History Lesson - Install-action - Live Action Gothenburg

A durational ‘Install-action’ as part of ‘Live Action Gothenburg’ International Performance Art Festival Sweden. Curated by Joakim & Jonas Stampe, in the Kunsthalle, Gothenburg, Sweden.(The Performance – ‘Install-action’ occurred over two evenings one of which was ‘Culture Night’ in Gothenburg.)Travel funded by the University of Ulster Research Institute.September 2009http://www.liveaction.se/ARCHIVES/LIVE-ACTION-08/ARTISTS.html#21http://www.liveaction.se/ARCHIVES/LIVE-ACTION-08/ARTISTS/Brian-Connolly.html300 Word Statement:Aspects of former Install-action Performance tests led me to develop a new strand of Install-action performance within dark spaces and contexts and utilising Ultra Violet light. Further developments of these artworks have been created in a range of international locations, spaces and contexts within Europe and Canada since 1995. Install-action is visually elaborate and aesthetic and it often deals with a series of socio-political motifs, as well as the qualities of differing contexts, and reflects on spiritual questions.Ritualised ‘Install-action’ Performance Artworks evolve into ‘installational’ spaces over time. These may vary in scale and complexity depending on the context, the nature of the exhibition event or festival. I was invited to participate in Live Action Gothenburg with a number of renowned international performance artists like Nieves Correa (Spain), Gwendoline Robin (Belgium), Tanya Mars (Canada), Irma Optimist, Pekka Kainulainen, (Finland) etc. I was invited by the Festival Curators Joakim & Jonas Stampe to create an ‘Install-action’.In the development and creation of the durational Install-action within the festival program I grappled with and portrayed the following issues: • How to create an artwork which utilised my past art experience, for a new cultural context and audience? • Can the Install-action format deal with or portray important contemporary socio-political issues successfully?• How can the creative act within the Install-action process, in time relay the relevant imagery and concepts to a transient audience?• How can the artist deal with duration within the festival format?The resulting Install-action work occurred over two days and nights (some 16 hours which also included ‘Culture Night’ a very busy night in the Kunsthalle). As a result of this detailed and rigorous process an aesthetic visual complexity within the gallery space grew, in both scale and tension, a physical tension, which directly echoed the political imagery within the artwork.