Day Two

fur·tive

adjective /ˈfərtiv/ 

Attempting to avoid notice or attention, typically because of guilt or a belief that discovery would lead to trouble; secretive
- they spent a furtive day together
- he stole a furtive glance at her

Suggestive of guilty nervousness
- the look in his eyes became furtive

So here is a definition that we will use as a base point, a starting point and as a point whence we might return in case I get arrested or considered mentally unstable for the courts.

Over the past few days and for the majority of this creative research residence I will be referring to this definition. And while a large portion of my artistic practice in the past has embraced this concept, I am uncertain if my work might really be categorized as furtive; but rather under-documented. For me I feel that documentation is somewhat of a necessary evil in terms of funding agencies and in terms of providing a trace or ephemeral stain of what has occurred. I would put forth the supposition that at its core performance art is about story telling and this story telling; either through movement, audio, and visual cues and attributes; focus upon the sharing of ideas, thoughts, feelings and often (though, not always linear) narratives. I find that direct documentation changes the reading of a performance and that bystanders (potential co-participants, or maybe, less active participants)often then read the performance differently - as video work, as something theatrical, and not just documentation. It might seem odd but I am less bothered by strangers video recording me on their phones and pdas then I am by direct documentations.

So if my practice is truly furtive, perhaps I should not be writing about it?

The definition above alludes to a romantic encounter and since the majority of my work over the last three years has dealt with intimacy, I find it funny and, well perfect as a discussion point. Since Friday, I have been spending time reading the Metro - Montreal's underground interconnected transit system. There are four interconnected lines, the orange, the blue, the purple and the yellow.

Broad sweeping generalization One: People in Montreal seem to walk less.

When I stop to ask for directions (this is a furtive act?) people often say rather quickly - "oh, that is far away, you could take the metro" Often the distance is not far and it is interesting to me that the response is such to utilize the metro.

Perhaps it is because Montreal has that critical mass, perhaps it is because there are three major universities and many students and also many individuals without cars... however it is, there are a significant number of Montrealers that utilize the Metro daily and often multiple times during the day. Just like the romantic large city - read NYC, Tokyo, London, etc. where people drone unto the metro and look pass others and do not connect, and like almost every public transit vehicle, people avoid eye contact with others, pretending to talk on their phone, or talk mindlessly to someone on the other end of their cell phone, or deep into their book/reader, or listening intently to their iPod - avoiding others' i's.

The first time on the Metro with Karen (elaine spencer) I notice the physical set up of the cars and where seats are and how oddly juxtaposed they are - as in that the seats are placed so that people are facing sideways with each other. Also the aisles are very narrow so that you might be able to stand however walking in the aisle is both awkward and uncomfortable for both those who sit and those who are standing. How you navigate a stroller, or a wheelchair I wonder? It's Friday afternoon - around 3 p.m. and rush hour has started. I hop onto the Metro and there are seats even though I am in one of the cars in the middle if the almost 20 car train. The doors close and we are off and at the next stop a woman sits down and I smile this big smile at her. She looks at me a bit shocked at first. She then smiles back and I think Yes, contact. There are different types of smiles - those parched stingy smiles, those polite smiles, and more; but her smile was real and honest - I feel that I am radiating. So I continue this subtle - maybe furtive action - where I establish eye contact with passengers, one at a time, and then smile at them and wait for a reply. A smile can be interpreted in various ways: a opening for a unstable person to take your precious alone time away from you; an opening for someone you fancy; or simple hello fellow human it's great we are here and sharing this moment.

So I continue this action in various cars, on various metro lines and with many different people. My success rate was good and it makes me think is a smile like a yawn - can you catch it? Does it cause you to infect others?

day zero / jour zéro

Hello, I'm Todd and I am an artist / bonjour je m'appelle Todd et je suis un artiste.

So maybe that will not work, but the positive parts of this is that Montreal is truly a Canadian city and fully aware of its duality of Languages, well at least its duex langues officielles anyway. And my work has been constantly moving away from speaking at all anyway, or at least speaking with out words. I arrived in Montreal after a little more than an hour of turbulence and it is more than slightly raining here - it is wet and pouring. Anne Bertrand meets me at the bus stop at Lionel-Groulx and we run to her car and go to my new home (for the next week) on Ste. Marguerite in the neighbourhood of Saint Henri. I will be residing at the CRUM residency - The Centre de recherche urbaine de Montreal (CRUM) is a symbiotic (parasitic) research group with no exhibition space of its own. It uses the pre-existing exhibition network to present diverse projects. The CRUM is an artists collective dedicated to exploring links between art and urban space. Once there we are greeted by Karen Elaine Spencer and Douglas Scholes; Doug is the Guardian of CRUM and a collective founder and also a great artist exploring aspects of urban wilderness and detritus (my words, not his).

We sit around and chat I try to collect my bearings and share that I have not really slept since I was traveling at six - had to be checking in by five and should leave home by four… why bother. After about an hour or so we depart and Anne drops Karen and off at a Metro station and we head downtown / Centre Ville where Karen and I grab some food and catch up. Karen is one of the most sensitive and perceptive artist I know and we chat about a spectrum of things and at one point she ask me about how I think my artistic career might have went if certain in my life had not happened?


I think I am probably rather dogmatic and maybe romantically practical (not practical in romance, but romantic about how practical I am) and respond that everything that has happened to me makes me who I am - both great and not so great -- we are all products of our environments and responding to those. I try really hard to take ownership of things that I mess up and to respond in the moment, to offer praise, to be honest with myself and those around me... we talk more and she opens her pack-sack and shows me a loaf of white bread and a spool of twine, not thread. We talk more about what she has planned and then she asks me about me - my least favourite topic - about loss and grief and about my changing body. We talk a bit about this and she ask to place the bread on a part of my body that is deficient (my words) or changed. As we are also talking about dance and dancing I immediately think about my feet - missing toe and all and since my feet have been such - pardon the pun - sore points for me I discredit that in my mind - I think of my legs - but lately my calves and think have grown larger and more firm so I think not. We talk about a project that I have shared with Karen about having my hands bound for 72 hours and I think no to this as well. More and more I am drawn to my face and mouth, my eyes. However, in the end I pick my neck. I think of dancers and the symmetry of bodies and the definition and definite lines of muscle and sinew. She slowly layers about six or seven piece of white bread on my neck and secures it by wrapping it with the thread. The bread smells of yeast of and carbs. I re-dress and we enter into the crowds at Place des Arts.

Later in the evening Karen notes that I look graceful and handsome and that people notice me - it probably has to do with the slices of bread wrapped around my neck - however I do notice that people notice me and stare. at the end of the evening the bread is dry and starting to crumble and I ask Karen to cut it off of me and we leave it to go back to the earth or at least to the pigeons.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Hello?

Maybe you remember me?
It's me Todd.

I know, it seems like so long since we have chatted, since I paid attention to you…

Well tomorrow morning - early, I depart Edmonton and fly to Montreal for a exciting week of research creation.

I was invited many months ago by the amazing Karen Spencer and Anne Bertrand for a project at Skol. They have called it teasing the furtive or gosser le furtif which is an on-going curatorial project curated by Karen Elaine Spencer. Read more about this and the great furtives (that what I call them) at http://teasingthefurtive.wordpress.com

Karen is awesome and I fell into love with her work by just reading about it many years ago and I have had the pleasure of curating her and working with her. While this will not do the work justice it often threads social justice and is often situated by the voices of disenfranchised people - often manifesting as one voice that is a collective of many. We are very similar in many ways in terms of our practice and our activities - but she is constant, focused, driven and prolific. Please read her at
http://likewritingwithwater.wordpress.com

Okay, I have to go pack - eight days - me being an artist - no work - limited emails - lots of talking, drinking, watching, and I hope be being ... silent.

Welcome to me

Hmmm…

It has been some time since I have actually written about my own practice and further more about where I am going, at least artistically. So I am committing to begin this slow and hard process of writing about my work and - to some degree myself in this process because I firmly believe that the art you create and your art practice cannot be separated.

In closing I want to thank three special people: Margaret Dragu - well first, for being who she is and being my artistic sister; to Allison Sivak for always telling me - "you should write about this" and "I think that you should write about that"; and finally to Karen Elaine Spence for convincing me that it is important to being a documentation of my work -- partly because much of the work that I do is so much about the intimate encounter between one and one - between the artist and the audience and the blurring of them both.

Todd