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In a library there is a book, a defaced book; much in the vein of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, and their rebellious criminal acts of the early 1960’s. A book that was defaced in the week that the first Harry Potter book celebrated its 20th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair resigning as Prime Minster: pure chance and coincidence.
However, there are another 122 books in the same library that are defaced with love, sharing the joy of books and their limitless possibilities of adventure with an unknown audience. Intrinsic in origin and inspiration of the work by Ellen Belle, the piece Billet-Doux 2013 is full of love; Belle says of her work,
The concept is a simple one. I made a series of miniature faux nineteenth-century letters which I ‘planted’ inside library books. They may or may not be found. Their fate is serendipitous. The letters are constructed using endpapers from second-hand books. I will not know who comes upon them, what they do with them, or indeed what effect they have on them. The notes are hand-written – using traces of other people’s love messages. They are sealed with wax. My intention was to make something precious, something intimate, that has the possibility of ‘touching’ the finder. These are wholly anonymous encounters. I place these billets secretively – not waiting to see who comes upon them. The paper, the written texts are all borrowed, copied or found. Such billets-doux are a kind of innocent marginalia, non-invasive, adulterative or coercive - a gentle happenchance, which may or may not evoke warmth and pleasure. (Belle,
This communication through books is an intimate personnel expression of love. Extending the research of one to one performances by Adrian Howells, after finding a picture in a book of his personnel box of books un-catalogued but not unloved held presently at Glasgow University. His books were my books. I owned his books. His sad, emotional books. Questions began to emerge, tenuous connections of an understanding of the man I only knew from research and the documentation of his intimate, very special work.
Communicating not face to face but nevertheless intimately with an unknown audience, sharing my own passions within an ephemeral transient framework, an underlying notion of what Sarah Dillion would describe as the palimpsest, 'the mystery of the secret, the miracle of resurrection and the thrill of detective discovery' (Dillon, 2007, p. 12-13) my mysterious, adventurous journey had begun.
One of chance and coincidence it has been a journey of reminiscence and reflection, made tangible by documentation employing the recording in map form the trace of my journey through the library leaving intimate notes in green pen, the colour a homage to Joe Orton and his pseudonym Edna Welthorpe and a score or instructions from the performance work by Yoko Ono. Which if you choose, you too can partake in the adventure, sharing your own joy.
Or you can hunt for the book......
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Pintrest[ed]
A trace, a [my]nd map, reflecting the journey through the performance of,
[de]face book
In his book, Documentation, Disappearance and The Representation of Live Performance, Mathew Reason cites Rodrigues Villeneuve in his introduction to understanding the principles of performance documentation.
“Those ‘who must speak about the performance’ must retain something of it ‘something material, some tangible trace’. Here there is indeed both a necessity and a desire to see and know performances that are no longer present themselves” (Reason, 2006. P: 2).
The map then reflects not only the performance [de]face book and its own ephemeral nature, but also the trace of an academic journey over three years. The realization stimulated from the notion of labyrinth walking in an academic library, suggested in the report, The Effects of Labyrinth Walking in an Academic Library (2016). The process of this practice unwittingly undertaken in the conception and initial praxis however eagerly embraced on reflexive engagement embodying mindfulness and stress reduction as a consequence, as the report stipulates, ”Labyrinth walking is a form of mindfulness-based stress reduction(MBSR). MBSR is a state of mind that entails a continuous, immediate awareness of physical sensations, perceptions, affective states, thoughts and imagery” (Zucker, Choi, Cook & Croft, 2016. P. 958). This engagement enabling synthesis with the initial instruction; Share your joy. Find a book that shouts this is me, find a book that is your soul; find a book! With a green pen, and sticky notes, go to a library. With an open heart.
With Love and Light.
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Memeography
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Initial inspiration was taken from Yoko Ono's 1960’s exploration of scores or instructions. Yoko Ono explained her work and intentions in an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist in 1992,
It was a fact that statues and paintings deteriorated in time, or were destroyed by political considerations. I knew that no matter how much you wanted, the work never stayed the same. So, as an artist, instead of trying to hold on to what was impossible to hold on to, I wanted to make “change” into a positive move: let the work grow- by asking people to participate and add their efforts (Obrist, 1992, n.p).
The instruction then bringing to fruition the underlying artistic endeavour of [de]facebook was as Friedman and Smith suggests in the introduction to The Fluxus Performance Workbook (2002), a proposal, a proposition. The simple notion of a verbal instruction documented, as Yoko Ono recorded her work into the now famous book Grapefruit (2000) can become in essence as Ono proposed, something more, a work in itself.
With Love and Light
With an open heart,
Go to a library
With a green pen
And sticky notes
Find a book
Find a book that is your soul
Find a book that shouts this is me
Share your joy
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