POETRY INDOORS

A gallery guide to Marina Abramović Presents...

A collaborative text by Rachel Lois Clapham and Joanna Loveday

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ PRESENTS...

Whitworth Gallery, 3 – 19 July 2009

Marina Abramović, Ivan Civic, Nikhil Chopra, Amanda Coogan, Marie Cool Fabio Balducci,
Yingmei Duan, Eunhye Hwang, Jamie Isenstein, Terence Koh, Alastair MacLennan, Kira
O’Reilly, Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich, Melati Suryodarmo and Nico Vascellari.

It Is Near and Radio Games by Joanna Loveday,

Pound and Pane by Rachel Lois Clapham,
Manifesto and Map by JL/RLC. All texts copyright the authors 2009.
Design by Charlotte A Morgan
 MANIFESTO
We stand on the last promontory of the centuries! Omnipresent speed died yesterday!
Instead, we glorify slowness. Marina Abramović Presents …presents Time and Space!

*
No more futile worship of the past, of objects, of drama. We present performance for
everyone. We unshackle performance from the hands of the poor and the few. We put
performance on the map. We say performance is the highest order; there can be no other
but performance. The sounds of the street, the colours of nature, even everyday clothes are
not good enough for performance.

*
We present performance in the museum, crowding out historical collections; dead painters
and sculptors step aside. Curators – we say give yourself over to performance’s demand of
uselessness and waste (of Time and Space) if you dare. We strip the gallery, that absurd
abattoir of visual art, of all its’ objects. In its stead, we erect a temple of performance to
which thousands will make pilgrimage, pay homage and be schooled in the immediacy and
purity that can only be found in the durational.

*
We say go slow. Spurn dynamism, speed and technology. Feel the dizzying heights of
empty, useless exertion. Give yourself over to performance. Expect (no)thing in return.
Feel the exhilaration and sheer present-ness of performance, of (a waste) of time. To be
inside performance is to be physically there, free of the day-to-day, pure of mind, aware of
the present moment and of oneself completely, aware of each muscle moving, each drop of
liquid sliding down the throat.

*
The true object of art is man. Hence we sing praises to artists that use only themselves and
their bodies as object, create nothing and use no trimmings or props. We glorify those who
create without decoration or product.

*
Slowness is virtue

Uselessness is value

Poetry indoors!

Take time. Join us!

A large imposing staircase
casts a shadow over the mound beneath it, purpose built.
It is placed. A prop of fabric, paint and mattress,
it is an adept landing area, an unrealistic mountain at the side of the stairs.
There is a small gap between the mound and the staircase, but it is one large
enough to make a leap from one to the other true and tangible.

Everyone gathers around.

We are waiting.
We are so obviously, embarrassingly waiting for ‘it’,
for this moment - I giggle.
Amanda Coogan has done this before.
Most of us saw her, but not entirely, not the full jump.
The audience were chatting, we were looking the other way.
We were approaching the staircase or turning to some new work.
For the first of her leaps, I was stood in the door way,
I heard the shattering scream and dashed quickly in.
I was too late, she had landed, but I heard the leap,
it sounded epic, so now I wait.
Standing with the crowd, I gloat - I am able to watch her jump again.
And it is coming, soon.

She has been stood on the perch,

attached at the midway point of the staircase for some time
- five minutes, ten? It feels right.
Her legs look tired, she has stopped fidgeting and her eyes are
trained on the open air ahead of her.
There is nothing there.
Space, open space.
She grips the railing with one hand.
Stepping on tip toes - about to fly.
Before long, she will jump again,
it is coming, we can sense it.

The scream – repeated - has a gravitational pull.

They are coming now, more are joining us.
Both people and possibilities, orbiting this moment.
It is spun out and we flock to bear witness to its next
re-enactment. It exists unencumbered, untouchable,
out of reach. It is a deadly instant, in spite of its
precise choreographed movement. It is the ultimate
leap. It has nearly happened. Don’t look away now,
don’t move an inch. This is the ONE. The Moment.
Again. Ready to satisfy us. Creeping up on us slowly.
The moment you think about, but never enact.
She looks pensive, but not scared. The crowd is willing
her on, penetrating her with our unblinking gaze,
breathing in time. Her focus deepens. She is ready.
 We stare on. She is searching, she is tempting
something to happen. Will she, will she.
We are at the edge of the moment.
About to leap, about to be in it.
Any.
Minute.
Any
Minute.

A sudden shriek.
Leap.
Scream.
A
A
R
R
G
G
H!
Fall, carefully on to the
mound.
Feet first.
Yes.

An Accident. A moment of
‘being’.
A moment of oblivion.
A moment of exhilaration.
A momentous moment.
A moment in air.
A gravity defying moment.
A moment I nearly missed.
A mountain. A climax.
A moment of life and death.
THE moment. Every moment.
The scream is the moment. It is the leap condensed. It is both the jumping and the
falling. It is not the take off, or the landing. The moment she screams, the moment
itself, is the moment she is in flight. It is the unknown. How will she land, will she
be safe, why did she jump? Yet it is always more, more than that. The freedom of the
moment. To die, to really feel, to feel alive, to brush up against it, to have something
more, something more than life itself. To grasp for it, to die for it. The repeating of the
action. Again and again, wringing it out, spinning it out. Satiating the audience’s
desire - one we no longer know we have. Drawing out this one fraction of time, it
is scrutinized, it is brimming with importance. What was it? We look on. We move
away. It is over now. She lies spread on the mound.
Exhausted. Her body wracking her with aches as penance for her sins. Jumping,
falling, with no physical gain or satisfaction. The complex core of the moment is
the act of the leap, the few seconds she is in it - it must be something sacred.

Minutes go by, drag out and she moves, rolling on to her side, holding on to the
edge, lowering herself from her mountain to the floor. Up the staircase, back to
her perch, regaining her focus, beginning again. Stepping out, looking out. And
here they come again, they flock for the moment, the next one.
[I Love You] The first time I saw Melati Suryodarmo it was early on,
I was passing through to get to somewhere else. Everyone has to walk
through her womb-like red room to get elsewhere. I see her stood in
the middle, in red heels and black trouser suit, balancing a heavy look-
ing 4ft by 9ft sheet of clear glass on her back, moving slowly. I see her
en-route, over time, out of the corner of my eye. I remember thinking,
there’s no rush, I can leave her until later, and she will be there for hours.

[I Love You] Three minutes later I’m passing back through, but this
time I stick to the walls and skirt around the edges of space and take
a minute to look. [I Love You]. The bottom of the glass touches the
ground and its blunt, heavy scraping follows dumbly two steps after
her. At times she lifts the glass off the ground. She is impeded by its
weight, her head at an awkward angle, her steps short underneath it. She
can just about manage. After a while, she twists round front on to the
glass, grabs its edges with both hands, her face is squashed up against
it as she moves. [I Love You] It is a difficult duet, a dance with a dead
weight, [I Love You] an un-malleable partner. An impossible coming
together of live and inert, natural and man-made, oil and water. I didn’t
realise until much later that the amplified words [I Love You] were hers.

LIFT
Nico Vascellari sits in the darkness underneath the staircase in
the lower level of the gallery and pounds two pieces of granite
together. For four hours. POUND the pounding is regular. It is possible to
anticipate one pound from the next. POUND Yet each pounding sound is
immense, visceral and shocks afresh. POUND museum bricks and
mortar pound, Victorian staircase railings pound, bodies of the audience – our
hearts, heads, stomachs and ears plugged fast with fingers- all pound. POUND
POUND this is granite on granite, pounding permanence,
monumentality and immortality. POUND Granite on granite, rocks as cold, inert, stoic.
P O U N D POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
Granite on granite, the sound dull, heavy and dark but with a sharp edge. The
possibility of a break or a chip is just out of reach, but there nonetheless, being
pounded. POUND Granite on granite, a body – of work, of a man’s flesh, of sound - is
being beaten. POUND this is granite on granite, the natural being made unnatural, being
pounded into work. Into toil, POUND function, POUND Art, POUND.
To pound and strike repeatedly. To pound in order to break down or
grind. POUND but this is pounding without product. Pounding as hard
useless toil, sweat, slowness and craft. Pounding in order to break a sweat.
Going at it pound for pound. Pounding to make the rock (a) work.
Performance. Action. Art. POUND to pound work. To pound sound. POUND.
Whole, essential, sound cannot be represented or misunderstood. It is. It is
P O O O U U U U N D
It is .............. It is (insert sound). POUND Words are always already, in a word,
POUND (mis)representation. To sound writing, to write sound, POUND
or to sound the event then, is to POUND pound the museum of language.
POUND to properly pound writing and words. POUND to pound words
together like rocks, to sound their hardness, to make them work. Toil. Function. Art.
POUND impenetrable, hard, granite-like words, meaning pounded, tried,
worked but not entirely ground or cracked into. POUND words pounded, their
edges quiver but never quite break open. POUND words toiled over,
but remain whole. POUND your body will break before the pounding does.
This could go on forever. POUND repeated, the same sound changes,
graphic form shifts, different colours fill the space. Ground is lost.
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND
Sky lights and old trainers

A glory hole
Marina Abramović
A blank piece of paper

A plate of jelly Ivan Civic

A pane of glass
Nikhil Chopra
A grand staircase

A funny feeling in my tummy Amanda Coogan

A present moment
An old way of looking at new Marie Cool Fabio Balducci
performance
A new way of looking at old
performance Yingmei Duan
Some crazies
Eunhye Hwang
A map of numbers

A burial
Jamie Isenstein
A smell that is thick and
slightly rotten, but one over
time you can accomodate. Not
quite forget - but live with Terence Koh
Mary had a little lamb
Alastair MacLennan
Long plaited hair and gentle

fingers
Kira O’Reilly
A real life slow-mo

A chance to forget what time it Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich

is

An alternative Melati Suryodarmo

Nothingness
Nico Vascellari
A present moment

A lesson on looking
[I Love You] Maybe an hour later, on my through to see something
else again, and the dance has shifted. Her strength is ebbing, she is
weak, fleshy and corruptible and the glass seems more of a burden –
it is still fresh, clear and strong. [I Love You] Her white knuckles are
gripping the edges, it hurts to hold on, to keep the glass upright, but
she is bound to keep trying. [I Love You] She makes jerking and
ungainly steps backwards towards the wall, step step scrape, [I Love
You]. Stop. The glass is stood perilously upright, it could fall either
way. For a moment power and control waver back and forth between
her and the glass, duetting. Then with a subtle pull, the top edge
rests safely against the wall. Still holding on, she slumps down to the
floor, jamming herself into the triangular space between glass, floor
and wall. Her body squashes up against all three sides. [I Love You]

LIFT

[I Love You] It’s much later now and I’ve been thinking about you as I
walk around the gallery, seeing the other work. I like to think I’ve been
carrying a bit of you away from here into the other spaces, the other works.
Or has it been the other way round? You carrying me all this time? Step
step scrape. Perhaps I have been the burden, the pane, all along. [I Love
You] Maybe then, it’s out of obligation or care that I come to see you now.
Whatever it is, I slump down heavily onto the floor and lean against the
wall. I want to watch you for you this time, to be here for the duration.
Fzzzzzzzzx from a radio, pressed to her chest
Fzzzxxxxssshhhhh from her thighs
Nothing in sight
FzzzzzzZZZZzzzzm, louder now
Static, buzzing,
Fzzzz from beneath her skirts
Fizzing- Radios?
Hmmmm, they are hidden
Hmmm, humming

Pressed between Eunhye Hwang’s thighs, the radio’s hum hum hum, as she moves they awake.
Stepping awkwardly on shiny heels, she holds them, hidden, amongst her skirt warm, between
her legs - up close against her tights. Surrounded in the room, the noise is creeping out. I find
a space and sit, I start to look for sound. She catches my eye, begins to approach, gripping her
thighs close and tight, the radios anchored and her hands full.

She hasn’t looked away, her gaze is fixed, it is me she is after. Pulling her radios, away from her
breast. They move from her blouse, shimmering in static. She draws them away and
then- whoosh, wham! She quietens them – slam - against her chest.

Quietened. Hmm, they all sing along. Two radios in hand, ready to sing at her whim. I can make an outline,
see their edge. They are muffled by material, leaking crackle, groaning, grumbling, gagged by her, they are
sulking now – alive with personality is this sound, this rush. She holds my stare, I smile
self-consciously as she nears. They are droning in loud ensemble - her legs, her chest, her radios. She reaches
me and takes me in - enfolding me too, with her eyes, her skirts, bringing me in – into her forgotten music.
Into her gaze, into her game. Staring into my eyes, bzzzz, the sounds i-n-ten-s-i-f-i-e-s. I can tell she is
addicted, can’t wait to hear them hum.

Again and again, holding, pulling, slamming, bang, faster and faster, she repeats the action.
Zzzzzm, they speed from her chest. Holding them to me, small cheap radios in the palms of her hands.

This interference is the music of in between - the non station - the ceaseless sound. This is the sound we tune, it is raw, it is
loud, it is controlled by our bodies. I am so close now that they hum the sound waves bouncing from me. Myself as object
- close enough to make noise. Noise picked up by aerials, relayed in to radios and pumped through speakers. She is stood
two feet from me, so close now, hmmm, zzzzm, I am looking up into her round sweaty face. She is in total control, circling,
whoosh, the radios around my own head, just for me – zooming past each ear the noise of the static is overwhelming in its
intensity as it nears my ear drums and fills my head with an otherworldly buzz, I stare at her brown eyes, smiling, laughing,
closer to my face each time she threatens, nearer, nearer, to my delicate drums, this is madness, the sound is incredibly close,
but then it flies past - gone, quick as it came, around and around forcing a sound, I imagine a plane flying over my head, so
close to the ground that I have to duck.

ffffffffffffsssssssssssssssshhhhhhhHHHHHUUUMMMMMMMMMMMM
 LIFT
You’re still there, like I knew you would be. You’re lying on the
floor, face up, the pane of glass on top and your body squashed
underneath it. It’s a suffocating embrace, the death throes of a
performance. The glass rises [I Love You] and falls [I Love You] with
your breath. There’s just the two of us left now. Just me and you. We’ve
been on a journey you and I. And this is what it’s come to. Succumbed.
Alone. The pain. Exhaustion. The pane. Reconciled to difference, to
impossibility. Lovers lying together, limbs entwined [I Love You] all spent.