Saturday, 9 Feb 2008

Writers for

We Need to Talk about Live Art

are: Tim Atack, Rachel Lois Clapham, Mary Patersonand Theron Schmidt.We’re here to spark debate and stimulate conversation. Each writer’s opinions are personal,

unltered, unspun and not necessarily shared by the group.Disagree? Leave your comments at the front desk, contact us at www.writingfromliveart.co.uk, or

come talk to us at the NRLA.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is an independent project and is not afliated with the National Review of Live Art.

Saturday9 Feb 2008

page 1

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is a writer-led initiative made possible by support from

www.writingfromliveart.co.uk

www.liveartuk.com

This is the verse

Harminder Singh Judge,

Live Sermon

(Tramway 4)8 February 2008

Harminder Singh Judge emerges from the void,blue-faced and barefoot, clad in a sarong, asmall speaker wedged fast within his mouth,tight against his palate, far back enough to beuncomfortable, deep enough to make breathingsomething of an issue, a sole wire dropping

from the curve of his lip and across his barechest, whilst from this obtrusive speaker a deep-

voiced chant is crackling, guttural yet pure,

clear of purpose, beautiful but basically forceful,

and as Judge exes the muscles of his throat inorder to swallow, the edges of his mouth warpthe essential formants of the song, and there

is a voice in his throat, and it is not his own,and after a short time there is another voice

in his throat, and it is also not his own, higher,quietly ecstatic, and even though we mightnot be able to decipher the precise tongue, it

is undeniably a sermon, delivered with theclarion call of spiritual truth, self-evident, words

falling like dominoes, spiralling away in pre-ordained sequences, rising to god, reaching toyou, feeling for your collar, wanting to hold your hand, and Judge is its vessel, beneath a singlespotlight, head tilted back, in the service of whatever it is you care to imagine, however you

picture it, hands clasped at his sides and the

knuckles occasionally twitching, eyes full of ahalf-dead resolution, a general acceptance, like

he does this all the time, like he does this all the

fucking time, standing in this moonfull of milk,

this white roundel, altar, temple, tabernacle, this

slight ablution, holy river, petri dish, just enoughto contain him, a pool of liquid and light, the rest

of the room dark, the rest just void, void but foryou and me, we the attendees, the tourists,

acolytes, heathens, gawpers and hangers-on,the uninitiated, the unenlightened, wondering

at this ceremony, not quite with it, not informed

enough to be against it (the words not makingsense) every gesture or every lack of gesturemeaning

something

, a million stories falling

Sparking Debate. Stimulating Conversation. Supporting Artists. Taking LiveArt Seriously.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is a daily, ash publication printed about NRLA events and for NRLA

readers.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

writers will respond to work during each day of the NationalReview, and publish it the day after. We are not afliated with the National Review of Live Art, but

we’re here to start conversations and support the work shown.

You can nd our publications every day, at the Tramway Arts Centre, from 2pm onwards.

Writers for

We Need to Talk about Live Art

are: Tim Atack, Rachel Lois Clapham, Mary Patersonand Theron Schmidt.We’re here to spark debate and stimulate conversation. Each writer’s opinions are personal,

unltered, unspun and not necessarily shared by the group.Disagree? Leave your comments at the front desk, contact us at www.writingfromliveart.co.uk, or

come talk to us at the NRLA.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is an independent project and is not afliated with the National Review of Live Art.

Saturday9 Feb 2008

page 2

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is a writer-led initiative made possible by support from

www.writingfromliveart.co.uk

www.liveartuk.comWriters for

We Need to Talk about Live Art

are: Tim Atack, Rachel Lois Clapham, Mary Patersonand Theron Schmidt.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is an independent project and is not afliated with the National Review of Live Art.

off this static gure like leaves, memories andimages oating to the ground around his feetlike an autumn blanket of everything you thought

about every church you ever went to, every

shrine, pagoda and dagobah, every homily

you made, every time you took your hat off and

walked backwards from the cross, image uponimage, the sing-song monk in the undergroundtemple outside Matara, the amplied distortedcall to prayer wafting across Chinatown inSingapore, the candles and offerings bobbing

in the water off Copacabana beach as new

year strikes, the serene icons regarding you

inscrutably, the portals to the places you’ll neversee, because you were not of it and you werenot in the loop, because instead you were on

the phone, or down the pub, or watching TV,or driving down the motorway listening to theradio and whilst you were doing that, he was

here

, under the light, the speaker in his mouthand the intertwining tones gently distortingupon his prone tongue, whilst you were ridingyour bike, kissing your boyfriend / girlfriendor having a laugh or at the bar or queuing to

see some other show or whatever the fuck it

was you were doing, Judge was here, carryingthe sermon, suffering for it, whatever, but notin that self-aggrandising agellant way, not in

that fakir way, not in that forty days in the desert

way you keep hearing so much about, no, thisis the quiet suffering, this is the downtime when

your voices are not your own, when you’re just

another cog in the machine, because that’s the

ritual, that’s what the ritual does, wheels within

wheels, one cog turning another, ritual makes it

look easy, makes it look simple, a simple action

to keep the sun rising, a simple action to stopyour soul from dropping off the edge, becauseit’s just something that has to be done isn’t it,bricks in the wall, shoring up against death, andyou wonder how long he can last up there, youwonder if the breathing is exponentially difcult,phlegm and saliva coagulating around the littlemagnet where his wordsshould be, oesophagusheld open, eyes blinkingin the heat of the light

above, do the tinnydistortions of each word

begin to hurt more, doeshe feel it as the night

wears on, feet rooted, amonolith, a blue-facedstatue worn by the windof the stare from every

pair of eyes in the room, shaving off his edges,blurring his boundaries, making him somethingelse, then, like a sigh, his head tilts forward, thetones on his face darkening purple and grey,and gobbets of liquid trail the length of that cable

like ectoplasm and you know it’s done, you cansee the milk-white footprints as he returns to

the void, but you also know he’s going to returnonce you’re gone, because if there’s one thing

you’re certain of it’s that he does this all thetime, and he does this all the time, and he doesthis all the time, and he does this all the time.

written by Tim Atack

Feeling Queer

Qasim Riza Shaheen,

Queer Courtesan

(Stable 4)8 February 2008

As I stand in the waiting area for my one to one

with Qasim Riza Shaheen, I watch a live relay of

the person in front of me currently having his one

to one inside the darkened performance space.He doesn’t know I can see him. He doesn’tknow his session with the