anne Tallentire is an Irish artist based in London. annetallentire.info
Chris Fite-Wassilak is a writer and critic based in London. cfitewassilak.wordpress.com
