Hi. My first blog. Concerning the PCC assembly/gathering/conference at Caravan Farm September 2 - 6, 2010.
What might it mean to be inside or outside the box?
One possible box: a contemporary mindset which understands a visit to the Theatre as an activity equivalent to renting a DVD. Equivalent commodities. 'Citizens' participate through purchasing and become 'consumers'. Calling theatre a cultural commodity will only integrate artistic practice further into a losing game. We only demean our activities if we attempt to justify them solely according to the rules of the market.
Artistic practice is the ultimate reflection of cultural values. It is inseparable from the viral social culture that produced it. Which is not to say it is incomprehensible to other human cultures. It can be admired from a distance for its beauty or virtuosity but to understand it, the viewer needs to know something of the culture that produced it. So, back to the box idea. The contemporary mindset I refered to considers cultural products as boxable commodities which should be bought and sold like all other products. Ergo, without government support.
Just to see if this all works. I'll have a conversation with myself.
ReplyDeletegeeez, calm down. art art art...
maybe we can talk about the black box?
Looking for box online and I got:
ReplyDeleteBox (plural boxes) describes a variety of containers and receptacles for permanent use as storage, or for temporary use often for transporting contents. The word derives from the Greek πύξος (puxos), "box, boxwood".[1][2]
as well as Dick in the Box and other sexual material....Dick in the Box is pretty funny.
I guess you can't go back and erase comments that have been posted...not that I want to yet...just wondering about the permanence thing....
ReplyDeleteso there are absolutely no followers. and frankly this is summertime. I'd rather be outside.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to respond to what I inferred you might have meant, but I've drunk too much, so it would be better live, for me, anyway. Will the self-indulgence I proposed be limited to my tent? If I had led a panel I could put my bottle on a table.
ReplyDeleteDMc
I'm glad you are talking about the culture of commodities and how its not the commodities that we object to but how the gov't is using them as an excuse to withdraw support to the 'educated classes', a demographic of people they classify as elites.
ReplyDeleteThe Government views itself as the elite and will continue to support itself. In trying to partake in the language of commerce artists have commodified themselves, and cheaply. We have justified our existence as minor economic stimulators and as community facilitators who promise political parties access to constituents. Fuck it, let's drink and talk about art.
ReplyDeleteYes DAvid. You get a panel all to yourself. Sunday. I think. Can't remember now and I don't have the agenda at hand but directions to those interested in participating will be scattered like bread crumbs throughout the forest. And solitary self-indulgence in a tent sounds way too pubescent. Please allow us to at least watch.
ReplyDeleteand thanks for being a follower. Although I don't think leaders are part of the PCC dogma.
it was easy to become a follower Neil. I just followed the prompts in search of a dialogue, and suddenly i became a follower. I was going to try out an analogy to becoming a state funded artist here, but I'm too hot. I don't think it would be hot to watch me masturbate in a tent, unless you weren't supposed to be watching, didn't want to watch, but you did, providing your own sense of suspended crisis. Or, if it was your tent and I provided the trespass. Or, if there was wheat involved. I find wheat visually erotic.
ReplyDeletegeeez David. the wheat thing. Is that why you want to stay in a tent?
ReplyDeletegoing to see Everyone tonight at the Caravan Farm.
I'll check for wheat fields.
I have an idea for the Parade: 6 people with soundcans (http://web.ubc.ca/okanagan/creative/faculty/necadger.html) with recordings of cows mooing. all the other people would be handing out pieces of sausage to the crowd.
you in?
no, I'm allergic to cats. I'm in.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to get more people to contribute something to this rather insular blog. This is supposed to be about how we envision the conference.
ReplyDeleteWhen these conferences happen in urban centres - big or small - the event usually ends up being very much about the host community if only because the delegates are visiting a place which might be a long way from where they live. So we discover people and places. This time at Caravan, the theatre ecology is isolated. We won't be visiting different performance spaces, seeing local companies and getting a feeling for the theatre-going public like we did in Victoria, Whitehorse, Toronto, Calgary etc etc...probably all of them but these are the ones I attended. We're on a farm. A really unusual farm. An historic site. For Canadian theatre anyway. So I don’t know if this affects what the conference is about but it should.
I would like to talk about how to bring theatre to the people and get paid for it. Models for this obviously exist - most open air concerts, civic festivals have events free for the public. What are the problems here in terms of content? Plenty of course. what can we do about this?
ReplyDeleteI too am now a follower.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your last thought, Neil, yes - the farm site can, should and will affect the tone and substance of the conference. In some ways I see the decision to hold this PCC at the farm as an anti-Kelowna gesture - not in a mean-spirited way, but as a tacit resistance of the (frankly unsuccessful) urbanisation of the downtown Kelowna theatre scene. I guess in some ways we are saying - how do we deal with this? - where 'this' refers to orchards and outhouses and old rusting machinery and irrigation and crop rotation and way out west performance traditions (ie. rodeo) - and how does 'this' feed in to our urban centres - to what extent is it reflected, or ignored, in those 'bigger' places? What is the role of the farm in the city? And what is the role of the theatre? Are the connections too obvious? (Lots of labour, cultural/edible fruits, not much money.)
Long sentences. Hard to decipher the threads, but hopefully grist for the mill -
LH
P.S. Dearly would love to be in the parade. With moo sound cans. Participation in a parade was always a childhood yearning of mine. PCC! Making dreams come true!
the mooloop is ready. please bring an MP3 player of some kind. you can possibly download it onto your own player if you can access the following link:
ReplyDeletehttps://people.ok.ubc.ca/creative/NeilAudio/
don't know how that works but no doubt Sean at Caravan will be able to get it downloaded.
I think we should create a list of words related to beef and write them on our bodies (tshirts?) old, cured, ground, sliced, tongue, liver, hide, (beef)cake, bourgogne, minced brochette of...., steak, ribs, loin.... perhaps we will find costumes which put a new twist on these....
oh, and thanks Lara for joining the select group willing to commit to blog time. is this related to 'bog'?
ReplyDeletei think we need a new circus.
hi Neil and everyone.
ReplyDeletethinking about boxes. thinking about how some boxes (frames) are good. are needed how the needed boxes are temporary and must be. we keep them that way by changing boxes. bureaucratic capitalism is a box of insiduous transparency and staying power - able to glamour me with other boxes (to buy, to check) while pretending not to exist (in the way neo-cons do us a service? making evident the box?) - ok this is all giving away things I need to say in the talk.
as to the form on the farm. I like open conference things. I am looking forward to being on a farm and wandering with people while talking. And camp fires.
I'd like to talk about populism and outdoor theatre and maybe other ways of being paid.
see you soon
jz