Transvoyeur Performance Art Platform 2006, "The Spatiality of the Post Modern Female", Independents Liverpool Biennial 2006.
Co-written by Jean-Paul Debuffet and Lucia Andrea Sweeney.
Saturday 28 October 2006

On Friday 27 October 2006, the final Transvoyeur Performance Art Platform 2006 at the View Two Gallery (Liverpool, England) was presented. Researched and managed by the Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney, UK Projects Co-ordinator of Transvoyeur, there was a selection of artists from the city and internationally. The artists included Jeimy Marisol Martínez Galavíz, Seasons - When the City Speaks (Alison Bazely, Laura Baxter, June Hobson, Peter Worthington, and Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney, conceived and directed by Jo Derbyshire) and Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney.

The first performance art piece was by Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney. This was titled ‘Boudicca’s PMT in the 21st Century’. Firstly performed in Berlin and then London, 2005-2006. This live art is one that has evolved with each rendition, reciprocal to the context of the spatiality and urban culture. This opened with artist dressed in white medical coat and a white mask reversed to the back of her head. This produced a dual profile. Sweeney walked to one side of the room and whispered in to an audience members ear. She requested this message to be passed through the audience members as in the game of ‘Chinese Whispers’. When the chain was concluded on the other side of the room, she requested the male to speak aloud what was said.

Sweeney then asked the first member of the audience, who was female to stand, and the last, who was male, to join her at the front. She guided each to sit either side of her and passed them sheet of text. She introduced the text as ‘Athena Review Vol. 1, No. 1 from The Annals by Tacitus (AD110-120) Book X1V, which describes the Rebellion of Boudicca (AD 60-61). This was a translation from Latin to English describing the rise and fall of Boudicca. She instructed the two volunteers to commence reading the ancient text and to continue until the last page. The male and female commence recitation, at times in unison and others a cacophony of words that conflicted when out of synchronisation. She draped over the two figures a mass of gold chiffon. She then stood reversed, with the white mask on the back of her head peering towards the audience.

Dressed in white medical overall and trousers, she stood arms outstretched while the rendition of the historical events of Boudicca was imparted to the audience. She then turned and knelt to the ground. She collected a mass of paper on the floor in front of her. On these were printed biological diagram studies of the female’s reproduction system. The artist folded layer by layer each sheet to form paper aeroplanes, which she threw with vigour into in to the air and audience. To reside back, composed and calmly fold another. After some time and the pile of printed biological studies expired, she curled tightly into a ball. During these actions, the male and female continued to read the ancient text. Sweeney curled into a ball, stretched her arms forward, head still down she clawed at the ground. As her hands draw close to her body, she released a merciful scream. Several times the shrilling lament was released from her lowered body. The force of the energy expelled the affliction, grief and anguish expressed in the text by the male and female read.

A woman, Boudicca, who is remembered in the canons of history who led the Iceni rebellion against the Romans, after her husband, Prasutagus, as king of the Iceni, died. The Romans went against their word and Nero was ruling in Rome and the Britons were forced to endure huge taxes, conscription and inhumane treatment at the hands of Roman authorities. The peaceful treaty after Prasutagus death was forgotten and for more wealth, the Romans invaded the lands of the Iceni. Boudicca was flogged her daughters were raped. The essence of a females strength is re-represented in the ideologies in this text of 21st century constructs of gender politics. Sweeney presented a captivating and poignant performance, as the female, as the lover, the matriarch and femme fatale to avenge what was lost. As Shakespeare captured in his writings ‘Hell has no fury like a woman scorned’ and Boudicca epitomized this.

The next performance to follow was Jeimy Marisol Martínez Galavíz a visual, performance and sound works artist from Mexico. She walked over to the piano in the View Gallery and raised the lid to the strings. She bent with poise into the piano, her head lowered to the strings. The audience looked on curiously. Then she intoned a musical note, not a choral or recognisable song, but tones emanated, scaled and alternating in no rhythm. There were interludes of silence, but during these moments it was realised the reverberations of her own voice on the inner strings of the piano resonated.

Intonations of a duet between instrument and artist, reciprocal sounds forming a duality in this intervention. The disjointed tempo of the process crescendo from the soprano inflections to hysterical screams and equally the strings echoed back. She moved across the scale of the piano strings and each responding by chord and note against he energy of her voice. The audience sat bewildered and entranced by this strange interaction with our notions of artist, musical instrument and structured sound. She rose from the piano, faced the audience, and left the performance platform.

The final performance was conceived by Jo Derbyshire with other artists and audience members participating. The performance opened with a performer, Sweeney seated on a chair. She commenced reading a monologue. A text written by Derbyshire of her experiences of the city of Liverpool combined with historical and popular culture references. These structured into the ‘Seasons’ and titled ‘When the City Speaks’. Some moments later Derbyshire enters the scene carrying art materials, which she spreads across the floor. A collection of paints, brushes and so forth. She departs at each the orator states a seasons to return with a canvas representative of each term and another artist enters the scene adjacent to the placement of the canvas. These canvases a combination of mixed media, painting and collage. Photographs and text mixed with abstract and figurative representations. These form the foundation of a visual dialogue cognitive to the subject being read aloud. On conclusion of the monologue, Derbyshire disappears from the scene and the four artists sat next to her canvases commence adding to the surface.

The reader invites members of the audience to come forward and contribute to the seasons on the canvases. The artist, Derbyshire, compares the seasons within the structure and semiotics of her art formed by her experiences and lineage against the urban spatiality. The idea of time and space is explored and as something has a natural progression in evolution of a place, so too is that of the human creatures intervention. The invitation for the audience to contribute continues with this innate sequence by modifying the spatiality of the canvas. An intervention of historical and natural cause and effect and the linear concept of time by human experience. The performance finalised with each member of the audience interacting with the art and becoming part of the creative seasons of each canvas. This piece intrigued the audience and the live art became a type of ‘happening’ in the creative process.

It is interesting in this series of three performances by the artists there is a consideration of the female role in post-modern society and culture contrasted to the canons of history and inherited concepts. There is a recognisable universality to these notions and regardless of time separating the historical figure to the contemporary female artist the fundamentals remains the same of the passion and zeal of the female in her many guises, as lover, matriarch, leader, professional and so forth. This does not remove the female from her status in contemporary life; rather it recognises the essence of her strengths and weaknesses in time and space, all which are integral to both genders, male and female, in her relationships of everyday existence and life. Indeed the ancient text on the subject of Boudicca, a canonised female figure, is recorded, inscribed and explicated by a male, Tacitus. Whether the war cry of an ancient female embodied in Sweeney’s personification to the screams from Galavíz, by tonality, function and rationale, we are presented by two woman who similarly test the preconceptions of spatiality in sounds and visual dialogue. Again, parallel to the fundamentals of Derbyshire’s monologue of shared experiences and understanding as a female living in the urban space of Liverpool.

The Transvoyeur Performance Art Programme 2006 was realised with the support of the Ken Martin (Director/Curator) and Sam Skinner (Exhibitions Co-ordinator) of the View Two Gallery, Liverpool, England.

E-mail: transvoyeuruk@hotmail.co.uk
Website: www.transvoyeur.co.uk

Email: info@viewtwogallery.co.uk
Website: www.viewtwogallery.co.uk