exhibitions/films/performances, etc

a wall, slightly too thin — la — Hold Music (Denise’s Ear) — this fig — festival — not constance — soft rock / strange trouble — T oody — i catch a rare vole — d edications — f ront matter — P artly Stressed — She Had Work To Do — Guilding / The Pith — Ruins, Spats — When One Says To Another

dedications performance, 2019
(for Outskirts Festival at Platform, Easterhouse)

photos (c) Euan Robertson

“dedications” was a performance which staged a fictional radio station and focussed on call-ins and shout-outs. It was performed by members of the Glasgow DIY music scene and also featured a lounge band playing variations on George McCrae’s song “Rock Yr Baby” on saxophone, drums and bass. The performance featured poetic addresses, gossipy improvised story telling, vocal experimentation, mime, and the reading of found texts by artists, writers and musicians relating to the theme of “dedication.” dedications is performed by Gemma Fleet, Jessica Higgins, Moema Meade, Jack Paton, Eothen Stearn, Joan Sweeney and Banana Oil. It uses paper bags, printed letters and lyrics, glasses of water, foam, a fabric panel suspended from the ceiling, a table, stools and document boxes.

Players are completing their
tasks, humming softly, sighing,
and speaking on the phone
There is the sound of a drummer
shuffling with his kit.

Every ten seconds there is the
bellow of a saxophone.

After the saxophone sounds ten
times, the player sitting at the
table reads the following text:

who takes up or occupies or habits the air;
who is there, receiving and falling in and out of favour and back again
who is a voice and voice alone, now
who steers an ambivalent narrative
who is for you, if not for you
who says it like it is whatever that is
who controls the reception
who accumulates meaning in their pocket
who meets you on your way out the door or up the garden path
who is driving in their car
who is multiple and intangible
who reflects and echoes and opens the again, again
who orchestrates volume
who moves things from place to place
who orbits the edges and the limits and the borders
who generates ideal conditions
who is put upon
who succumbs and becomes atmosphere
who is less visible, here
who takes care
who is always casting an eye
who is process and turns
who has subtle demands
who is a soft soft power
who is a bystander by the curb and at the window
who moves meaning elsewhere
who is near mute
who is always around, whenever wherever
who gestures a circling back
who pollinates
who has something to say
who consumes subsumes and presumes
who speaks to aside, to a part
who is moved by a lack of something or other
who fills a gap
who calls