Day 7 - Bulgaria - Sofia - International Art Forum

I always harbour this romantic idea that I will be the kind of travelling-man who keeps a profound, inspired and insightful journal full of interesting thoughts and feelings about being in a new and wonderful place.

It never works out.

I think that can only be a good thing. It proves I have had such little time to sit with nothing else to do. It's not that I didn't want to write a blog everyday, or most days I was here, I just didn't really get the chance.

Sofia is an incredible place. It's always alive and there is always fun, excitement and parties to be had. Alcohol is cheap, food is amazing, the sights and sounds of it are on one hand big bold and beautiful, and on the other decaying with old buildings like relics of a communist past. The streets are foggy, the weather causes every single breath of air to form ghostly mists that seep out when you breath.

Before I get to poetical and wanky I'll try to explain what we've been doing.

This week theatre makers from all kinds of different places (From Iran to Russia, just to offer some kind of spectrum) gathered in Sofia at Alma Alter's theatre space attached to Sofia University, to present their work. Experimental and Alternative were words thrown around for explaining what "type" this work was.

We presented Bottled, a piece that started life in the hands of Tracy Harris, Matt Ball and Greg Wohead almost two years ago. Performing it in Sofia was an amazing experience.

I could talk about all the amazing work I've seen and been blown away by, Polish dancers who's determination and gusto took everyone away, without undermining the beautiful work they made. I could talk about the Russians, who took Tennessee Williams' the Glass Menagerie and put it in a blender of eccentricity, movement and circus. But it maybe wouldn't mean a lot to anyone reading.

What I would like to talk about is the University, the students, Alma Alter, their theatre and the impact it feels like it has on Sofia. The way Alma Alta work is bold and brave and wonderful. It's inclusive, one of the first things they said was "When making theatre, there is no wrong and no right, there is my way and your way, my theatre and your theatre", and from here on in everyone knew they would not be judged or criticised but that all thoughts and feelings expressed about their work would be constructive and just someones opinion. The students who work with Alma Alter are in the more than capable hands of Nicoli (who knew Jerzy Grotowski personally, any Performing Arts Students should get a kick out of that) and Petia, they work on new, exciting and groundbreaking methods of theatre approach.

Th students live in the moment, they commit to everything and most importantly of all they smile. AAAALL THE TIME! They're incredibly happy. Some of them are studying Law and Geography or other subjects, yet they find themselves participating in performance making as an extra, and even though they're not studying performance art, they are welcomed into the fold and feel as part of the theatre as anyone else, and that's the thing. They feel like they own a piece of it. They care about it. They take risks and are rewarded. It's like no other educational establishment I've ever worked in.

Anyway, I've got to board a flight...

Mucho

Day 1/2 - Bulgaria - Sofia - International Art Forum

 Right now I'm slightly tired, shell shocked and perplexed to find myself sat in a hotel room in Sofia ahead of a week of talks, performances and meetings with international artists for International Art Forum, Sofia.

 It all came out of Bottled, a performance-like-something that Tracy Harris, Matt Ball and myself put together in October for Experimentica at Chapter Arts. Paul (Tracy's significant other) was the link, and when I told people I was coming, no one quite believed I could be lucky enough to have bagged another free international excursion, so much so I'm sure some of my friends don't believe I'm actually here, but I am.

 Having just landed in Sofia after a three hour flight from Luton, we've arrived at our hotel, The Ganesh Hotel. It's strange. Stuck, slightly, in the 80's it has a dark-oak, thick carpet romance to it. The building it's self is situated in some suburb somewhere in Sofia, where exactly I'm completely unsure as it's 1am here and we arrived in darkness. Picked up by an enthusiastic theatre student; Marco (who I'm sure I will be writing about consistently in these blogs), his boundless enthusiasm, excitement and energy seems to have fed of what remaining energy Paul, Tracy and I had left. Although he left us with our enthusiasm and excitement.

 The hotel is still. It's scent is that of "old-man" cologne mixed with thick, stale cigarettes, and it bombards your nostrils and paints an image of burly business men walking around the dim rooms in well worn underpants after a day of selling sponges. The elevator, barely big enough to fit two people inside, has it's own persona and it speaks in hum's and whirs and squeaks, like something out of a Stanley Kubrick film. The door shuts violently before you've had a chance to get fully out, like it's lonely and wants to keep you inside it for company.

 Outside on the street a few cars trickle by and seem to slow down, curious of what might be going on inside this old hotel. I can hear the voices of the people in the room next door, and they sound like they're planning something. Nothing sinister, maybe just planning a trip to get more cigarettes, or ask the stoney old Bulgarian dude on reception where they can pick up booze at this time of night.

 This morning I woke up in Cardiff, packed a bag and placed all my trust in Trace and Paul. From Cardiff to Luton to Sofia they haven't let me down. Paul may as well be a Bulgarian citizen, he's been here so many times, even lived here a short while, he's taught us some choice phrases and so far we've laughed and talked about all kinds of stuff. Mainly we've asked one another hypothetical questions about the week ahead: "What do you think the other shows will be like?" "What other countries do you think will be here?" "How on earth did this happen?". It's incredible, really.

 Sad to say Matt couldn't join us, and the performance we will be presenting is something like a version of the something we did at Chapter for Experimentica, what that version is we're really unsure, but it's (to quote Marco) "Fucking exciting" all the same.

I'll keep you posed.

Mucho,

Justin

Why Shia LaBeouf

 Yeeeeaaaah, Shia LaBeouf has done some stuff and some things.

 He's done some stuff and some things that have made people engage in scientific research in an attempt to breed an entirely new culture of celebrity hatred.

 From making plagiaristic films "inspired" by famous modern graphic novelists, to making plagiaristic graphic novels "inspired" by 20th century European poets.

 He's had a sensational meltdown. He's stormed out of screenings, totalled cars, engaged in fisty-cuffs, been arrested, imprisioned, fined, court dated, and most notably of all he's worn a big brown bag that tells people he's not famous anymore.

Shia LaBeouf tells the world he aint famous no more.

 By all the suggested value of the above wordum, we should all collectively conclude that Shia LaBeouf is a bit of a knob... But I like him.

 It began, I think, as a desire to be him. When I was just getting out of university he was this awesome looking dude, in awesome movies, doing awesome stuff. What higher ambition could I possibly have had?

Shia LaBeouf in Even Stevens.

 First noticing him as his long nosed nerd persona in Even Stevens when I was a nip, to re-realising my desire to be Shia when seeing him play Indiana Fucking Joneses Motorcyle Riding Son!

Motorcycle Riding, Crypt Rading, 50's Son of 80's Hero, LaBeouf.

Even if it was in the movie that would murder my nearest and dearest childhood hero by garishly planking together a story that takes single elements and plot lines from all the other Indiana Jones films, whilst heavily diluting it with a much probed and poorly placed alien context, inevitably ruining dreams, throwing away money and wasting peoples time on earth. All in pursuit of a crystal-alien-retro-whiporma where Jones meets 3rd Kind in a movie that ultimately serves to be nothing more than a feature length fuck-fest for Spielberg and Lucas's Wank Tank (and bank-bank)... Also on reflection I'm really not that into Transformers.

But I digress...

 These points aside, what I'm trying to say is I had a somewhat mysterious pull toward LaBeouf, and that pull began to explain itself in the lead up to what everyone called his "meltdown".

The Abbrev'ed Downfall of Shia LeBouf

 It was at the height of his fame that things seemed to spiral out of control. Having made a pretty successful debut as a writer director at Cannes with his film about the power of film. Shia returned triumphantly to LA and posted the film online, for free, for all to watch. That was nice of him. However. It was then discovered by the people who have internet that the film was a massive plagiarising of Graphic Novelist's Daniel Clowes work. The film, Howard Cantour.com, took characters, chunks of dialogue, locations and the actual frame work of a short story Clowes wrote, and that's when shit really did hit the fan.

 I saw the film, and it was pretty good, regardless. You can see it here: HowardCantour.com
And read the original Daniel Clowes comic here: Justin M. Damiano

 From here he apologised numerous times until he finally announced via Twitter that he was "retiring from public life". It seemed like we'd be in for the predictable decent of the Child-Star, who would most definitely hammer a whole heap of drugs, punch some people in the face, and ultimately be discovered with his $60,000 sports car sticking out the roof of his Hollywood home, whilst he sat naked in the corner of an unfurnished master bedroom covered in faeces and eating dead flies he collected off the windowsills.

Shia LeBouf hounded by press after scrapping with a dude for seemingly no reason.

 I thought we'd seen the end of LaBeouf...

Then, he apologised.

His apologies explained how he'd become so caught up in the creative process he simply forgotten to credit Daniel Clowes original story. He then went on and roughly explained that copying another artists work is wrong, but using another artist work to make a different piece of art is fair game. His argument began to explore ideas such as intellectual property, censorship and ownership of ideas within art.

 It didn't help that the media put his every word under an access all areas microscope. We were allowed to see his every mistake and his every tweet, and his every tweet could be re-tweeted,  bated, bled and changed. LaBeouf was personally recording and commenting on his own plummet, through his own twitter feed, with over a million pairs of eyes joining him for the decent. It seemed he was out of control and rambling, ready to smother himself in shite and eat some flies.

The End...

Until someone discovered his apology for plagiarising was plagiarised.

For me, this was the moment in that movie when the penny drops. When the invisible suddenly becomes visible. It's the part where the plot gets thick.

 His apologies and subsequent apologies for plagiarised apologies were all plagiarised. His output on Twitter consisted, it seemed, of a collection of plagiarised thoughts and feelings that's victims spanned poets like Charles Bukowski to search engines like Yahoo Answers.

 LeBeouf then stated his Twitter account is actually a 'Metamodernist' piece of viral performance art. Then LaBeouf embarked upon a series of actions described by Dazed magazine as "a multi-platform meditation on celebrity and vulnerability". Working with British artist Luke Turner and Finnish performance artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö, he created #IAMSORRY.

 In February 2013, just days after the whole brown bag in Berlin thing, he opened his live art exhibition #IAMSORRY. What he was apologising for or to who were unanswered and seemingly irrelevant. From Tuesday until Sunday, from 11am till 6pm, at The Cohen Gallery on Beverly Boulevard, he sat alone in a room as one audience member a time was invited into a white room, there they're asked to pick an object from a table. The objects of choice: Pliers, An Indiana Jones whip, a Transformers toy, a bouquet of flowers, a pink ukulele, a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a bowl full of abusive tweets on paper, a bowl of Hershey Kisses and a copy Death Ray by Daniel Clowes.

With one object in hand they could walk into an adjoining room, and in there was Shia Lebouf sat at a table wearing the brown paper bag that reads "I Am Not Famous Anymore". 

Apparently audiences could say and do anything they pleased. No matter what they did, Lebeouf stayed silent. Some people took the brown bag of his head, engaged him in conversation, asked him questions, said derogatory and abusive things, even took selfies with him.

TMZ paid a visit to the star, without much luck in drawing from him a response.

'I tell him this all seems incredibly self-serving,' the website's reporter wrote. 'No response. I ask him to share a swig of whiskey with me. No response. I ask him if any slimy characters have put their lips on the bottle - he breaks into a wide smile. Then immediately his face returns to its regular stoic self.'

Apparently whilst one audience member was with him he blubbered and cried.

Interestingly, again, accusations of plagiarism were thrown at the piece and some claimed it was a publicity stunt. It was claimed he was simply imitating, Marina Ambromavich's work The Artist Is Pesent. Even though Marina herself disregarded the claim and stated the piece had an entirely different objective to her work.

The Artist Is Present displayed the artist as the art work. It was physical, thoughtful, calm and devoid of the usual shapes and structures we'd expect to see in a gallery space. The physical, unappologogetic presence of the artist makes the otherwise invisible entity, tangible and understandable. And in as much as Marina Ambromavich wanted the artist to be noticed, it feels like LaBeouf's work is about the opposite.

  It seems like LeBeouf's #IAMSORRY is about association and apology, but more importantly it's about the absence of the artist. Not physically, but in every other variation. Speechless and motionless with a brown paper bag on his head, it's almost like he's wanting to be forgotten, or perhaps forgiven. Exactly what he's apologising for, to me, is irrelevant. Just the notion of an apology suspending this premise is enough.

 As a performance maker interested in the phenomenon of celebrity this is where things get interesting for me.

 What has Shia LaBeouf become? What was this work intending to say, if anything? Surely we think of him as this Hollywood Child-Star who's fame is thanks to hugely popular blockbuster teen pleasers like Transformers. Now it appears as if some re-invention has happened, and it seems to be have been tugged out like an old brown tooth from the mouth of his plagiarism mistake. Many accusers state this is all a response to cover up the embarrassment of the Daniel Clowes incident, one harsher reviewer stated that Shia LaBeouf read a book about performing once.

 I'm not convinced. He put his movie on the internet, the everything machine, every country in the world has access to this wonderful database of information. Did Shia LaBeouf post his film online for everyone to see, for free, thinking that no one who viewed it would have ever read a comic book before? I don't think so.

 What ever the case, Shia LaBeouf has me interested, so much so I'd leap into the deep end and say this is more than a publicity stunt, this is an Artist who has experienced fame and it's devices from the inside, all of his life, and now he's making work that examines and explores those notions.

Although the chick who wrote this article on Flavorwire clearly disagrees. http://flavorwire.com/437931/shia-labeouf-has-officially-ruined-performance-art-for-everybody

 For me LaBeouf embarked on an idea, and whispered this subtle and subdued f**k you to everyone and anyone who felt it was there right to formulate and express an opinion of him. It feels like he's rebelling against a world of media that is attempting to take unauthorised control of his identity. He made these weird and wonderful statements about ownership and imitation in art through Twitter, that question his intent for the film HowardContor.com, in doing this he has pried open, just a little bit, the lid of the jar that lets us explore the cultural phenomenon that is celebrity.

You should check out The Campaign Book a digital art space for the work of Labeouf, Ronkko and Turner: http://thecampaignbook.com

 And last, but by absolutely no means least, here is the video that inspired me to write this article.

En-Bloody-Joy...

Mucho,

Justin Teddy Cliffe

Bottled Week 3 - First Night Experimentica at Chapter Arts

So here I am, sat in Media Point at Chapter Arts, Cardiff, with a damp groin that smells a bit like old peas after a final run through of Bottled before tonights performance for the opening of #Experimentica14.

Experimentica is Chapters self ran festival that celebrates an art form you could call "Experimental". This years sub-theme/headline is 'Co Existence Has Never Been Easy', and with Bottled playing with themes of collective formality, wedding politeness and the idea of being together for ever and ever and always, it seems like Bottled is place pretty well here for it's first full performance.

And looking at it, the Experimentica team have programmed some really interesting stuff in store.

Check out the full programme here: http://www.chapter.org/experimentica-14-co-existence-has-never-been-easy

Anyway, now is not the time for Blogging.



Full one later.

If you read this before 4.30 get along to Chapter Arts for the first full night of Experimentica.

Mucho

Justin

Bottled - Week 1

Ever been to a wedding where the best man’s speech went too far? 

A funeral where the eulogy told the truth, the whole truth or anything but the truth? 

Did you ever reply on twitter and regret it immediately. 

We've been collecting stories, writing eulogies, making speeches and not apologising. We've been getting competitive, drinking milk and dancing to Kelis.

 For the past week and a half I've been working with Performance Makers, Tracy Harris and Matt Ball on a new piece of theatre called Bottled. The piece was originally conceived by Tracy and London based performance maker Greg Wohead, and was Directed by Matt. They began developing the work last year and showed back a short version to an audience at Aberystwyth Art Centre.

 We've taken strands from the initial processes of this idea, but as to be expected when any new artist is involved in the making of something, it feels like it's become slightly something else. We've been exploring ideas, divulging secrets, bottling things up, telling poo-stories, baring our embarrassing, and exploring the ideas of risk, formality and speech making. What would happen if we could be honest when giving the Best Man speech? What's the purpose of the language we use? What are we hiding? What are we saying, whilst not saying? What we have at the moment is loose in form, with ideas of ideas and inklings being poured from bottle to bottle.

 The piece has been commissioned for Experimentica 2014 and funded by the Arts Council of Wales. Being performed as part of the Experimentica festival, taking place at Chapter Arts.

 If you want to catch Bottled and/or talk to Matt, Tracy or myself then please come along to Chapter Arts on Wednesday Nov 5th 6.00pm - Tickets £5.

Mucho,

Justin

The Dog

"This dog…" she muttered.

The man waited patiently for her to proceed.

"This dog, wouldn't do a thing like that." She finally concluded.

The man looked down at the dog and saw a part of the tattered remains of the red y-fronts dangling from the dogs tiny mouth. He looked back up at the woman, peering over the top of his glasses, now half way down his nose.

"This dog was in hold this whole time." She lied.

The man lifted his left arm at a perfect right angle, and with his right hand pulled his grey tweed suit jacket sleeve right back to his elbow, revealing his pale purple shirt and his watch. He squinted at his watch.

"Well maybe not the whole time." She suggested.

Releasing his tweed-sleeve and placing his arm back down by his side, he took a deep breath in and said.

"Fail."

"Fail?" She repeated as though it would somehow change the meaning of the word.

"Fail."

"Look" She pleads, "I know he's 'ruff' around the edges, but surely something can be done." Her quip quickly whisped away and disappeared on an invisible breeze faster than the time it had taken her to utter it.

"There's nothing that can be done." He said like he was only following the rules to spite her.

"He's a good dog, he's not usually this boisterous. I'm sure with a little more…"

"No-thing-can-be-done." He separated each syllable so the sentence lost all impetuous and meaning.

"Please Mr Samuels…" (so that was his name) "He is a lovely dog".

After a brief pause, Mr Samuels looked down at the dog for one last time. He felt that perhaps it just winked at him, a simple knowing wink. The little bastard.

"Mrs Davis. You're dog has not only managed to remove my trousers, but eat my entire underwear. To be entirely honest with you, it is only because of my strict professionalism that I have continued judging the North Devon Doggy Dress Show wearing nothing but my shoes, shirt, tie, sock-suspenders and jacket. Your dog is Satan. I award you no points."

Bottled, TigerFace, Pollinate, Other Stuff - 15/10/14

What's it all about?

I don't know.

This week I've had plenty of time to sit and stew and do and not do. It's not only been really nice, but in direct contrast with last week where I moved around more than a hamster at night.

Last week Tin Shed Theatre Co. hosted three nights of funny stuff at a self-made-pop-up-venue in the upstairs of The Project Space, Newport. It was an exhausting, smile inducing, hoot.

So this week I've been on a bit of an inspired and lazy come down from that, poking old projects back into life, playing with plasticine, drinking tea and looking ahead to next week when I start a new project in Cardiff with Matt Ball and Tracy Harris.

Bottled was a work in progress and originally a collaboration between Matt, Tracy and London based Texas born performing artist, Greg Wohead. I'm a huge fan of Greg and his work, and so was dubious about stepping into his shoes, but two meetings in and I've been assured by Matt and Tracy that we're remaking not replicating this work. I'm excited to be working on this in the lead up for it's first performance as part of Experimentica 2014 at Chapter Arts in November.

Looking at life events, occasions, formal-conventions, best man speeches, eulogies, words spoken and words never spoken, bottling things up and perhaps the consequences of not letting them out.

You can see more here: CHAPTER ARTS

Bottled - Press Photograph

Having met both Matt and Tracy (and Greg) at National Theatre Wales Summer Camp/Pollinate in2012, as well as having formed strong friendships with other people who ventured into the wilderness with us that summer, it seems the repercussions of this NTW ran Performance Development scheme are deeper and more unknown than they're initially thought to be.

It was also at Summer Camp that I first tuned into my initial ideas for TigerFace, even though I wasn't their to work on that project. A dude called Simon handed out clown noses and I was immediately inspired to follow my instincts in the making of an anti-clown.

It seems that, that 'pollination' has well and truly been successful and last week I performed TigerFace (aka The Anti-Clown) at Tin Shed Theatre's TRASH, part of ComedyPort 2014.

You can read more about TigerFace in blogs of past: SCRATCH THAT ITCH AT THE SHERMAN

TigerFace at TRASH

Thanks for reading,

Mucho

Justin