SEAS - Skegness Blog Part 2

Saturday 26th September

13.20

            I sat on Skegness’ stunning pier with an overpriced cheese and pickle toastie, watching British tourists interact with Fantomat, seven head-shaped “Soul and Slot Machines” positioned amongst the institutional 20p-a-go telescopes that line the promenade. A well-known curator approached one of the heads to peer into its video screen eyes, appearing from behind as though she was about to start an argument with it. A man in a football shirt quipped, “Give it a kiss, love!” As discussed in the Café Cityscape discussion earlier today, when art is taken to the public arena, unexpected encounters are bound to occur. Performance inevitably becomes engagement and interaction is forced upon the artists as even the most tightly rehearsed shows need improvisation to be successful.

            Venelin Shurelov, one of the Fantomat artists, had cryptically informed me that one sculpture would be giving an intimate and revealing performance at 1.30 today. The language barrier complicated matters but I got the impression that the head being wheeled into place in front of the existing sculptures contained a microphone and a speaker linked to a hidden, Wizard of Oz style operator. This was confirmed when, after nearly an hour of watching a team of people readjusting various wires and whispering into its chin, a loud foreign voice boomed, “I love you too!” and the team dissolved into fits of giggles.

Technical difficulties overcome, it was time to be given some answers to life’s more meaningful questions. A group of small children gathered around the head as Venelin greeted them in his deep Bulgarian voice. “Do you wear a bra?” one child asked. In the background I could see Venelin grinning from within a Hook-the-Duck stall. “Yes,” came the head’s deadpan response. One piece of art may not have the ability to solve grandiose complexities or alter the thinking of the majority but it can certainly brighten the existence of a handful of individuals for one small moment in time.

14.45

            Behind me on the gloriously sunny and surprisingly empty beach was a strip of brightly coloured heads protruding from the sand, like radioactive children buried up to their necks or buoys bobbing along the beach. Tom Hackett’s sculptural installation, The Silicon Boys, apparently reflects “complex social patterns, the passing of time (and tide) and the loss of childhood” but it was the insignificance of the heads that struck me most. Surrounded by the vast expanse of beach, the small corridor of sculptures had enough weight to produce an uneasy feeling when I stood amongst them, but their power rapidly faded with distance and they appeared lost in the sand, staring forlornly out at the environment. They should have stood as one of the more visual pieces in the festival, guiding people towards them like beacons as they jarred against the picturesque pastel seascape but there were perhaps too few of them positioned too uniformly on a neat segment of beach. A friend mentioned they had previously been displayed in Nottingham’s Market Square to great effect so perhaps they suffered from being in competition with the vast, natural beauty of Skegness beach and the comparison with Anthony Gormley’s Another Place and would have fared better in an urban environment or a small, more intimate cove.

18.00

One piece that certainly could not fail to be noticed was Suitcases. Having been repeatedly praised by SEAS veterans, I had high expectations for the piece as I began to follow a man in period costume and white make-up to an alleyway next to Wilko’s. Several more of these ghost-like figures appeared, deathly silent and barely human in their movements, save for the occasional gesture of reassurance to one another. Audience members became uncomfortable and shrunk back as they were approached and I soon found myself the centre of attention as an almost robotic mime handed me a rose hip in the most profound manner. Luckily, he soon broke his gaze and swept past me towards the waiting cart structure; a ghost vessel of indiscernible purpose that was guarded by a more plainly dressed, zombie-like woman and loaded with suitcases and rusted metal objects.

            More tragicomic characters between nightmares and memories materialised by the cart and a sombre harmony began to drone from their throats. As with Waiting, the actors were almost note perfect, performing intensely emotive songs made almost meditative by the unfamiliar language. Enacting a treacherous and arduous journey through the streets with a keen sense of comic timing, the protagonists interacted with the curious public, pausing to pose for the bank of paparazzi, both amateur and professional, that had formed an accidental barrier between the two. Had it not been for the conviction of the performers, the grave subject matter and the soulful harmonising, this piece may have been in danger of becoming a publicity dance, street theatre designed to attract attention for the festival and generate visually arresting photographs for the press.

            Despite a low volume of negative murmurings from some local viewers (who interestingly still continued to follow the procession), the reception to this piece was enthusiastic, if a little misplaced at times. Debate sprung up as to whether a zombie movie was being filmed and for a brief instant the actors were joined by a man in a joke shop mask, self consciously loitering beside them before fleeing through the crowd. These unplanned interactions reinforced the jovial atmosphere that the festival cultivated by bringing together residents, tourists and the art crowd. Whether the majority of the audience understood the meaning of the piece did not seem to matter, the experience of witnessing such a haunting performance together was enough.

23.19

            After an evening of swapping stories of public interactions with a new friend over a fish and chip supper, I returned to the Embassy Theatre for the highlight of the weekend, Sorelle.

            A fantastically creepy production, this cleverly directed, experimental opera is based on the true story of three sisters in Montenegro who, upon realising they are in love with the same absent sea captain, vow to wait faithfully for him to return.

            On a simple revolving set, three women demonstrated the agony, ecstasy and expectations of love and relationships to a fragmented soundtrack of cellos and electronica. Their beautiful costumes, reminiscent of Victorian corsets and bustles rendered in the clinical whiteness of insane asylum uniforms, were frequently removed to reveal black maid-like dresses as they slipped between visions of subservient perfection, Femme Fatales and tormented souls. Any illusion of devoted housewives soon shattered as their natural flaws and reactionary vices were revealed behind the windows of their house to the whispering taunts of “Perfect, perfect, perfect.”

            Neatly aligning the existentialist and domestic concerns in Waiting and the nightmarish, otherworldly feeling of Suitcases, the opera tore through feminist issues of sexual and domestic repression from external and personal, social and religious expectations. The hysterical women’s downfall, watched blithely by their man (played by the third sister in an inanely grinning mask) as they writhed in near-possessed agony/ecstasy, will take a long time to leave my thoughts.