She says: 

_{06/08/2007 14:16}
wish i could take an aerial picture of my brain
_{06/08/2007 14:16}
cos all my thoughts are very well organized that way
_{06/08/2007 14:16}
its when they try to get on the paper the problems begin

Like all its neighbours the street is jammed incoherence in the form of restaurants and bars, part-Spanish, part-Turkish, part-Mexican grill, a lot of Italian, some Zorba the Greek, some Dim Sum, some Indonesian, some non-descript and some Indian. Your eyes take a beating first-off from the jumble of signs (some neon, some not) and the overlapping maze of job-lot discount plush and patio furnitures that are breaking ranks all over the street plus its hard not to wonder why the décor/colour-schemes of these places look like they got chosen by the managers cousin or by his brothers second-wife or like they were simply determined by some bloke who sold them the remnant 12 litres of paint left over from some other place he’d painted elsewhere. Anyhow. It’s not a spectacular area in any way – to call it run-down would give it a glamour that it doesn’t have. Its more a kind of roughly approximated but somehow defective acceptability that seeps, grows and cancers everywhere just like the narrow pavement with its topping of sporadic food remains and broken wine glass. No big deal.
 
A young guy, skinny, looks like he might be Spanish, sporting Superman t-shirt and with him a girl in white shirt and jeans – could be his younger sister or maybe girlfriend, impossible to say. They come hurrying determinedly through the crowds of people that are looking for somewhere to eat, or who maybe have just eaten already and want to find somewhere they can go to forget about it, which probably won't take long. They come past the dazed or stoned Australians and the drunk English and the grim Germans, and the family packs of Americans – all kids with braces walking single file and yelling ahead to their dad – and the occasional groups of Dutch-guys-in-suits-and-ties types (impossible to read). In her hand she (the girl with the Spanish guy in his Superman t-shirt) is carrying a muffin or a cake of some kind, wrapped in cellophane, and as they come through the crowd past the table where we are sitting, they break their stride, just for a very short moment, in which she holds the cake flat in her hand and he photographs it, with the small digital camera that he has, and once the picture is taken they are gone – vanished in the endless flow of pedestrians and incomplete and incomprehensible narratives that make up the night.

*

S's nightmare, he said, seemed like an episode of something, because first it was happening and it was horrible and then it stopped, and he thought it was over, and then it all just started up again.

My friend K. wrote about starting rehearsal work on a bunch of text material she's using in a new project, with words from different writers (me included). First work in the studio has simply been reading the texts aloud. I really like what she says below about this part of the process, and her articulation of the relationship between text and performer, very smart.

Of course as soon as I'm trying this – the main questions come up….One thing is – why have a body in space telling these stories? Why  not leave them to be read – published, or on the net. This has got me  into the area of 'what are these stories doing to me/you as I tell  them?' – something about what happens to a body when it is taken over  by the images it is reading. It's reminding me of stigmata – a story  that takes over a body, or maybe a body that takes over a story,  anyway, that the thing leaks into the body of the teller, and the  listener too. That helps a bit necessitate the telling of them.

Following up the Warhol’s Screen Tests post from Wednesday my friend and colleague John Rowley mailed, reporting that the series of video portraits he’s been working on for the last year or so – inspired in part by the Warhol work – will be screened in Cardiff as part of Chapter’s Experimentica Festival. The pieces sound great – I hope I get to see some of them.

John’s been performing with Forced Entertainment a lot during the last five years or so (in performances such as First Night, The Travels, Bloody Mess etc) but he’s also got a stream of solo projects on the go including this new piece comprising around 25 of these hour-long portraits. For each portrait the subject is filmed in a full-length body-shot and standing, for long confrontations with John’s un-manned video camera. While Warhol’s Screen Tests ran 3 minutes (the length of regular film stock) the length of John’s portraits is based on the one hour duration of a standard MiniDv tape.

The same Warhol post also drew a reaction from Ant Hampton of Rotozaza whose recent work around ‘live portraiture’ also sits in some kind of tangent proximity to the Warhol Screen Tests. You can read about the research workshop project Ant was part of concerning live portraiture here.

Jonathan Jones had a nice piece here in The Guardian yesterday about Andy Warhol, specifically touching on the tendency towards a posthumous ‘humanising’ of Warhol, a process not unlike that William Burroughs’ went through in the lead up to and aftermath of his own death. Seems that the weird/queer outsiders have to be assimilated posthumously, brought back to the family fold.

As Jones points out though:

“Try as you might to make Warhol a happy, well-rounded individual, exhibit his art for kids, paper a vast gallery with cow wallpaper, recreate his installation of helium-filled silver pillows – it’s all fun, it’s fine – none of it justifies seeing Warhol as a modern master. He only really becomes that when he indulges his obviously unhealthy obsession with violent death…”

Continuing this Jones gives a vivid account of the part of the show currently at the National Galleries in Edinburgh that’s focused on Warhol’s Death & Disaster images. I remember seeing some big Warhol retrospective at the Hayward, in the early 90’s I think and being very blown away by these images in particular.

Years back Jones wrote another piece on Warhol, this time about the Screen Tests. It’s very useful.

The screen tests are amazing and for me they remain a constant point of reference in thinking about contemporary performance. The link is close to the surface perhaps in something like Jerome Bel’s the show must go on, or in some scenes from Raimund Hoghe’s work or even in my own video (and occasional live performance) Down Time. But Screen Tests‘ relevance runs deeper than any direct echo of their core strategies, in which a silent/still figure is watched/witnessed and must negotiate their presence in front of an unmanned static camera. What’s really strong and prescient about the Screen Tests is how neatly  Warhol uses a rule to draw a a frame around a piece of time. Everything that happens in that time is the work. Time ticks. And inside it – in their live, inadequate and inspired attempts to be there, to deal with the task and the situation in which they find themselves – human beings make something happen. Warhol’s articulation of this in Screen Tests is pretty hard to beat and its certainly an inspiration.

I've been working on a short story, for no good reason other than the fact that I have a million other things to do, many of them urgent and because right now I have hardly any free time. These are the perfect circumstances under which to start something new.

I'm going to put the story here in three chunks, starting today. I wont make a new entry for it – it will just get longer over the next days, so to speak.

[Weds 23.03: The whole story is added now].

Also check the new navigation options, RSS feed and archive access in this notebook (to the right). Thanks Sam. Its still work in progress but the few glitches should be ironed out soon.

In Deep

Over three days one May five separate young women report violent sexual assaults to the police in a particular capital city. The attacks are evidently related, the modus operandi similar, the women (all of them young, foreign, living alone) subjected to knife-point ordeals of escalating brutality, the details of which are barely kept out of the press. The police quickly begin their investigations; gathering evidence against a backdrop of public and media frenzy, appealing for witnesses, building photo-fits and profiles of the killer based on cross-referenced interviews with the women.

Once questioned and released from hospital each of the women is offered shelter and protection by the police, but each declines, preferring to stay with friends. Two of them make emotional appeals at press-conferences, a third sells her story to a newspaper which prints it in an edition from which all profits go to a charity, the fourth and the fifth remain silent.

As the days go by and public terror builds, the team of detective assigned to the case continue their forensics and their searches and the press goes mad with speculation about who the attacker might be, about where and when and how the next assault is going to come. WHAT KIND OF MONSTER? says the Daily Trumpet (or whatever). STREETS OF FEAR says the Herald. WHOS NEXT IN LINE? says another one. UNDER THE KNIFE says yet another, with a clever computer graphic that takes up the whole front page, and which shows the country’s silhouette and a fuck-off big knife just above it. All over the capital women stay home, shops selling rape alarms and other security products do well whilst tv and radio pundits, along with half the internet, go tirelessly over the known aspects of the case, using diagrams, maps and soundbites, re-enactments, interviews with profilers, statements from public officials and representatives of campaigning groups. The nation – sat crapping itself under the best tabloid headline of all – MAY DAYS OF TERROR – is basically on tenterhooks, waiting for ‘the Maniac’ to strike again.

And then something odd happens. The girls all disappear, overnight and no matter how hard they look the police cannot find them. The victims are vanished without trace.

*

There follow a few days of constant speculation – print and electronic outlets wrapt in the hysteria that only 'no news' can produce. The stories, theories and general nonsense get wilder and wilder – especially as leaks from the cops spark stories that it’s not just the girls themselves who’ve disappeared, but that in some cases their families, friends, lovers, lives are also gone – turned into dust, slipped away into a night of mist and shadows. The cops have got nothing and the government (provisional, and tottering anyway) is also under pressure and still there’s an rumour machine concerning the attacker – if and when he’ll ‘get back to work’, if its him that’s snatched the girls or murdered them or worse, if he’s working with a team, if he’s fled the country disguised as a priest or as whatever, or if he’s somehow gone to ground. The chief of Police (Bob something or other) goes on TV and urges calm. The newscasters ask difficult questions and the Bob bloke gets angry, ripping off his microphone and storming out of the studio, leaving an eerie calm that seems to extend across the nation.

Two days after the girls’ disappearance an extraordinary announcement relevant to the case is promised by the media spokesperson of a TV production outfit based in some suburb that most people have heard of though few are certain if they’ve ever been there.

At midday on May 23rd, in a function room at a centrally located New Medallion/LeisureTime Hotel there’s a long table, some microphones, three jugs of water and six glasses. Above the table there’s a powerpoint image via laptop and projection showing two words – IN DEEP – emblazoned on black background in bold, lime green sans serif typeface. There are delays and hold ups and a lot of restless journalists make phone mobile phonecalls, killing time in what one of then quips is the no-mans land of noon. A smattering of curious cops look on, already recounting the story of what a joke this stupid assignment was. Sometime around 1pm the spokesperson (think sweating man in a suit and pink tie) enters, flanked by a couple of uneasy underlings, takes a leather-look plastic seat, clears his throat and reads from a pre-prepared statement in bullet-points, declaring to those assembled that the whole story from start to finish, the girls, the rapes, the whole of it – is a fake. The attacks are fictional, the cops, the press and the public have all been duped, the girls are actresses, their fraught accusations and outbursts in the interview rooms at police stations, their emotional pleas at press conferences and in media profiles have simply been scripted exercises in bravura style.

Before he’s done the guy makes it clear – with powerpoint showing scripts, rehearsals and production notes – that what we've all been witness to – spread across prime time already like a dog crushed by a juggernaut – in the preceding MAY DAYS OF TERROR, is simply a viral marketing stunt for a new TV show starting soon on Channel Z. In Deep, it transpires, is 10 part drama series about a cop called out of retirement to solve a series of brutal rapes and sexual assaults which are reported to the police in a particular capital city over a three day period by five separate young women. Broadcasts are scheduled for the following week.

* 

The sweating bloke from the media firm is taken away for questioning by the police and his life like that of his miserable associates is soon buried in a welter of charges, claims, suits, counter claims and investigations concerning their role in the events, the time-wasting of the police, as well as broader questions about fraud, ethics, business acumen and general malpractice. The show in question – In Deep – is withdrawn but soon reinstated, beginning in the 9.30 post-watershed slot on a major network who've bought out the disgraced and bankrupted rival channel that initially would've shown it, the network premiere now framed by a series of panel-discussions, hand-wringing comment-pieces, and off-the-shelf documentaries about the History of Viralistic Marketing and Great Serial Sex-Offenders of the Past.

In Deep eventually, and somewhat against the odds, is a big success. Despite caution in the first instance the critics are swayed by its strong characterisation, by the vivid sense of dramatic development and by the sassy, self-mocking and ironic flavour to much of writer Slop Charlton’s script. Its classy post-modern TV with attitude, they say, not trash.

Director Jaunt Ishmael and lighting cameraman Ray Davies are feted at parties all over town while Slop Charlton is sought after for all kinds of projects, many prestigious, some ridiculous and others insane. Leading man Twat Poshman (who plays a journalist going it alone in an investigation of the rapes, against the wishes of his editor played by Pete Thownsend) is soon a regular on Parkinson, J. Leno, Totale’s Turns etc, constantly doorstepped by paparazzi and It girls.

Veteran star of other cop shows such as Crowbar & Zebra Head – Kurt Jaw – is widely praised for his role as the wise-cracking detective. The critics go wild in fact. Similar accolades are handed out to both Rand Holefall as Jaw’s brow-beaten assistant and to Clint Verbiage for his cameo as the capitals long-suffering Chief of Police. Newcomers Slit Cleavage, Hysteria Walton, Svelte Crush and Jade Agenda all bring subtle interpretations and nuances to the role of brutalised victims. The show is stolen though by the fifth victim – played with a verve and edgy commitment that will many think will bring her success when the awards season comes – the Iraqi actress Lauren Nadada.

Simply put, Nadada steals scene after scene, her optimism under torture seems boundless and inspiring and her eventual death at the hands of the Maniac (played by Keith Richards) remains what Hassan Blundell writing in the National Express arts column called "..a classic mix of CGI and Lee Strasberg." Indeed its not long before the cops own recordings of her original police-cell interviews are leaked to the internet and these reality-infused tapes are themselves widely heralded as an amazing performance under extraordinary circumstances. She’s a star and we will be hearing a lot more of her, when losers like Holly Finkton have been long forgotten. Hear me now – it wasn't for nothing that the Italian composer Varabese Sarabande – who scored In Deep for tv and will re-score it for next year’s cinema version – took the liberty of removing all music from Nadada's scenes. "She didn't need anything" he said, "Some girls bring their own soundtracks. There was no need to heighten the emotion, it was all already there."
 

With exaggerated disdain S. explains the structure of Power Rangers episodes.

"First a monster appears. Then the Power Rangers fight it. Then the monster gets all big, gets bigger. Then the Power Rangers go in those machine things. Then they beat the monster…"

"It's the same every time..", he says, then adds "I hate it".

*

V meanwhile sent me this nice para from a spam/scam mail with a
rhythm like Dr. Seuss.

Note. FEDEX SPEED SERVICES COMPANY LTD. don't know the contents of the Box. I registered it as a BOX of an Africa cloths. They don't know it contents money. this is to avoid them delaying with the BOX. don't let them know that is money that is in that Box.

You wake and try calling your friends, but they're not picking up their mobiles. So you log-in to this online game that you all play, and you find them in the game – at the site of some complicated battle they're involved in, or some mission with swords and gold and stuff like that and anyhow you ask if its OK to come over and they say OK, no worries. So you shut the computer and head out.

*

I say: to the swimming pool.
S. says: yes, to the swimming pool, and don't spare the imaginary horses.

You are woken by the sound of a child five metres away, sat on the floor, assembling and disassembling Lego, as carefully and quietly as it is possible to do so.

*

When you check mail there is spam with the subject-line 'big king'. Later, when the mood dips, they write to you with more Viagra/Stock Offers under the headings 'laser down', 'compressed tabloid' and 'surly pocket'.

 Someone has arrived at my site using the search terms/keywords 'live not exist' and 'i do not exist'. Phillosophy students or anxious teenagers? Someone with other motives (?) arrived from the search term 'where does Meg Ryan live?'. Hint: this info cannot be found on my site.

*

V reporting an overheard phone conversation:

a guy in the line behind me at duane read
_{23/07/2007 16:24}
talking on the phone very loudly
_{23/07/2007 16:24}
First he says 'why have you not called that girl yet?'
_{23/07/2007 16:25}
then pause then he says
'shes a fucking assistant district attorney you idiot. and now theres fucking reporters everywhere. and that little bitch, i want her handcuffed when you take her out and i want her picture all over everything..
_{23/07/2007 16:26}
..cos that guy – hes a litle faggot – he wont keep his fucking mouth shut'
_{23/07/2007 16:26}
the checkout girl and i were looking at each other like 'oooo kkkk'