Repetition Island

LW: How many times have you been to the Island?

BM: I have come everyday.

LW: And how would you describe the evolution of the project over the week?

BM: I didn’t come at the same time every day so I didn’t feel the same. But I like this idea of repetition. I like this idea of coming back – like an obligation or a necessity. I do believe in Marcel Duchamp’s definition of a works of art. He said that an art piece is like a rendez-vous, be careful not to miss it. SO in a way this follows Duchamp’s expectation.

LW: DO you think that Repetition Island had been a successful rendez-vous?

BM: It depend what you mean by successful. Yes, I guess it is but it has to be for the artists. I wanted to do something as an experiment for the artists. My first target was to build something for the artists. To build maybe an island where they want to join and be together. Because I think that art needs a place to experiment and test. I like the fact that the artists can repeat and develop together. But is has to remain experimental.

LW: SO this double entender of the word repetition in French – repetition and rehearsal.

BM: Let’s say that Rai’s idea is very clever. From the beginning he said to me that such a place was a little bit like a picnic and he sent me an image of Dejeuner Sur l’Herbe. I like the fact that he identified this place as an island, because it is. It became the island of repetition. I think that it works because it is very intensive and takes place in a very short time. It would be different if we extended it. There has to be the feeling of an achievement.

LW: I am sad that this is the last day. Tomorrow there is going to be a hole.

BM: I am sad too. But when we talked he never asked me to extend it.

LW: Because it is an isolated incident?

BM: It’s an incident. Isolated ….. it’s and isle.

LW: An isle-solated incident.

BM: Yes. I believe that artists today have to deal with time, duration and repetition. And I like the fact that it works like a display. It is extremely efficient. There are many points of view, vanishing points. It gives island in the island.

LW: It is interesting to see how people are framed by the instillation.

BM: It is a little like being inside and outside - in two positions. There is a wonderful text by an American writer named Richard Valence about the place of the spectator in Manet’s work. This first session is definitely related to the place of the spectator. Where are we? From where do we speak?

LW: We as artists or we as audience?

BM: Where is the limit? Where is the cut? What Rai did was the he wrote into the session some very young artists and quite young students too. The idea was to trigger things into another dimension. And it works. I do think that he did a great job.

LW: I agree

BM: But it is sad that we are talking about it in the past tense.

LW: There are still a few hours left.

LW: Could you describe your performance?

MP: It is the complete history of Obdurance Art from 1860 until the present.

LW: Do you want to give a few highlights of that history, for the folks at home?

MP: One of the most known pieces of Obdurance Art happened in 1935 with Louisa Edgar and Beth Schemmel. It is called Yellow on Yellow and it is the first Obdurance opera. It happened in Vienna. Most Obdurance art was produced by couples, with only a few exceptions. There were maybe three or four pieces of Obdurance Art that were done individually but most by couples. This is because the first work of Obdurance Art in 1860 was made by a couple, Lisa and Johann Pogandorff, and it sort of set a trend. So, Beth Schemmel was Israeli and Louisa Edgar was Czechoslovakian and this piece Yellow and Yellow just involved pushing a lemon back and forth between them. They are seated sort of elegantly and they push the lemon back and forth with their tongues slightly out of their mouths and making a sound.

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MNH: I am recording. I am recording all of today – the whole day - and then I record the next day and the next day and the next day. When I start recording the days before start playing back at the same time. All the differences, gaps and changes in the script will maybe make it into more of a melody. 

By the end all of the awkward pauses, strange overlaps, like when five days play on top of each other that will be the theme tune, but the theme tune will be finished when the show is finished. I also thought it would be a bit like a radio theatre that unfolds everyday somewhere in the administrative brain of the computer. With the aid of some simple gestures. I also wanted the sound of this theatre to feature the voice of Richard Foreman. He would have this voice, often pre recorded in his plays, a sort of “voice of god”. I also only know his work through recorded material and here we could meet in a recording.

LW: Who is Richard Foreman?

MHN: He is an amazing American playwright, poet, artist. He has been active since the ‘60s. He has done tones and tones of plays with Ontological Hysteric Theatre which he is the founder of and artistic director. They have been based in New York for ages. Now he is moving into film with his Bridge project. First the plays were really static and long, interrupted by really loud sounds and pre-recorded voices that were almost like instructions to the actors. He would have speakers in the audience and they would hear his pre-recorded voice. Then they would see the actors respond. A live response to listening. But before I get all the facts on him wrong check his wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Foreman

So, Jessica Warboys wrote the portrait of Mardi as a poem and we adapted that as a script for Richard Foreman to read. It is about him being inside a pocket with a blue fountain pen writing and that is where all the recording is happening.  Almost describing the set of repetition island. The suit jacket is a poem that Jessica wrote, which is tailored for Richard Foreman. So I play the recording of him reading this in the morning on Repetition Island. It is sort of like an opening credit. Here is the text:

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Mardi awoke exactly the same time she always woke up - five minutes before the alarm. Early bird, her parents used to call her. She showered, had a coffee, and by the time she left her house the acid rain had stopped. The subterranean pod was jammed with humans and aliens - all going to their subterranean station. The biomorph agent at Repetition Island - her own station - punched her in two minutes before work started. She was paired with a morbid bot whose best botfriend was permanently shut down the previous week, and by the time the bot had laid bare his soul their routine was done, the workday was over and it was time to punch out. The subterranean pod was jammed with humans and aliens - all going back home. She entered home just as the acid rain started, showered, had a meal, read a little bit of a William Burroughs type novel and lied down to call it an early bird night. Tomorrow, she decided as she was falling asleep, she was going to call Mardi IV, one of her clones, so they’d go to this gallery opening and then out for a drink.

LW: I wanted to ask you how you come up with the stories that you tell everyday at Repetition Island.

BS: The stories change a bit everyday. At first it was improvised and I did know exactly what I was doing. I decided after the first day. I planned to change the story, but I thought it would be interesting if it had the same structure everyday but with different works. But it is always about searching for something, finding something. But after the first day I noticed that this discothèque thing was really funny for the audience so I decided that just a few details would change everyday. So everyday when I arrive at the discothèque I am obliged to have a costume but the costume changes and that changes how the story ends. If you see the performance a few times you get the feeling that your memory is repeating or that you are mis-remember. I am not used to this kind of format. Usually I do not repeat the same piece. So I wanted to have a way to change the piece everyday. I have a few pieces that I have done twice but I find that when I already know what the jokes are going to be it is bad. I know where the audience will laugh

LW: and you start to expect it?

BS: Yes and I always like to surprise myself with the jokes. I really like this moment, in all of my work, where it is not really like having an audience but being with the audience. Like we are all together watching the same person. When I laugh the audience is also laughing and that way we are all thinking together. So for me not repeating is a way to achieve this.

LW: I get the impression you really like New Wave.

BS: I find it very interesting. I spent one whole year researching New Wave for a project. I really like to work as an art historian, or a historian. I like working with things that exists – being a teacher, or something that implies making a show. I like this idea of being a teacher but I don’t say, “Okay, today the subject is …” I like to say, “Today we are not talking about the subject. We are playing with the subject.” My performance on Repetition Island is a bit different because it is a kind of tale. It is not really a serious thing. But New Wave music has a romantic idea of drama – the idea of being lost, thinking the world is going nowhere. They look at the world around them – the everyday – in a really metaphysical way. The world is not as we perceive it. It is full of really strange and dramatic things. Like the paintings of Leon Spilliaert. There is self-portrait he did where he is looking at himself in the mirror like he is a stranger. It is really scary and weird. I like this kind of thing: how we perceive the different levels of reality and I think it is linked to memory and myth. How myths are a part of everyday life and they help you to think but they are not real – they are in memories. Gertrude Stein wrote in Tender Buttons that she arrived at a point where it was no longer useful or even possible to separate fiction and reality. Telling a story creates a memory – so it exists.

[Image: Benjamin Seror with a painting of the entrance to the discothèque Le George.]