Felix Culpa

New Blog Post: Cat Alive...I Left This Here For You

"It is myself I have never met, whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind."

Cat Alive Theatre

I asked a question yesterday: if you could leave a message for anybody (anybody!) right now, who would you leave a message for? I want to compile a list of would-be message receivers, and sort of…tell them they have a message. Only I won’t be telling them. I will be writing this information onto index cards and slipping them inside books in the university (of Warwick, England) library.

This will be part of the intervention work I want to do under the title CatAlive (I have a blog set-up for it, but more on that later). I am thinking, too, that I will make a note of the code on the book I put the message into and give it to the person who said they wanted to send the message, and, perhaps, to the person they wished to send a message to. Even if you cannot go and check the book, you would know that you could.

To clarify: I am not passing on messages - only the intention to send a message. I asked the same question on Facebook, and got a response, for example, from my friend Lizzie-Beth, so I would write up an index card that says “Lizzie-Beth left this here for Abi” and slip it inside a book, and note down the code of that book, and give it to Lizzie-Beth. To do this, I would need both your name and the name of the person you wish to send the message to.

It doesn’t matter who you wish to leave a message for, and you needn’t tell me what that message is, unless you want to. Elvis, if you like. Or MJ. Or the Queen. Whoever you like. Obviously, I cannot send the code to Elvis, or MJ. I could try and send it to the Queen. Whatever. Likewise, if I do not know the person to whom you would like to leave a message, I will only send the code to you. You get the picture.

So, I shall pose the same question. If you could leave a message for anybody, who would you like to leave a message for?

Click here to do so.

"You may not be a Picasso or Mozart but you don’t have to be. Just create to create. Create to remind yourself you’re still alive. Make stuff to inspire others to make something too. Create to learn a bit more about yourself."

So, I may have spent this morning writing a new manifesto for the pre-WWI Italian Futurist Movement. And I may have really enjoyed writing it. I may also have a talent for waving my literary cock around arrogantly (that is the style of the manifesto, lol).

ohshitthatisfresh asked: oh yeah it's the same here! nah i go to goldsmiths in london. definitely wasn't good enough to get into warwick haha, my a levels were alright but not immense enough for warwick. what kinda theatre do you cover on your course? do you have any plans for next year? i'm second year and starting to freak out out about third year and graduating ha x

Don’t worry - I got a D in my Brecht/unseen paper. I think I only just passed the unseen section, and then got the rest of the points on the Brecht. God did I hate that paper! At the end of the day, though, I think you only get as much out of your degree as you put in.

We cover alsorts of stuff. I did Intro to Performance, Intro to Theatre  (both covering the basics of both, really, introducing theories, everything from Ancient Greece to Modernism to Chris Burden and Orlan and Blast Theory, etc etc) and Contemporary Performance Practices in first year (all compulsory), then in second year I did theory modules in the American Avant-Garde 1960-1980, Performing Online, Performance Realities (things like the Tricycle plays, Spalding Gray, etc) and Pantomime Idealogy & Culture; practical modules in Writing for Performance, and Performance and Text (“text” meaning absolutely anything that can be “read”, so, spaces, buildings, etc etc). This year, I’ve taken Theatre of ‘New’ Europe, Interpreting the Theatrical Past, Dramaturgy, and a written dissertation in clowning.

Don’t freak out! Trust me, we’re all wandering around the Theatre Dept asking each other if we’ve plans yet. I’ve sent my CV to a couple of places, and I’m looking at maybe getting involved in script writing at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. I submitted a script to the Bruntwood Prize, which…well…I knew wasn’t going to get anywhere, but it doesn’t hurt to try! I’m hoping to do the Edinburgh Fringe 2013 with a couple of friends of mine and a short script I’ve written that can be adapted for street work. You will be just fine :D

"I guess a lot of it’s just lashing out, because I didn’t know how to be an artist, and all this time spent alone in the dark in these studios and importing my culture and constant questions. I’d say, ‘Well, why is this art? Why isn’t that art?’"

"I found I had joined a church or academy or sect more attractive and picturesque than many others, but one in which faith was valued over freedom, noise over creation, reputation over discovery, submission to gospel over richness of experiment. I thought I was among a republic of poets and artists and found myself committed to a political theocracy whose supreme pontiff, like the despots of old, treasured the latest commoner in order to suppress the nobles."

"They talked about the difference between arriving at a decision and making a decision. The difference between coming to a decision and forcing one. They always preferred the former approaches - the meandering (with a strange certainty that you dare not trust) towards the things they needed but could not name in advance. The sign they lived by: ‘You know it when you see it’."