POLARI PUPPET PERFORMED FOR OPAF 18 Sunday 20th Dec 5pm UTC/GMT

Sunday 20th Dec 5pm UTC/GMT  'But more than a self-portrait – a triptych of multiple ‘I’s: me ‘speaking through’ the finger, me speaking with my back turned and me on the tape recorder' Watch here:  http://www.onlineperformanceart.com

A live performative reading of a text about ventriloquism delivered via Zoom that really pushes Zoom’s visual aesthetics as a means to frame, act as a visual container and play with different levels of order and chaos through the visual confinement achieved. With my back turned to audience and operates like a screen/projection surface. A tape recorder acts as an extension of my body and offers another set of voices to that of mine performing and other voices heard elsewhere. Green screen effect employed with a constant repetitive video being played ‘projected’ onto my back gives the impression of text superimposed over my body, that I am wearing text like a garment, that of a body that has been layered with fragments of text/fragments of history. Reading me as well as hearing me. A recent viewer suggested that my turned back appears almost demonic. Whilst it could be said to turn one’s back on an audience is a deliberate act to conceal oneself or block the audience, that’s not what is happening here either. 

The text was written by me to accompany the exhibition Radical Ventriloquism which I curated earlier this year at Kelder Projects, London. The reading operates as a self-portrait of  all different levels of me; on the tape recorder, me speaking with back turned and me reading that disintegrates and gets mashed up by the end. A collision between me reading a lecture and reacting to the sounds of (my voice but distorted) gay slang Polari on shuffle there and then. But more than a self-portrait - a triptych of multiple ‘I’s: me ‘speaking through’ the finger, me speaking with my back turned and me on the tape recorder. Only some people can understand the Polari slang and therefore makes you think about who the audience is in terms of levels of understanding. The finger that appears just above my shoulder reveals a split personality – saying things through the language of Polari that maybe I dare not say directly. 

The audience is never sure what is live, what is pre-recorded and what is playback of what has been recorded during the live performance. Pre-recorded sounds playing in the background on iTunes shuffle which I react to there and then in the moment of liveness. Some viewers of documentation of the performance have mentioned that they are completely unaware that they were watching documentation of a live performance. Some have suggested that the writing on my back is happening live too.  Whilst the green screen background acts a base, each live iteration containing so many levels of improvisation means that the performance can never be repeated twice.