Preston, Julieanna. "performing, writing, a material life" [invited lecture], Creative Critic Writing Workshop, 27-28 June 2018, Newcastle University, UK.
This invited lecture tracked through several recent life art works I have performed where the specificity of the place, the material engagement and the cultural context fed a unique response relative the the life of a material and its agency to write itself, be written with and be written upon. Several examples shown saw these modes of writing include aural / vocal expression as a human to nonhuman exchange.
The lecture concluded with an interactive exercise between attendees and a cube of ice. The situation was made more complex by the heat of the summer day and this score:
Write, perform a material life.
You are gifted a material.
With that gift comes a responsibility to tend to its life, however long or fleeting that may be.
There are no limits to how you and this material might live out, write, perform in relation to one another, the day, the space or the temperature.
For those of you that might be new to this approach:
Consider what it might be to write with, to, on, for and in this material?
What do you as a warm bodied organ bring to the partnership?
What potential does it afford?
What might you and this material write/ perform together?
How is this assemblage affective?
Consider how the material might resist or comply as a means of asserting its own agency?
Consider how it is not just you and the material but a whole host of contingent material forces in your midst and reach.
Take the initiative to register this temporal and spatial encounter such that it leaves a trace:
A short mobile phone video, a gif, an image, a text.
Post them to me by 6:00 pm tonight
I would like to thank all the attendees who participated and gifted their experiments to share on this website: Alice Helps, Joe Crowdy, Tijana Stevenovic, Polly Gould, Lucy Carolan, Laura Harty, Lili Zarzycki, Jan Van Duppen, Olivia Turner, Linda France, Jane Rendell, Briony Carlin and Joanne Preston.
by Laura Harty
Jan Van Duppen
by Jane Rendell
Joe Chowdry
by Lucy Carolyn
I am yearning deeply for fullness in this experience. I am caring for my tripartite cubes of chaos by holding; I have to hold them the whole time as they wet my lap and burn my skin. I am hurting myself for the fullness in the feeling. I am trying; to make things more I bring them to my lips. I make sure to swallow a little. Suddenly the situation is different, as there is nothing left to hold. I am now mopping instead, using my trouser-legs for holding. Now we have gone to the sun: we are evaporating. lilizarzycki
by Polly Gould