Chewing Gum for the Social Body is a new performance by Patrick Staff for The Tanks using live video, projection and sound-mapping. The performance continues the artist's interest in the investigation of the political, physical and material implications of social spaces, collectively produced film and video and improvised dance. Working closely with a group of performers in workshops, the performance initiates a 'collapsed' use of equipment; the dancers performing for, with and against the cameras, sound and projection. Chewing Gum for the Social Body interrogates what is produced and reproduced amongst a group working together and the spatial and performative limits of production, reproduction, image and documentation. This interrogation is ultimately underpinned by questioning togetherness in the present political moment and what energy can be sustained in shared spaces of action and struggle.
Patrick Staff is an artist based in London working with video, installation, performance and publishing. Previous projects have explored social spaces and historical alternatives to industrial and late capitalist society, counter-culture and alternative forms of community building. He frequently collaborates with other artists, historians, actors/dancers and public participants. He was a Lux Associate Artist in 2010/11 and has presented exhibitions, performances and screenings internationally, including recent projects at Whitstable Biennale; Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles; Fogo Island Arts Corporation, Canada; SPACE, London; Maison Populaire, Paris; and Milton Keynes Gallery.
Chewing Gum for the Social Body is linked to the symposium Playing in the Shadows exploring the subterranean darkness of The Tanks and radical experiments in projection and performance.
Part of the series The Tanks: Art in Action
Other events related to the symposium
Tina Keane: Transposition
Saturday 27 October 2012, 11.00 – 17.00
Kerry Tribe: Critical Mass
Saturday 27 October 2012, 19.00
Aura Satz: In and Out of Synch
Saturday 27 October 2012, 21.00
