Well not for me this time anyway, unfortunately scheduling and the organisers needing to juggle several peoples diaries means that the intended performance is now not happening on the 5th. However there is a superb consolation which is that Joshua Sofaer is presenting at Performer Stammtisch on 2nd June.

Hopefully I’ll get back to Berlin to do a little something another time. Last time I was there was in 1991, staying in a huge and rather glorious squat in Kreutzberg staying with the always fabulous Lisa Verdekal. I don’t recall much of it, reading Venus In Furs, and hitting the tequilla.

It’s all to tempting to place a bitter and sad rant here about money, or rather the lack of. This year has been terrifying financially, despite making work that I feel incredibly proud of and strong about. I’ve found myself sobbing out of pure hard, cold fear at not been paid by art organisations and higher education institutions with no recourse, back up.

Doubtless much of this is due to my own lack of professional practice, savvy and knowing skills that can negociate a decent fee and get it paid I am happy to engage with my ongoing learning curve.

But I am no longer happy to be told my lack of payment is due to any revenue funded organisations’ inability to locate the funds for work they have already contracted me to do and seen me do. I am not happy to have to justify my fees or to accept huge reductions of them or for that matter for them not to be taken seriously. Neither am I happy to continue to give talks, presentations, teaching or other works for free for Higher Education Institutions or Arts Organisations, or at least not until I have an income I can live on and therefore afford to be generous with my resources. Neither can I afford to continue to do research and development and not pay myself. Generousity is important, doing something for nothing is important, and doing something for the love of it, but not when it prevents me from being able to earn a basic income.

I recently wrote to an individual in a Higher Education Institution

” . . . I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the reluctance higher education institutions demonstrate to pay self-employed and free lance artists to participate in these events [talks, panels, presentations, symposia etc.] . It has forced a decision on my part to no longer accept these invitations unless I am adequately paid for my time as well as expenses. I am certain you and others in your position will understand and as I imagine financial renumeration is an essential consideration in your own professional practice. I shall happily reverse this decision if my circumstances change and I find I have some institutional employment that can financially allow me to sustain such activities.”

The reply I received was unhelpful and entirely unsympathetic to say the least.

Be that as it may, this emerges from no longer being able to sustain being so broke and feeling so incredibly disempowered. Weirdly, and rather wonderfully, this apex of difficulty comes at a time when I feel hugely validated and supported by the individual makers and artists who not only understand but have made huge and practical efforts to be of help. This support means I feel huge and convincing optimism, roll up my sleeves and plod onwards and figure out the adaptions and alterations I need to make.

I have listed them in the Thank you page but I’m going to repeat the entry here:

There are a significant number of arts organisations and artists I would like to thank, undoubtedly missing out many in the process. However, for this very moment and time, which is Monday 19th May, 2008 at 19.19, I would like to make particular thanks to individual artists, comrades and confidants, who have been fantastic in their generous and no holds barred support of me this year on personal, practical and professional levels; ranging from lending me living space, working space, professional development advice, peer review, putting paid work in my way and general comeraderie and skull duggery.

Rebecca French & Andrew Mottershead, Frenchmottershead.

Oron Catts, Tissue Culture & Art Project/SymbioticA

Marisa Carnesky.

Robert Pacitti, Pacitti Company.

Domenic Johnson.

Fiona Wright.

Doran George.

Jordan McKenzie.

Traci Kelly, Hancock & Kelly Live.

Jennifer Willet.

Duncan Speakman - who made this blog site possible.

And most importantly last but by no means least to my teachers Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen, the lineage holders of the Aro Tér.

Figurations of Knowledge
European Conference of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA)
at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin
June 2–8, 2008

Cellular Memorabilia

“A public proclamation was made pointing out how much more satisfactory it would be if worship could be made not merely to the charred bones of ones forebears, but to bits of them still actually living and growing.”

1926, Julian Huxley from The Tissue Culture King.

Julian Huxley foresaw a change and new ethical and philosophical tensions erupting around the practice of collecting human remains in the form of charred bones to that of wet and living tissue. The classification of human remains and the implications of collecting them must now be reconsidered in light of tissue engineering practices and new biotechnologies that grow and sustain living (and dying) cellular bodies. For example, taxonomies and classifications of human tissue are problematized by the merging of human and animal cell lines that have generated chimeras. As well, the micro-ecology of cells inclusive of viruses, bacteria and yeasts also points to a diverse complexity of life existing in a symbiotic relation to human tissue and human remains, yet they are often considered as elements of contagion and contamination that must be removed from the collection, display and preservation of human tissue. This panel looks at past, present and future implications of using, collecting, and displaying human tissue from the perspective of contemporary artists employing tissue culture in their performance-based art practices.

Tagny Duff.

Panel Members:
Tagny Duff (Chair) - Artist-researcher, Concordia University

Kira O’Reilly - independent artist. Crumpling Time abstract

Jennifer Willet - Artist-researcher, Concordia University.

HYBRID MEETINGS

I’ve been invited to present at the following:

hYbrid meetings were created to gather artists, scientists, social scientists, philosophers, and the general public from around the globe to meet once a year in a public event to share ideas on the cross sections of science and art.

Each event has a central theme and the hYbrid team tries its best to gather an interdisciplinary group of people to share their thoughts and experiences on the subject.

Its current format encompasses one-day event held at Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis (MNSR), Porto, usually late Spring or early Summer.

These meetings are the result of the collaborative effort of the Associate Laboratory IBMC.INEB, especially the Office for Science Communication (OSC) team and the Ectopia project, and all the other partnerships we develop every year that help funding these events.

hYbrid: Reflections on Science and Art is the second meeting of a series of Science and Art meetings we are planning to organise. Last year’s meeting, Culturas de Fronteira ou Intersecções de Arte e Ciência, promoted the creation of an international network aiming to exchange experiences and know-how within these areas.

In this year’s edition, we are focusing on different ethical perspectives of Science and Art collaborations, particularly in relation to the Life Sciences. We have thought of 3 distinct moments of reflection to discuss the differences, similarities, cross sections, juxtapositions in artists and scientists’ objectives, sensibilities and background knowledge:

1) Hybrids will present some projects that deal with different subjects, a portrait of life, and human, animal and cellular interactions

2) Reflections will be centred on laboratory experiences

3) Boundaries, will focus on the impact of Art and Science interactions in society

Hybrid programme of speakers

****Watch this space to see if this is now going ahead!

I was lucky enough to be invited to show a small work in progress at Performer Stammtisch.

We are having some scheduling issues so it won’t be on 5th June as previously advertised.

Also see here for further details and information as to what is happening when and where.

It will draw on material developed during this years Chisenhale space bursary, London titled Research Notes (for You Beloved) and further developed as Untitled (for You Beloved) for Endurance at VIVID, Birmingham last month.

Here are some images from the work at VIVID.

Images from the version made for Bluecoat, Liverpool, March 2008.

Land of Silence and Darkness

Four days of talk and action connecting movies, blindness, drawing, perception and neuroscience

info@ruskin-sch.ox.ac.uk / 01865 27694014th – 17th May 2008

Organised by artist and filmmaker Anna Lucas.

Anna Lucas is artist-in-residence
in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. The residency has been developed in collaboration with the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art and is supported by Science Oxford and the Wellcome Trust.

7.30

Friday 23rd May 2008

Dance City,

Temple St., Newcastle upon Tyne.

www.dancecity.co.uk

Fiona Wright is one of the key practitioners I’ve been dialoguing with for a decade now; this has occurred through seeing oneanothers work, discussing work, sometimes feeding into or being in these works, sharing our practices, research and passions at length and the subsequent friendship that has evolved. Her work is key on both a UK and international scene as it traverse performative strategies from dance to writing to live art. She presents me with delicate and muscular challenges and moments of pause and uncertain rest both as a maker and an audience member.

Some of her writings are published in: 20 Short Performance Papers.

published 2004 by amino
format 64pp hardback book | 142mm x 124mm
isbn 0 9549073 0 2

Also see her collaborative work with Caroline Bowditch, Girl Jonah.