Not planning for a rain shower I arrived at Permanent Gallery soaking wet with a couple of friends. Last minute decision to attend and the awkwardness of having to shake hands with a person I just met while my hand was dripping water much like the rain outside didn't amount to a good start. I had never been to Permanent Gallery before. The place is compact and crowd had already gathered by the time we were there. Everyone seemed to know one another and we felt like fishes out of water...literally if you count the previous experience.
Before Jamie Wyld performed a person came to us, looking a bit sad, holding a paper cup and in a low voice pronounced the words "money for me"? We kindly refused, looked around, now more uncomfortable than before. After a minute or so, another person, again holding a paper cup, was asking someone else in the crowd for money. The phrase was the same as the one uttered by the person who asked us. I had yet to make a connection. Evidently I was not the only one; other people searched their pockets and placed a coin or two in the paper cups.
The lights go dim and Jamie Wyld takes a sit behind a computer, while a projector illuminates the room. People sit on the floor. Jamie introduces his talk which is called "How to orgy succesfully". It is a powerpoint presentation, and Jamie had the ease and facial expressions of a marketer addressing the board of directors on his new project that is about to turn the marketplace upside down. The only difference is that this was not a hair product nor the latest iPod. This was a talk regarding orgies, requirements for being a succesful participant and the problems arising in the context of the orgy - with images. Jamie's eyes scanned the audience in all seriousness while reffering to scatology. Cleanliness obviously is relevant to the context. This uneasy subject is not easily dealt with. How does one react? Some laughed, including me. There were some outbursts but the smile was carved on my lips from start to end. All the while trying to make sense of the purpose. Surely Freudians everywhere should be proud of Jamie Wyld's approach on sexual identity. For such a delicate matter presented in such daily, routine-like manner (everyone has attended at least one seminar), has evident consequences. Laughter was obviously a defensive mechanism. Purse lips, and the occasional ear scratch all spoke uneasiness. All reactions had tensions in one way or another. Perhaps humanity has far from removed itself from sexual taboos. This could be the reason why Jamie was eyeing each person in the audience, observing body language and reactions, all adding to his research and perhaps his next presentation.
Once Wyld had finished, apart from feeling more educated on the subject of orgies, I could hardly stand up from sitting crambled between people. We discussed Jamies work while being interrupted once more from people and their paper cups. This time though it was more strange than before. The phrase had changed from "money for me" to "money for you". A pound was handed to one of my friends. We looked at each other awestruck and tried to make sense out of it while staring to see if other people's reaction was as weird as ours. It was. There were about five or six people going around, then disappearing or coming back again in repetition. They would either say "money for me" or "money for you". This lasted for about five minutes when a person said that Micheál O'Connell would start in about ten minutes. Someone added another five. All the while the "money for you" people would still be going around the audience asking or giving. And that is when we noticed the title of Micheál's work: "4 U". Only then did our selective eyesight also notice that O'Connell's work was under "durational". I felt like a complete fool. So what is it? What is the purpose? We do not reside in the artist's mind, so we make our own. Is it some form of feedback loop? The paper cup people pass around asking for money, that if they get, will hand to the next person. Money they've given away, will be taken by the next person. Does the end result leave them with more or less than they started off with? Apparently it was more. People are eager in giving away their money. Perhaps then the meaning is not at all relating to feedback, though it does help to achieve the outcome, as well as repetition. If it wasn't for repetition, then like the joke, it wouldn't have such a strong effect to the audience. Is the meaning of this related to our modern society? Anyone being social enough to walk down a street will encounter at least a homeless person asking for money. In less honesty, that person will not be homeless and will instead be preaching about a cause: hunger, death, famine, disease in some third world country. More often than not people will give away their money. O'Connell manages to portray humorously this mechanical, to a certain degree stupid, action. Another view would be the exchange and flow of money in a capitalist society. Modern man will do anything to avoid accepting responsibility for the injustice around him. The vicarious notion of knowing that your money will help some child from hunger. In reality this is never the case. Unconsciously we know this, and guilt urges us to give more money reciprocally.
Micheál's work had managed once more to stimulate thinking, making us discuss even after we left what the purpose and meaning was. It is possible that nothing of what we thought applies, but the success is managing to leave the space for open interpretation. I would be curious to see what other people got out of it.
Bela Emerson was the last performer we saw before leaving. Her work was leaning towards emotional stirring than thought provocative. Her tools were an electric cello, loop pedals and effects. Her appearance emanated something out of this world. Her music comprised of sounds or melodies that she made, fed into a loopstation, then built with more and more sound waves to construct this beautiful ensemble. I felt captivated. At times atonous and others completely harmonic, Bela is obviously a talented and innovative artist. The music flows between minimal but at certain points gives elements of an industrial edge. A single stroke or hit on the cello will begin repeating itself, at first, this is a tone that is lonely and unimportant. Another stroke will accompany the first one. A melody will then introduce itself and envelop the precursors to form a more structured orientation. As the build up expands and progresses there is a beautiful chaotic composition that seems to spread out everywhere. Personally, I couldn't control the variety of emotions I was feeling, which seemed to change continuously according to which sound I was focusing on. When the performance finished, the audience looked as if struggling to come back to the reality they had been beforehand. Truly, Bela manages to transcend the ordinary and for a period of time offer a journey through sounds and music that most contemporary artists fail to achieve.
Before Jamie Wyld performed a person came to us, looking a bit sad, holding a paper cup and in a low voice pronounced the words "money for me"? We kindly refused, looked around, now more uncomfortable than before. After a minute or so, another person, again holding a paper cup, was asking someone else in the crowd for money. The phrase was the same as the one uttered by the person who asked us. I had yet to make a connection. Evidently I was not the only one; other people searched their pockets and placed a coin or two in the paper cups.
The lights go dim and Jamie Wyld takes a sit behind a computer, while a projector illuminates the room. People sit on the floor. Jamie introduces his talk which is called "How to orgy succesfully". It is a powerpoint presentation, and Jamie had the ease and facial expressions of a marketer addressing the board of directors on his new project that is about to turn the marketplace upside down. The only difference is that this was not a hair product nor the latest iPod. This was a talk regarding orgies, requirements for being a succesful participant and the problems arising in the context of the orgy - with images. Jamie's eyes scanned the audience in all seriousness while reffering to scatology. Cleanliness obviously is relevant to the context. This uneasy subject is not easily dealt with. How does one react? Some laughed, including me. There were some outbursts but the smile was carved on my lips from start to end. All the while trying to make sense of the purpose. Surely Freudians everywhere should be proud of Jamie Wyld's approach on sexual identity. For such a delicate matter presented in such daily, routine-like manner (everyone has attended at least one seminar), has evident consequences. Laughter was obviously a defensive mechanism. Purse lips, and the occasional ear scratch all spoke uneasiness. All reactions had tensions in one way or another. Perhaps humanity has far from removed itself from sexual taboos. This could be the reason why Jamie was eyeing each person in the audience, observing body language and reactions, all adding to his research and perhaps his next presentation.
Once Wyld had finished, apart from feeling more educated on the subject of orgies, I could hardly stand up from sitting crambled between people. We discussed Jamies work while being interrupted once more from people and their paper cups. This time though it was more strange than before. The phrase had changed from "money for me" to "money for you". A pound was handed to one of my friends. We looked at each other awestruck and tried to make sense out of it while staring to see if other people's reaction was as weird as ours. It was. There were about five or six people going around, then disappearing or coming back again in repetition. They would either say "money for me" or "money for you". This lasted for about five minutes when a person said that Micheál O'Connell would start in about ten minutes. Someone added another five. All the while the "money for you" people would still be going around the audience asking or giving. And that is when we noticed the title of Micheál's work: "4 U". Only then did our selective eyesight also notice that O'Connell's work was under "durational". I felt like a complete fool. So what is it? What is the purpose? We do not reside in the artist's mind, so we make our own. Is it some form of feedback loop? The paper cup people pass around asking for money, that if they get, will hand to the next person. Money they've given away, will be taken by the next person. Does the end result leave them with more or less than they started off with? Apparently it was more. People are eager in giving away their money. Perhaps then the meaning is not at all relating to feedback, though it does help to achieve the outcome, as well as repetition. If it wasn't for repetition, then like the joke, it wouldn't have such a strong effect to the audience. Is the meaning of this related to our modern society? Anyone being social enough to walk down a street will encounter at least a homeless person asking for money. In less honesty, that person will not be homeless and will instead be preaching about a cause: hunger, death, famine, disease in some third world country. More often than not people will give away their money. O'Connell manages to portray humorously this mechanical, to a certain degree stupid, action. Another view would be the exchange and flow of money in a capitalist society. Modern man will do anything to avoid accepting responsibility for the injustice around him. The vicarious notion of knowing that your money will help some child from hunger. In reality this is never the case. Unconsciously we know this, and guilt urges us to give more money reciprocally.
Micheál's work had managed once more to stimulate thinking, making us discuss even after we left what the purpose and meaning was. It is possible that nothing of what we thought applies, but the success is managing to leave the space for open interpretation. I would be curious to see what other people got out of it.
Bela Emerson was the last performer we saw before leaving. Her work was leaning towards emotional stirring than thought provocative. Her tools were an electric cello, loop pedals and effects. Her appearance emanated something out of this world. Her music comprised of sounds or melodies that she made, fed into a loopstation, then built with more and more sound waves to construct this beautiful ensemble. I felt captivated. At times atonous and others completely harmonic, Bela is obviously a talented and innovative artist. The music flows between minimal but at certain points gives elements of an industrial edge. A single stroke or hit on the cello will begin repeating itself, at first, this is a tone that is lonely and unimportant. Another stroke will accompany the first one. A melody will then introduce itself and envelop the precursors to form a more structured orientation. As the build up expands and progresses there is a beautiful chaotic composition that seems to spread out everywhere. Personally, I couldn't control the variety of emotions I was feeling, which seemed to change continuously according to which sound I was focusing on. When the performance finished, the audience looked as if struggling to come back to the reality they had been beforehand. Truly, Bela manages to transcend the ordinary and for a period of time offer a journey through sounds and music that most contemporary artists fail to achieve.
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