Remote Performances
Remote Performances
2014
In 2014 I was invited to return to Outlandia—an off-grid, artists’ tree house and field-station, in Glen Nevis, run by London Fieldworks—to take part in Remote Performances, a weeklong series of events and broadcasts involving 20 artists, musicians and writers as well as the London based Resonance FM radio station. As well as constructing a second ‘nest’ titled Generic Highland Hybrid Host II, I made a series of related performance interventions. My, Cuculus Prospectus: Nesting Materials Archive provided valuable reference data on New World nesting materials and the 14 host species (‘common’ to both Old and New World) and specifically served as a resource to shape and define all actions and interventions undertaken during my Outlandia residency. Devices of mimicry and masquerade were tested in ‘the field’ whilst developing performative actions, imitating calls made by the 14 ‘common’ cuckoo hosts using a ‘boatswain’s’ whistle. These ‘sound actions’ explored proposed colonial aspirations of Cuculus Prospectus from a nautical and militaristic perspective via an untranslatable human methodology and device (in much the same way as was explored in How to Speak: The Breeding Birds of the United Kingdom).
A Highland Survey
2014/5
Media: video
Duration: 04.09 (web version)
Size: dimensions variable
Video link: https://vimeo.com/192772776
In A Highland Survey (2014/5) whistling actions took place at locations appropriate to the breeding habit of the host bird. A sense of ‘searching’ within more and less wild places was manifest by the appearance of a solitary figure, sending messages across cultural and species divides. In this film, the human translation of bird calls sound more like Morse code than an animal utterance. However, in some scenes, birds (occasionally even the species being mimicked) can be heard 'answering back'!
A Boatswain's Call to Arms, 2014/5
Media: video
Duration: 02.11
Size: dimensions variable
Video link: https://vimeo.com/189922711
Two more films introduced a 'suit’ or 'uniform' of grey overalls with feathers attached where the performer occupies an uncertain identity that hovers uncomfortably between militaristic improvisation and the shamanic. A Boatswain's Call to Arms uses the same whistle systematically to blow the calls of common New and Old World hosts. This suggests attempts to 'rally' imagined and fictive hosts to join in a maritime venture.
Remote Manoeuvres, 2014/5
Media: video
Duration: 03.02
Size: dimensions variable
Video link: https://vimeo.com/189922568
In Remote Manoeuvres a range of whistles produced for varying 'human' applications, were systematically demonstrated. Here, orchestral imitations of the cuckoo and nightingale could be heard alongside whistles used to organise and discipline, as well as those made for hunting, mimicking both birds and mammals. Human distress whistles completed the set.