FUNCTION – 25TH APRIL – 5D, ARKWRIGHT STREET, NOTTINGHAM
FUNCTION was an evening of site-specific works and performance launching Reactor’s move from studio space in Ilkeston Road to a new space in Arkwright Street and followed previous Reactor events Apocalypse Now (July 2002) and Reactor (September 2002).
Function slipped back and forth between declaring a manifesto of intent for a new artist space and parodying the social cliché of the art launch event. The evening began in a makeshift classroom as four members of the audience, seated at desks, participated in a fractured pop quiz devised by Phil Henderson, in which the hi-speed inter- cutting of tracks zeroed all attempts at correct identification. The results were relayed on monitor into the next room, one of a number of mechanisms operating throughout the evening, dispersing the action and opening up multiple viewpoints on events.
Site-specific works by Slip, Joe Kelly, Lara Green and Dai Roberts were interspersed through out the building setting up a network of fluid relationships with the performance-based work. Slip examined liminal narratives with a living installation in which entrants to the building were offered a communion wafer inscribed ‘w (hole)’ passed mouth to mouth; their linked installation work W (hole) filled a space with a string of temporary building lights. Joe Kelly’s interactive installation used the walls of the space to support a series of mechanical operations in which the speed of balls moving through chutes redefined the walls of the space as surfaces supporting instable activity. Dai Roberts’ biomorphic 3-dimensional objects were interspersed throughout the building, engendering multiple encounters with blob-like forms. Lara Green used the simple device of line-formations of contrasting coloured wool that had the effect of dissolving the unitary appearance of space for the viewer. A loom-like construction was placed at the juncture between two rooms, and an adjacent chalk circle drawn on the floor became the focus of an interactive performance in which participants were intertwined with wool creating a living room-divide.
More vigorous spatial investigation in the form of House Gymnastics’The Ten Commandments took place at points throughout the building as volunteers were put through their paces attempting a hybrid form of climbing and gymnastics designed for domestic environments. Enthusiastic attempts at the Upper Door Frame Grab and Carpet Crab enabled the audience to explore Henri Lefebvre’s idea that ‘Space commands bodies’. Meanwhile, outside on the fire escape, AuntyNazi phase V continued a series of performance works interrogating the role of the audience in which two characters, resembling extras from The Sweeny, interact with members of the audience brought into view one by one to be designated as either Polly or Steed. Repetition underlay the sense of unease, as an increasingly confrontational Polly demanded of Steed, ‘Who is this performance directed at?’ Lines of inquiry only prolonged the uncertainty as the audience was left with a set of fractured narratives and no closure. A retreat to Dan Williamson’s Multi Video T.V lounge installation in which the audience was invited to select a video for viewing and produce their own label, left viewers with a further vista of uncertain choices.
Function was brought to a close by the Reactor Rocket Launch produced by Jon Burgerman, Ellie Harrison and Dan Williamson, during which a room was showered with exploding water-filled capsules, one part of a field of disruptive activities continued by Niki Russell’s performance installation work Re-Drawn (String). For this piece the artist acted out the physical limits of the space by gradually delineating it with string attached to wall-mounted eyelets. By repeatedly drawing and redrawing the string across the room to create a ‘hybrid of architecture and event’, Russell ensured that members of the audience found their freedom of movement increasingly circumscribed prior to exiting the building.
Function continues the welcome trend for artist-led events and activities in recent months in the East Midlands following Reactor and Apocalypse Now in Nottingham and Scene in Leicester.
© Kathy Fawcett