| Tract Live A rt |
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| Site specific live art and performance in and around Penzance, Cornwall, over three weekends. Summer 2006 | ||||||||||
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| Information on this site will be updated as part of the Tract Live Art Programme | ||||||||||
Sarah
Jane Pell
Saturday
22 July
The
work of Australian Live Artist/ Occupational Diver Sarah Jane Pell explores
the psychological states and physical
conditions experienced underwater as new work of live art. Pell has
established an reputation through a series of
signature Aquabatics performances that are provocative, innovative and
seductive engagements with water.
Her work has been exhibited and performed in Australia, Europe, Scandinavia,
Asia and most recently the US.
Aquabatics focuses on the nexus between occupational diving and contemporary
performance practice, and the
ideas that have grown out of an experimental process of exploring life
support systems conjured up by experiences
with aqueous environments.
The artist has, however, also consistently produced works dealing with
a range of interests in other media, including
land-based installations of pneumatic technologies and the art of manipulating
systems through biotechnologies and
beamed spaces.
Pell's academic work addresses the mediated forms of experience and
habitation wet and dry central to her practice
and interest in, and investigation of, biological, ecological, technological,
metaphysical, aquatic, political
and societal states of being. Pell submitted a PhD to ECU, Western Australia
(2005) leading to a prestigious scholarship
from the International Space University, Strasbourg to continue research
on Artificial Environments & Artificial Life from
Space for Earth. (2006-7).
See: www.sarahjanepell.com
http://myprofile.cos.com/spellart
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HYDROPHILIA:
Performed & devised by Sarah Jane Pell
This performance stems from a desire to see if it is possible to elicit
an 'Aquabatic consciousness' from a land-based
position. Can a field of pneumatoses* be generated in the space through
a ritual, mediated performance? *Pneumatoses:
air cavity, space of breath, breathing, spirit. The artist's head is fitted
with a custom-made surface-supplied breathing
apparatus (SSBA) called an "Oyster". The name of the helmet
is derived from the codename of the two Perspex hemispheres
that have been welded and moulded together to form the basic shape. These
two 'oyster' size Perspex spheres are more
commonly used as the protective shells covering outdoor surveillance cameras.
During the performance the "Oyster" is filled
with 20-30lts of Saline, flooding the body's sinus cavities whilst the
artist draws breath from a small umbilical. The artist
uses concentration and meditation to control the epiglottal at the back
of her throat to prevent drowning.
“In Hydrophilia, the priori status of posttraumatic body technicity
could be described as ‘sub human’ and requiring
intensive care” Pell, 2006.
SubCulture:
Tranquillity Base: a laboratory exploring sub space
This project has been supported by a BEAPworks Research & Development
Grant made possible
by ArtsWA through the Australia Council: the Australian Government Arts
& Advisory Service and Lotteries West.
Provocation:
tract 1n.
An expanse of land or water.
Anatomy:
A system of organs and tissues that together perform a specialized function:
the respiratory tract.
A bundle of nerve fibers having a common origin, termination, and function.
Archaic. A stretch or lapse of time.
Premise:
Pell proposes that:
The Aquabatic body is inclusive of the human body and a body of water.
Aquabatics suggests the sovereignty to the self be resigned to concentrate
the body of water.
SubCulture: Tranquillity Base
Sarah Jane Pell intends to perform Aquabatics in the Jubilee Pool. With
community consultation, Pell hopes to first learn how
to inhabit the historic tract in Penzance to create a temporary subspace
habitat and then explore how to keep in touch and send
signs of life back home.
The open-laboratory process asks:
Could two bodies (one human and one tract) interpenetrate and interdepend
to constitute a perfect morphological and physiological
unit, which together, performs a new specialized function?
Moreover, how can this transmission of energies affect the body, the tract
and the audience?
Divers, bathers, desecrators, admirers and survivors who have had previous
encounters with the Jubilee Pool are asked to help
Pell prepare by sharing their experience: tract@sarahjanepell.com
SubCulture will be streamed to the John Curtin Gallery, Perth by live
dive cam and underwater photographer Emma Critchley
(UK) for the BEAP Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth Research & Development
Exhibition. See www.beap.org
SubCulture is an opportunity to continue developing a critical language,
communityÊand context for future underwater
performance and Wet Extreme Environment Performance WEEP research.
The other performers in the first weekend of Tract Live art tended to look to the past for inspiration. Sarah Jane Pell, on the other hand seemed to draw on an uncertain technological future, and all the tension, paranoia and anxiety that goes with this.
Sarah’s performance in Newlyn harbour started late in the evening. Fittingly, the dark night sky gave her performance an expansive and anonymous backdrop. Those who attended found Sarah dressed in black, urgently briefing an entourage of technicians and assistants under a spotlight, standing on the roof of the cabin of a large boat.
On her head was a clear Perspex sphere, like a giant goldfish bowl, that was filled slowly with saline solution. The process was amplified by a microphone so that the harbour resounded with gurgling noises. Sarah breathed by means of a small mouthpiece and as the sphere filled and became heavier her face became more and more distorted.
Once full it was hooked onto a wire so it was supported, and Sarah attempted to achieve a state of tranquillity and calm, before the sphere was once again emptied of water. She was then wrapped in survival blankets and driven off in the back of a van.
There was little that was comforting or reassuring about this performance. At one level, whilst inside the sphere, Sarah was stripped of her humanity. Gagged by the water, she could not speak or breath properly, and could only communicate using hand gestures. There was also the ever-present possibility of drowning which added tension, and made the audience complicit in an act that was potentially dangerous.
There was no easy reading of this work. Whilst the context of the harbour seemed to bring out certain obvious maritime themes, these were less important than the seductive and fetishistic visual impact it made, together with the feeling of unease it induced in the audience. This unease was undoubtedly a manifestation of some of the deep-seated fears that it tapped into.
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