Forthcoming: Skipping The Page

3 January 2008
Skipping The Page

I have two video pieces in Skipping the Page at The Center for Book Arts in New York, which runs from January 18 – March 29, 2008. You can see Kent Beeson is a Classic & an Absolutely New Thing and 100 People which I wrote about very briefly here. The exhibition, curated by my friend Graham Parker, considers the relationship between the printed page and other forms of media in representing rhythm and tempo. Other artists include Michael Baers, Svetlana Boym, Beth Campbell, Julie Chen, Neil Goldberg, Karen Hanmer, Ryan Holmberg, Vlatka Horvat, Sam Lewitt, Marie Lorenz, Richard McGuire, Trong Nguyen, Leah Oates, Mark Orange, Garret Ricardi, Marco Roso, Seth Price, Lan Tuazon, Uwasa, Chris Ware, and 432a (Nami Matsuo & Lars Niki). Details for finding The Center for Book Arts here.

Thinking about relationship between page and perfrmance here’s the start of the text I wrote for Kent Beeson and below it a chunk of transcript from Kent’s actual performance as he loops around the script, commenting on his performance, starting lines over and getting distracted. In some ways this is an absurd case of it I know, but I really love the very particular extra layer of glitches and noise that performance (and speech rather than print) can bring to a text.

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I am going to have a great big house and a basement romperoom with a big high definition colour tv and all the latest gaming consoles and a games room and games and a pool room and a big fridge always full up of beer and coke and I will be like Elvis Presley always larking about with the guys and like Tom Hanks in Big – a big kid in a rich guys apartment and able to do anything. And I will have all the girls I want around all the time just hanging around by swimming pool and they will wear those bikinis that are more or less just a piece of string and too small and they will always be dancing or playfighting or sunning themselves and maybe some other girls who will have beepers and I will have an arrangement with them where I just beep them and they come over and spend the night with me.

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I’m going to have a great big house and a big um naagh fuck, Im sorry these conditions are hard. I’m going to have a great big house and a…..  basement romper room. I’m going to have a great big house and a basement romper room and a big high definition colour TV and all the latest game consoles and a games room and games and a pool room and a big fridge all full up of coke and beer and I will be like Elvis Presley, always larking about with the guys and I’ll be like Tom Hanks in Big er uugh…shit…[punches arm].. ow that actually hurt. I’m going to have a great big house and a basement romper room and….I’m going to have a great big house and a basement romper room…I’m going to have a great big house and a un.. ..not underground Kent, fuck you Kent, you piece of shit. I’m going to have a great big house and a basement romper room and a big high definition colour TV, and all the latest game consoles and a games room and games and a big…. pool room and a big fridge full up of coke and beer and I will be like Elvis Presley, always larking about with the guys and I will be like Tom Hanks in Big, a big kid in a rich guy’s apartment and able to do anything and I’ll have all the girls I want around all the time, just hanging around by the swimming pool and they’ll be wearing those little bikinis that are just made out of string, more or less and.. er too small….naagh. And I will have all the girls I want around all the time, just hanging around by the swimming pool and they’ll wear those bikinis, that are more or less just a piece of string and too small and they’ll always be dancing or play fighting or sunning themselves and some of the girls will have beepers and I’ll have an arrangement with them where I just beep them and they come over and spend the night with me.