Process of the Performance of the Paradox of Order

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This evening I will meet with some of the other artists and poets to discuss our performance. What is the most exciting outcome for me? There have no doubt been a number of aspects within the process which have been rewarding:

• collaborating within a project set up by an artist not known to me
• working in a landscape and a context chosen by others and outside my experience
  
• exploring my own ideas (together with Ash) within this context (B3TTY @LUDLOW)
  
• engaging in performance art for the first time, for me the interaction with the community offering their memories was the most exciting... why? I think because of the very active two-way nature of the social interaction to elicit memories. In the museum it felt far more passive receiving objects from the community. I also found it rewarding to observe how many people were willing to engage with B3TTY and how she seemed to elicit such interest and so many positive feelings. It felt to me as if we were offering a gift to a number of people within the community and that was before our sound installation on social media.
  

But I think it is the concept of 'adding value' to objects / memories which will be the most influential on my future practice. We have achieved this through actively collecting and displaying memories and objects from people unknown to us, thus giving them recognition and consequently a value:

• recording them digitally through photography and sound recording imbues a value through process as they will exist beyond the collection.
  
• placing them on social media allowing access of the collection to all, thus exposing the memories and objects to a wider audience adds to their longevity and thus their value.
• the writing of poems about the objects adds another layer of process and meaning and thus adds value to them.
• the selling of some of the objects on ebay, i.e. found empty lucozade bottle plus poem, found empty cigarette carton and poem and the unused pregnancy testing kit and poem added a further conceptual level of value to the objects. They have become commodities which has created a commercial value (albeit nominal).
  

The notion of finding, listening and thus noticing objects and and memories by the artist /performer instills a value to the viewer. This can be made explicit through the curation and exhibition into a public space, whether physical or digital. The placing of these items can then be placed into a marketplace where the wider community will determine the value of objects. This certainly feels like an antithesis to the white-walled gallery exhibition.