I am taking part in Not Yet its Difficult’s dramaturgical project Meetings and Conversations at the Meat Market in North Melbourne. Today was a day of discussion around making work which was very inspiring and left me feeling excited about where I am and the collaborations I have.
The group was a varied collection of directors, writers, designers, sound artists and visual artists. Willoh and myself were paired with Scott Rankin (Big hART) who we will now continue a working relationship with into the future.
Of the many and varied things discussed, there were some that really connected with me. I began talking about wanting to be a part of an ensemble and that it was something I had wanted for a long period of time since my early days of performing in Tasmania. I had seen work by companies like Les Ballets C de la B and had been totally enamoured by the depth of the work and the connection that the performers had with each other. This came from training nine months together every day to make work. What I had realised whilst sitting there talking about all that was that I had found a different type of ensemble, a new type of working relationship with Willoh.
We are working as a duo, creating work quickly and not being constrained by funding bodies or timelines. And to this David Pledger said a great thing – some artists go through a stage where they replicate the structures that are already out there, but some see what is there and adjust by creating something new. And whilst what we are doing is not a new structure it feels good to be building something that is a) a continuing practice b) is on our own terms and c) (hopefully) is sustainable financially.
Alex Gibson was there as part of his company X:Machine and I thought that his comments about open source software was really exciting. He made links between the way that this non-commercially driven code was being distributed and the way that artists work together. Both groups work collaboratively on projects, they aren’t driven by money and what is created in the end is disseminated in an open way.
I had never made these links before – it always seemed to me like there was a psychological distance between collaborating real world artists and artists working ‘virtually’ together. I guess the fact you don’t know who you are collaborating with online – I always felt like movements like wiki’s and open source were more like a bee hive situation where you work away doing your job and in the end you are making a difference to the whole, but you don’t understand the whole. The genius to this is that you have no ego involved because you don’t know who you are working with, you are just making it better. In contemporary arts collaboration you most certainly do know who you are working with and ego most certainly does come into play…
