IWY 13: INDEX

23 February 2014
@ ]performance space[ (Swan Wharf), London

There is the thing, and there is the thing that tells you about the thing.

Join us, so we can tell you about our things.

On 28 February, at the then new ]performance s p a c e[ (Swan Wharf) we got proper meta, thinking about performance and notation, scores and scripts.

The event celebrated the publication of Emergency INDEX Vol. 2, an indispensable resource which performer and Franklin Furnace founder Martha Wilson calls ‘a bible of performance art activity’. We’re also launched Chapter 1 of NOTA, a performative publication by Open Dialogues.

We talked. We drank.

with: ]performance s p a c e[, Brian Lobel, Season Butler, Warren Garland + Josh Baum, Yoko Ishiguro, Eirini Kartsaki, Open Dialogues, Justin Hunt + Johanna Linsley, Daniel Oliver, Sophie Robinson

About Emergency INDEX:

This is a bible of performance art activity. And if you are, like I am, a believer in performance art and the value of this ephemeral art activity to change the hearts and minds and consciousness of people, then you need to have this bible in your life. The end. —Martha Wilson

We’ve been seeing performance art materialize around us, but without feeling that there was a context for such ideas. Artists have been doing such pieces for a long time without much recognition that in fact their ideas are related. Now, with Emergency INDEX, we get the sense of a magical secret shared among many artists. Emergency INDEX is a profoundly important publication. It guides us to a new place. —Robert Ashley

Emergency INDEX vol. 2 will be available for the special launch price of £10.

About NOTA Chapter 1:

NOTA: NOT, NOTES, NOTER, (NOTA), (NOT/A), is a research framework produced by Open Dialogues that presses on time, place and quality of notes in relation to performance.

Chapter 1 is the first of ten publications that accompany the work. It is a collection of time-stamped documents – handwritten notes, absent-minded doodles and choreographic diagrams – that were NOTAted in relation to SHOWTiME performance festival (2012) and includes a critical text by Rachel Lois and Mary of Open Dialogues on the subject of notes as the future of performance remains.

Chapter 1 will be assembled live on the evening of the launch by Rachel Lois and Mary, bound by hand and finished with a unique time-stamp. No two publications are the same. Available for the special launch price of £4.

All photos by Christa Holka. Thanks to ]performance space[.