We never panicked, we were always afraid

by Karen Christopher

The making of an art work is always looking back and away again and back to find the other thing. The something that will explain the life perceived. A disturbance. But a stand-in, slightly out of the way. To see better with something ajar, something aslant, off-kilter from direct view.

It was me, there at the computer. And it was me, there at the desk with notebook and pen. And it was me, there in bed thinking about it. And it was me in the rocking chair with the sun over my shoulder, writing it down.

And this is where the slow motion came in and there were boats along the side and there were large squares of open space and wide roads and large cross walks and traffic lights and then a tipping and turning and something changing, my compass, my spirit level — and the leg and the jeans and a silent urgency toward the right while gently slowly sinking toward the road surface on the left followed by a bump like when an airplane is landing and it is all so gradual until the last bit falls hard on the ground — and I was strapped in and it took a few moments to locate my arms and legs and I felt cuddled by the canvas sides of the cargo bike closed in on me, the cargo, spilling out but also held in place.

The assignment was to do six versions of the same piece. That was the task we gave ourselves. And we both know what that means. Use the assignment to focus. Use it to have something to veer away from. Use it as a reference point. Little difference in the relative value between screwing to the spot and finding what comes from following orders or looking away to some different content and finding six variations on that. Six of this or half a dozen of that.

But I was a wild animal veering, shying, glancing off and flying elsewhere. Duty shirking is what it was. And each something was a stand in for the thing before it. Something seen from the corner of my eye, otherwise known as somebody else’s problem, almost always more interesting than my own.

An account of the accident on the way to the studio stood in for the kind of lurch or stutter at the beginning of an endeavour, or a decision, or a stand. A flutter at the moment of determination. A real event as well as a real metaphor. The intervention of an answer before the looking and the finding have a chance to unfold. An inability to let the speaking find the words, or the gesture the feeling, or the step the intent. The locked-in-the-mind moment when everything is not enough precisely because it is too much. The problem of the thread which is tangled and the dismay as the untangling invalidates the thought. The dream unspoken more real than its communication allows.

The lurch and the stutter masked a need to put my finger on a feeling, the cut and paste life, the fitting and shudder of info tech sliding through the air pockets around me, the vibrations, the X-rays, the signal everywhere. I am an antenna. When I stand still the digitals pile up around me. And the question whether to learn to smooth out or to accept the flutter, the dart, the jolt, the hard pivot, the rip-charge. What is the relative value between the energy gained from screwing myself to the spot with a single focus or to rapid fire scroll through, speed read, chop it and change it and move on.

All we could think about the, was the confusion of hot and cold. The dissolution of borders. The too much water and not enough ice. Land bridges disappearing. And the difficulty of leaving the ground and staying there — in the air I mean. The jump to remain up and never to come down again. All we had to do was do it.

I never did stop talking about the atomic bomb. I never did stop forgetting to go out with the correct protective gear. I never did stop staring into the far away distance waiting for the massive mushroom and the heat of the air rushing and the quake of the earth and the falling — both slow and fast and I never stopped moving toward the cafe at the end of the universe. Ready to make my order. Ready to face the chaos, ready for the quiet or the noise — where everything just keeps shaking. Ready for the end of the story or collapse of all of this into itself — one massive repetition to end all repetition after all this time fiddling at the edges. A constant rehearsal for a performance that never comes. Nothing new under the sun. A long slow drop to a hard knock and a never ending rushing toward.

We had our party dresses on.

We had our radiation goggles.

We had our swimming costumes on.

We were wearing rubber suits.

We were in Harris tweed.

We wore invisible cloaks.

We covered ourselves in a fountain disguise.

My skin was peeling, yours was getting thick.

We never panicked, we were always afraid.

Karen Christopher is a collaborative performance maker, performer, and teacher based in the UK. Her company, Haranczak/Navarre Performance Projects, is devoted to collaborative processes, listening for the unnoticed, the almost invisible, and the very quiet, paying attention as an act of social cooperation. Recent works engage with interconnectivity: the entanglement between people and of people with their environments, other living beings, and the vibrant matter with which we interact. Always Already, made with Tara Fatehi, is an 8-hour performance installation. Co-edited with Mary Paterson, Entanglements of Two: A Series of Duets is a book of essays focused on the form and practice of working in pairs in 14 different ways by 14 different people. She was a member of Chicago-based Goat Island performance group for 20 years until they disbanded in 2009. www.karenchristopher.co.uk