Month: March 2013

Degradation – Have a Nice Day

Scott Patrick Mcginn /

Degradation Mark One:

Considering the implications of positive and negative words/messages, alongside the value of aesthetics, Censored Sensibility spent two hours writing out the message ‘HAVE A NICE DAY’ in detailed and attractive font. The time it took to create and the length of time it remained reflects our whole piece – durational, gallery-like, installation-based – effectively and proved an encouraging place to start. Placed in a thoroughfare area of the LPAC, the piece became known as ‘Degredation’, and our primary concern: will people be precious about stepping upon a work of art, and one that has a positive message? or will the work degrade, with passers-by not considering their effect on the work?

Degredation - an experiment.
Degredation – an experiment.

It was well-noted that we had spent a considerable amount of time working on creating the piece, so the breakdown of the work was interesting to see. People’s concern is showing disrespect to the piece while it is still being worked upon, or while its artists are still present. However, given the steady Degredation of the work over a week and a half shows that this concern does not translate to the every day. It proved interesting to see the gradual change and, given that Censored Sensibility is largely concerned with the power of language, that a positive message does not necessarily encourage great thoughfulness.

 

Degradation Mark Two:

Large-scale re-formats seem to be something about which we’re quite keen, but perhaps Mark Two was a step further than necessary. A durational and large-scale recording of ‘HAVE A NICE DAY’ was taken in the outside courtyard of the LPAC, our second home and a place of frequent people traffic. Though a good opportunith, it did not experience enough degradation to truly and effectively represent the message and implications of the installation. Loss of a memory card may have been a blessing in disguise, because we moved back to a simpler and more effective format.

Degradation Mark Three (or, Mark One Revisited):

Returning to our original format, ‘HAVE A NICE DAY’ became a gradually degrading chalk message of which pictures were taken to document its breakdown. These images were compiled into a presentation which was projected in the Censored Sensibility  gallery and in front of which people were invited to sit and look at the degradation of the piece. As theatre-makers it is important to be flexible, open, and creative. Nothing we do is an exact science, and not everything will go perfectly to plan. We felt this here and in every installation (none were without their problems) but it was certainly worth it for every moment of learning, every opportunity (or, arguably, need) for new ideas, and as a test (and therefore testament) to our commitment to the work, something which we feel certainly came across.

 

SM.

To Respond to First Thoughts: On the Notion of ‘The Power of Words’

Scott Patrick Mcginn /

‘I want to get across […] the genuine power of words’.

On the topic of swear words: While part of me understands that swearing might make a person appear uneducated – why is it that in the vast spectrum of available lexical choices you are unable to express your aggression, your excitement, your anger, your sadness? – there can be no doubt that Cassie hits upon the satisfaction of profanity. The fucking glorious expression that comes from a word that makes the prude cringe and the child gasp and giggle. Perhaps, in fact, it is not that our minds cannot express a feeling; rather, that the feeling is so grand as to be inexpressible by our words. Tell me that the glory of intimacy, as sweat drips down your back and you can just about catch your breath as an ‘oh’ escapes your lips, does not deserve to include an exhilarated, intense, ‘fuck’ – that most-glorious word. Tell me that walking home in the darkness with only the minor comfort of your iPod, and the major discomfort of the night’s unknown, does not deserve the frightened ‘shit’, when someone almost walks into you coming around the corner; you clutch your phone, and probably your heart, and this is it – but it’s not, and you have expected the worse, and were wrong – it’s ok; but tell me, tell me that in that moment of fear, that word did not say it all. Tell me that when your heart breaks for the final time and the boy you once loved has a face which now only throws gasoline on your flames of hatred, where before his face inspired a smile, a flutter in your chest, to call him a ‘cunt’ does not express every moment of love and hate intermingled.

Tell me.

Today (28/1/2013) Cassie expressed to – and I hope she does not mind me expressing this – me a hatred for the word ‘bitch’. This had never been a word I’d considered much, let alone thought of as particularly harsh or offensive. But Cassie is right: the word expresses so much hate, so much chauvinism, so much objectification, so much disrespect. It is a word that we probably throw around – as I certainly have – without really thinking. But it is so ideological, so dark.

And so we take a moment to think:

 

Not swear words, but sexuality:

Recently a colleague drew my attention to LGBT groups which are actually known as LGBTQ. For me – and perhaps I do not know enough about rights, about definitions, about diversity – the ‘Q’ does not express anything more, anything different, to the other letters. For me the ‘L’, ‘G’, ‘B’, and ‘T’ tell me all I need to know. To say queer seems to devalue people’s ability – indeed people’s right – to self identify.

I was led to think a little, too, about what these words do, what they mean. In allowing a friend of mine to call me ‘faggot’ without a hint of irony, without a moment of being offended, do I enable all other less-tolerant-than-him males to call me a faggot with the intention of being offensive? Or rather, am I allowing him to be comfortable, and encouraging these others to feel the same. For me, it is about knowing how those people feel, knowing that we are comfortable together, knowing that my friend isn’t being offensive. So perhaps this is my call.

On the power of phrases:

Chuck Palahniuk’s Diary notes: ‘It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace’.

Perhaps this is why phrases, like those Cassie notes, are so important. We have a tendency to feel that what we call ‘honesty’ does people a favour; ‘You’re fat’ will make that sad teenage girl think about her diet – but she can’t help a poor metabolism and a compulsion to eat for comfort. ‘You look terrible’ will make that exhausted boy think about giving himself a break and finding a way to take things easy – but those black circles around his eyes are more than a mark of tiredness, they are a mark of fear and shame.

We think we are helping people by being truthful. And we think that complimenting people is unnecessary. But every reader here will remember the time they were called ‘ugly’, or ‘fat’, or whatever else. They won’t remember every time someone said ‘well done’, or ‘your hair looks nice’, or ‘thank you’. And there must be something wrong there.

And while we dwell in an important place, think about calling someone ‘fat’, or ‘ugly’, or anything else that makes you feel big and makes the other person feel small. Frankly, I’d rather be called ‘ugly’ than ‘two-faced’, rather ‘fat’ than ‘selfish’. If you must be destructive, at least find something truly negative to say, like ‘liar’, or ‘disrespectful’, of ‘false’. Your skinny legs and pretty face won’t make your mind happy and your heart pure.

So:

Even as an English (and, of course, Drama) student, I marvel at the power of words. I marvel at how frankly ignorant I can be, how ignorant we can all be, about how loaded, how meaningful words can be.

Every word on this page has a meaning. Every word is important.

Every word deserves respect. And every word possesses power – so much ‘fucking’ power.

And until now not a thought was given to all this. Not by me.

 

 

SM.

First Thoughts – CW: Ideas About The Piece

Cassie Watson /

I want to get across in our piece the power of words. Not necessarily go on some endless verbal manifesto about how if we listen to the poetry our heart creates that we can brave a thousand storms or nonsensical bollocks like that but rather get across the genuine power of words.

Swear words, combinations of letters, are banned from television before a certain time. ‘Cunt’ is deemed to be one of the worst insults in our language.

Sometimes I wonder if I disagree with swearing, I wonder if it makes you vulgar or uneducated. But then I think about it, and that’s not true at all. I like that we have designated words for when we have this burst of passion- positive or negative- and all we can use to express them is man made clusters of vowels and consonants. ‘Fuck’ is possibly the best word in our language- with so many variations and meanings that essentially boil down to that same resounding idea of passion, I’m only grateful for it. Let it be banned before 9 o’ clock. Let it be owned by grown ups and very daring children.

It’s not just singular words that have this impact either though. I’ve always wondered why it’s so much easier to remember an insult than a compliment, and I think it’s because compliments are always sovague.If someone said ‘you look bad today’, or ‘your hair looks bad’ , it lacks a lot of care and conviction, I think I could brush that off pretty easy. Insults are made to hurt you in a way that compliments aren’t made to fix you. Insults choose something specific, and we always care more about specific things. Try complimenting someone specifically, and I bet you it’ll stay with them. It disarms them. It’s wonderful.

 

 

CW.

Installations

Cassie Watson /

The idea of installations was not an eventual one. We found quickly through our research that we preferred the idea of physical things that can be interpreted and interacted with, rather than the two of us doing a performance that was a lot less static and malleable.

Through my research I found some of Susanna Hertrich’s work, and particularly enjoyed the ‘Chrono- Shredder’ :

which was described as “The machine as performer.
Chrono-Shredder (2007-2012, various iterations) is a poetic device with functions similar to those of a calendar and a clock, it continuously shreds every single day—minute after minute, hour after hour. All that time that is irreversibly lost, obtains a tangible existence in the form of shredded paper. As time passes by, the tattered remains of the past pile up under the device.” (http://www.susannahertrich.com/chrono-shredder.php)

This machine does exactly what we wanted to do, in that it takes a remarkable simple and seemingly mundane idea, and draws attention to it in a simple and creative way. This made us have an even more focused mission: to create installations that people wish they’d thought of. Extremely vague, but nonetheless motivational.