ACTIONS
Reviewed by by Marta Ryczkowska
Colm Clarke created a situation of suspense and anxiety. In the centre of the spacious workshop room, there was a pair of large loudspeakers and between them stood a figure dressed in black, her head shrouded with a black cloth. A microphone was suspended from the ceiling. Dressed in hospital clothes, the artist was pacing in front of that installation. He set the microphone in a swinging motion thus causing feedback from the speakers: it was a high-pitched squeal combined with an indescribable rumbling noise. The artist sat down, his hands crossed behind his back, and began to gradually lean backwards, his mouth open as if in a scream. The gestures, the posture of the body and the evocative sounds enhanced the impression of somebody oppressed. However, there was no aggressor in the situation created. The artist was both tormentor and victim.
Then
Clarke went outside and lay down on the grass covered by autumn leaves,
between two small hollows filled with water. One of the hollows was
burning: fire and smoke were issuing from the wet soil. The artist
immersed his hand in the other hollow and produced a photograph that he
set on fire and burnt. He lied motionless for a while and then returned
to the workshop. He approached the person standing between the speakers
and took off her hood. Clarke touched the girl’s neck. She reciprocated
the gesture and for a few moments they remained frozen in that pose.
The gesture resembled the testing of the pulse or identified their
readiness to be a recourse to each other. They created a separate
microcosm.
(2009)
The last performance of the evening takes place in the balcony area. Outside there’s little room to move as a large part of the area is sectioned off for the final performance. Out walks our protagonist dressed in black. Kneeling, he lights a candle on the ground. In his hand is a piece of paper, it might be a letter he’s inspecting, were none the wiser because whatever’s written he keeps to himself. Perhaps it a eulogy. It’s placed next to the candle and a corner is set alight. The letter twists and shrinks, it will continue to burn throughout the performance but it is no longer the point of interest. In the corner is a dead tree resting on brick both leafless and lifeless but happy nonetheless to come out of retirement for one last show. He engages the crowd with a flick of the thumb; he’s in need of a light. Several lighters hit the stage. A display of humour from our ambassador of the theatrical. Maybe that was improvised but it was a nice interaction between one man and his audience. Lighter fluid in hand the tree is dosed and lit, the crowd back step. It’s no real cause for concern. It’s a controlled burn, the guys a trained delinquent. Centre stage the tree becomes a flaming effigy, beacon of violent wonder, our new focal point. You’re a star again. All that is left for you is to burn out or be extinguished.
Video courtesy of Fiona Goggin
(2009)
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(2009)
Inside the glass box heat swarms over flesh and cloth, it’s too warm. Condensation runs down then drips off the window. There’s a vile glare that hits the lens. On the floor are newspapers, a barbers blade and orange peel, paper towels, scissors, measuring tape and a flat fist sized stone. In the corner are brush and bucket filled with an adhesive liquid. Dust collects around the legs of a chair which sits in the middle of the room, shrine like in its centrifuge and in its impending use. He sticks pages of the newspaper to the windows, boxing us in. He covers his face the same. This strikes me as strangely perverse, but I’ve seen better. Its a sight that I view from the doorway, a shot that he seems reluctant to be taken. Senseless facts and figures surround us, stuck to the wall like abstract propaganda. Where one story ends a new one begins and breaks its continuity. A meat grinder is attached to the chair, through which the wet newspapers are being wrung having been torn and scraped from the glass. Condensed into a gluey pulp and lumped in a wet pile below, no more relevant now than when they were read. People pass by. Some don’t see him, some do. What sticks in my mind is not the experience itself but a headline lying mashed on the floor and barely legible, it reads, “Inquiry to be held in secret” which to me is absolutely meaningless.
Rewied by Ray Ban Placenta
Photos courtesy of Jordan Hutchings
(2009)
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Reviewed by by Marta Ryczkowska
The situation was composed of various elements strongly exciting the senses. There were a chair, a metal bucket, a keffiyeh - a traditional headdress typically worn by Arab men, placed in one row on the floor and a sack full of ice suspended high under the ceiling. Scrupulously arranged objects bore a strong association with some kind of imposed order. Black and white headdress is often considered to be a national symbol of Palestine. Such object was clearly legible in the performance context. Colm, wearing grey overalls and black hat pulled down so it covered his face, was carrying out various actions commonly associated with torturing. Seemingly innocent items became suddenly torture tools. Tension and anxiety were increasing because of the accompanying soundtrack consisting of the recording of Colm's previous performance mixed with the sounds recorded in a hospital ward and noises generated by some machines.
Clarke wonderfully cast himself in the role of victim. Dangling from the chair, attempting to stand still on the bucket, shaving his head, holding an egg in his mouth and putting his head into ice – all these gestures added to a disturbing picture of suffering. There was no clear boundary between the roles of victim and executioner. The artist absorbed both characters to illustrate the mechanism of this mutual relationship. As he put it himself: “I'm the containment, the spectators are stimulus”. Putting his head into the bucket filled with ice or covering face with a hat bore certain associations with a sensory deprivation. A short term deprivation can be relaxing whereas prolonging such operation usually causes anxiety and apprehension. The artist carefully analysed a whole variety of brutal interrogation techniques including: forcing people into unnatural positions, covering head with a sack, exposure to intensive noise, depriving of sleep, starving. His artwork, determining the essential features of a situation of threat, touches the subject of trauma and post-trauma.
(2008)
remains
blows black with mingled dirt and tears.
the object of this invasion
is extinguished
(2008)
Reviewed by: Mark Greenwood available on an/interface
In its symbolic import the spectacle of Guantanamo, however shrouded in mystery, corresponds to the spectacle of public execution in the middle ages. Its aim is not so much to re-establish a balance as to bring into play, at its extreme point, the dissymmetry between the subject who has dared to violate the law and the all-powerful sovereign who displays his strength.
Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punishment
An isolated cell. Darkness, grey buckets and frayed ropes depict a curious apparatus ready for operation. A perpetrator waits next to an American newspaper opened at the business section to display graphics of global economies. Happy faces smile back from the broadsheet despite dangers of impending economic catastrophe. There is an impossible and excessive silence in this room. A prepared malevolence awaits its cue to initiate choreographies of punishment.
A flick of a switch. Acute feedback as a microphone dangles above a pair of black speakers:
Course 1: information given in response to a product, a person’s performance of a task, etc. Used as a basis for improvement.
Course 2: the modification or control of a system by its results or effects.
Course 3: the return of a fraction of the output of an amplifier, microphone, or other device to the input, causing distortion or a whistling sound.
These combined oscillations generate a high pitched squeal that resonates and pulses with each pendular swing initiated by Clarke’s hand. Auditory senses are overwhelmed while sight struggles to recognize and interpret shadowy forms. Ears burn. Eyes seek as a chimeric transformation takes place. Clarke shifts between the role of impassive and distanced tormentor to a casualty of torture. His body becomes a site of self perpetuated violence as repetitive cycles of distress are enacted and re-enacted to a point of tired despair.
The head is plunged into a bucket of oil. Clarke’s features are indistinguishable. The action is repeated. Objects are placed in the mouth to gag and suppress screams. Strobes reveal the face dissolving into a greasy mask melting and dripping. Buckets suspended by ropes are kicked – their proximities clash into each other, altering the course of the microphone. Clarke pulls himself up onto the ropes – the torso stretched – tendons stiff, to re-represent a gruesome ‘Lady Justice’ whose scales symbolizing matters at hand are held in balance by mildewed bones and oil.
Clarke’s actions inscribe an institutional violence. Torture is nothing new but since 9/11 an ironic, dualistic impunity has been declared. The U.S maintains its sovereignty through extreme practices exceeding its principles – a moral superiority which sanctions an exception to international rules and norms in the pursuit of ‘truths’. Did we ever doubt that the horrors of 9/11 would not be met with an American reign of fire in distant lands? Repression and refutation have become condoned, acceptable instruments in the defence of Western liberty.
The air is heavy and suffocating. The newspaper is left unturned. Shadows distort and Clarke’s deformed features flicker in short snaps of electric light as he leaves the room. While we are all products of the structures we are born into and live within, some accept sovereign power with joy while others question and challenge it. Spectators struggle to stifle the screams. Their attempts may be futile.
(2008)
Video courtesy of Leo Devlin