Kowloon, by LRM Locus: - Crítica / Critique- Interartive Magazine

Paz Olivares wrote this critique about Kowloon for Interartive Magazine

English below

Esta es la crítica de Kowloon que ha escrito Paz Olivares para la revista Interartive Magazine

Kowloon, de LRM Performance /Locus: 
rodaje de lo subterráneo

He tenido la suerte de haber sido invitada a uno de los open studio de LRM Performance (ó "Locus") en los que muestran su recién terminado trabajo "Kowloon" a prensa, historiadores o comisarios. Es una experiencia muy personal pues su principal línea de creación consiste en que el trabajo no posea concepto ni narratividad, siendo el observador el que los crea, si lo así desea. De esta forma tras ver el trabajo invitan a liberar esa parte atávica de nosotros que se rige por la emoción y la intuición, por la piel. 

Este es el proceso por el que intento llegar a mi propio resultado.  

Es conocido cómo David Lynch, siendo estudiante de Bellas Artes, dio con la clave de lo que buscaba en la pintura cuando uno de sus lienzos se movió por efecto de una leve ráfaga de viento. Esa oscilación provocó en los trazos un efecto inquietante del que antes carecían. La abstracción había cobrado vida. El mismo Lynch lo explica así: “Quería conseguir un tono, como si La Mona Lisa abriera la boca y se girase y entonces escucháramos el sonido del viento, y luego volviéramos a la posición de origen y sonriera de nuevo.” El mayor hallazgo de Lynch son esas abstracciones, esas escenas sin contexto, esos cuadros en movimiento que cambiaron la forma de hacer y entender el cine.

Pues bien, aunque en Kowloon la influencia oriental es obvia desde el mismo nombre de la producción, hay mucho del legado posmoderno occidental del que la abstracción pictórica en movimiento de David Lynch es sólo una referencia mínima. La interdisciplinaridad, el ensamblaje heterogéneo de influencias,  corrientes y culturas que, a priori, parecen tener poco que ver, hacen de Kowloon una pieza original y valiente dentro del arte performativo actual. 

Así, la importancia capital del sonido en Kowloon nos lleva al cine surrealista europeo (pienso en el René Clair, de Entr’Acte (1924), por ejemplo) o a esos cortometrajes del joven Lynch –Six figures getting sick six times (1966) fue el primero–, pero de igual forma nos remite a la concepción sagrada del primer sonido creador en las religiones orientales. Y es que si en la cultura judeo-cristiana en el principio fue el Verbo, en la budista-hinduista fue el sonido. Por esto en Kowloon el sonido no acompaña sino que sustenta, envuelve, configura, es una vibración que describe el espacio, que forma parte de él y lo hace visible. El sonido es pieza vital del conjunto. Una pieza que no describe ni explica nada. Se limita a provocar un estado de conciencia en el espectador sostenido en la atención extrema, en la alerta. Son sonidos que no acabamos de identificar aunque en realidad reproduzcan grabaciones del Metro de Madrid, del bullicio y la confusión de las calles de Hong Kong, de la algarabía de las voces orientales de taxistas, de las de pájaros o grillos, de estruendos metálicos y sonidos orgánicos, casi táctiles que, de pronto,  parecen quebrar el espacio como el corazón de un iceberg. Y todo ese ruido busca anular las referencias, el hilo discursivo… El pensamiento se suspende, la razón se aturde. Sólo queda sentir. Aparece entonces la inquietud, la extrañeza, el temor, el asombro o la angustia que van sucediéndose y solapándose a medida que el montaje discurre, a medida que el sonido se expande. 

Kowloon trastoca todo. Tiempo y Espacio se ponen en juego. Decía Walter Benjamin que “el carácter destructivo sólo conoce una consigna: hacer sitio; sólo una actividad: despejar. (…) Hace sombras de lo existente, y no por los escombros mismos, sino por el camino que pasa a través de ella.” Es la misma idea que sustentaba la Anarquitectura de Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978)  y de la que Kowloon se apropia a la hora de iluminar y reconfigurar el espacio: buscando el elemento ignorado, dirigiendo la mirada hacia lo oculto o parcelando el espacio para recomponerlo de nuevo y así mostrar su extrema fragilidad. LRM Performance utiliza los materiales como Matta-Clark utilizaba los picos y palas. Y al fragmentarse el espacio también lo hace el tiempo pues ambas dimensiones están unidas. El sonido nos lo recuerda de forma constante. 

En una de las escenas más evocadoras y líricas de Kowloon, una mujer avanza lentamente, tanto como el monje de Tsai Ming-Liang en Walker (2012), que hacía del gesto consciente toda una filosofía vital. La mujer está rodeada de vegetación y se escucha el canto de los pájaros. La escena se muestra a través de sombras chinescas y se enmarca con dos lienzos blancos en la parte superior e inferior del cuadro respectivamente. El espectador parece encontrarse de pronto sentado frente a una pantalla de cine en la que lo que está viendo, en realidad, no es la imagen proyectada sobre esa pantalla sino el espacio mismo en el que el cuerpo de la bailarina se desplaza. 

Una vez más, las sombras chinescas que remiten a la cultura oriental se funden con el concepto del cine tan afín a los inicios del cinematógrafo en Europa. Es inevitable imaginar a Georges Mèliés descubriendo esas sombras en Le Chat Noir, ideando fantasmas y hadas a través del celuloide. Lo mágico en esa escena delicadísima de Kowloon aparece a través de un espacio que se modifica según se inclinan los lienzos. Es así como lo bidimensional de la imagen se colma ante nuestros ojos de horizontes infinitos.  Lo plano se despliega, se amplía, se multiplica, cobra profundidad. La sombra se hace cuerpo y los lienzos que antes simulaban una pantalla se transforman en alas o velas que se agitan acompasados por los brazos de la bailarina.

Estas escenas de transición que estarían destinadas a deshacer lo representado se convierten en lo más valioso, en mi opinión, de Kowloon. En la misma destrucción reside la continuidad, que no es sino el origen de la siguiente escena. Se muestra el montaje, no se esconde. Ese es el mayor logro de Kowloon: exhibir el proceso mismo del guion, la estructura y el andamiaje de la producción. De hecho, los ensayos se graban en vídeo, de modo que lo que vemos es la escenificación en directo de un audiovisual donde los cortes de las secuencias, esto es, la edición, cobra relevancia. El tiempo, el ritmo del rodaje se muestra en el mismo espacio donde discurre, lo que daría para una reflexión profunda sobre la percepción misma del Tiempo cuando éste cobra protagonismo al trastocarse las magnitudes espaciales. No es este el lugar para ello. Sólo un apunte, recordando las palabras de Didi-Huberman: “El acorde fundamental que se oye resonar sin cesar a través de la masa del tiempo (…) toma aquí la forma de una onda que hay que entender como onda de choque y como proceso de fractura.” Sí, de nuevo el sonido.

Y toda esta destrucción formal, toda la angustia y la claustrofobia, toda la oscuridad, toda la atmósfera subterránea que a veces inquieta y deslumbra como en la cueva de Apichatpong Weerasethakul en Tío Boonmee recuerda sus vidas pasadas (2010) otras ahoga como en la ciudad opresiva del Blade Runner (1982) de Ridley Scott y otras atemoriza como ante la entrada cubierta de plásticos del cementerio nuclear de Onkalo de Into Eternity (Michael Madsen, 2010), (umbral en el que solo cabe abandonar toda esperanza, por cierto)… ¿Adónde nos lleva?

No hay respuestas en Kowloon. Cada espectador obtendrá una experiencia única y cientos de interpretaciones, explicaciones o traducciones posibles, todas subjetivas. Comparto una de las mías: Puede que nos lleve a situar nuestro cuerpo como referencia central;  A olvidar las magnitudes y límites, convenciones, influencias, teorías e ideas que nos separan de nuestro ser intuitivo, el que conecta con la piel y la emoción. Y puede también que nos lleve a recordar aquello que hace miles de años nos impulsó a tiznarnos los dedos y a manchar la pared húmeda de alguna cueva en Sulawesi o Cantabria.

PAZ OLIVARES

Kowloon, by LRM Locus:  
filming the underground

         I was lucky to be guest on one of LRM Performance (aka Locus) open studio sessions in which they present their latest piece, "Kowloon" to press, historians or curators. It's a quite presonal experience, since their main creative aim is on having no concept nor narrative into the work, thus allowing the observer to create them, if they will. So in this guise the compell you to liberate that primeval part of us all ruled by emotion, by intuition, by our skin. 

This is the process by which I try to reach my own outcome. 

It is known how David Lynch, as a student of Fine Arts, found the key to what he wanted in painting when one of his paintings moved by the effect of a slight gust of wind. That oscillation caused a previously lacking disturbing effect in the strokes  Abstraction came to life.  Lynch himself explains it this way: "I wanted to get a tone, as if Mona Lisa opened up her mouth and turned and then listened to the sound of the wind, and then turned back to the starting position and smiled again" The major finding of Lynch are such abstractions, such scenes without context, those frames in motion that changed our way of making and understanding cinema.

Well, although in Kowloon the oriental influence is obvious from the very name of production, there is much of the Western postmodern legacy from which David Lynch's moving abstract painting is only a small reference. Interdisciplinarity, the heterogeneous assemblage of influences, currents and cultures that a priori seem to have little in common makes Kowloon an original and brave piece in today's performance art.

Thus, the capital importance of sound in Kowloon bring us back to european surrealist films (I am thinking of René Clair's  Entr'Acte (1924), for instance) or those young Lynch short films (Six Figures Getting sick Six times (1966) was the first one), but It also reminds us of the sacred concept of the primal creative sound in eastern religions. And if in Judeo-Christian culture in the beginning was the Word, in the Buddhist-Hindu it was the sound. Thus in Kowloon sound does not simply accompanies; it supports, wraps, configures, it is a vibration describing the space, it is part of it and makes it visible. 

The sound is a vital part of the whole. A part that does not describe nor explain anything. It merely provokes a state of consciousness in the viewer based on extreme attention, on alert. These are sounds we do not  clearly identify, although they actually are recordings of Madrid's Metro, the bustle and confusion of the streets of Hong Kong, the hubbub of eastern voices of taxi drivers, of birds or crickets, metallic rumblings and organic sounds, almost tactile, which suddenly seem to break up the space like the core of an iceberg. And all that noise aims at preventing references, the discursive thread ... your thought is suspended, your reason stunned. Only sentience remains. Restlessness, strangeness, fear, surprise or distress appear, occurring and overlapping as the montage goes on, as the sound is expanding.

Kowloon overturns everything. Time and space are at stake. Walter Benjamin said "the destructive character knows only one watchword: make room; only one activity: clearing (...) it shadows what exists, and not by the very debris, but by the road passing through it". It's the same idea underpinning the Anarchitecture of Gordon Matta-Clark (1942-1978) and which Kowloon appropriates when it comes to light up and reconfigure space: to look for the unknown element, directing our gaze to the occult or parceling out space to recompose it again and thus showing its extreme fragility. LRM Performance uses materials just as Matta-Clark used picks and shovels. And by fragmenting space, time also does for both dimensions are linked. Sound is constantly reminding us of that.

In one of the most evocative and lyrical scenes of Kowloon, a woman (performed by Zhihan Chen) trudges by, like the monk in Tsai Ming-Liang's Walker (2012), who is  consciously making such gesture as a whole philosophy of life. The woman is surrounded by greenery and birdsong is heard. The scene is presented through shadow puppets and framed within two white canvases at the top and bottom of the picture. The viewer seems to be suddenly sitting in front of a film screen in which what you see is not, in fact,  the image projected on the screen but the very space itself in which the body of the dancer is advancing. 

Again, the shadow play referring to Eastern culture merges with a concept of cinema akin to the beginnings of european cinematography. It is inevitable to imagine Georges Melies discovering such shadows in Le Chat Noir, thinking up spirits and fairies through the celluloid. The magic in this delicate scene of Kowloon appears through a space that is modified as the canvases slant. It is as if the two-dimensional image before our eyes becomes full of infinite horizons. What is plain unfolds, expands, multiplies, acquiring depth. The shadow becomes a body and the canvases previously simulating a screen transform into wings or sails, trembling rhythmcally by the arms of the dancer.

Those transition scenes supposedly designed to undo what was pictured become in my opinion, the most valuable ones of Kowloon. Continuity resides in such destruction itself, which is nothing but the origin of the next scene. Assembling is shown, not hided away. That is the greatest achievement of Kowloon: to display the process itself of the script, its structure and production scaffolding. In fact, tests were videotaped so what we see is a live staging of cuts from audiovisual sequences, –i.e. editing becomes relevant. The timing, pacing of shootings is displayed in the same space where they happen, which would lead to deep reflection on the very perception of Time when Space magnitudes are altered. This is not the place to discuss it. Just a sidenote, recalling the words of Didi-Huberman: "The fundamental chord that is heard echoing endlessly through the mass of time [...] takes here the form of a wave that must be understood as shock wave and as a fracturing process". Yes, once again,  sound.

And all this formal destruction, all the anguish and claustrophobia, all darkness, all the underground atmosphere sometimes restless and dazzling like Apichatpong Weerasethakul's cave in Uncle Boonmee who can remember his past lives (2010), others drowning like the oppressive city of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) and other times terryfying as before the plastic covered entrance of the Onkalo nuclear cemetery in Michael Madsen's  into Eternity (2010) (a threshold at which one can only abandon all hope, by the way) ... where does this leads to?

There are no answers in Kowloon. Each viewer will get a unique experience and hundreds of interpretations, explanations or possible translations, all of them subjective. I am sharing one of mine: it might lead us to put our body as a central reference; to forget the magnitudes and bounds, conventions, influences, theories and ideas that separate us from our intuitive self, the one connecting with our skin and our emotion. And perhaps it may lead us to remember that what thousands of years ago prompted us to make our fingers sooty and stain a humid wall in some Sulawesian or Cantabrian cave. 

Paz Olivares 

Julio Municio- Kowloon- Chinalati web

Julio Municio, especialista en arte chino de Why On White 
escribe sobre "Kowloon" de LRM Locus 
para la web de cultura china Chinalati

"Sin duda una gran obra de producción con meses de trabajo a sus espaldas que merece la pena ser disfrutada por todos aquellos a los que nos apasiona la cultura asiática"

Lee el artículo completo aquí 

English below

    Julio Municio,  specialised in chinese Art from
Why On White writes about "Kowloon" by LRM Locus 

for the chinese culture web site  Chinalati

Original spanish version here

Kowloon, 

LRM Performance's piece ripe with asian influences

     "If you happen to work in cultural journalism and you are lucky to be in Madrid, maybe you can get the guys from LRM Performance -aka "Locus" - to invite you to attend one of their open rehearsals of Kowloon, their last performative piece based on the famous Hong Kong peninsula and mixing the traditions of western performance arts with aesthetics  ripe with asian references.

The piece, 56 minutes long and consisting of 22 sections which common thread is the music created by David Aladro-Vico, takes as its starting point the Walled City of Kowloon in Hong Kong, torn down in 1994 and now the Kowloon Walled City Park, which many of you surely have walked into. Kowloon was a political anomaly in Hong Kong, inherited from the imperial era, a sort conglomerate of immense variegated buildings barely lit up, with little ventilation, no running water and because of its 'lawless' locale condition housing a high amount of prostitutes, opium dens and dentists without qualification and was finally demolished in 1994 by Hong Kong authorities.

However if you are expecting to see a narrative piece representing the history of the city, put it out of your mind. Kowloon, like all previous LRM Locus' works, is based on a search of emotions through traditional and contemporary dance, art, movement, music or architecture, expressly avoiding a narrative by including the widest possible set of influences, carefully assembled to generate emotions instead of a thread or concept.

Influences may come from quite varied backgrounds, such as those referring to the work of architect and photographer Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978), but for us the most interesting are those from asian Art.

As for the music, influences from Pierre Henry, Phil Niblock or Alvin Lucier are mixed with material of asian origin: Indonesian Gamelan, Japanese Gagaku (the hichiriki and Sho), traditional chinese music (the Suona, the Hulusi, Xiaoluo gong), Thailand (gongs) and Hong Kong (Houguan).

Also, influences from Asian cinema such as the work of Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang reflected in the sense of framing, time and movement and the kind of actions of the characters, or references to nature sounds, spirits that appear and disappear and nonlinear narrative in the work of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Influences of the work of Wong Kar-Wai are also present through a sense of light and architecture of Hong Kong. And even the Japanese animation film is present through influences from Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon or Koji Morimoto.

Finally, dance (superbly played by the young Chinese dancer Chen Zhihan) with careful and slow movements, also denotes the influence of the american Trisha Brown, the Japanese group of artists Dumb Type or the Legend Lin Dance Theater of Taiwan.

However all these influences are just for reference because this being a non-conceptual creative process, it is the viewers who must make their own associations and interpretations in a free way.

Definitely a great production work with months of toiling behind it,  

well worth enjoying by all of us who are passionate about Asian culture "

Julio Municio 

Billy Yeung playing the Cantonese Houguan 

Kowloon: Fabio Zannoni - Crítica / Critique

     Crítica de Kowloon para la revista Rumor(s)cena, por Fabio Zanonni, crítico de música contemporánea

    Critique of "Kowloon" by Fabio Zanonni, contemporary music critic for  Rumor(s)cena magazine - english translation below

Kowloon: cuando lo que produce sentido es la materia escénica

     No es fácil definir el sentido de una acción escénica que deliberadamente se presenta como asemántica, cuya ejecución procede como materia teatral, sonora o luminosa y se autogenera sin programa narrativo. 

La obra “Kowloon”, de LRM Locus, aunque escapa a cualquier tentativa clasificatoria (happening o performance nos parecen términos ya obsoletos) y evita cuidadosamente recurrir a contenidos específicos, despliega una enorme capacidad para urdir tramas, para definir atmósferas nítidas y dimensiones emocionales de conflicto, opresión o extravío, e incluso para construir relatos. Erige de este modo un laberinto de sugerencias, dentro del cual el espectador es libre de elegir su personal itinerario interpretativo y de reconstruir la variedad de sensaciones visuales y sonoras que se acumulan, con ritmos alternos, durante la presentación. 

Con este fin se utiliza de manera magistral la oscuridad, en la que aparecen, primero confusamente y después con más claridad los contornos de de los seres de este mundo/planeta. De ahí emergen también haces y desgarros lumínicos, luces rojas, anaranjadas, azules…

La visión queda así marcada por esta dialéctica de luz y oscuridad, al igual que la percepción sonora lo está por la del silencio y el sonido. Una sonoridad entreverada de estruendos, rumores, ecos concretos provenientes de la cotidianidad y la electrónica. 

De este modo, el ambiente en el que se mueven los tres personajes alterna momentos de vacío con otros en los que se crean, mediante telas constantemente en movimiento, ámbitos vagamente opresivos, pasadizos, grutas … 

Más adelante, juegos de velos movidos por maquinarias teatrales artesanales, junto a proyecciones sobre una pantalla de tul de mecanismos aleatorios con objetos que se mueven en una cajita: el deseo de asombrar, con la fascinación de numerosos estímulos, revela un gusto casi barroco

Si, por un lado, se nos propone una materia escénica pura (el juego combinatorio de luces, movimientos, sonidos…), por el otro lado, el del público, toma cuerpo la urdimbre de una compleja búsqueda de sentido, o de una laberíntica heterogeneidad de sentidos: atmósferas post-atómicas, y una velada percepción de la angustia y la opresión, de la búsqueda de una vida en una situación densa de incertidumbre…

Con una partitura nítidamente definida, la indeterminación y el azar  irrumpen en la escena, y constituyen la clave de un proyecto muy riguroso; en ellas reside a nuestro parecer el hilo interpretativo de un laberinto de historias posibles, que permanecen en el fondo, como horizonte. 

En definitiva, un proyecto que confirma de manera decisa la prioridad superlativa de la propuesta artesanal y material, de la acción y la ejecución de la materia escenográfica como algo que se presenta como dotado de vida propia.

No dejan de insinuarse otros elementos para la reflexión; el escenario de Kowloon genera una apertura sistemática de posibilidades para realizar hallazgos inéditos. Esta constituye sin duda la gran fuerza y el encanto enigmático de esta obra.

Fabio Zannoni

Original en italiano en Rumor(s)cena magazine

Kowloon:  when the staged matter is what generates sense

   It is not easy to define the meaning of a scenic action that intentionally stands as non-semantic, which performance proceeds as self-generating stage-sound-light matter without any narrative program. 

The piece "Kowloon" by LRM Locus, while escaping to any genre cataloging –happening or performance art seem obsolete terms already– and carefully avoiding to build-up any specific content,  unfolds at the same time an enormous capacity for weaving textures, defining precise atmospheres, emotional dimensions of conflict, oppression or loss, and even creating stories. It 'a labyrinth of suggestions in which the viewer is left  free to create a personal journey of interpretation and put together a variety of visual and sound sensations that pile up in alternate rhythms through the unfolding of the representation. 

There is a superb usage of darkness, from which shapes of the beings of this world / planet emerge, first indistinct, then gradually more defined; also, luminiferous beams and gashes of bright, red, orange, blue lights. The vision is thus regulated by this dialectic of light and dark, and sound reception from that of silence and sound; sounds made up of clanging, hissing, concrete echoes from the quotidian and electronics. 

So the environment in which the three characters move alternates moments of emptiness with others in which through constantly moving fabrics more or less oppressive environments, tunnels, caverns  surge up…

Further on, sets of veils operated by artisanal theatrical machinery and projections on a tulle of random mechanisms of rotating objects in a box: The desire of impressing, the fascination of constant stimuli reveal an almost baroque intention. 

If, on the one hand, a pure scenic matter is proposed - a combinatorial game of lights, movements, sounds - on the other, that of the public, it outlines the lattice of a complex search for meaning or a labyrinthine plurivocity of senses: post-atomic atmospheres, a veiled sense of fear and oppression, of the search for life in a dense state of uncertainty ...

With a precisely defined musical score, indeterminacy and randomness burst into the scene and become the key to a rigorous project, in our opinion it is right there where the interpretative thread of a maze of possible stories lies, which remain in the background as a horizon. 

Definitely a project that ultimately establishes the superlative priority of the artisanal and material data, of action and performing of scenographical matter displayed as having a life of its own.

Other elements for reflection keep coming up; Kowloon scenery generates a systematic disclosure of further possibilities for unheard-of findings.  
Without a doubt  this is the greatest  strength and enigmatic charm of this piece.

Fabio Zannoni

published in italian in Rumor(s)cena magazine 

Ah! Magazine- interview/ entrevista

Entrevista a LRM Locus,

 por Irene Calvo para Ah!  magazine 
Interview for Ah! magazine by Irene Calvo

Irene Calvo nos ha hecho esta fantástica entrevista para
 Ah Magazine en la que hablamos de Kowloon y de todo el proceso que hemos desarrollado este año y medio en el estudio.

This is a wonderful interview about the creative process in our workspace for Kowloon through this last year. We thank Irene Calvo for it.

Here you have the english translation: 

The place, the weathering, the moment, the performance

LRM ( "Locus", Rodo, Momentum or Place, Scraping, Time) is a group from Madrid focused on performance art. They define their works as abstract avoiding any narrative thread in their creations, where we can find music, light, dance and projections. Transdisciplinary performances that will not leave you indifferent.

IRENE - Who are LRM Performance- Locus and how did the project come about?

Berta - David and I are the core of the collective. David comes from the world of musical composition, is MA in composition and I am an MA in Fine Arts. We met fifteen years ago at a Ute Lemper concert. We were interested in many artistic aspects, such as multidisciplinary work and we had many common references. Then we started making short  musical improvisations with live digital media and physical painting; we also created some short video art pieces ... and thus our way of working was forged. We did some presentations of these works, for example in Matadero Madrid; the format was kind of a concert, we were sitting in a chair with the computer and two screens behind us.

David - Those first performances with prepared piano and painting improvisations happened in 2004 and then we had not a name yet. When we presented in Matadero In 2007 the piece was titled "Lugar, Roce, Momento (Place, Abrading, Moment), hence "LRM". In fact, in that piece already included movement, light, and overhead projections.

In 2008 we worked with a dance performer for the the first time. By then we had already increased the size of the pieces, combining lights and video and mixing them with music and movement. From that moment on we always work with a dance performer.

B- … we always work in three dimensions: devising the piece from a sound, visual and movement plus spatial standpoint. 

D- Someone recently told us we are "anti-disciplinary" rather than interdisciplinary; for we are not interested visual arts, music and movement alone, we are interested in a discipline that is none of these but contains all of them, because if it doesn't, we get bored [laughs]

I- With what aims or needs does LRM come about?

B- With the need to learn, because every time we get into the studio it becomes a laboratory to try out everything at once: sound plus a structure, lighting, how to move with such structure, how we move ourselves in space ... it is an ongoing learning process and we build on those new learnings in every new piece. For example, when designing structures for composing a piece - which is usually made up of short scenes and each one has a particularity-.... there it is this need to discover, to learn. Presenting the piece is another kind of task altogether.

D- It also has to do with the fact of feeling trapped within your own discipline I think, the one you studied, for those are endogamic worlds. We have a craving for seeing what is on the other side, what is in there. In this sense, we somewhat like the total idea of cinema, bringing together all the elements, perhaps we are after something like live cinema.

¿I- What are your influences?

B- We like Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang. He has a very abstract cinematographic work. He works from scenes sometimes with a small plot, but not always fully narrative, some actions apparently have no meaning. We are struck by the way he composes the frame; the character enters and leaves the room but the framing is fixed. It is very contemplative.

Moreover, Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Thailand also makes a quite abstract kind of films, closely related to nature, where things take their time to happen. There is no such overwhelming directionality we find in Western movies, where the camera pushes the observer into pursuing the character's direction. This type of asian cinema does not have that directionality, the way they compose the image and its relationship with the character is important, but so is the environment, light, the temporality ... There is none of that western pressure for something to occur, Asian arthouse films do not consider that problem.

Regarding colour we are interested in japanese anime, for example Koji Morimoto

D- The perception of color in Asia is quite different from the West, it becomes evident in japanese Ukiyo-e prints, chinese opera, or traditional dances of Thailand. Also in many other cultures, like sub-saharan african colour and rhythm concepts which are very interesting.

I- You have many Asian influences, but any European or Western?

B- We do, simply by living here we already have such influences. In this our latest work we had so much in mind Into Eternity (2010) a Michael Madsen documentary filmed in Finland about "Onkalo", a nuclear repository with kilometers of underground tunnels to store nuclear waste.

D -  … we are quite excited about the work of Swedish film director Roy Andersson, his style is quite different to ours, a little more narrative, but it's still pretty abstract. And we can not deny we have a lot of influence of Goya, specifically his black paintings. We also got inspired by New York artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) and his treatment of light in his works. Or Andrej Tarkovsky (1932-1986) films, like Stalker (1979). About dance, we were amazed by the work of british dance company DV8 and also by Legend Lin Dance Theatre, (which is not european but taiwanese).

I- Why did you decide to include light, sound and other elements into your works?

D- guess we always regarded the video projector as some device emitting light rather than film. We then decided to buy an overhead projector and found it very interesting to work with shadows.

B- Light defines figures, volumes and space. Light and darkness are equally important to us. In darkness we set up what you will see later and the idea of light / shadow helped us a lot when devising each scene in time. Light is an important recourse to integrate a human figure because we do not want it to become too important, we want to merge it with the scene. It is a recourse for bringing public attention into the illuminated part, a way of composing. It is the remnants of painting in our work, in fact, some scenes become utterly pictorial.

D- Darkness is our blank canvas. But (for me) the most interesting thing about light is that it is temporary, so usually it goes along with music.

I- How does this sound part of the work is created along with light changes, scenes ...?

D- by accumulating material and later in the studio assembling one thing with the other. Sometimes we start with a sound and want to do something with it, so we begin to try it with lights; sometimes even the sound demands for certain colorus, somewhat like synesthesia. Sometimes we have an already lit scene and add sound. Our procedures for devising each scene are diverse. 

I- How is your creative process?

B- It normally starts by thinking about structures built on bars, fastened with pins, using materials such as cloth, paper, plastic; considering how to light it up, what kind of bodily relationship we have with the structure, what movements are emerging around it ... At the same time we improvise with sounds or music David composed. We record many different tryouts. After a year and a half, as it was the case with the latest work, we end up with hundreds of tests. among these, we choose those we liked and from that selection we make a final sorting out, based on whether it is feasible to group them and perform them in succession, since it will be necessary for a scene's structure to be moved over for the next scene, and you have to see how to join scenes together. And thus an internal coherence of the work emerges. We love to have people over to the studio to see our work and hear what they think. If all visitors draw a similar conclusion, we often change elements in the work in order to make it more non-narrative. It is a task that goes beyond the investigation period.

D -Something we've always wanted to from the beginning is doing nothing narrative or conceptual. We think that is already tired. We want to do something that is telling no story, or that it's story lies inside each person's mind. We like our audience to use their imagination.

B- There is some fear for open works, for instance in cultural institutions… when presenting our work, we must indicate a topic, check a box ... That dictates much of people's works.

Also, when we comprise so many different elements into each action, most individuals coming from certain 1960's type of performance art find our work terrible. They (hypocritically) regard the usage of multiple light and sound elements as "selling out". 

I- Is there a heavy legacy of 60-70s performance art?

B- Yes. I think it's a problem in Spain, because here Performance art means performance as is was done in the sixties –a particular kind of performance art…and then you investigate a bit and learn there was a lot of people doing many different things in the sixties, including music, light ... awesome stuff. In Italy, for example, they have a freer conception of performance art, almost scenic.

I- What condition is Spain's performance art in now?

D It is striking how performance art, coming from the 60s and seeking to be a liberation movement has stuck in the twentieth century; It has become intolerance instead of pluralism: a single criterion has been imposed. What is sought in it now is to "épater les bourgeois" -currently the gentrified-, with political support from institutions that are not precisely supporting the ideals those artists claim to defend, rather attacking them.

B- Performance art in Spain is always much associated to political issues or activism, usually improvised and with little toil, even if in its origin it was not necessarily that way. So when we say "this is also performance", some disagree because what we do is not a protesting, spontaneous or impromptu action.

D - We believe any political action must be done as a citizen, not as an artist, because the current situation invalidates any political discourse of a work; for example by the context in which it is exposed.

I- If there is something you have in common with this performance art from the 60's tht is the usage of the body.

B- Yes, but it is the body in a context. In such so-called "classic" performances it is usually naked, and we do the opposite: we put on layers and layers and deform the body, using prosthetics or masks, somewhat in line with the Triadic Ballet: regarding the body as a part of the composition.

D- I get the impression that the use of the naked body in an empty space of the stereotypical performance art ends up being quite narcissistic. In that sense we do integrate the body with light, color and the environment, which are as important as the person.

I- You say your performances are abstract and consisting of scenes. Did you ever fancy  telling a story?

B- No, but what really is more complicated is not telling any story. Especially since our components' gender, we currently are two women and a man, and just because of gender people tend to see relationships where there is actually nothing. We have to see how to run the entire set of stimuli (music, light and movement) not to provoke a clear general feeling in the audience, such as sadness or joy ... There must always be elements preventing a predominant sensation and that is very difficult. So we work in a very formal way. If we want to include a scene in which someone falls down, we have to think about what kind of sound we may use so that it is not recognisable whether it was good or wrong that he fell down. That's when your mind starts working as an audience.

D- To achieve this effect we do things like mixing the sound of an iceberg with recordings of rhinos while one of us appears dressed in something like a Samurai armor, dragging objects indefinitely ... is a crazy mix, but your brain will try to assemble all and look for consistency, and that is what we try to avoid. 

I- Do you have any difficulty exhibiting in galleries or art circuits?

B- not difficulty, pain [laughs]. Especially because there are many adverse circumstances. There are many people interested in presenting our work but willy-nilly they will not not pay for it. There are centres and large institutions holding the belief that live arts are not to be paid for, and we refuse to work without being paid. We have been working with great effort for over ten years already. If you do not get paid everything is devalued, not just our work but the whole art system. And this restricts the possibilities to continue creating. 

On the other hand, stylistically we must find someone who understands our work, which comprises several disciplines. We have been to art, music, theater, dance venues and festivals ... the best reception comes from non-specialists, generally audiences have no problem with us.

D- When dance people see our stuff, they say it is theater. When visual arts people see our stuff, they say it is dance. But when theatre people see it, they say it is not theater, rather visual art for them… We prepared our work so it can fit into any kind of space: auditorium, theater, art center ... for we have to be versatile. But in the end it depends on how open the programming or curating person is when deciding about giving us a spot or not.

B- Performance art is often regarded as a "pure" discipline that came from nowhere, although it usually feeds from the many sources available. Because we have many influences and there is nothing wrong in working from them. That's the problem. I think many times curators, programmers, etc., they need to get out of their so proudly closed world .

I- How long took you to put together the latest work? Tell us a little about it 

B- It's titled "Kowloon" and takes the name from a neighborhood of Hong Kong that interested us for its architecture. We had also seen a lot of films shot in that area in the 80s-90s. Certainly some of those influences from cinema and architecture are present but it is not a narrative or descriptive piece about Kowloon.

The difference from our previous work "Memory Root Light" is that it is much quieter and contemplative. We included new lighting colour, for before we only emplyed LED light, which provides a very specific range of  colour, but now we include incandescent lights, which give a warmer colour. The montage of the scenes is more cinematic, there are more "frame shifts" 

D.- is the first time we use no digital video projection.

B- No, we did not like how it looked like in this one, so we've worked hard with overhead and analog projectors customizing, transforming them, and we managed to coordinate their light with sound. In movement matters, we included more very slow motion, our previous work was much faster and could perhaps be perceived as more aggressive. We have further developed built structures that are now attached to the body, for before they were around.

D. - Also we included more natural sounds. We have sounds of Madrid, Hong Kong taxis, volcanoes ... used in a non narrative, not obvious way.  For example, for some scene cicadas –recorded last August in Madrid – are mingled with the sound of an Antarctic iceberg.

Do you contemplate video art as an option?

D- The problem is that what works live does not necessarily work in video, and this adaptation takes time. Actually, it is like making a new piece and you have to re-think it.

B- Now the main thing is to present the live work, then we will see other options.

I- What are your future plans?

B- traveling, meeting other environments and other artistic circles. We consider emigrating. Our previous piece could only be presented once in Spain, and looks like the same thing may happen with "Kowloon". So we have these two very elaborate works we would like to present, so to achieve this it seems to us we have to go abroad .

D- The art circuit in Spain is increasingly limited, the crisis has done much damage especially in terms of infrastructure, perhaps we were already worse off than other countries in Europe and that's why the crisis has been so catastrophic here in terms of artistic activity. In this regard we are considering searching for a market, find places where we may get a greater reception and a professional surrounding that is a little less closed in aesthetics.

I-  Finally, as usual, we ask you to recommend a book and a song to us… 

D- song ... well, I'd say the music I recommend is "Coming Together" by Frederic Rzewski. And a book, "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" by Stanislav Lem.

B- My song, that is the piece I recommend is "The Rite of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky and a book, "The Art of Spirited Away" by Hayao Miyazaki.

Kowloon rehearsals– Impressions / Ensayos de Kowloon– Impresiones / Idoia Hormaza

       

         Historian and researcher  Idoia Hormaza has been to  a general rehearsal of Kowloon, these are her impressions, from her blog  The Cockpit hub :

      ""In Kowloon nothing is what it seems.

In Kowloon you never know what may happen.

From pitch darkness, from absolute silence, a few points of flashing green light suddenly emerge flashing at the bottom. Almost immediately after a low sound reverberates with increasing intensity, a horn from a temple or a warning sound of war? If the sound was isolated a more vague reading may be construed, but it comes with a whitish light that reveals a colossal figure advancing ceremoniously with a disturbing outfit. With some extensions that open like arms, like the artful plumage of a peacock. With both hands it firmly holds and occasionally gee up two people crawling on the ground with difficulty

Slow, tortuous, incessant.

Something happens, they revolt, the monster falls but in its horizontality gets metamorphosed into another being, remaining helpless and frozen. At that moment the roles are reversed and those who up until then were passive, armed by the opportunity, empty it out in a rapture of force pulling from its guts threads of white power.

This scene starts Kowloon. Alienating and rich in suggestions it appeared to me either as coming from the beginning of a parallel civilization or a post-apocalyptic future. Or in my memory Kowloon begins with this scene.

After that the three characters –are they really three or are them just three actors playing more? How do I know? They move in a strange place, they might be seeking, they may be working into whatever their strange ordinariness is. Everything is ambiguous, or rather in their serene movement acts, suddenly convulsive, everything could be happening.

Music and light are one, that is the material their world is made of. Its dimensions extend far beyond the physical and real space, that gets really forgotten, in spite of the ground and the physical laws. Projections of shadows that either are in the imagination of those creating entities or are for real, are presented as mobile warps echoing the rhythm of incomprehensible voices.

These entities live as if everything was mechanical, as if there was no reflection. Seemingly they cannot see, so immersed as they are into their activity. But perhaps that's the feeling of the uninitiated who does not understand their rites, their searches; Perhaps it is actually a simple plan by which they mimetically and wisely relate to the environment. Or simply it all happens in times so apart from ours that there is no grasp for reasoning and for that matter, every opportunity for dreaming is present, is simultaneous. For the one who does not understand, it actually remains as a phantom reality.

Kowloon is not one, it is a many. How many ingredients from parallel worlds! ... An open tale of science fiction that allows multiple readings, which allows multiple no-readings. They are open oceans where you swim among stimuli rather than waves.

Kowloon is cinema, is theater, is music, is light, is action, comics, is photography ... it comes as an electric current to shock, it comes as a soothing balm.

And that is precisely the best of it, it's a cool respite invading and transporting you ... It does not matter nor is it necessary to know precisely where or when because just therein lies its essence, 

in the absolute lack of localisation.

Kowloon is pure imagination.

Acoustic and visual beauty." 

You may read her full article Here


 
____________

   La Historiadora e investigadora  Idoia Hormaza ha estado presente en un ensayo general de Kowloon, estas son sus:
impresiones

      "Kowloon no es uno, son muchos. ¡Cuantos ingredientes de mundos paralelos!… Son océanos abiertos donde se nada entre estímulos en vez de olas.
Kowloon es cine, es teatro, es música, es luz, es acción, es cómic, es fotografía…  llega como la corriente eléctrica para sacudirte, llega como un bálsamo para sosegarte.
Y precisamente eso es lo mejor, es un respiro fresco que te invade y te transporta… Tampoco importa ni es necesario saber dónde ni cuándo porque precisamente ahí reside su esencia, en la desubicación absoluta.
Kowloon es imaginación en estado puro.
Belleza acústica y visual. "

Puedes leer el artículo completo aquí

LRM participa en el debate "La performance y lo performático"

LRM / Locus participará este miércoles en el debate La performance y lo performático junto a los artistas Juan Yuste, Patricia Landabaso, José A. Vallejo, Óscar Pastor y moderado por Nuria García. Este evento está organizado por VeoArte y se enmarca dentro de la Semana Grande de Lanau Espacio Creativo.

El evento podrá seguirse por streaming desde Periscope

También podrá seguirse con el hashtag #arteyuncafe en Twitter

La performance y lo performático

Miércoles 9 de diciembre, 19:00 h

Lanau Espacio Creativo

Este es el texto que aportamos sobre el tema.

Una salida hacia adelante 

Por David Aladro-Vico y Berta Delgado – LRM Performance-Locus

Performance, performativo, performancístico, performática, performancear... ¿LA performance? ¿EL performance? ¿es un...o una...performance? Performance, según el diccionario de Oxford significa "Interpretación" o "Ejecución", "Llevar a cabo una acción". Para algunos, a veces, simplemente "Acción". En el contexto artístico, "Performance art" según Oxford es: "An art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance"  Dramático, a su vez se puede referir al arte dramático, lo que se conoce coloquialmente como Teatro. 

En ese caso se trataría de una combinación de elementos preexistentes. Pero sus adeptos definen como una forma de arte de creación actual, incluso del futuro, pues rompe radicalmente con el pasado, así que no me queda claro si hay ejemplos del XIX o anteriores. Quizá se basan en una percepción concreta de la historia o del tiempo, como lo son todas.

Sí, es verdad que en muchos casos esta forma de arte me parece dramática – en todas sus acepciones– incluso trágica, seria como la neumonía, o patética o hasta peripatética y melodramática. En ese caso, performance sí podría tener alguna relación con el siglo XIX, el romanticismo y como decía C. J.  Cela, su "falta de higiene mental".  

Pero ahí Wikipedia, taxonomista superstar, me avisa de la ambigüedad del término Performance, y zanja la cuestión:  Not to be confused with Performing arts.

También dice Oxford: "an art form in which an artist gives a performance, rather than producing a physical work of art" – un artista ejecuta una acción, antes que producir una obra de arte "física". Según esta definición, una acción no pertenece al mundo físico, sino a otro que no es explicado, lo mental o lo etéreo, a veces llamado conceptual. Pero yo no comparto esas divisiones dualistas entre un mundo físico y otro mental, conceptual o etéreo.  

Y me sigue sin estar claro qué es performance, pero los esfuerzos taxonomistas por tener clara y cerrada su definición son cada vez más abundantes y perseverantes. Respaldan y vigilan esa labor taxonómica mediante etimología, historiografía, sociología...  todo esfuerzo es bienvenido en la incansable labor taxonómica del hombre occidental. Porque es importante investir a tu término de poderes sobrenaturales, eternos e indiscutibles, como son la Historia con mayúsculas o el consenso social. There's safety in numbers, sean años, lugares o personas. 

Me parece que la taxonomía es a la creatividad lo que la taxidermia a los seres vivos. Con razón decía un profesor mío que los diccionarios son cementerios de metáforas. El arte y la metáfora suelen tener cosas en común: su significado no es literal, por lo que no puede ser definido sin su contexto; un objeto o acción se convierte temporalmente en símbolo o representación de otro objeto o acción. Es importante esto de temporal y contextualmente; en el momento en que el significado se cierra, deja de ser temporal y contextual, deja de ser una metáfora para ser una definición. 

Pero yo quiero ir más allá, creo que la función del arte NO es transmitir significado. Para eso ya está el lenguaje, que hace lo que puede. Y además, creo que el arte no debe ser interpretado, porque perderá su efecto y razón de ser, como decía Susan Sontag. Que la metáfora no debe ser explicada porque acabará descansando en paz  en un diccionario, o en Wikipedia. 

Los taxonomistas, cuya labor es evitar que se cuestionen las cosas, se empiezan a poner verdaderamente nerviosos con esto. Su trabajo es fijar aquello que es temporal,  y darle armas, defenderlo – y así se encuentran entregados a la definición, (etimológicamente, poner un fin) la codificación, clasificación, organización, disposición, catalogación, sistematización, y todos sus sinónimos y sus relaciones (incluyendo comisariado, por supuesto). Y como dije antes, a su vigilancia: están y siempre han estado dispuestos a perseverar. De hecho, recuerdo haber leído en alguna parte, "La política postmoderna es una contienda por la percepción y sus reglas". Creo que esa guerra surgió mucho antes de la postmodernidad, aunque quizá se ha acentuado desde el siglo XX. 

La poderosa Historia está pues repleta de ejemplos de cánones establecidos, reforzados, desafiados y derribados y vueltos a recuperar y vueltos a derribar. Hay todo un entorno profesional, una industria tanto alrededor de los que hablan sobre ellos como de los que elaboran arte del que derivar los cánones.

Son mundos muy competitivos. Tienen la idea de que sólo puede quedar uno y deben cortarse la cabeza unos a otros. De hecho, la labor taxonómica resultante suele reflejarlo: tienen tendencia a unificar lo plural y pluralizar lo único, para poder acotar bien sus definiciones. En un acto de reduccionismo radical de la realidad, escogen a un artista (de performance, ya que estamos) y hacen que sea el ejemplo único, y el canon extraído de ese ejemplo se impone a todos los demás, artistas o pensadores, excluyendo los que no encajen. Mediante la Katana, si hace falta. 

Me parece algo obvio, pero muy a menudo es necesario recordar la diferencia entre copiar y crear. Toda labor creativa (sea en arte, ciencia o cualquier actividad) pasa obligatoriamente por cuestionar en alguna medida los cánones, estéticos o perceptivos en general. Ser taxonómico no es el objetivo, ni integrarse en una visión concreta de la actividad artística, más bien al revés, así que disculpen si hay gente creativa también dispuesta a perseverar. 

Bueno, pero por encima esas pugnas recordemos que tanto al tratar con arte o crearlo (o cualquier otra actividad) no es aceptable entrar en el terreno de la psicopatía – entiéndase el término como la falta de capacidad de empatía o remordimientos, sociopatía, o indiferencia o desprecio por los demás. Esta característica psicológica es habitual en ambientes profesionales muy competitivos como por ejemplo la política, Wall Street o el ambiente de los de artistas y comisarios famosos. Con Katana o sin ella. 

Hace tiempo me fijé en un texto de Alan Kaprow,  How to make a Happening de 1966. (Por cierto que "Happening" "Intermedia" y otras  eran palabras relacionadas con performance, pero que la taxonomía ha domesticado) En el texto, Kaprow define su cánon estético exponiendo once puntos. Como todos los cánones, define lo que se debe hacer como de lo que no se debe, explícitamente o no. 

Creo que  contiene muchos criterios observables en el tratamiento por parte de la prensa e instituciones profesionales del arte actuales sobre  performance. 

Definir una posición artística no es habitual ni tiene por qué serlo en un artista; puede trabajar sin explicar su método ni principios –este sector se dedica a la manufactura, y explicar o definir es más labor obligada del otro sector. Pero piense en la libertad que esto da para elaborar explicaciones adecuadas al objetivo del taxonomista, que no tiene porqué ser el mismo que el del artista. Aunque a menudo el artista acaba haciendo de todo, elaboración, marketing y hasta merchandising . 

Ya han pasado casi cincuenta años desde aquel texto, y más aun de lo que se considera el orígen del performance art. Así pues, puedo considerar que sus ideas han pasado sobradamente por el filtro taxonómico, y están ya bien definidas y listas para descansar en paz en Wikipedia o en más ilustres panteones. 

Nuestro trabajo como colectivo artístico se desarrolla en el mundo de la manufactura, no de la taxonomía, pero como decía, dado que la situación lo requiere, hemos elaborado un texto similar al de Kaprow. Entiéndase bien que no tenemos ningún problema con la obra de Kaprow ni de ninguno de sus contemporáneos, podemos disfrutar de ella y de la de muchos otros artistas que responden a sus principios, sin que eso suponga que los compartamos ni que queramos eliminarlos. Así pues, con todo respeto, simplemente para continuar aportando a la tradición de romper con la tradición, hemos observado que bastaba con revertir los principios expresados por Kaprow para generar unos más acordes con nuestra época y forma de pensar. 

De esta manera, estos serían nuestros principios:

1) Happening, o performance y similares ya son formas estándar. Así pues, puedo olvidarme de ellas, o mejor, olvidarme de la propuesta de olvidar las formas estándar, como ya son las de Kaprow y otros artistas de performance. (En realidad, ésa ya era una idea de la postmodernidad  de hace más de veinticinco años).

2) Separa bien lo que es arte de lo que es vida real, pues mezclar arte y vida real para "salir del arte", que la barrera entre arte o vida real sea difusa ya es parte habitual del mundo del arte. 

3) Utiliza tu imaginación para crear. No te distraigas con el exterior. Si te atienes demasiado a lo real y usas situaciones reales o readymade, volverás al arte preexistente. No utilices la realidad. Elabora. Rechaza lo arbitrario. 

4) Utiliza un espacio concreto, bien definido y determinado. Rechaza usar cualquier espacio, especialmente los públicos o improvisados, y los muy grandes. No sirve cualquier lugar ni de cualquier tamaño, eso ya se ha hecho antes. 

5) Rechaza el tiempo real. Puedes y debes manipular el tiempo, porque no pertenece a la realidad. Coordina lo que haces. Controla el tiempo, sácalo de la realidad. Ajusta la acción a tu tiempo controlando ambos. Dejar la duración al azar o a la conveniencia de la acción realizada ya se ha hecho antes. 

6) Dispón los eventos de tu obra de la misma manera, coordina y controla el contenido. Adapta las cosas a lo que quieres, no al revés. Planifica, aunque cierta escolástica de composición de  performance  te diga que es mejor no hacerlo – el elemento sorpresa sólo vendrá cuando las cosas estén bajo control. 

7) Como estás haciendo un trabajo y no cualquier cosa, tú creas las reglas. No dejes que el entorno decida lo que puedes o no puedes hacer. El entorno es precisamente lo que tú has de crear, y no dejar ese trabajo a la realidad. 

8) No trabajes para los poderes que tienes alrededor, no te harán las cosas más fáciles. No esperes su aprobación, pues no es simplemente hacer cosas lo que buscas. No seas oportunista ni advenedizo, ni creas que eso te llevará al fin del mundo.

9) Practica y haz pruebas y ensayos, repite. No repetir ya se ha hecho, y te hace creer que no hay nada que mejorar. Busca estudiar y practicar, es la única manera de ser natural. No existen trucos ni atajos, hay que trabajar las cosas para que parezcan naturales, hechas sin esfuerzo. 

10) Presenta varias veces tu obra, serializa. No repetirla la hace vulgar, irrelevante, o presuntuosa y frívola, como es la  performance que ya se ha hecho. No repetir te hace creer que es perfecta y que eres un genio. Tu misión es repetir precisamente aquello que parece imposible que se vuelva a dar.  

11) No tengas problema en que lo que haces sea un espectáculo para un público.  Una performance ES un espectáculo, en contra de lo que los libros te dicen, no hay diferencia entre performance y el teatro o concierto: lo que buscas es que sea visto y crear un efecto en la audiencia. No estas jugando, ni haciendo actividades al azar o pueriles, ni rituales pseudo-religiosos que aspiran a ser intelectualmente de "mayor altura". No te aproveches de alguien que no es una audiencia diciendo que les vas a implicar, o que va a interactuar, es un truco muy usado ya.  

Por último, y como añadido a estos puntos, comentar que para el taxonomista del performance art, la palabra espectáculo define por antítesis la posición política del artista de performance,  que rechaza "venderse" o contribuir a la alienación que produce el arte tradicional o el de masas. Basado en una posición política coetánea a la de Kaprow expresada en textos como La sociedad del espectáculo de Guy Debord o de la Internacional Situacionista, o también en  la posición de Deleuze y Guattari, nos parece que esa posición política corresponde a una realidad de hace cincuenta años y que en 2015 no sólo no ha lugar por carecer de efectividad política en la dirección que ellos dicen tener, sino que sirve al pensamiento contra el que dice oponerse, el del capitalismo –como señala por ejemplo Slavoj Žižek, y aunque pretendan lo contrario, está completamente asumida – alienada–por una economía de mercado y resignada a ello. Y además, muy lejos de la actitud de los años 60, se ha vuelto intolerante con el pluralismo, sea político o artístico. 

Propongamos pues, una salida hacia adelante. 

LRM Performance- Locus, Diciembre 2015