flexible arts

megan steinberg dm’d me on twitter a dream message. 

an invitation to perform text scores in london with a small group of excellent performers/composers at iklecktik. these text scores however were completely generated by artificial intelligence.

i’ve been a big fan of text scores since 2018 after a small residency with apartment house led me to getting immersed in oogoo maia’s games for musicians and non-musicians. i think i see text scores as puzzles, that take time to study to unlock. after reading the bible of text scores ‘word events’ by john lely and james saunders, i realised that the use of language in these scores is so extremely precise and delicate, and therefore require such equal effort, care and attention in realising them. around this time i was commissioned by aaron moorehouse to perform a collection of text scores he had written called micro/verse. performing these scores took over a year or so, and was supposed to result in an exhibition of the results in some shape or form, but i moved from york to birmingham and the attachment of location to those scores was so important that it didn’t feel right to try and make that happen from afar, and the project has since dissipated. 

i around this time started to write my own text scores, which were mostly whimsical in nature and did not focus much on sound but more so on actions to take in day to day life, kind of like small interventions. i was quite orientated on experiences at the time. everything being an experience, art making as experience, existence as experience, experience being art etc. 

i performed some of them but primarily these scores were happy to exist as imaginary realisations. which is part of the big appeal for me in text scores, i don’t need help in making them happen, i see them as i think they would happen. 

when reading through the dataset of a-i generated scores by jennifer walshe and ragnar árni ólafsson, i was mostly chuckling at a-lot of these scores that were downright impossible to realise in the real world, as i imagine the a-i probably has a very loose grasp and what rules there are in physics as well as semantics. a lovely triumph that we can turn to a non-human entity for some new ideas, even if they are translated and recycled ideas of our own. 

but when reading and looking through them i found the one lined score titled flexible arts. 

‘the nude performer is tied a tree’

most of the scores weren’t one lined, so this was the main factor to catching my eye. other short ones in the dataset didn’t make sense, but this was clear, succinct had a very clear image in my head. i thought, compared to some other ones, this would actually be quite an easy one to perform. some of my favourite peers/idols have done some nude performances and i appreciate it as a stripping of anything extra, and making physical presence more connected to its space, as well as exposed and fragile. tim cape’s performance of you keep me thinking straight is one of my favourite pieces ever, alongside andy ingamells’ washen being big inspirations to me.

i saw the nude experience in art as a right of passage, to be part of a club of sorts of people who have done it, but also to challenge my self as performer to do these more exposing things for potentially better art. is that why other people have done it?  a better art experience?  

in discussions about what would happen were keen to utilise the massive screen at iklecktik, and suggested making some videos of some of the scores in advance. to oppose this and also make me feel a bit easier about performing flexible arts i suggested that i’d play it on a little small screen that i would bring myself. the act itself being filmed was maybe a good first step to being uncomfortable. of course now it is available to watch on vimeo here. i did consider performing it live with a local tree in the area, but i thought this would really disrupt the evening. it also meant aesthetically i was restricted to trees in the waterloo area of london, which definitely isn’t quite as nice as where i ended up filming. 

coming to filming it, i instantly messaged my friend and collaborator alexander kaniewski about helping out. i’ve talked a lot about him i think before across my blogs, but i will repeat the compliments here. he is a great talent for making things look just right. just has the right eye for the look of everything. he is also an excellent film maker but refuses to be called this for some reason. 

i enlisted his help as he was also someone i knew would be comfortable with the nudeness, and potential law breaking that would occur to make it all happen. 

we talked about the score and i how we had both envisioned it. i had originally imagined that i would be facing the camera rather than the tree, and would be hoisted by the waist and shoulders by thick rope to the middle of the tree, suspended from the tree with my feet well off the ground. 

but alex was adamant that he would not appear in the film, as there is no mention of someone else doing the tying. we debated the semantics of ‘the nude performer is tied to the tree’ whether that meant the action of not being tied to eventually being tied, or just that the action had already happened. we eventually agreed on the latter as you can see in the film. 

originally i wanted the tree to be quite mystical, almost unreal, definitely solitary from other trees. but the impracticality of this in terms of not exposing myself to stray members of the public, and the fact that it is hard to find solitary trees in birmingham and also england, (for me that’s maybe more of an irish thing? solitary trees? there are a lot more bands of trees here.)

i then did a little call out among friends for a tree that was in their garden, so that indecent exposure wouldn’t have been an issue. 

no trees were suitable. and thanks to alex for being strict with that decision, as the trees we could have had would have been in no comparison to the one that we did choose. 

we had a short time frame with myself jetting off to a wedding, mini holiday and a couple other gigs the week before the dataset performance, so we elected to go exploring in lickey hills, near to barnt green in the hopes of finding a good tree, to then wake up early the next morning and shoot the film before people woke up. 

we found a good tree within 15 minutes of walking through the country park, but was a little close to the path, but during our walk we didn’t see any other visitors at all. i put this down to it being midweek mid afternoon, people being at work and the unemployed/retirees/ people on their days off, would have went walking when the weather wasn’t as a grey in the morning. 

we decided on an area we would have liked to have shot in, and then alex not quite satisfied continued into the woods for quite some time, randomly leaving the path and one point, sort of getting dragged through some twiggy bits and found the clearing you’ve seen in the film. i have no idea how he found it. the man has a weird intuition for these things.

we set up for filming in this clearing.

the whole experience was lovely. alex wanted to get as many angles as possible, so tied me to the tree and started filming and then took several minutes of different angles. most of which you see in the 3 minute version. 

i was tied to the tree for about 16 minutes. i was actually tied to the tree, the rope looks quite thin and loose, but it would actually be quite tricky for me to get free without any help. for me to be comfortable i had to lean as much of my body onto the tree as possible. the tree was incredibly mossy, and held pockets of rain water that would drip onto me throughout. 

during the first five minutes the whole experience was incredibly meditative. i quickly got over the cold and dampness and embraced the comforting moss and felt very much attached to this tree (no pun intended). the nakedness did not feel sexualised in any way. the comfort i had slowly ebbed away though as my body started to ache a little. at this point it was actually very lovely. here i was attached to a tree, and totally not comfortable because of the tree, yet the tree was also supporting me. i felt just connected with the rest of the world. this moment would only last a little while and it became apparent at that moment. i was at one with the tree, the water dripping from its leaves and we shared the muddy ground we were both standing on. i can’t really explain how this felt but i would recommend the experience to anyone. 

about eight or nine minutes in however, i heard something from behind some trees in the distance. although there was nothing there, this put me on edge. i was strapped to this tree and could not run away or re-clothe myself if necessary. i was completely at the whim of other elements. we agreed that if someone was in the area alex would very quickly cover me in a coat. but this one event of hearing something that wasn’t there took me away from this wholesome connection and into one of resentment. not total resentment, just a sort of, uh please let me go so i can be more comfortable and hide a bit more. i became a little more on edge and physically more uncomfortable before alex stopped filming and untied me. 

leaving the tree felt odd. in a way i had just used this tree for an art piece and given it nothing back (other than a forced hug) but also i felt we had some fleeting connection. it then started to downpour as we were walking back to the train, we got soaked, then had some toast and tea at mine after.

we saw three people when walking back, but other than that, it was just us and the woods. 

so in short. some a.i made me take my clothes of and get very wet while holding/strapped to a tree. 

the video was shown, and i regretted the small screen nature of it. i think people seeing my expression on the big screen would have been far more interesting than a small nude figure in some woods. 

thanks to megan steinberg again for inviting me and letting me show the film, alex obviously for me this piece is as much his as it is mine, and of course jenny walshe and ragnar árni ólafsson for the set of scores. i hope that more scores made by a-i make performers do things they wouldn’t normally do as well as connect with other living things, and create new experiences.