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Another One and Other Blog

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

Another One and Other Blog 22 August 2009

I’ve copied the text below.
‘The plinth has changed my life’
00:10 GMT, Sunday, 23 August 2009

The Edinburgh Festival has taken over my life. Completely. I have had a show running since the start of the festival (’Funny’) and on Monday there will be the first performance of ‘Tank Man’ that was written on the plinth during ‘One and Other’.

‘Tank Man’ is a short piece, it’s ended up at around 12 minutes, performed by a single female actor. From the script written on the plinth I’ve developed it in rehearsal with Gillian Lees, a talented and intelligent performer who I’ve worked with before on a number of projects. Gillian is great! Tank Man is derived from our knowledge of the man who stopped the tanks near Tiananmen Square during the Beijing protests of 1989.

I am very pleased with Tank Man. It has an intensity that reflects the intense experience of writing on the plinth. When I look at my notebook I am still surprised by how much I managed to write in that hour. I wasn’t even writing for the full hour as I signed off at the point when I knew I had a beginning, a middle and an end – and spent the remainder of my time happily toasting the health of members of the crowd with a fine single malt whisky.

Tank Man isn’t particularly political or intended as a campaigning statement. It is me playing around with ideas of what makes a hero and how that is remembered. The real Tank Man was someone who apparently acted without forethought or plans. He appeared to be on his way home from the shops. He wasn’t armed and there was no indication that he had even been in the protests that had occurred in Tiananmen Square during the weeks before. From his demeanour and dress it is very unlikely he had been in the protests the day before that had ended in bloodshed. Most commentators think it is unlikely he was a student; more likely is that he was a menial office worker or something similar. All he carried was a light jacket and a plastic carrier bag, that appeared to contain some groceries. From his actions that lasted no more than a few minutes he became one of the heroes of the twentieth century.

I don’t want to describe too much of what happens in the performance as I think people should draw their own conclusions from seeing it themselves. It will be filmed next week and I hope I can get a video that represents it well enough for it to be put on YouTube.

I know very well that Tank Man would have been a very different piece if it had been written elsewhere, certainly different from something I would have written at my desk. I’m not even sure that Tank Man would have been written at all if it had not been for the opportunity I had on the plinth. That experience was not just the act of being on that stage for a short while, it was an engagement with ideas of celebrity, performance, public endorsement, public art and the purpose of monuments. All of those things contributed to how I wrote about the Tank Man.

There is no statue to the real Tank Man like the ones for military and political leaders in Trafalgar Square. There are, however, many monuments to him using the famous pictures and videos of him standing in front of the long column of tanks

So the plinth has had an impact on my life, and my work. The project is clearly having an impact on many other lives as well, and not just the plinthers themselves. I’ve said it before, and I shall say it again – I hope a way is found to document the impact ‘One and Other’ is having on those experiencing it.

If you are at the Edinburgh Festival details of the free performances of Tank Man on 24, 25 and 26 August can be found here:  Tank Man Dates

P.S. I’ve been away for a while and come back to discover there are polls running on the One and Other site and by SkyArts on Twitter for ‘favourite’ plinthers. I think that is totally rubbish and contrary to the expectation of participants not to be judged. Please stop it.

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On and off the plinth

Saturday, July 18th, 2009
This is a repost of my blog entry on the One and Other website. The original is at:
4pm last Saturday (11 July) I did my hour, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed walking around the plinth for a while beforehand, the preparations with the hospitable and efficient staff, the journey on the JCB, the hour itself, the journey back, dinner with friends in London and getting back home to Glasgow to tell the story again (and again and again). I can honestly say that the whole experience was quite beautiful.
Now, you may think that this is a bit effusive and even sycophantic, perhaps uncritical. Well, there’s a reason for my enthusiasm which is surprise. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the project after becoming somewhat skeptical in the first week. I had a fear that ‘One and Other’ could become submerged in the notion of the ‘15 minutes’ and this was the plucked-from-obscurity-plinthers opportunity for fame. I was worried that the plinth could become the stage of an arty ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. I am not being so snobbish as to say that BGT is inherently bad, but I don’t believe it be justified in the way that One and One has been. I had seen plinthers being mocked on the internet by idiots and the phrase ‘Dance Monkey Dance’ repeatedly featuring on Twitter. Of course there has been warmth and congratulation on Twitter and other internet forums but the ugliness sometimes whips into a frenzy. I also saw some plinthers being rewarded for showmanship in a way that could have caused a de facto obligation for all plinthers to become performers providing brash entertainment. That last concern was a disappointment for me as I love to celebrate the silly costumes, fund-raising, crowd-raising or awareness-raising initiatives that were always inevitable. But not at the expense of those who go to the plinth with just themselves. I haven’t had the chance to see the Sky Arts highlights programme but I sincerely hope the editorial choices reflect a the balance of activity on the plinth and not just the dramatic and camera friendly.
So what changed on the day? The first thing was that as I walked toward the occupied plinth for the first time I realised I had been sucked into thinking that the broadcast version of the event was more important than the reality.  Maybe it does have a significance but nowhere near that of the live experience, not even close. I then felt the warmth of the crowd for the project. There was curiosity, some cynicism, jokes, lunches being eaten and general hub-bub. It was great. Clearly the 24/7 plinth experience is not like that, I was there on a pleasant Saturday afternoon in July, but I felt something of what I believe is the actual wider response to the project. And it was good.
Then my turn on the plinth. I had prepared to write and that’s what I did for most of my time. This was a unique opportunity to write (what I do for a living) a piece that I suspected would benefit from this crazy context. It was an intense experience and the writing reflected that intensity. I wrote fast and with a great deal of emotion, although I’m afraid there might not have been much to watch at the time. While writing I was observing the crowd and was feeding off some of the comments shouted up to me. I looked at the square and remembered past events that also fed the writing. I wrote an end to the piece and decided to stop writing. There’s enough there for us to take into rehearsal and make a performance piece so that’s a success in my books.
The remaining 10-15 minutes I shared with the crowd, drinking toasts from a hip flask of very fine 12 year old Bruichladdich single malt whisky. People in the crowd shouted suggestions to me and I was very pleased to toast some birthdays, campaigns and events. Those minutes were fun and funny. I also toasted the love of my life, Katherine, who anyone who was watching will now know that I love very much indeed.
I learnt and had some things confirmed to me in that hour. Firstly, that I was happy to be a volunteer in someone else’s art. At the end of the project I will have been one of a large number and pleased to be exactly that. Secondly that a collective strength of character will maintain the integrity of the project despite media pressure and internet idiots. Thirdly…
I could go on listing loads of things but I’ll cut to the chase. The big thing that I learnt at first hand is that this isn’t a live ’sculpture’. This is a dynamic piece of art and the people on the plinth are not just part of the process, or simply on display, they are also the audience. When you are on the plinth you suddenly surrounded by a stage and you are the observer as well as the subject. 2399 people will share that experience and I hope many more will share that experience indirectly. And not just on the plinth, before and after I experienced beautiful and ugly interactions that only happened because of One and Other.
I was skeptical about the claims of One and Other becoming a survey or snapshot of Britain. Now I think there could be intriguing results but not with a goldfish bowl relationship to the plinthers. I suspect that the most interesting results will happen in a more dynamic way and from looking out as well as in. There might not be a final picture from One and Other but lots of questions about how we see ourselves.
So, I have a suggestion for Antony Gormley. We were all interviewed before we went on the plinth and clearly that was a good thing. That was the survey bit. Interview us again afterwards. That would be the art bit.

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