A Demised Premise

“Text-based interventions”, in 'A Demised Premise', group event, curated by Richard Crow and Lucia Farinati, Institution of Rot, London, 31st July 2009


"Myself and others originally expected I’d be available to perform in person at Richard Crow and Lucia Farinati’s ‘A Demised Premise’. ‘A Demised Premise’ was a pre-eviction “last rites” or “wake”, held to both celebrate and mourn what and where had once been Richard Crow’s 1990’s secretive, mysterious, private and hidden North London Institution of Rot performance “club” (and also living and working space, since the early 1980’s). Only, ‘A Demised Premise’ had to be rescheduled to happen earlier than Richard Crow and Lucia Farinati 1st planned –clashing with when I’d be acting in ‘Marcel’*. To solve that problem, myself and Richard Crow made advance audio recordings and footage of me; “stand-ins”, serving to represent me, whilst “in absentia”. Some can be seen on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLMcWTUdhUA&feature=related


Despite ‘A Demised Premise’ being something I was involved with, at a place I’d been and known, I had to rely and depend only on other’s accounts, what documentary material there is, my own guesswork and imagination –then surrender and accept defeat to being none the wiser. I almost remember or dream ‘A Demised Premise’. In some ways, I was present and correct “there” and “then”. From what I heard and saw later, it seems the proceedings of ‘A Demised Premise’ went well, attendance was good and it worked as an event and experience. Take heed and be warned, phœnixes can and shalt arise up from out of the remaindered, surviving, leftover and dormant ashes of Richard Crow’s Institution of Rot."

©, Copyright, Douglas Park

* 'Marcel', film (and linked events) by Komplot collective, Brussels. Heavily referencing lives and works of 3 20th century avant-gardists, the 3 "Marcels"(!?): Broodthærs, Duchamp & Marien. “Avant-Premiere” (with live expanded-cinema actions by Merryl Hardt & Eleonore Saintagnan, Gregoire Motte, Douglas Park, Benjamin Seror and Pete Um) Netwerk, Aalst, 2010






'A Demised Premise', in 'Dokument, Dispositiv, Deskription, Diskurs', 

Disembodied, free and loose, but injured and sickly voices gasp their very last breath; remains compress, adhere, fuse, solidify and fossilise; leftovers, resurrecting into cadavers and wreckage which never quite die out; instead, they stumble, falter, slow down and halt during course of duty as active bodies and live places, not at standstill.

Substance-fatigue claims derelict bodies and dead places; afflicted victims fracture, shatter, crumble and dissolve, until evaporated away; all fumes and sand survived by burns, rust, debris, stains, mould, shadows and clouds lurking behind afterwards; immortalised voices patrol, haunt and reign, becoming unhindered meteorological weather.

©, Copyright, Douglas Park



Douglas Park reading A Demised Premise (extract) at the Institution of Rot.
July 2009
London
still from advance film and recording committed en situ at crime-scene


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLMcWTUdhUA&feature=related

The Institution Of Rot

"In history, as in nature, the rotten is the laboratory of life"

The Institution of Rot (IOR) was founded in 1992 br Richard Crow(sculptor, installation and performance artist) and Nick Couldry (writer and sound artist) and was concerned with objects and processes 'born' out of the destruction/transformation taking place within Crow's
private living/working space.
The first public performances and installations at the Institution of Rot were in June 1993.
In 1996 IOR curated the Noisiness Of Bodies - a series of site-specific work and performances (funded by the London Arts Board) that revealed multiple imaginary histories of a single private space.

"We aim to confront the paradox faced by all LiveArt/Performance - how to reconcile the privacy of its material and its processes with the exposure of public space, for 'if the age of transparency may need a theatre of secrets', so too must critical performance and installation open secret spaces, narratives of the private  and the inadmissable."

The curators presented work alongside artists working across a range of media - sound, text,video, objects and movement. Their affinity lay with the specific concerns of the IOR- the privacy of the human body and its public transformations (ingestion, expulsion, cleansing, confessions, rituals and taboos).

Admission was by invitation/membership only

Whilst Crow flies south Trina Mould is currently resident at the IOR,
hosting private conferences and opening Crows mail. (TM can reveal that Crow is the recipient of much direct mail from marketing/catalogue companies and from Islington Council and uses many pseudonyms)

The IOR remains open as a point of contact, and is interested in international collaborations.

To this end TM Exchange has been created at the IOR.
The 'artist in residence' is a  customary commission system whereby a public gallery will host an artist living and working on behalf of the gallery's  programme.
In this case TM exchange  acts as an agency for artists willing to exchange their private homes in a straight swap for a short period.  Projects are commisioned by TM Exchange/IOR and resultant work is exhibited at the homes involved and/or through Internet using WWW and email.

institution of rot
109 corbyn st
finsbury park

tel/fax  44 (0) 171 272 5816
email t_mould {AT} irational.org

via http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9703/msg00007.html

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