I didn’t get the Rochford project. I was told it was close run thing but Haley Newman got it. Though I have not met Haley Newman, I have read about her performances in books and seen her work in some important places. It’s not so disappointing when you loose to someone who has books written about them when not so long ago I couldn’t get a parish newsletter written about me. I also like some of Haley Newman’s work and would have chosen her over me without even interviewing me, so I feel kind of pround I was a contender.

This week I have been working on my end of year show for Goldsmiths. Then last end of year show I did (back when I was an undergraduate) I had spent 6 months working on, this time I had to knock something together in week. I was left so short of time was because I had been out and about doing show and putting together proposals for art projects. Though this has distracted from some of my studies, I am studying so I can do show and submit proposals for art projects.

I considered doing an performance for the examiners but then remembered how unpleasant it is doing a performing to panel of stoney faced examiners making notes on clipboards the whole way through.

It was suggested that for my end of term show I could present some documentation of the various performances I had done. I didn’t really like this idea because I have become very weary of documentation of live art events. Performance is very fashionable at the moment and good cameras are affordable and easy to use and I have noted a compulsive urge amongst art students to document everything without thinking. I have succumbed to the urge myself. However I have become weary of it because I now have reams of video I’ll never have time edit and most of it is never quite satisfactory. No matter how many cameras you get you always miss something: a camera breaks down, the tape runs out before the grand finally, the camera man falls over half way though, somebody starts rustling in their bags next to the microphone, the camera is focused on the performer and misses the audience’s reactions. As a point response I had been refusing to document some of my shows at all.

My initial idea for the end of term show was to build a small theatre in one of the studios and just leave the stage empty except for a few discarded props and empty beer bottles. I wanted the examiner and the few other people who see the installation to feel disappointed because they had missed the show. However, I noted from the course handbook we had to present something that represented our practice over the year. The empty theatre was a bit of a one-off one-liner that wouldn’t represent all the other stuff I had done and had been writing about in this blog.

However, by the time I realised this, my proposal had already been accepted and I had been allocated a large black space that was perfect for converting into a theatre. I spent most of this week trying to work out what the fuck else I could do in this black room. I also need to work out how to present a lot of documentation which was inevitably going to look like second rate left-overs from shows I’d done elsewhere.

I came up with the idea to build a museum to myself. It would be full relic from performances. I liked the idea that reconstructions of historical events in museum would never be the same as experiencing something for real. This would also mean I could build an installation and wouldn’t have to perform in front of the examiners.

By Wednesday my museum looked was a pile of junk some shoddy leftover from much better shows I’d done elsewhere accompanied by some rather lame museum plaques. It didn’t look much like a museum. I’d forgotten how much work it was actually making objects. After a word with one of my tutors I abandoned the idea.

I had two and a half days left. The only thing I knew I could put together in that time was a performance. As much as I hated the idea I was going to have to perform for the examiners.

I rummaged through material from my recent shows in the hope I could adapt something I already had (You may note I have pasted up some more vids from previous shows I found while I was rummaging). I messed about trying to rewrite ‘Judith Butler’ or ‘Democracy of Mediocracy’ or ‘The Pig Semen Delivery Man’, as they had been my favourite recent works, but they were written for other situations and just didn’t work quite right. I was going to have to write something new for the space, but what? What the hell was I going to do with that black space anyway? Would I pull it off and pass the course?

Find out Wednesday, 7.30pm, Studio B, Goldsmiths College, New Cross.