Fierce request for Futures And Pasts

May 21st, 2010

In response to a Fierce request for their Futures And Pasts presentation this Saturday. I am also presenting for 30 minutes.Set a clock for 60 seconds and read:write to yourself from a futured future

unpack your selves from cryptic stasis

unfold your limbs and smooth out you skins

unfurl your hairs

pass a warm hand over your still closed eye lid

loiter on eyelashed rest on check

poised cuticle solid flow over nails breadth

arrested mole, check A,B,C.

unpick your way into crevices of anxious failures of maybes and maybe nots

and ecstatic successes felt and

feel scattering in silvered stretch marks weltering in skin gorges

re-collect and re-member versions of eyes

I’s

egg yolk retinas

fashion patchworks of moments into quilted cut ups

memories punctured with whimsey and fancy

short fuses

shot through with gold veins

running mutterings fused 

mutated never really happened that way but it might, could, would

shiftiness in the conditional

tense tenses

breathe

enfoldened rewritings

note body temperature rising to swell and flood and flush

fling speculation and body memory into some pretended morrow

find your way back

to your back

to front

to quiet alarm

See how it goes

Take it handy

And where would you be going

at the end of the day

where there’s a will there’s a way

and please remember to cheer up

With contributions from leading artists, academics and writers in the field, Futures and Pasts is a long weekend of live art at the ICA exploring the diverse pasts and possible futures of live art and performance. Curated by writer, artist and performance maker Tim Etchells with the aid of artist Ant Hampton and Lois Keidan (Live Art Development Agency) this ambitious event combines marathon lecture performance with a rolling scheme of conversations, interviews and archival investigations alongside speculation as to the future of this vigorous and vital area of contemporary art practice.  

“I worked with Ant Hampton last year to produce a provocative virtual season of events for the ICA when they closed their Live Art department, so it’s an odd thing to be invited into an institution of which one has been publicly critical of. However the chance to help hold the doors of the ICA open to Live Art for a while is too good to miss, especially considering the ICA’s historical role as an important supporter of live work.”  Tim Etchells

Futures and Pasts culminates in a day long Open Space discussion event or public meeting, framed by Phelim McDermott and inviting practitioners, curators and audiences to identify and explore key questions and ways forward for the live art and performance scene in the UK.

Futures and Pasts comprises four main strands. You can join as an audience member or participant anytime over the long weekend, moving between parallel events and discussions.

Entry Filed under: Matter, stuff, walking, skin, scatter shot reading actions, unconcious, writing