String Words is a performative writing piece that draws on automatic writing. Each piece is created from a continuous piece of string. Outcomes reflect thoughts from the unconscious mind. Like language, the string is fleeting and ever-changing.
I feel that this would be a great opportunity for me as I would like to explore the performative side of my practice. This is not something that I have developed previously, as I have historically focused on the endpoint - the completed installation. However, the act of installing an installation is performative. My practice works in-between forms, with the use of language being the linchpin that brings them all together.
This idea appeals to me as much of my practice is about the mutability of language through time, the effect of duration, and of absence. These are themes that I feel would be best explored with performance; the language would change throughout the duration of the performance and would leave a void once the performance is over. Each being a snapshot of that particular time, in that particular place. This would allow me to explore the audience and the site of audiencing.
My proposed work, String Words, is both brand new and already finished. By this, I mean that the concept for the performance is in place, but that the work can be completed time and time again.
String Words is a performative piece that uses automatic writing, space, and string. As the pieces use automatic writing each new incarnation is new and different – and often nonsensical, drawing on Dadaism. Each performance will begin with a new and unrolled ball of string.
During the performance, a continuous piece of string will be molded into linguistic units and subsequently words, as and when they come to me. Due to the use of automatic writing, each performance will result in a unique outcome. Created specifically in that time and place.
As with all performance, the now-ness of it is important. Those who attend the performance will become part of the moment in which the work was created.
The performance makes private thoughts public in a very immediate way, with the act of the writing and of the reading taking place simultaneously. Pushing thoughts of Death of the Author/Birth of the Reader to their limits. As will all language, the reader may misinterpret it, or make incorrect assumptions before the word has finished being created from the string. This adds a real human element to the performance and allows the use of our shared public language to take hold.
The length of the performance is dependent on one of two things; the size of the space and the length of the string. Perhaps, begging the question ‘how long is a piece of string?’. The performance will end when one of these limits is reached.
The use of the string is partly symbolic of notions surrounding time and language; that it is continuousness, but also ephemeral. The work created is never fixed and can be changed at any moment. Like language string is also something that is every day, it is not out of the ordinary and so just as the performance elevates our shared public language, it also elevates the string. The use of the string within the performance is intended to further push the audience to reconsider both, as ordinarily, they do not belong together.
Once completed, the work is intended to be walked on and changed by whoever encounters it echoing how we all interact and have an impact on the language we use and the fleeting nature of what has come before. This act also brings the audience into the performative aspect of the work, as they directly engage with it, change it. Echoing how we all play a part in language and its development.
The end of the piece will be signified by the re-rolling of the ball of string, this action will take back the words. However, the string will not look the same as it will now have a history to it.
