SERVUS! (SERVE/US ECONOMY)
Photo credit: Carl Newland @ Arnolfini
What happens backstage in the coffee shops, hairdressers' and delicatessens of this fair land, and how are these baristas and barbers performing for us on a daily basis? SERVUS! is a 1-2-1 performance experience for cash, in which the audience member is invited into a bespoke shoeshine combined with an iPod-induced auditory hallucination. Depending on each participant's price threshold, he might receive simply the soundtrack, the soundtrack and the shoeshine, or - for the thrillseekers - sustained eye contact with the performer for the duration of the shoeshine.
Tied in with my research into the one-on-one encounter as potentially subversive towards entrenched notions of capital, SERVUS! has provoked conversations and shiny leather at the Arnolfini (Bristol), Performance Studies International Conference #18 (Leeds), and Tattenbaum & Deluca's Powerplay @ Toynbee Studios / Artsadmin (London).
In 2014, I worked as an Associate Artist with Lancaster-based LEAP and creative producer Leo Burtin to develop a new, bespoke SERVUS! based on Lancaster voices. More info here! I also showed this work in Berlin twice, at Universität der Künste as a guest artist opening its new MakeMeMatter course, and at independent P-Berg arts venue Ausland.
Tied in with my research into the one-on-one encounter as potentially subversive towards entrenched notions of capital, SERVUS! has provoked conversations and shiny leather at the Arnolfini (Bristol), Performance Studies International Conference #18 (Leeds), and Tattenbaum & Deluca's Powerplay @ Toynbee Studios / Artsadmin (London).
In 2014, I worked as an Associate Artist with Lancaster-based LEAP and creative producer Leo Burtin to develop a new, bespoke SERVUS! based on Lancaster voices. More info here! I also showed this work in Berlin twice, at Universität der Künste as a guest artist opening its new MakeMeMatter course, and at independent P-Berg arts venue Ausland.