Connotations Performance Images 1994-1998, 1998

‘The photographs in the series Connotations - Performance Images are constructed images intended to explore the role of documentation in performance. The photographs in the series were staged and performed by myself with most of the images being taken by the photographer Casey Orr over a week in the summer of 1998. The dates, locations, photographers and contexts for the performances cited in the text panels are fictional. In all instances the action had to be performed for the photograph but did not take place within the circumstances or places outlined in the supporting text. 

 As a form, performance is often mediated through the documentary image, video, film, text or by word of mouth and rumour. With so few existing networks for the distribution of performances works, it is the image and its supporting text that is given precedence in publications on the subject, creating a handful of historical performances that have become notorious through their own documentation, leaving others behind that have not made the translation into the single image.

Connotations - Performance Images was made as a way to understand how the documentary performance image works in relation to text, as well as creating the context to make work for which there was, at that time, no practical forum. The images chosen for this series of documents aim to evoke ideas beyond the photograph and reflect the ambiguity implicit in attempts to document (capture) a performance within a photograph. The document replaces the performance: the camera authenticates the activity in its position as witness and the photographic image stands in place of the performance and becomes the work itself. When supported by other information such as dates, location, and use of materials, duration and description of events these images provide the forensic link to communicate ideas that occurred within the live performance to a non-live situation.’ (Hayley Newman, 2001)

Scroll down for a selection of works from the series.

For more information on Connotations Performance Images 1994-1998 see my PhD Locating Performance: Textual Identity and the Performative. The complete work is contained in volume three.

Crying Glasses (An Aid to Melancholia)

 1995

On public transport in Hamburg, Berlin, Rostock, London and Guildford

 Photo: Christina Lamb

Over a year I wore the crying glasses while travelling on public transport in all the cities I visited. The glasses functioned using a pump system which, hidden inside my jacket allowed me to pump water up out of the glasses and produced a trickle of tears down my cheeks. The glasses were conceived as a tool to enable the representation of feelings in public spaces. Over the months of wearing the glasses they became an external mechanism which enabled the manifestation of internal and unidentifiable emotions.

Spirit

31 October 1995

 Soho, London

 Photo: Kerry Baldry

Bass in a Space

David Cunningham and Hayley Newman

15 March 1997

Studio Gallerie, Budapest

Photo: Hayley Newman

A Large PA system was placed in a small room, playing back slowed down sound containing frequencies as low as the equipment would tolerate (the size of the room was inversely proportional to the size of the PA). The crack in the wall appeared at 1.30pm, 3 hours and 30 minutes into installation time.

Human Resources

6 April 1998

Obero Offices, Montreal

Photo Sylvie Gilbert

Over a 9 – 5 working period I sat in the offices of Obero and captured my breath in over 3,000 plastic sandwich bags. During the period, breaks totalling one and half-hours were taken for lunch and tea. The work was an attempt to quantify and produce a visual record of the amount of breath breathed out during a working day.

You Blew My Mind

Studio Photograph 1997

Photo: Casey Orr

Blow Out

Studio Photograph 1997

Photo: Casey Orr

Occasionally Groovy

4 January 1997

Demonstration; Kunst und Teknik, Berlin

Photo: Bam Hühnerkopf

Occasionally Groovy was a 12-inch record customised to produce sounds from both digital and analogue sources. Made by sticking a matt black template with holes cut out of it to the underside of a clear vinyl record the altered disc was placed upon a raised record deck with a light source comprising of a series of fairy lights beneath it.

A light sensor attached to the arm of the record produced a sound as light passing through the record hit the sensor. Sound was also created in the normal manner of needle in groove. These two differing sources were played simultaneously: the sound of the original disco music on the record playing alongside the quickening rhythmic interruption of light hitting the sensor on the arm of the player.

The Visit

10 October 1997

Rootless, Beverley

Photo: Casey Orr

Wearing the world’s first punk sleeping bag, I appeared ‘hanging out’ in and around Beverley, not doing anything in particular. The bag was covered in zips, which allowed me to extend my arms and legs through its various orifices.

Over the day, whilst inside the bag, I visited local shops to buy bread, cheese, fruit and soft drinks. At lunchtime I opened up the sleeping bag, laid it out in the market square, had a picnic on it, read a book and then zipped myself up again.

Head

Studio Photograph 1997

Photo: Casey Orr

Lock-jaw Lecture Series

1997-1998 Lectures given at Chelsea College of Art, Middlesex University, Sheffield Hallam University and Dartington College of Art

Photo: Jonny Byars

Over the period of a year I was invited to give a series of lectures on my work. Before each lecture I visited a local dentist and had my mouth anaesthetised. With my mouth made immobile, I gave my feeblest apologies to the students and staff before attempting to talk on my work.

Exploding LEGO

1 September 1997

Oxford Street, London

Photo: Iris Garalf

I was asked to produce a musical event for the launch of the new radio station Xfm. I chose to work with the group London Electric Guitar Orchestra (LEGO) in organising a simultaneous busking event. During the event members of LEGO were asked to busk an identical song in unison with one another along the length of Oxford Street in London. Using radio transceivers and receivers to maintain contact with each other LEGO were placed at 30 metre intervals along the north side of Oxford Street, where they played an hour long concert.

Pedestrians experienced the concert as individual parts, walking in and out of the various sound fields as each busker they passed played a continuation of the segment that they had previously heard. The sound of the whole concert was assimilated and broadcast live on Xfm.

LEGO guitarists: John Bisset, Steve Mallaghan, Rick Nogalski, Ivor Kalim, Nigel Teers, Viv Doogan, Jorg Graumann, Richard Sanderson.

Football Audio Cup

21 June 1998

Shoreditch Biennial, London

Photos: Casey Orr

A reconstruction of the notorious 100th FA Cup final between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. The match ended in a draw when Manchester City’s Tony Hutchinson scored for both sides. The 1-1 draw forced the first ever replay at Wembley.

This reconstruction of the 1981 FA Cup Final was replayed in real time using a customised football and two teams. During the game the players adhered to and repeated the actual events by following an audio recording of the match’s original radio commentary, which was playing back from within the football itself.

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Tottenham Hotspur: 1 L Price; 2 B Gilchrist; 3 G Newman; 4 K Reynolds; 5 L Taylor; 6 R Withers; 7 S Hart; 8 A Newman; 9 B Williams; 10 R Waring; 11 L Harvey.

Manchester City: 1 J Bichard-Harding; 2 C Shillitoe; 3 S Cope; 4 R Silverman; 5 C Morgana; 6 Tinsey; 7 L Watts; 8 D Clegg; 9 D Guerro Miracle; 10 H Newman; 11 A Rachmatt; Referee: M Thompson