hopefulmonsterdesigns

Invitation:

The Welbeck street garage project took place in a car park in central London on the 19th of August 2009 from8pm to 9:30 pm and was produced by Birdseye Productions, a curatorial collaboration between Klara jaya Brekke and Lindsay Segall. Central to the project, and to the work of artists/ curators Klara jaya Brekke and Lindsay Segall and artist David Berridge is the choice of the particular space, its architecture, its memory and its potential and finally the direct experience of that space by the invited public. The invitations for the show detailed a meeting place and time a block away from the Welbeck street car park. The public was split into smaller groups in order to avoid unnecessary attention from the security, and received cards with detailed descriptions of how to enter the building and where to meet with the rest of the group. Here they found a plastic bag full of disposable cameras, which each person took and used throughout the evening.

These are a few of them…

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EAVESDROPPING

Lindsay Segalls work consisted of a script performed in a stationary car with wireless sound equipment transmitting a conversation to the public. Relationships formed the basic elements of her piece, not only between the man and the woman in the car, but also between a public and private space, which the space of the car sits between: The couple start arguing, initially about something trivial, which escalates into a fight that ends their relationship. The woman tries to leave the car and falls, spilling the contents of her bag in the process. When she looks up she is startled as she notices the public and behaves confrontationally towards them, shouting ‘What the hell are you looking at?’. She leaves, the man staring into the air in the car, and the public awkwardly questioning the barrier between private and public.

Script:

Eavesdropping

G: girl B: Boy

(A couple are trying to find the paid parking ticket, parked, as the

audience move closer, to see them, he tries to kiss her she pushes him off

G: …come on, let’s just go home

(she holds his face, and kisses him)

G: Please

B: Come on…

G We’re in a car park, someone could see us.

B: We’ve done it in a car park before, it was no problem last time.

(long pause, he looks at her, then puts the keys in the

ignition)

B: Are you okay?

(without looking at him she replies)

G: I’m fine

(he slumps back in his seat)

B: Right another fine, great

G: Don’t be sarcastic with me, please.

B: Fine, you’re sulking, this is about dinner

G: Please don’t do this.

B: Don’t tell me it’s fine, and don’t do this.

G: It’s not the place

B: and the place is in front of all our friends at the dinner table.

G: I’m not apologising for the things I said… there were

disagreements, whatever. I wasn’t the only one being ‘ridiculous’

B: You went totally overboard and embarrassed yourself, and what does

it matter if you weren’t the only one acting like a total idiot, Kate’s

always like that.

G: We had fun, the only person who was offended is you, it seems,

always so sensitive. Are you telling me off, telling me how I should

behave in public, with my friends? (laughing)

B: I’m not, just what’s the problem?

G: You were the one who brought up tonight, I don’t care if I drank

too much and said silly things, they are my friends, they certainly don’t

give a shit.

B: Your friends, that’s a petty thing to say, we are all friends, they

might have been yours in the beginning…. But how many years ago is that?

(she looks out the window)

B: fine, I brought up tonight, I thought that’s what the problem was

(pause) I just want to know what’s going on, is that not a fair?

G: Just start the car, please, I just want to go home.

(he slams his hands on the steering wheel)

B: I’m not taking us home when you’re like this, why wont you answer

me-

G: Don’t push like this-

B: How else am I going to get it out of you, without pushing

(sarcastic tone)

(long pause, then he shouts)

B: Anna!

G: Things aren’t right, okay. Don’t you feel that there’s a change

with us?

(he rolls his eyes)

B: Like what?

G: It’s just, not the same.

B: The only change is you, you are the one who’s constantly changing.

Like what’s different? …us? me? I still love you-

G: -I know that, I feel that, it’s just

(Long pause)

B: Go on.

G: I can’t, fuck

B: Don’t make me beg…

G: I’m not playing with you

B: Don’t make me beg you to say that you don’t love me.

G: Yeah but, if you say that to someone…to you, I care about you…

B: Well I love you, how long have you ‘cared’ about me.

G: You know that surely and ignored it?

B: It’s not that I ignored it, I thought it would pass like, to be

honest, like all things do with you-

G: all things with me? are you suggesting you treat me like a child or

that you expected me to act like that?-

B: Come on, I didn’t mean it like that, we’ve been together for a long

time and when there’s been difficulty before with you, it got sorted out,

but look that’s not a problem for me-

G: Don’t be such a wanker, oh how understanding and supportive you

are….-

B: – I’m being fucking honest, so should you-

G: Please can we just go home-

B: No, I’m not going to start the car now, cause we’ve finally started

talking about this. You want to go home, but you also want to break up?

G: Fine, I’ll get home on my own.

(she opens the car door and is about to get out when he grabs her bag)

B: shit, you can’t just fucking leave, If this is the last

conversation we are going to have I want to know what happened.

G: have you ever cheated on me?

B: What the fuck, are you being serious. (laughs) I’m not doing this

with you. You know what the answer is, if you’re ending this then state

it for the real/correct reasons, how fucked up. Fucking give some

respect!

G: This is not how I wanted this to go

B: How much thought did you put into this conversation.

G: I don’t love you anymore.

B: And that is final, and beyond fixing.

G: I don’t know

B: I’m sorry, you don’t know, it’s not a case of not knowing, you

either want this, and will, or you don’t, so wont.

G: Yes

B: Yes, what? I can’t believing you are doing this.

(he looks away from her for the first time.)

G: I’m so sorry, I don’t mean, I’m so so sorry.

(she tries to touch him resting her temple on his shoulder, but he moves

her away)

B: Then get the fuck out of my car, you’re so, so fucking

temperamental!

(She continues to sob, in the passenger seat)

B: Leave now. Why are you still here Anna, this is what you wanted,

no?

G: Please don’t be like this

B: You have no say anymore on how I should ‘deal’ with you

G: You heartless bastard

B: Yeah, yeah, I’m the one without the heart

(Now crying, she opens the car door and trips, falling face down onto the

ground, slipping the contents of her bag. He looks at her, he reaches

forward slightly, but then sits back in his seat. Slowly she looks up

and looks right to a member of the audience)

G: What the fuck are you looking at?!

(Picking up the items she continues to talk to the audience. She stands

and walks closer to a member.)

I asked you a question, what are you looking at?

(She waits for an answer, starts to cry…)

You’re all the same!

(And walks away to the stairs, leaving him alone stunned)

Slowly the public drifts away from the car and on to the top floor of the carpark where they are met…

CONTEXT

The Welbeck street carpark is one of many central London car parks that is underused, leaving the top eight floors empty at all times. It was with this knowledge that we initiated the project for this space. The permission to use four floors of a half-empty central London car park for an art project was not however granted. Car parks in Central London have, due to policies such as the Congestion Charge, which limits the use of cars in the city centre, become increasingly underused. To compensate for this fact the companies running the carparks now seek secondary revenue streams by renting the space for filming, fashion shoots or other uses within mainly the creative industries. This has meant that the visual and cultural use of these spaces are increasingly recognised as a potential source of capital, and the spaces are guarded as such, often by private events management companies. Gaining permission to use the space would therefore be extremely time-consuming as well as expensive, making the project in effect impossible. We therefore made the decision to commence the project without permission.

This altered the possibilities of the project dramatically: It became necessary to set time limits in order to ensure that all works were seen before the security guards arrived; the public had to be dispersed in order to arrive in smaller groups so as notto alarm the guards; the works had to be quick and easy to install in order to avoid attention. We believe that these restraints shaped the project in a positive way.In this project the carpark is perceived as a ‘possible-public space’. The ideal or ‘pure’ public space hardly exists in most cities as roads are dominated by cars, and plazas are increasingly privatised and regulated. Rather, the ideal of public space is something that has to be constantly defined and created through action. In this sense the question arises about who forms part of the ‘public’ that inhabits public spaces, whether these spaces are accessible to all, and whether public space in fact is fragmentary, created by and for various population groups to meet their social needs and desires. Thus the desire to engage with and produce experiences for this particular space was the main drive to open it as a ‘momentary’ public space in which an audience as well as the artists could explore and play.

PUBLIC

Greeting the public with a bag of disposable cameras was intended to firstly formalise an appreciation of the space by the public, having some time to explore the space and take pictures, and secondly acknowledging the presence and participation of the public from the very beginning. Having in previous projects drawn on ideas of relational aesthetics and participatory practices, the focus in this project lies not with the idea of participation, but rather with the relation between the public and the space. In this sense failures such as ‘participation for the sake of participation’ is avoided, and the experience of everyone present is honoured as essential to the project rather than instrumental.

SPACE

The choice of a non-gallery space is not only an aesthetic choice in this project: By choosing a familiar everyday space such as a carpark the interaction between the public and the works are dramatically transformed. A possible suspension of disbelief is more easily achieved and the public might be able to relate to the works on an immediate everyday level, while retaining the possibility for contemplation that art traditionally provides. At the Welbeck street garage project each artwork attempted to break the boundaries between contemplation and lived experience. Thus the relationship between the public and the space, mediated and hopefully enhanced by the artists, is central to the project. The public and particular nature of the space provided the catalyst for this project as well as for each of the art works produced.

All work c0-produced with Klara- Jaya Brekke

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