WOULD BELLING
Alastair MacLennan
Alastair MacLennan Statement
QUESTION
There are clear discrepancies, world ideologies and world actualities. Results can be seen globally and locally. How does one's own art address this problem?
Live Art Now Performance Magazine n.37 1985 - Performance Art Survey.
Alastair MacLennan Statement
STYLE/TRADITION
Installed, 'sited' action/rituals, evolving through stages of transition, for predetermined durations, with content engaging political, social and cultural issues.
Live Art Now Performance Magazine n.37 1985 - Performance Art Survey.
Alastair MacLennan Statement
ARTISTS ADMIRED
Those who overcome the most, within and outwith themselves, 'take on' the human condition, and who (in effective art) comment on political and social corruption.
Live Art Now Performance Magazine n.37 1985 - Performance Art Survey.
Alastair MacLennan Statement
MONEY
Give a living wage in exchange for 'work'. Make the use of live television more 'available'. Provide support for a wider range of public venues. Fund serious and knowledgeable writing on performance. Set up national bursaries, fellowships, residencies and scholarships. Establish informed, structured, well taught courses in colleges.
Live Art Now Performance Magazine n.37 1985 - Performance Art Survey.
Alastair MacLennan Statement
ACTUATION
Install-action implies the coming together of two words - installation and action - into one. It suggests the filling up of some thing, place or where with activity. The word evokes a passive vessel receiving life from 'outside'.
Installation as an acknowledged art form came to the fore through the international art arena during the 1970's, 80's (and into the 90's). The generally accepted historical context for action art tends to revolve around, and evolve from, events and happenings in, or linked to, New York during the 1950's and 60's - and in Europe, with the 'aktions' of artists such as Nitsch, Beuys and others during a similar and later period.
Although the work I make has a certain relationship to install-action art, and has had for over 25 years, it has substantial differences which have endured for the same period. In view of this, some years ago I chose the word actuation by which to call my art. Actuation comes from the verb to actuate, which means ... To communicate motion to, to cause the operation of, to cause to do, to function. It is related to the word actual, which means ... Existing in fact; real (... As distinct from ideal), existing now, current. Emphasis is on what is real in the present moment.
I use the word actuation in preference to performance, action or install-action for the following reasons. The word performance has ambiguous links with the worlds of commercial entertainment, show business, theatre, sport, advertising etc. It often pre-loads and pre-codes the dice of audience expectation in ways not necessarily commensurate with fine art outcome. The term art action (or aktion), now, as we come up to the new millennium, seems too bound to earlier performative art events and activities in North America, Germany and Austria. With the death of empire everywhere and the implosion of world (super) powers, as an artist who also makes installations I am now more concerned with creativity in dis-installation.
In both live and installational aspects of my actuations there is a simultaneous giving to and taking from. Neither feature is only active or passive. There is a mutual filling up and emptying out of each. With regard to 'self' this functions mentally and physically. One remains essentially empty at centre and edge. An overriding theme in my 'lived through' installations of the past 25 + years has been absent presence.
Two of my recent related works are 'Body of Earth' and 'Mael'. 'Body of Earth' was an installation specifically made for the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland, shown there from 18th December 1996 - 18th January 1997. It was made to commemorate the lives of all those lost through political violence in Northern Ireland, from 1969 - 1996. Following the full length of one diagonal in the gallery space was a specially constructed chest high table piled high with earth over its full length. Along the four walls of the gallery, mirror plating was attached behind semi transparent/opaque white scrim screening, such that viewers would see 'ghost' images of themselves as they walked through the space hearing audio naming of the dead. I was not present in the work. Instead it was structured so that in order to experience it fully, viewers were required to adopt some strategies I would have employed in the space had I been there. In this way, viewers became implicated in the work.
'Mael' was a commission for the National Review of Live Art at The Arches, Glasgow, Scotland. The actuation (with a similar commemoration to that of 'body of earth') took place on 30th October 1996, from 3.00pm - 10.00pm (7 hours non stop). The installation remained in place from 30th October - 3rd November 1996. The Arches are of red brick, down in the bowels, under the railway lines close to Glasgow Central train station. Down The Arches I found the only entrance wide enough to get vehicles into, and manoeuvred 71/2 burned out vehicles along the length of the bay I'd found. Overhead I arranged a computer programmed rectangular 'necklace' of bare light bulbs over the vehicles such that the bulbs seemed to 'breathe' light slowly and subtly on and off to simulate a light to dark to light continuum, equivalent to normal human breathing. The live feature involved the author as a static or slow moving visual presence forming a constituent element of equal and complementary significance to all other aspects of the work, including sound, which functioned similarly to that in 'body of earth'. The work was formulated so that viewers/participants became implicated in its meaning, both in the actuation and the remaining installation.
At the heart of these actuations and 'lived through' installations is the abiding presence of absence.
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