Philip Lee

A live body private performance with clay

In collaboration with Cally Trench

At the University of Westminster,

Harrow Campus 

29 January 2011

Blindfold Slip Privatetook place at the University of Westminster on 29th January 2011. 

BLINDFOLD SLIP & TIED SLIP PERFORMANCES

In October 2010 I made three public performances at three different venues - two in London and one in Hastings. All the performances involved my being blindfolded and covered in clay by Cally Trench, and lying on the floor.

The Blindfold Slip performances were reprised in January 2011 in private for a particular group of artists, at the University of Westminster.  This was followed by two further related performances: Tied Slip I  (at the National Glass Centre, University of Sunderland) and Tied Slip II (at the Firestation Centre for Arts and Culture in Windsor), both in April 2011.

While I am blindfolded and covered in clay slip in all six performances they are different in other ways. The action varies in complexity and violence throughout the series.  My intention was also to allow the first to influence the second and the second to influence the third and so on.

Endurance

Endurance, rather than suffering, has been an essential element of all my performances.  More recently an element of punishment has been present in my performances.  It is the transformative effect of endurance that I am interested in. There are a number of precedents: I hated being dirty as a child, and sand in my feet or anywhere on my body was not welcome.

Do you remember or weren't you there?

Cally Trench and I are planning a to curate an exhibition 'Do you remember or weren't you there?' of work made in response to one of my performances.

For the Blindfold Slip series of performances documentation was a priority because I wanted to present the work as developmental research for the PhD project. The performances were documented in the usual way but I also asked artists working in a range of media to make 'work in response' to one or more of the performances and these will form an important element of their documentation. In order to avoid these artists thinking I want them to document the performance I have been careful to explain that this is not what I want them to do. Instead I have asked them to make their own work.