Remote Victim

I've been looking at the effects of being 'cruel' to avatars for a while, and have just made this video in Sims as a bit of an experiment. I've called it an Avatar Endurance Performance, but of course the main victim was myself, as I nearly gave myself RSI by repeatedly making the Sim do what I needed it to until it was right.



Link to YouTube page

Apparatus Phasmatis II

Stuart did his AudioVisual performance again, at All Saints Church, Highcross Street, Leicester. Flickering ghost images from our old performances jumped around the space, moody organ music and chanting children moved from speaker to speaker.



He'd changed the music so he had more control over it, but was a bit pissed off cos he couldn't get the microphones to work and record live sound.



I was pretty stressed and out of it, apologies to those people I saw that night and just mumbled stuff while giving them a thousand yard stare.

Larger versions on our Flickr page

Drumz and Drones

Dan Williamson and Phil Henderson did a performance in the Pink House in Brum with great squally noises and fucked up visual mixing. Mmmmm.

Dan was mixing video, stuff being filmed live and old, mangled tv or computer game stuff



Phil had some kind of old style keyboard, and odd stuff like a metal detector, to make noises when he put it over the other equipment



Sample image of the kind of visuals Dan was making, looks pink cos of venue



For larger pictures visit My Flickr Page

This video might take a while to load, its just a 30 second clip, but the performance went on for about 2 hours.

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Calum Stirling

Mobilette at Vivid

You know how the first time you see an architect's scale model it really grabs you, the perfect detail, the way it plays with your sense of scale, of reality. For Stuart, this was when he was 15, on work experience at his local council. Of course he'd seen model railways and villages, but there's something precise and idealistic about an architect's model. Then in Taiwan recently we saw an architect's model of the gallery in which the model sat. We could almost imagine we saw tiny models of ourselves peering at a model of the model, and so on to infinity.

It wasn't until seeing the recent show by Calum Stirling at the new Vivid project space in Digbeth that we started thinking about how they represent a kind of fractal extrapolation of signs.

The key piece in the show was a model of a city commercial district on a revolving platform in a locked office. The model could be viewed through a window, but also via an old black and white CCTV set up back projected in the main space. Together with the accompanying music, the piece took on the feel of an atmospheric, European film - an impression reinforced by the German signage on all of the model shops.

There was other work in the show: a wall piece made from Renault radiator grill badges (The project space used to be an MOT/Tyre outfit); a video of fire hydrants; a wooden model of a Laptop; wood and metal constructions resembling seating; and a lightbox covered in a piece made from plastic bags. Although there were connections to be made between all of the works, they almost became a distraction from the strength of the signature piece.

This video installation had a particular resonance in this space. Because of the current regeneration of Digbeth into part of the "East Side" development, the model represents all architects' models in such areas of development and the video projection becomes a stage of magnification on way up to the scale of the city itself.

Oddly, while walking away from the show into town, we looked in a barber's shop window and saw a model of the shop in the window, with toy chairs and images cut out from magazines. I swear, if we looked from the right angle, we could see ourselves looking through the window.

© Ana Milgram & Stuart Milgram 2005

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Mobilette by Calum Stirling at Vivid 27 May - 4 June 2005
VIVID, 140 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham. B9 4AR

T:+44 (0)121 766 7876
www.modelcitizen.org.uk

www.vivid.org.uk

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Paul McCarthy

Cultural Soup at Tate Liverpool

Paul McCarthy is probably the most well known performance artist in the world. He is most well known for his use of outrageous and horrific imagery in his more recent performances than for the undeniable influence he has had on modern performance and installation art. This exhibition is a comprehensive retrospective bringing together works from the early 1970's through to the late 1990's, and is one of the largest shows he has ever done.

The first thing I see (before I have even paid to enter the show) is a video of McCarthy smearing a baby doll with mayonnaise and repeating the phrase "the son begets the daddy, and the daddy begets the son" ("Cultural Soup", 1987). Little do I know that this is nothing compared to the surreal Freudian horrors yet to come.

There are four other videos in the exhibition, mixed with sculptures and installations of the sets used in the videos. There are also framed photographs documenting McCarthy's earlier performances, including some fairly shocking images of a staged performance in which McCarthy is smeared in ketchup as he gives birth to a headless doll from an oversized prosthetic vagina. Like many of his works it is deeply disturbing and yet strangely comical.

Then there are the sculptures - a man with a giant rabbit's head and disproportionately large genitals ("Spaghetti Man", 1993), a plastic figure of Pinocchio in bed ("Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma", 1994) and an old man trying to copulate with a hole in a barrel ("Alpine Man", 1992). Again, these are quite disturbing, but also very funny. There is a continued usage of deviant sexual practices and childhood imagery, which combined form an obviously unsettling combination.

It becomes impossible not to ask why Paul McCarthy himself is not considered to be insane, particularly when faced with videos of the artist dressed as a boxer, smeared in ketchup, punching himself around the head and masturbating ("Rocky", 1976) and laughing uncontrollably as he draws pictures of genitals and repeatedly asks "what's this?" ("Bossy Burger", 1991). The answer to this question is clear, McCarthy does not desire to perform these so-called deviant acts for pleasure, but for the sake of art. His perceived insanity is what makes his performances so interesting.

There is a piece of work that stands out as the most linear, easily understandable performance in the show and this is the film "Painter" (1995). McCarthy plays the role of a frustrated abstract expressionist who has huge hands and ears and a giant bulbous nose, which exaggerate his awkwardness. He speaks in a squeaky cartoon voice and tries to tell the viewer how to paint ("you mix the red with the blue?"). But every so often he breaks down and starts muttering himself "I can't do this anymore, fuck all painting, fuck all painting". Later on in the performance he argues with his agent about money and tries out self-harm as a way of getting public attention (by hilariously/horrifically chopping his fake hand off). This piece is obviously deriding the somewhat pretentious view that art critics had of the tormented artist, such as Pollock or De Kooning, who are admired for their neuroses as much as they are for their art.

Through the role of the deviant, the madman, and the artist, McCarthy's works reach into the gut of the human psyche and revealed our deepest and darkest desires. Sometimes horrific and often comical, these performances are as disconcerting as they are fascinating.

© The Happy Woman 2001

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Paul McCarthy at Tate Liverpool 19 October 2001 - 13 January 2002.

Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock, Liverpool. L3 4BB

T: +44 (0)151 702 7400)

www.tate.org.uk

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