Author: Christine Gwillim

Samson Young is considering sonic warfare. Night bombing videos are a thing on YouTube, like how cat videos are a thing. They sound different than you’d imagine, he started wanting to do sound design for these videos. As he continues working on this project he consideres feeling the magnitude of what it means morally to do this for long periods of time; what does it mean when creating sound around bombing videos, when it starts to feel like going to work, much in the same way that drone operators slip into the routine of bombing?

The durational performance, Nocturne, is happening until 6pm today at Big Medium.

Much of the conversation at this year’s festival has centered around geographical context. Questions have come up repeatedly about the balance between presenting local and non-local work, how to engage community audiences and the pros and cons of touring work that was created in a vastly different context than the one at a given festival. Personally, I have been struggling with the relationship between this year’s festival and a tragic Austin event that coincided with the kickoff of the Festival.

Jeremy and I stayed up late sipping beers and discussing Manwatching at the festival hub Friday night. We had vastly different experiences of the performance. He saw it Thursday alone, I saw it Friday with colleagues from UT. The premise is that an anonymous British woman (of some stature in her field) casts a local white male stand up to cold read a script which is full of details about the woman’s coming of age through sexual fantasies and mastrubation. The fellow reading for the Friday afternoon performance was witty, self aware and charming.

Jeremy remarked that it seemed like an easy pill to swallow, watching this white dude read the intimate details of some woman’s private sexual thoughts and experiences. Maybe that was the point, that it is an easy pill to swallow, but for the woman who wrote the piece it wasn’t. This information, when read by a white man isn’t really that jarring. It points to a more insidious danger, one that white straight men won’t ever experience. It was about a structure of feeling that I know in my bones, a type of fear so internalized that was brought to the surface in Austin this week. The piece is about the patriarchy in a funny way, making it possible for me to consider a critique of the system without breaking down sobbing.

Here are the first reactions that I shared with theater director and dramaturg, Gabby Randle.

Day two of Waffle Chats brought together four artists, Luis Garay (choreographer), Daniela Libertad (visual art), Rachel Mars (performance maker) and Anna Rispoli (filmmaker and one third of art collective Zimmerfrei). Moderator Leslie Moody Castro quickly picked out themes that all four approach in their respective practices, she also prodded Luis into sharing personal stories from his childhood. All four artists are investigating limits in related but different ways. Libertad is conceptualizing the limits of form via the triangle, simplifying the study so much that it becomes infinitely complex. Her residency at MoHA has just begun, but already there are collections of clean lines and geometric questions lining and intersecting on the white walls tucked behind the stage.

Mars’ work seems to be pushing, pulling and testing a multitude of limits; the line between comedy and theater, emotional potential and the ability to discipline oneself properly, humor and despair. Last night at Our Carnal Hearts I found myself chuckling at the same moments that I wanted to go draw a bath and turn out the lights because I was ashamed of how much I related to her enraged envy.

Luis Garay admitted a similar feeling to me in the car after the waffle chat. He is one of those totally brilliant people that can come to a talk hung over and nervous but still spit out some mind melting metaphysical ideas about ritual, religiosity and running away.  His work Maneries  shows Sunday. Stay tuned for an interview with The Walker that I overheard him give, or just catch him in person to find out how this work is inspired by French philosopher Giorgio Agamben.

As for Anna Rispoli, I need to write a whole separate post about the limits of utopian living and the connection between her film Hometown Mutonia and the magical east Austin venue that it screened at tonight.

https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-m-barker/fusebox-waffle-chat-7april2016

The kickoff Waffle Chat at #Fusebox2016 got to the heart of things real quick. Panelists Kee Hong Low ( West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong), Matthieu Goeury (Vooruit, Belgium), and Cory Baker (The Long Center, Austin) joined Ron Berry for some real talk about the state of international arts funding, the role of arts centers in local communities and future aspirations for their institutions.  Kee Hong Low, the Head of Artistic Development in Theater for the massive new Hong Kong Arts district, West Kowlhoon, jokingly referred to arts centers as monsters that require a lot of food. He was alluding to the huge amounts of investment money taken to build a center, but his analogy surpasses the financial. Arts centers constantly need to reinvest in their communities, as new Vice President of the Long Center, Cory Baker discussed with a local Austinite. The long Center offers a residency program that gives local artists access to rehearsal space, marketing and other perks, but in 2015 no one applied. This speaks volumes to the disconnect between artists and the resources at The Long Center. With the loss of several key performance venues in Austin this year, such residencies will be crucial for presenters. The question that faces Baker is how to make The Long Center feel more accessible to the local arts community. As she said, it’s not about bringing new work to Austin, but about how to engage with what’s already here.Matthieu Goeury, on the other hand, is looking ahead to a future community in Belgium that will be quite different than the current patrons of Vooruit. He is faced with an influx of young non-white immigrants that will largely reshape the demographic in Belgium. He wonders how to plan ahead for a different audience. I wonder what strategies Vooruit is using, and how those might be in conversation with the ones we are having in Austin and in other regions? How can local artists and art centers, like the the Long Center, engage with one another more effectively? How can a large scale district for the arts  be developed in a way that feels like home for locals?

This talk got me thinking and wondering. Have a listen, comment here or come find me IRL (I’m the gal with purple hair) I’d love to keep ‘chewing the fat’ together.

https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-m-barker/fusebox-waffle-chat-6-april-2016

Last night at Fusebox Eve, Paul Lazar described Fusebox as “equisite for an American city” while discussing the importance of Fusebox and other festivals for the American arts community. There is something about dining together, with colleagues, artists, new faces, locals and out-of-towners, that made that importance tangible. Or as Aaron Sanders put it “holy hell you should have been there.”

Here’s to the beginning of #Fusebox2016!