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Kill Your Value Judgements
If any members of the DCA crowd were excitedly looking forward to another year’s feast of experimental music from the justly renowned Kill Your Timid Notion festival, well they were in for an upset. 2010’s edition offers no such conventional entertainment, and indeed the opening night’s events took such timid notions and killed them outright.
Inaugurating the festival was Basque “noise artist” Mattin who, under the glare of spotlights, took a seat opposite the audience and did nothing. Eventually some brave souls began to stand and move around the gallery, one exhibitionist even performing a seductive dance to a few chuckles, and after about half an hour many spectators started to drift outside for some chat amongst themselves. Next up was Loïc Blairon, a young French musician who set up a speaker in the room’s corner that muttered inaudibly (something about words maybe?) before he (eventually, after quite some time) got up and pushed two blackboards across the space. Again, the crowd’s quiet spontaneous discussions duly began to strike up. Headliners were Scottish performance artists Smith/Stewart who had us queue up the gallery’s outside staircase. We then each filed into a room and were given instructions to face a camera and say the word DEAD before finally sitting inside the gallery to patiently view the actions of those next in line.
Any value judgements or star ratings here seem quite redundant. Dear reader, I urge you instead to act in the spirit of the event itself. Best to write your own review and award marks ranging from 5 (exciting, radical, innovative) to zero (old hat). Keep in mind this is being judged according to your own personal tolerance for this sort of ultra-minimal, process-based activity. When you’ve done that, sit down in groups and discuss your conclusions (if any). Then go home.
Comments (7)
Add a comment »I think if you were to walk into this festival with a closed mind, you were to get the exact experience that has been described above. Yes it wasn't the usual kind of exhibition we see at the DCA, nor was it the usual comfortable safe experience that we get every time we attend exhibition openings there. The routine sipping of wine, viewing of art, and walking out. But that's exactly why it was excellent.
This festival was bravely turned on it's head, and a huge well done to them for taking such a risk. For me it was a complete breath of fresh air. I walked into the whole thing skeptical, nervous and a bit uneasy about what was about to take place. I walked out of it completely refreshed, experiencing something a bit daring, a bit different and by no means the norm.
You didn't have to love each performance to feel as though you'd experienced something. It wasn't about that. It wasn't meant to be the usual, walk in, here's a beginning, a middle, an end and ta da! performance done. Why would we be wanting to attend yet another exhibition like that for? I was glad to break out of that usual comfort zone of monotony. For me the performances stayed in my head because they weren't like that. They were something to think about, something different. I felt part of it all, and being able to speak to the artists, i learnt a lot, and have met some amazing people that i'm so grateful to have been able to not only watch performances by, but meet, chat to and keep in touch with which isn't something i've ever been so easily able to do at the regular exhibitions.
I think it's a shame that it's been judged in this way. This isn't something that was to be attended with a narrow mind. It was something to be experienced and i'm glad i got to the chance to gain something from it. Sometimes things need a bit of a shake up, and that's not necessarily a negative. If you were willing to open your mind a little, and give it a chance, then this festival was defiantly something to be inspired by.Posted by | Thursday March 2010 @ 18:05
Report to moderatorThere is another review of the KYTN on the site that offers a different perspective: it doesn't necessarily praise specific events but it does have more sympathy with the intent of the festival.
Posted by | Thursday March 2010 @ 18:10
Report to moderatorSanna Dyker: the reviewer clearly attended on the basis of previous years' successes, as did I. To say that to see the audience react adversely to the performances was in itself part of the intention of the pieces is slightly naive and potentially insulting to those that attended. Having spoken to several of the specatators I would suggest that alienating a willing, already niche audience who regularly support Arika events is not a great recipe for future success.
Posted by | Thursday March 2010 @ 21:48
Report to moderatorMy reaction was not to how the audience, or the reviewer in particular, reacted.
I already mentioned that you didn't have to "love" all the pieces for it to be quite an experience, and that the general event was something to remember. For me it just happened to be a positive experience.
But i also happen to know that the reviewer didn't attend many of the events, and for an event that needs to be fully experienced, i thought it to be inaccurate outcome.Posted by | Thursday March 2010 @ 23:18
Report to moderatorThat's great that you had good experience Sanna. I certainly didn't have a negative experience, just a bit of a non-experience with a couple of the events. I realise that this wasn't about being entertained in the conventional sense - having attended many Arika and other similar happenings in the past, I felt that this one didn't quite live up to those previous successes. Obviously these kind of things are about taking risks and the fact that these risks are being taken is fantastic in itself. Inevitably though, sometimes they wont pay-off and this seemed to be the case (I felt), with a couple of the performances. This will certainly not put me off attending future events and long may they continue.
Posted by | Friday March 2010 @ 13:22
Report to moderatorWith a few short anti-performances by a clique of manifesto-mates and the self-selected groupies who took part in the "investigations", Arika undermined the democratic spirit of previous KYTN events, and replaced it with the self referential posturing of people with very little to say and none of it new. Nothing personal, let them all get along in their hermetically sealed fart-bubble, and good luck to them too. I go along to events like this expecting to be challenged and knowing that I won't necessarily relate well to everything, that's what I want, so I don't subscribe to any viewpoint which attributes a negative experience on my part to my "innate conservatism", just a poor sap who isn't part of the in-group but was dumb enough to fork out for a ticket. There wasn't anything new about this, and certainly nothing radical. It was a scruffy set of the emperor's new clothes bought from a charity shop round about 1972. Maybe part of the problem is that I'm actually old enough to remember this kind of bloodless shit from what seemed to me to be the first time round. Of course, now I know that even back then this was recycled snake oil. Technology doesn't hide the lack of substance, and while I'm talking about props, the paper pads covered with what we are calling ideas in the investigation room lent a very unpleasant tone to the whole thing, a stale corporate whiff somewhere between a sales team away day and a social work training session.
Posted by | Wednesday March 2010 @ 19:56
Report to moderatorthe above comment is spot on. i didn't enjoy it this year, i felt it was alienating and not pushing any particular boundaries
Posted by | Saturday June 2010 @ 17:27
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