T:BA:07
Sponsored by The Portland Institute for
Contemporary Art
Portland, Oregon
September 6, 2007-September 16, 2007
Festival website: http://www.pice.org.
Reviewed by Dene Grigar
Digital Technology and Culture Program
Washington State University Vancouver
grigar@vancouver.wsu.edu
T:BA:07, or Time-Based Art Festival 2007,
is an 11 day event sponsored by the Portland
Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA),
that took place in September at various
venues in Portland, Oregon. In his welcome
statement Artistic Director Mark Russell
describes it as a "platform for artists
who dream of our future, who ask tough,
interesting questions about today and
tomorrow" (Festival Catalog 007-8), dreams
that ultimately manifested themselves
as stage performances; video, film, and
animation screenings; performance art
works; exhibits; artist talks; workshops;
lectures; and salons, all augmented by
the PICA blog and internet radio.
The opening event on Thursday afternoon
made good on Russells promise: A
choir, really a gaggle of singers (both
professionally trained and not) led by
American composer Rinde Eckert, sangno
performed well, okay, actually
enacted Eckerts work "On
the Great Migration of Excellent Birds."
Clustered together on the steps of Pioneer
Square, a historic park located in downtown
Portland that acts as the heart of this
city, choir members raised their voices
in song and mimicked the action of birds
flocking and flying away. No technology
was used, not even an amplifier. Voices
were simply carried on the wind, giving
flight to the idea that the bodyhuman
or otherwiseis the preeminent
tool of expression. Not machines, not
software, but this corporeal reality we
call the body.
This focus on the body emerged as a main
theme of the festival. Wherever technology
was used, props employed, and costumes
needed, the center of all attention remained
fixed upon the human in the act of expression.
The 2006 Andy Kaufman Award winner, Reggie
Watts, for example, waxed philosophical
at the Someday Lounge on the state of
the universe, taking aim at social and
cultural issues like Hip Hop cultures
attitudes toward women and New Age beliefs.
The bells and whistles of his performance
were not his digitally enhanced musical
compositions or video clips that played
periodically during the show but rather
Watts absurdist commentary and highly
visceral command of the stage.
The New York City dance group, the Donna
Uchizono Company, featured two highly
experimental pieces that highlighted Uchizonos
counter intuitive movements and playful,
minimalist choreography. The first, "State
of Heads (1999), reflected "the idea that
heads of states seem to be
disconnected from the Body
of the country" (19), a viewpoint even
more valid today than it may have been
when the work was first created. "Leap
to Tall" (2006), the second piece, was
commissioned by and starred Mikhail Baryshnikov.
At the Chat Baryshnikov participated in
before the performance, the legendary
dancer quipped that he was thinking that
with all of the injuries to his body he
would soon give up dancing. Anyone watching
this master that evening would attest
to the fact that he is as exciting to
watch today gliding effortlessly across
the floor of the stage as he was 20 years
ago leaping above it. His body at any
stage of the game remains a well-tuned
vehicle driving artistic expression.
In a send up to Dada, Claude Wamplers
piece "Performance (Career
Ender)" featured band members of the NY
group, the John Carpenter Band. Dressed
in white tuxes (and occasionally one in
a bear costume, another wearing fluffy
bedroom slippers, and later yet another
in a glittery Speedo), the band rehearsed
a song in preparation for a hypothetical
performance. A screen resembling a full-length
mirror stood on the stage, where a video
projection of the lead singer / bass guitarist
(John Carpenter himself) appeared. Projections
of the other band members, enhanced by
a fog machine, materialized eerily in
and out of the screen as they played their
instruments. As they rehearsed, finer
points of their performance were worked
out until, in the finale, flesh and blood
versions of the band came out on stage
and performed the completed work for the
audience. Augmenting this exploration
of ephemera, process, and performance
were performers planted among the audience.
On the evening this reviewer attended,
numerous possible "plants" were in evidence,
including the PICA volunteer who had joined
our group and suggested, when the performance
ended, that we hang back and talk to the
band members. As the room thinned, we
sat patiently waiting, only to be bounced
rudely out of the room by Wampler disguised
as an usher and perturbed at us for not
going soonerleaving us later
with the realization that we were insulted
by the artist twice, first by her in person
and, second, by her non-performance performance
work.
Punctuating the festival was "Some Cats
from Japan," a musical event curated by
Aki Onda and featuring four different
performances by Japanese artists, Fuyuki
Yamakawa, Onda, Kanta Horio, and Atsuhiro
Ito. While all were noteworthy, Yamakawas
piece was sublime. With an electronic
stethoscope taped to his chest, the artist
played his heartbeat, mixing it with Tuvan
singing, sounds coaxed from everywhere
on a guitar save the strings, and lights
generated from the intensity of his bodys
rhythms. Anyone who had attended any of
the 12 events that took place at the Wonder
Ballroom during the festival could attest
that the silence that overtook the crowd
during that particular performance was
testimony to the shock that Yamakawas
piece evoked. I can honestly say that
Portlands finest young hipsters
were slack-jawed during that part of the
show.
I could quibble that a curatorial statement
grounding the festival with a strong conceptual
framework and explaining the artistic
choices made was lacking or that the descriptions
in the catalog about each of the 50+ events
were not always informative enough to
help the audience choose which to attend,
or even some of the websites the artists
themselves offered provided little insight
into the works. But I could just as easily
say that the youthful T:BA festival, while
able to stand up, is just finding its
legs. Raw, meaty, and downright quirky,
it satisfies both the need of the body
to be moved by art and that of the intellect
to be awed by it. I encourage anyone interested
in contemporary art and performance to
pay attention to this up and coming event.