My Imagined Cityscape on a Postcard

WHAT IS A CITY 

When I think of describing my city on a post card my initial thoughts begin with a film clip from Bladerunner, a 24 hour futuristic Metropolis.

It is also coupled with research into - 

Cities : A philosophical enquiry by Frank Cunningham.  

These starting points belong to other people but evoke within me trains of thought -

What would my city feel like?

It would seem at the moment I am a vessel whose mind has been ignited and this piece of writing holds within it an answer both imagined and real.

I am two Cities twinned in the womb of Jerusalem and Babylon
Fathered by mortal people and Zeus like Gods

I breath closeness and indifference

gardened with incoherence 

finding coherence

in moving, peopled arcades 

that twist and turn 

real and imagined 

language terrorists in a wingedscape,

Galloping 

always changing

never still.

I, Atlantis of NEon lights

in the City of Sun

of mothers working the streets

of Coke Cola + pimps

electricity hums in the darkness

through the broken windows of our lives 

like a light bulb waiting for the dawn.

NEon cities fizzle and spark

Schizophrenic 

and feels good in a puff of smoke as they explode

I drink NEon 

I am pink and blue and wear Kodak and Fuji tattooed across my bosom as I flicker in the eternal night.

Experimental Film

First Curated Object 

Cura 100

Cubist Light Play 3

GYMotion 1

Francesca Steele's Platform P Performance Interview Nebula 3

BAS7 Newspaper

& 

The Live Art Almanac Volume 3:

Live Art Development Agency

ROOM 402

BAS7 Fringe Event Platform P

Interview Q&A with Performance Artist Francesca Steele and personal audience responses.

Didge Dowley and Jessica Young

Francesca Steele is a Performance Artist with a difference! She is a body builder who has developed a one-to-one routine that challenges many of the parameters of conventional performance. She was one of the many Artists participating in an exciting BAS7 fringe event held in the corridors, bars and various rooms of The Duke of Cornwall hotel in Plymouth this November.

Her piece elicited quite a response so we decided to talk to her about it.

We also heard from some of the audience about their reactions.

Francesca Steele in action at the NABBA West Britain 2010 Photograph courtesy of the Artist 

© Simon Keitch. 

D: Could you give us an idea of what you do?

F: Single screen video works, installation and performance have been the main part of my practice for quite a while now. My performance always takes the form of one-to-ones. I’ve been bodybuilding specifically as Art practice since October 2008 and as part of that I’ve competed in 5 competitions. I did that just to set myself goals, because it’s quite a long process; a long and hard process, which I had to completely change my lifestyle to do. I’m currently Miss West Britain. I’m also fifth in the UK in my class competing-wise. 

Most of my last performances have in some way contained things that I’ve brought from bodybuilding, some of the stuff from competing; the hard or soft body, the seven compulsory poses, I tend to use some of those and proximity - how close or far away I am from the audience member. I also use mirrors.  Its kind of been in my work for years. Touch is a recent thing. I think I’ve become more skilled at doing it all. You build on the last performance because you know instantly when you’re doing it whether it actually works or not. You can try out before hand, but you never really know whether or not the piece is going to function in the way that you intend it to...until you’re doing it. 

D: Does that cause you a lot of stress or is that an expectation?

F: You can try and plan things as much as you can, for your own reassurance I think. But actually when it comes to it there’s always a moment before you start performing when you just think ‘am I mad?’ and really question everything. It’s a funny procedure to go through,  but I’m really used to these elements now, these things that I have to go through to produce the work.

The piece that I performed at Platform P, which I did with an off season and kind of soft body, was more to do with the fetish side of bodybuilding, which is something that I’ve begun to have more experience of just through understanding how women that body build survive using it as a means of making money. They often offer muscle worship sessions. They do feats of strength, and that sort of stuff. That’s what this piece was about, taking more language from this culture with the intention of showing something of it in a one-to-one experience. 

D: I am interested to hear how you reacted to the experience of your performance, what was your emotional response and how did you prepare yourself for that.

F: I found this performance a bit different. Normally after I perform I kind of break down a bit, and have maybe a day or two of quite deep and sudden depression, and a bit of a feeling of shame. I cry a lot, and I remember the people I perform to. So it’s a process, and I’m always aware that this process is going to be there. There’s almost this collecting of experiences, and then a dip. I think it’s quite a lot to hold in my head and in my psyche. This performance was a more personal,  more interactive experience. I think that with it being a domestic transient environment of a hotel it made a big difference. It was just more relaxed and an ideal setting for this piece, making it uncomfortably close to the reality that inspired the work.

I didn’t cry afterwards and it’s one of the few times that I’ve actually felt a mixture between okay and uplifted. 

--------------------------------------------

AUDIENCE RESPONSES : 

In keeping with the Francesca’s desire to keep the identity of the audience anonymous.

..................................

Guilty... excited... A strange experience, completely different to anything I've ever witnessed. Hypnotising, VERY intimate, beautiful. 

It made me feel sort of nervous.    

..................................

Francesca's performance affected me deeply. It was powerful, original and provocative. One of the most interesting aspects for me was the way the she had set up the piece to blur the conventional roles. On entering the room I wasn't sure if I was meeting Francesca the woman, the performer or the character of a "bodybuilder-prostitute" (?) I wasn't sure either of my own role, of whether I was to react as a passive audience or to interact and if the latter whether that would be as myself, (the woman) or in the role of client that on one level I had unwittingly been cast in. This role felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

When she began her routine I found that I wasn't interested in in the aesthetic of Francesca's body (no offence) instead I I found myself mostly wanting to look into her face and I felt immensely sad. I was being taken into a world that I know exists but have had absolutely no experience of and all I wanted to do was say, "please stop it, you don't have to do that." 

There was one point quite early where Francesca flinched in pain. I asked her (Francesca  the woman) "are you okay?" There were other moments where she seemed  to be physically uncomfortable and playing a disempowered role, ironically contrasting with the strength and power of her muscles. 

When I left I found myself quite choked, the narrative in my head being the thousands of women worldwide forced or led somehow into some form of prostitution or simply sexually disconnected. Perhaps it was simply my own projection, perhaps it was an appropriate response to what Francesca (the artist) was trying to say, I don't know but certainly it was a performance I will carry with me for a very long time.

..................................

I was a bit nervous but after a while I relaxed, felt intrigued even aroused but not knowing what my role was in it all. I enjoyed it.

..................................

Francesca’s performance was an incredible experience that mixed intensity, uncertainty, playfulness and sensuality in equal measure. The hotel room - a space invested with cultural resonance and memory - was the perfect setting for the ambiguities and questions inherent in the work. I felt I was part of a performance in which my gaze was being invited and critiqued by an amazingly informed live artist.

..................................

Francesca Steele's one-to-one performance at Platform P on Saturday night was an intimate and extraordinary experience, which began before even entering the room; outside in the hushed, dim corridor, preparing yourself for the unknown. When the time came I was ushered quietly and gently into the room for Francesca's performance, which was unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and probably won't ever again. The experience was that initially of nervousness and anticipation, then upon entering the room of curiosity, fascination, shame, guilt; confusion about the role you should play, although the artist was certainly the dominant figure throughout.  Despite this though, Francesca gave out a sense of her own vulnerability, and also a gentle, non-verbal reassurance to the audience member.

A very different kind of performance, and an experience that left me thinking deeply about gender identity, the roles of dominance and submission, and actually quite a sad feeling that can’t really be described, but has certainly stayed with me since the event.

..................................

I am not sure what I was expecting when I booked a one to one performance with Francesca, but I found the whole thing challenging, interesting and very thought provoking. At times I was confused, shocked and surprised, but ultimately I was impressed. The setting really gave me an opportunity to look closely, which led to a deeper understanding of the situation and somehow made it more powerful. Her performance really asked questions about femininity and more specifically, what we expect from women. It also made me ask questions about myself and what my own preconceptions were. 

..................................

My encounter with Francesca Steele was filled with a number of conflicting and conflicted feelings. Sitting on a neatly placed towel at the end of a single bed, feeling (on one hand) like a slightly grubby business man in a hotel room, paying for company, on a trip away from home and (at the same time) reveling in the chance to be openly voyeuristic, to "look" and to be watched in my "looking".

Each moment I spend in this room, throws up new questions surrounding my sense of my own gender and the gender of the person who is standing in front of me. I'm also thinking about the gender of the person who is sitting outside, waiting to come in here next, unaware of what is going to happen. Thinking back, I am thinking about received opinion about the social and cultural ideas of 'male' and 'female' that I have encountered throughout my life, and how (as my life goes on), that these continue to become more confused, less defined or distinct - thinking about all the bits of 'me', 'you', 'us' and 'them' that have started to cross-over and become increasingly more jumbled.

Thing happen in this room that catch me off guard. I stand with my arm draped around Francesca's shoulder, looking into her eyes as she explains what will happen next and asks me to trust her and that I will need to 'want' to be lifted. I catch a glance of myself in the mirror as the dead Jesus from Michelangelo's Pietà (and simultaneously the alive, then dead, Angus Fairhurst in his re-working of the piece). I am also the bride being carried over the threshold of the new house, the damsel in-distress, the woman who has (literally) been swept off her feet. Before I know it, I am standing there, giggling with a mixture of nervous excitement, surprise, exhilaration and self-consciousness, unsure of whether it is time for me to go. Francesca gives me the slightest of nods, smiling to tell me it is ok and we say thank you to each other. I leave carefully, closing the door behind me.

.............................................

An emergency exit lit, neon, green, dark corridor, quiet and removed. Room 402 with questions, many questions ??????  Juxtapositions, jigsaw like, of me, I, as spectator, actor, actress, client, male, female, hetero, homo, asexual. 

Who or what am I? 

Who or what is she?

Artist, woman, teacher, mother, exposed, fragile, clenched, soft thick muscle, 

Illusive and darting persona’s born in this room dance through glass reflections and disappear in a surreal, yet familiar cinematographic reality.  I jump head long for a second into alternate realities and am confused, unsure, momentarily guilty 

.....................and full of questions, many questions.....

PART 2 : The Big Sneak Post Incognito Day

We are now on the second floor and find a secret room which houses a lift shaft and explore. Two old-fashioned suitcases sit precariously on top of hotel detritus. 

Tiara inquisitive and hungry moves quickly to satisfy her curiosity. 

It is awkward, heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. Time to find out is gone in a flash, we realise the lift mechanism is whirring and turning, somebody is on their way to discover our dastardly 'sneaky' deeds. 

We retreat and hurry off down the corridor and hoping we have not been sussed. There is a very large table and look busy searching through hundreds of wedding leaflets for the 'right' information. My 'business' disguise takes a back seat for a moment as I become a potential bride or groom and get swept away down an imaginary aisle. It becomes difficult to decide just which 'Happy' day I wish to purchase, what package will be suitable? The Monte Carlo Spider or the Rolls, Dark Chocolate Ganache or Steam Vanilla sponge Pudding?

A door clatters shut and behind us are footsteps.

I think it to obvious to turn around and look at who exactly it is, instead questions fire through my brain.  
"Are they hotel guests, a worker, chamber maid giant rabbit or miniature policeman? I feel myself praying as Tiara, true to form and disguise, calmly bursts into business jargon and I know we are safe because we are professional women on a mission to get to our meeting, via wedding package number 3, where the fax machine and Mr A. Sugar will be waiting.

Ornate large mirrors hang everywhere and I'm curious. 
"Are we being observed somehow from behind where the men sit in secret rooms, smoking and tired knowing we are guilty and waiting for us to crack under cross examination? 
I confront the potential gaze and think of good cops and bad cops.


In the corner of a darkened corridor a natural light beam, streams through a large peep hole in a locked door and Tiara wants to squeeze through like Alice.

We find our way back into the booty box case lift shaft. I look out for danger as Tiarra rummages. 

She extracts from inside a secret frame and a triumvirate of excitement and fear fill the space.

It no longer wishes to be a secret hidden away in a secret room, in a secret suitcase. It has never been handled before by this species and it feels uneasy under these manicured red fingertips and realises that it's closed existence is about to change and that a new world is waiting.

The Great Escape plan is being formulated, freedom will prevail and disguises are needed for this new being. It is too big to be hidden under our clothes. We find a wedding brochure to cover its naked back and head towards the revolving doors 
and pray...

(13m26s)

Is there anyone following us?

No, I  think it's okay.

That's amazing.

It's Masonic

How creepy is that.

They probably have meetings, secret meetings

and they have to hide it away.

We are going to need a drink.

I'm not sure I think so.

It's to do with....Men

Are we going to get into trouble?

No nobody saw us.

My microphone has slipped further even further down into my clothing and speech is recorded in snippets. We make our way to the safety of the car and again hide the acquisition in an enclosed space, protecting us from its hidden secret supposed power.
Moments pass and we discuss cult like behaviours explored in cinema and folk lore Morris men with sticks and bells who dance. I think of David Bowies's crotch and the surreal world of May poles and Flamenco.

We make our way back into the warmth of the hotel, Tiara holds the empty picture frame under her arm and as we enter bravely we whisper.. the dictaphone can no longer hear these hushed conversations but is able to pick up the sounds of sneaking; slamming doors, breathing, giggling, footsteps, voices, whispers and fear.

We are back to the room of Secrets to replace the picture powerless frame and are disturbed yet again by the elevator, steel wires whirring and pulling and Tiara is unable to finish the job. I hear the frame slide to the floor and see it in my minds eye, lying and exposed in the middle of the walkway. A walkway between elevator and exit door, a rhizome channel that connects the automaton workers who reside in the blank colourless dirty reality with this same wallpaper covered blank artificial colourless reality. 

Alarm bells ring silently in my head and I realise that they now have indisputable proof, proof that somebody somewhere has been sneaking.

That the outsiders must be found, hidden and sacrificed in one the hundreds of secret rooms, both above and below ground that lie behind the ornate mirrors.

Our hurried steps falter and slow as we look over our shoulders and see a large man appearing from the secret room. We swear and whisper and know that our time is up. We pretend that all is well and that we have time to make the meeting in the conference room. He is behind us and stealthily follows, we make it to the lift and head to the ground floor. As we reach the reception area he to arrives and we expect the worst. Our time is up and we will be arrested. Flight or fight responses express themselves in jerky body movements and unfinished sentences. We are unsure which way to turn so we just stand there and await the in inevitable. As he arrives at the desk he states clearly;

" There is a problem with my key, it won't open my door!"

Physical jerks and the air of uncertainty is replaced with sighs and relief, we head to the bar to recover from the shock and the pleasure of realising that it had been a case of mistaken identity on our part, not theirs.
How could that be? This place has a sense of humour and is playing with us. How could that man NOT have come out of the room in search for the picture frame culprits. Could he really have a room right next to the lift shaft? 
Luck is on our side today, no arrests and no sacrifices, just yet!

We immediately head back to secure our yet unexposed existence within these corridors by replacing and hiding the proof that we have been bad. The job is executed with precision and ease because we are getting good at this. It was a very close call and we still need time to recover so find sanctuary where we can rest and plan our next sneaky adventure. We are becoming braver and starting to push the limits of our exploration into visiting the lower ground floor where we REALLY should not be. 

Tiara searches through her tool kit and finds the notebook with prepared, "don't get kicked out, made up in advance lies," list and we select the best sentences.

1. I'm looking for the lounge, bar, toilets?

2. I've lost my room.

3. What floor am I on?

Number three is the best option as we can arrive 'accidentally' in the lift and look lost when we are approached. It is a great plan and will work if put to the test, there is an air of confidence around us as we head towards the ...................................................

Until that is we see the staring glass cleaning woman's husband with the waving hand staring and walking past at us in the corridor. 

The hubby man who knows, that we know, that he knows us .....

Tiara struggles with elevator door, it seems to be stuck and won't let us enter, the doors rattles


We panic a little! 


Is the Duke helping us or hindering us, does this place want us to stay or go?


We cannot escape, the lift door is.....!
Tiara catches him not waving this time but pointing and talking in hushed tones to another.
We have been sussed!

We turn away from the jammed door and forget the elevator and the

  "What floor is this?" 

line and scarper down the corridor toward freedom and the great outdoors.

and we do not look back..........

(55m03s)

PART 1 : The Big Sneak, post Incognito Day

Tiara Sherlock-Bond and Darstadley Devious- Daydreamer's Adventures in Duke 59

Here is a transcription of conversations and events as they happened, recorded with my secret miniature dictaphone. 

It is like any other day and yet at the very same time it is something quite, quite different.

Tiara Sherlock-Bond and Darstadly Devious prepare to do a 12 hour sneak in the Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth.

(I have just pulled up outside no. 50, home of wild cats in sinks and Tiara Sherlock-Bond. We are on a mission and discussions take off with lightening momentum in a bubble of giggles and girly grown-up-ness....)

T : Good morning.

D : Good Morning to you too, how are you doing?

T : Ah Good, thank you. 

We look like grown ups!

(We searched our wardrobes and travelling bags, and found in corners suits and boots and bras, makeup and tights and matching underwear.)

D : Sorry I'm late. Do you know why I'm late, shall I tell you?

T : Yes go on...I didn't wake up until I heard the txt you sent.

D : I'm late because I tried to put some earrings in..

I spent 10 minutes trying to get them in and I couldn't and I felt really ashamed because I thought about the woman who pierced her cheek. I could get the left one in, no problem but this one -

no way!

Surely  I can just push it through...Can't I?

(03m14s)

T : I am wearing earrings 

and I painted my nails this colour 

and I put on makeup 

like a girl. 

D : I did so much last night. I ironed 3 shirts none of which I am wearing.

I thought I 'd put on some mascara and eye shadow and curl my eyelashes. When I opened the mascara it was a green thing with a tiny little brush on the end and I thought 'what's that for? I can't use that, I'd end up painting each eyelash one by one so instead I just curled my eyelashes. Ami was talking to me, the clamper got stuck and out came my lashes.

The things we do....

The things we do.......

Some women do this everyday. 

This has been a horrible, horrible experience!

I thought it was really funny last night when you said " I've never looked smart before." 

I've been to interviews and I've always got the job just by smiling

I think its really funny that we have had to get smart because we are doing an Art thing, isn't that amazing, doesn't that just turn the world upside down.

It does, I mean thats the whole point isn't it because its quite an austere hotel that is rotting at the sides and thats what we're doing as well putting on this ridiculous facade and our eye lashes are falling out and we don't know how to look like grown ups and I forgot to shave my legs. 

Thats another reason why I'm late, there were just so many things to do!

(05.23s)

I got up at 6am, and said to Ami, "I got to go shower, eat my porridge and put my business suit on"

Ami groaned and wrinkled her brow then rolled over.

After I had wasted 10 minutes failing to re-pierce my ear I went into the kitchen and it was 7.19, I was 14 minutes late. 

I have my recorder on. I've secretly hidden it. I had to take my top off in the car whilst I was driving here, completely off so that I could strap the wires over my shoulder and under the shirt.

You are devious Darstadly, It's lucky you had your business bra on! 

I've got this peg so if your lapel clip doesn't work we can just peg the mic to you. 

I did wonder about that peg?

You can't go wrong with a peg, really.....................................................................................................

Your watch, you have a watch!

It doesn't work, it's stuck on 11.20. LOOK! And it's crooked. 

I am trying though!

Yes. You look like you need to know the time.

My watch would be crooked as well. I have a man's one I bought from the tranny shop. I have to put it on the tightest hole and it's still really loose.

My blouse is one of my mum's old work blouses.

I was searching, searching and searching and there it was glowing in the back of the wardrobe.

I found things in my wardrobe that I didn't even know I had.

I got a job in a pet shop once where we had to wear overalls and khaki trousers and steel, toe-capped boots. Then I worked at Blockbuster and my boss was really sexist. He referred to me as 'tits with a smile'.

No!

Yeah but he paid so it was fine. 

Oh my gosh that road is called Gooseberry lane.

Do you think that was because there were a lot of gooseberries there once once upon a time?

Possibly when there were still green things in Plymouth.

Are you nervous?

Kind of. When we get in just don't make eye contact with the receptionist! Pretend you know where you're going.

Right, are we both ready?

I just want to make sure I'm dressed correctly. Am I dressed correctly? Are you sure?

I wore matching underwear which is what grown-ups do, it's black. Look!

(I looked)

(11m28s)

Shit.

My blacks don't match

You look the part!

I'm nervous

 It's cold

God I'm freezing

Fucking freezing!

We are not going to be able to swear for 12 hours so lets get it out now.

Fuck

Tits

Shit

Shit

Shit

Wank and Balls

(We head towards the main entrance from the car park and notice a group of workers standing behind a large window, they stare at us......I think I recognise one of them?)

Oh Shit!

Shit! 

Shit!

 Thats the man that was that followed us last time we were here.

Fuck!

We are not recognisable, he didn't recognise us!

Did he?

But he did look, didn't he? 

Did you just look? 

Did you look at him?

Yeah

I kind of looked but I didn't look very well, 

Was he looking at us,

right at us?

He waved...

Ok.. 

He WHAT?

I think he waved...

NO!

(Worried our cover is already blown before we even get in, we arrive at the revolving doors and T thinks somebody has pissed on the pavement because we have to step over a small puddle.We look up and see a hanging basket....)

Are we going to hook a right or go straight on?

Just a.....

(My microphone slips and the recording becomes a little surreal and disjointed and the sound of the revolving doors takes on the character of a scratched record and jumps with the language.

I think er......

laughter and giggles)

I like that....

They're really sweet...

(Slamming door......Strangers walk by and we engage in 

'business speak')

.......on my fax machine....

Yes, yes the fax machine it's great.....

Alan Sugar....

meeting in the conference room, 

downstairs, 

we have plenty of time.

(We  find a large old-fashioned shoe-shine machine in one of the corridors, it looks industrial and broken but we decide to give it a go by turning it on at the mains, it makes a huge clattering sound and vibrates.

Tiara Sherlock-Bond screams 

We turn

 laugh

 scamper

  through the door and up the stairs

giggling 

with

hearts pounding)