3 women required to work on video piece about women, ideology and race

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I’m not here to prove your fundamental assumptions wrong 

 

 3 women required to work on video piece about women, ideology and race

 

Three women (one white, one black and one asian) with different political traditions and interests (all from the left) have been chosen to ask and answer questions which interest them politically. The answers will be sound recorded.

 

Now I need 3 other women (one white, one black, one asian) to lip-synch (mime) the words which have been sound recorded. This technique allows for the possibility to avoid racial and ideological stereotyping by representing words with the face of someone of a different race.  I think it also means that the piece is more interesting than a party political broadcast, by adding another element which leaves the question of race and ideology wide open.

 

If you are interested in enlarging the space within art for women’s political voices to be heard, please get in touch. I can’t pay you but I can pay your travel and give you lunch!  Filming should be towards end of July 2006.

 

 

Please contact Ceri Buck

 07963 446605  020 7733 6220   openbracket@riseup.net    www.openbracket.org.uk

 

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i’m not here to prove your fundamental assumptions wrong

  

Area of investigation: Collaboration / how dissensus can be used in empowering, radical ways.Format:  VideoStarting point: Friendship. The G8 in
Edinburgh, 2005 

Rationale: The idea for this came mainly from my friendship with 2 people.  It comes from a feeling of being on a similar wavelength in terms of what’s happening socially and politically even though we identify with different political traditions. I am also aware that we have different ways of thinking through what is effective political action.  

And the G8? Well, the three of us went to the G8 in Edinburgh 2005 and it was when I first started thinking about how certain events draw people in from different political traditions and I remember having conversations with both about the point and effectiveness of all the protests, in other words about action and strategy. It all made me start thinking how much there is to learn from attitudes, strategies and philosophies other than the ones that tend to guide me. 

I am no expert on any of this. I’m just really interested in different political attitudes and beliefs, co-existing and cross-pollinating, and what the factor of our three different racial backgrounds adds to the experience of hearing our voices. I’m interested in the fact that we are all politicised women and that we are all graduates of / survivors of / detractors (through experience) of / products of the British higher educational system, and that class background also bears on this experience.  In general, I’m interested in how to communicate in order to act collaboratively. And finally, I’m just as interested in dissensus as a trigger to action, as I am in consensus, and am keen to find out what kind of meta-framing of our beliefs and assumptions is necessary for us to use dissensus in empowering, radical ways. 

I’m aware that what I’m aiming for is to create a public piece of work on a super-sensitive, personal issue. I risk doing this with my friends because I’m inviting the materialisation of diverging ideas, ideas that we may hold very very dear and that may clash.  Talking about politics with those closest to you is often considered a bad move, but I want to consider if this is because the dialogue isn’t set up within a safe enough space, and/or because too much emphasis is put upon consensus and not enough emphasis is put upon creative dissensus. I want to be doing art and politics with those closest to me, because if we’ve chosen each other as friends, why not as political and artistic collaborators also?   

Can me an idealist and I’ll agree with you. 

Objectives:

1. To stake out and value dissensus through the diverging answers to the same three questions.
2. To draw attention to how language is used within differing political traditions.
3. To create a space in which the viewer can make associations between and meaning out of each speaker’s utterance
4. To create an space for political reflection by women

 

Procedure:

1. 3 people (one of whom is me) have been chosen to ask and respond to questions about political beliefs.
2. These 3 people have been chosen because they each identify with a different political tradition on the left.
3. They also have different racial backgrounds
4. They are all women
5. They have all passed through the British educational system to first degree level or beyond
6. The three speakers will write three questions each which they themselves will answer and which the other two will also answer
7. The speakers have been encouraged to plan their answers (in whatever way they wish) in order to give considered, detailed responses
8. Questions and their responses will be sound recorded.
9. 3 actresses, with similar racial background to the 3 speakers, will be asked to lipsynch (mime with lips) to the words of the original speakers.
10. This performance will be videoed
11. The video and original sound will be put together but not matching up the race of the artist and original speaker, to form the final piece which will be shown on 3 separate screens concurrently.

 

Equipment for exhibition:                                                                                               Ceri Buck  (2006)     3 screens or dvd players                                                                                                   www.openbracket.org.uk