Rationale

We all have that dream yeah? Be an artist make a show that rocks and have it take you places... OK well maybe that's my particular nocturnal obsession and not as many folks as I think are into it. No matter, in the course of trying to make this fanciful notion become some kind of reality you often are required along the way to put down a few thoughts for the peeps who might assist you to get that dream happening. You know, funding bodies, producers, media outlets etc etc..

What follows then is a kind of rationale for THMC... feedback welcome. Cheers TH


“Confession is always weakness.” Dorothy Dix

Nothing weighs so heavily upon us as a secret. Chinese proverb

I am a performance artist or more than twenty years experience. I am interested in intimate, small-scale self-devised and group devised work that embraces the new but not at the expense of flexibility, portability, and quality. Of particular interest to me, and possibly the one area that has remained a constant throughout my work, has been an ongoing investigation into the dynamics of the performer-audience relationship. Specifically, what exchange occurs between these to ‘entities’ when notions of invited participation are introduced into the performance environment. I abhor enforced participation of all kinds in performance both as audience member and performer/maker. However invited participation I believe opens up a much broader range of possible relationships between audience and performer. Not new conceptually, perhaps, but I would contend still very relevant in the Australian context, particularly given the new media technologies and levels of interconnectivity possible between us all today.


The idea for Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures (THMC) stemmed cumulatively - if that’s possible - from three specific experiences. The first of which happened 15 years ago as a freelance artist newly arrived in big expensive Sydney and having done a CertII in Nail Technology of all things as a way of paying bills. I quickly discovered that I hated working in a salon but found it fascinating to talk to clients and extended that into doing nails in big warehouse parties at the time and having hilarious exchanges with peeps at four o’clock in the morning. Secondly, a Symposium run two years ago by Perth's own PVI Collective (This Is the Time, This is a Record of the Time) about hybridism in performing arts. It inspired me to think about new technologies around and how I might incorporate these burgeoning digital elements into my own making. Finally, a flat mate showed me the work of American community artist Frank Warren whose books about his project, Post Secret were an incredible document of a marvelous project. However, I wanted to find a way to explore with an audience the moment leading up to personal disclosure, what happens just before revealing a secret or a decision to confess.

The work has three distinct components. The performance one-on-one of a 'Manic Cure' with a 'client', a single audience member which, as well as being a genuine manicure by a trained nail technician, is a guided conversation/exploration of the possibility that the client may (or may not) have secrets to divulge.
The second section of the work is the installation of the typewriters and Wall of Secrets, here, the client after his or her nails have dried can type up a secret/confession (anonymously) and place it in the Secrets Box. After the session of performances for that day has concluded the secrets donated are removed, logged and or scanned and then installed on the wall of secrets for the following days performances. Passers by who wish to can used the typewriters without an appointment for a Manic Cure.
Finally, the work has a dedicated website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter page. The site details the show and archives the secrets, the blog details the process of making and running the show. Facebook is for networking the show and Twitter is for followers of the show to receive secret tweets from the past secrets archive PSA.

In making the work, I didn’t want to demand of an audience that they consider the possibility of disclosure of and by itself. Two things emerged for me in thinking about an approach to the work that were subsequently designed into the work and have existed from the first performances in 2008, and have remained there up to and including the current version of the work today. As a performer, if I wanted an audience to give or donate to me a secret, then I felt I had to on an ethical level give the audience something in return beyond a performance situation that allowed them to donate. I had to actually give something to anyone who chose to actively participate in the performance. I reasoned that beyond performing, I could do nails, and salons lend themselves to a kind of contemporary confessorial atmosphere… So it seemed like as good a gift as any to offer. The other stipulation or parameter that remains today is that the donation of secrets happens anonymously. I felt and still feel that it is imperative that the audience’s privacy is honoured.

It’s important to note that a passer by can see the work in situ an d without getting a one-on-one performance from Tawds they can still participate if they want to by typing up a secret and putting it in to the Secrets Box. They have the opportunity to book a performance and receive the nails ‘gift’ from Tawdry but if they elect not to, that shouldn't preclude them from interacting with the piece in other ways.

So, the credo of THMC basically boils down to this: do something for someone else in exchange for a secret. Make certain that their privacy and anonymity is protected before any of the secrets are disseminated in any way. Once that was in place then all the other features of the work, the web page, the blog , Facebook and Twitter fell painstakingly into place. Piece of cake!