flux salt and other antics....visuals ready for our group flux sheet for the saturday presentation

day ten- salad for geoffrey

Today was an incredible, unforgettable, exhilarating experience making a fluxus celebration for Geoffrey's 78th birthday. It was very hard to keep it a secret from Geoffrey that we were to do this flux event of Alison Knowles, 'Make a salad' , he kept talking about us doing it for the final show on Saturday. We did it throwing down from the roof into the courtyard at Alte Saline.

The original piece is here;

It was also carried out at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall in 2008;

Also in this set on Flickr is the space for my final installation on Saturday, and Adam and Irene in my group re-enacting Geoffrey's infamous flux headstand.

day eight- salt body experiment

day nine on the course...revising the score

my awful yet wonderful formal outfit, from the flea market in hallein. geoffrey liked the idea of a very formal lady's outfit, in fact he said school marm type outfit ( my total art+life = fluxus in here! i.e. my other teacher identity !) i really love the embroidered flower. it looks quite stereotypically primary school frumpy. i'll need to think about shoes, and flesh coloured tights.

thoughts on the tighter score are thus;

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FLUX SALT (a score according to the internet, with demonstrations)

salt: Noun

1. sodium chloride, a white crystalline substance, used for seasoning and preserving food

2. A crystalline solid compound formed from an acid by replacing its hydrogen with a metal

3. Smelling salts.

4. lively wit: his humour added salt to the discussion

5. old salt an experienced sailor

6. a) rub salt into someone's wounds to make an unpleasant situation even worse for someone

b) bath salts a usually perfumed mixture of certain salts added to bath water.

7. salt of the earth a person or people regarded as the finest of their kind

8. take something with a pinch of salt to refuse to believe something is completely true or accurate

Adjective:
salt. (of speech) painful or bitter; "salt scorn"- Shakespeare; "a salt apology"

PART IX. MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS ON SALT

Among the peasants of the Spanish province of Andalusia the word "salt" is synonymous with gracefulness and charm of manner, and no more endearing or flattering language can be used in addressing a woman, whether wife or sweetheart, than to call her "the salt-box of my love."

The phrase "May you be well salted" is also current as an expression of affectionate regard.

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the web addresses to be footnotes. Some to be simply written and not said.

reviewing day eight: flux salt scratch performance

• I really enjoyed doing this, although it was very hard keeping a straight, poker face. i liked the rigid formality i set up in my body/facial gestures/expressions alongside using a clipboard, like to push this further with a costume.

• the feedback was very positive, people thought it was great. liked the clipboard and clothes brushing down post each action getting me back into lecture mode again.

• geoffrey said to choregraph it better to make it tighter, arrange the wonderful props I had better, edit out some bits that aren't punchy. consider a whole score posted up/on a card handout, using web addresses as footnotes,perhaps thinking about visual poetry ideas, diagrams, drawing, typographic stylizing. on the other hand, as its a score form the internet, could simply make it plain times new roman font, adds to the formality.
  

• could lose one of the pieces that uses signs- you get it enough with one
  

• could up the pace more between phrases, lose some of the words

• on the video, the end and start points are good to contextualise the piece, perhaps consider whether the audience sees this?

• enjoy the camera person being part of it or should try impartiality more?
  

• i liked the fact that people didn't know where to stand and shifted away nervously when if they realised i was to be standing near them.possible use hand signals to move the audience?

• possible use of signs around the space, some people might not like salt being poured on them.WARNING: salt is used in this performance. or WARNING this performance contains salt.? maybe not to use the brown paper with holes in it, and for rub salt into the wound, actually rub salt on the body.
  

• boat part was especially hilarious.maybe bigger sail. think about maybe a sailors hat which then becomes the shower cap for the bath salts.
  

• lose some parts that are similiar. want to get it down to max 15 mins.

• pick the people carefully. some people won't want to get salt in their hair/do silly things...in the event they don't, maybe just shrug shoulders and pick someone else until the action is done?

day eight: flux salt performance (work-in-progress)

am completely exhausted, more tomorrow on reflecting in this experience and developing it for the saturday final presentations... meanwhile here they are all on flickr. Big thanks to Helen Schoene for the flux salt photos, and Irene Schueller for the video below. Although not intentional, I really like how in the spirit of art+life =fluxus, Irene even as the documenter of the experience, is audibly showing she is enjoying it. The walk through style of filming is also something I like that fluidly shows the improvisational energy and chance elements of the piece.

flux salt ( a score according to the internet) WORK-IN-PROGRESS from harriet poole on Vimeo.

day seven: flux salt score for action

Here's my score to try out on the group tomorrow morning, whilst all standing barefoot in the salt pit. I am intending for it to be read by me from a printout in a clipboard, in a very deadpan, formal way, and then actions to be initiated to visualise each description/proverb etc, involving the audience selected through a finger pointing and beckoning type way. I'm hoping it will found to be funny, through a series of my short sketches illustrating each saying/description. I have scavenged cardboard boxes, made handwritten signs, sails, filled a bucket with water ready for this piece- all in the spirit of fluxus :)

I'm excited to be able to transfer my ideas in Why did you do that? I will remember what we had, about salt as seasoning and salt as preservative into this piece, in a way that is humorous and universal, away from the personal, and that the former piece has been a good stepping stone into this fluxus embracing score: global, playful, short, specific, chance,experimentation, unity of art and life. So...i'm really looking forward to tomorrow....

I also want to look more at the humour that fluxus draws on that Geoffrey has been telling me about, Vaudeville, slapstick, Spike Jones, how the expected is turned upside down, surprises, spoofs, simple jokes. How the very formal can descend into the something completely unexpected/ridiculous.
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FLUX SALT (a score according to the internet)

www.freedictionary.com/salt

salt Noun

1. sodium chloride, a white crystalline substance, used for seasoning and preserving food

2. Chem a crystalline solid compound formed from an acid by replacing its hydrogen with a metal

4. Salts. Smelling salts.

4. lively wit: his humour added salt to the discussion

5. old salt an experienced sailor

6. a) rub salt into someone's wounds to make an unpleasant situation even worse for someone

b) bath salts a usually perfumed mixture of certain salts added to bath water.

7. salt of the earth a person or people regarded as the finest of their kind

8. take something with a pinch of salt to refuse to believe something is completely true or accurate

Adjective:
salt. (of speech) painful or bitter; "salt scorn"- Shakespeare; "a salt apology"

Phrasal Verbs:
salt away To put aside; save.

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www.quotationspage.com/quote/36316.html
Quotation #36316 from Classic Quotes:
Give neither advice nor salt, until you are asked for it.
(English Proverb)
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www.sacred-texts.com/etc/mhs/mhs40.htm

PART IX. MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS ON SALT

Among the peasants of the Spanish province of Andalusia the word "salt" is synonymous with gracefulness and charm of manner, and no more endearing or flattering language can be used in addressing a woman, whether wife or sweetheart, than to call her "the salt-box of my love."

The phrase "May you be well salted" is also current as an expression of affectionate regard.

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I think that if this were to become a transferable, universal score, I would write it as follows;

• Stand in a place/site that has some strong identity

• Select a word with multiple definitions in the dictionary that comes from the place/site

• Read out the definition and their meaning

• Perform their meaning with your audience
  

day six on the course: flux salt, dictionary definitions of 'salt' as score for actions in the salt pit

Work in progress of experiments with salt, associations, definitions, proverbs, taken from here and here. This piece is an attempt to explore the humour in fluxus, and into the universal, away from the personal divulgence of the artist's ego- see if I can create a completely different kind of piece to before, maybe using some of the salt concepts i discovered but in a more playful and less painful way.

Flickr see here

Flux salt (Work in progress):

flux salt from harriet poole on Vimeo.

Flux salt two (work in progress):

flux salt two from harriet poole on Vimeo. Thanks to Helen Schoene for being my guinea pig in it and filming Flux one.

The pieces threw up diffferent things- I liked the tone very much, very dark, deadpan, serious, very like my Performative interlude at Apollo Video shop, and I also liked the little confusion in the participant, adding to the atmosphere of ridculousness. Everyone standing in the slat will be a great touch to this piece I hope. However, in playing these videos to another group member, they didn't get the English proverbs at all, they don't translate well, the particulars to German. This raised questions of whether the work is only to be understood by an English-fluent audience...and in effect will lose its sense of being site-specific, an issue i haven't come across before, having only worked in the UK and thus a great test for me. I thought about various other methods, a Comedy translator role, word cards, speech bubbles,and decided in chatting with Helen to go for just giving the phrase and then its English meaning, as given on the web....we'll see how this fares....I'm determined to reach universality in my work here.

day five on the course....salt piling up, hiding in the salt pit

here's photos on flickr from today.

I also performed the piece abut my Grandfather again, which I have titled,Why did you do that? I'll remember what we had

Why did you do that? I will remember what we had from harriet poole on Vimeo.

Thanks to Helen Schoene for the photos of my performance, a new idea to me to document within, but this feels right in this context, to see the build up of salt. Helen recorded the essence of it in a frozen moment, being that the photo above speaks everything to me about the piece, the dual narrative of preserving life in salt, holding onto it but also links to the mortality of the body- scattering ashes (Why is this a theme I have come back to?) It was an extremely hard piece for me, made even more so with an audience, not in the dark this time but light, although in a more private corner of the salt pit. Watching it back, I'm noticing the salt pot lid coming off, seeing the salt pile up in front of the frame and the picture disappear.I like the video framing, losing my facial expressions, focusing on the actions with the objects and listening to the music and sounds of the salt. I'm able to see more what other's see/hear/feel in my actions, body language etc, something I haven't previously been able to do. (The private nature of my work as one-to-ones having intimate conversations meaning it is not recorded.) What this might mean for my future practice i'm not thinking about right now, keeping in the fluxus research and play mode.

I am now to flip over and explore the lighter side of life, experimenting with flux games, jokes, puns, bringing salt elements into play and realising I hope, some of my stand up comedy tricks (worlds collide, etc:)

day four on the course..my grandfather

My Grandfather from harriet poole on Vimeo.

day three on the course.... navigating self within the salt

Today I explored what salt means to me personally and also universally.

For me it makes me think of the death of my grandfather in 1977, (he ate a lot of salt on his food, he died shortly after Elvis and my brother's birth.) Its also a material that preserves life ( and the extreme variant- the preserved Mann in Salz in the Salt Mine museum in Hallein.) This piece I created was videoed but only recorded half of it, doh!

Here's photo of me and my grand-parents at the seaside. Maybe Hastings, Littlehampton? This choice of map as the table cloth. Taken in approx 1976-1977

Here's the Mann in Salz from here


I'm keen to think about the relationship between the two- the universality of life and death, to make the work more fluxus related. I see this as a piece of process, not a product, something to simplify/generate into a fluxus piece. Initally after doing this piece and looking at the photos I felt frustrated in myself, i felt back in the shed of my MA work, i enjoyed the physicality of object, sound, narrative like in shed, but i felt back in the place of rehearsal and spectacle, i missed the participatory audience and also wanted to be feeling and responding to the moment which has shaped my post-MA practice.

I think in fact, I'm getting mixed up with the relationship between score and rehearsal. How much is left to chance, how prescriptive versus how spontaneous?

Here's the score from yesterday;

• Enter the salt pit with satchel, bucket and spade
• Sit down in the far corner
• Layout out the map, with the doiley and picture frame on it
  
• build saltcastle
• Stick a birthday candle into the middle of the castle
  
• Light the candle
• Cut 3 flags from the exercise book
• Write out the names of my brother, grandfather and Elvis, giving birth dates
• Make them into flags
• Say their name
  
• Secure with a hairgrip
• Stick the flags in the top of the castle
• Play 'Love me Tender' music inside the satchel
  
• Create a hole pushing the bucket into the salt
• Name each item and put them into the hole: map, frame,doiley,snakes and ladders game
• Fill the hole with salt, pat the top to smooth it.
• Write the death dates on the flags
• Move all the flags to the area where the hole was, stick them in
• Blow out the candle
• Stand on the castle to squash it.
• Pick up the satchel, bucket and spade and leave

Issues that arose:

• Making the saltcastle: the salt was too soft and dry, even though I had brought some wetter salt from another part of the pit. may need to import more/ make wetter
• colour contrast: white flags too poor visibility. get coloured ones
  
• the salt looks like sand: make this more explicit, find a salt cellar to fill the hole: links more to the death/life idea- preserving the objects like a time capsule, yet like a grave
• ok to say the names?
• how/when/where to play the 'love me tender' music. i like the idea of burying the sound.
• not to panic i'm going back to work i no longer like, its ok to see this as a process to then work towards a universal score of life/death. would this be an individual piece, a one-to-one, a collective experience? like to try all of these
  

For the flickr photos see here

day two: the marble tourist

my frustrating experience of this salzburg map which made me feel like a child again. none of the roads i was actually at were on it so i may well as been a marble, freestyle exploring the space around(which gives its own intriguing possibilities.) however you still have to place yourself so have to battle on sometimes...

day two on the course....maps, cupcakes,window antics

Today we had a beautiful re-enactment of George Brecht's drip music by Geoffrey Hendricks, listening to the sound of a metal container filling up, how that changes as its level raises, and also the use of the layers of the space, water falling from a height. we then developed a piece in a pair (here with Irene Sehuelter) exploring sound, space and activity- this was a great way for me to really engage with the tactile and sonic aspects of the space, especially when i often just normally look.
Here's the video that was shot of Irene and mine's piece:

finding a dialogue with the space- initial exercise on Artist as Nomad course from harriet poole on Vimeo.

I then began generating a dialogue between personal maps, geographies and the site.I was working with ideas about 'You are here, but you are not here', events and materials from childhood (wow what a fantastic euroshop in hallein) and making salt cupcakes inspired by my 3 year old nephew Tadhg on a recent trip to Dublin where he enthusiastically and alone filled cup cakes with raw ingredients.....

in the afternoon we watched fluxus videos (artists will come into this blog) and geoffrey's own video and of his apartment in new york- showing to him there is no divide between art and life in fluxus.


my working space. under this pile of euroshop delights is a big brown piece of paper where i am brainstorming, drawing, doodling.....my brain on the page :)

salt filled cupcake case. how about sticking it straight in the salt?

window and movement event. i was investigating each window in a different way; levels of precision, deliberation, speed, and physical contact with the window, and maintaining contact with the walls in between (there is video to post on this) all generating sound and spectacle. this was alongside irene and i moving as a mass round the edges of the space, her movement were ranging from very animalistic navigation, to more controlled and dancer like. i liked the way the outside sound came in as the windows were opened, making it quite a din by the end from the street below.

not here.....
here.... i've always had a fascination with my feet in places ive been, i have a collection of photos from my travels, feet first including the grand canyon, taj mahal....

map of crystal palace as a table cloth

questions today (just a snapshot of the many that i am exploding with ideas about)

• what's to explore with salt? uses, physical properties, history
• how to keep true to fluxus manifesto (eg- chance, play, globalism, simplicity, intermedia, specificity, experimentation)
• playfulness is of particular interest to me- puzzles, games, gags, jokes. i bought an exact copy in euroshop of the snakes and ladders game i had when i was a kid. amazing.
  
• how to explore maps. personal, place and space. geographical, memory.
  
• art/life blur. fluxus is everything. fluxus box, fluxus puzzle, fluxus concert, fluxus wedding, fluxus funeral, fluxus food. what can this mean for me?
• how to record? when to video, when to photogaph, when not to? why not? it makes us stop seeing?
  

more on flickr here

day one on the course.... orientatating the ravishing space

Today we started to get to know the incredible space, our home for 2 weeks,which quite simply blew me away. Old industry, technology, layers of nooks and crannies,doors as portals to new worlds within. this is my site-specific investigative dream, y-u-m, a working living studio. We introduced ourselves to each other, and Geoffrey went on a nostalgic fluxus trip with us, retelling old memories, anecdotes, histories.

In pairs, (me with Irene) we created a score for an individual experience exploring sound in the space, throwing salt with eyes closed and barefoot, onto different surfaces. What was really interesting was how differently people responded and how the sound would have changed, how hard they threw it, moving further away from the wall lessoning the volume....









More on flickr here