piece for a male speaker & twenty seven interruptions

8/8/2019 Piece For A Male Speaker & Twenty Seven Interruptions

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End


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Knowing is noth

doing is everythinBut this doing is

fundamnetallyan act ofcommunictaion...Page 65, Stanfod University Press, 1991


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Broadcast

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Radio

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19th February, 2010

[i]

Because I refuse to be vacuous, but very of-ten, I usually I am, Ive decided to enlist thehelp of a very thorough man. In retrospectthough, I should have been much more spe-ci c, because a thorough method is not thesame as thorough content, and theres noth-ing worse than a man whos all method, andno trousers.

[ii]

Of course I can write, Im doing this now, but on this occasion its really not the point.Todays text is much more to do with creat-ing the conditions to make something pos-sible, and in this case the condition is some-one else. Not a collaborator. An element. An

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external element. A foreign body. A cat for the pigeons, to ensure the text performs dif-ferently, and never the same as before.

[iii]

Today, Ive already written quite a bit. Idont want to repeat that here. I dont wantto stultify with a repetition of my previoustext and beyond this I simply wont mentionthat word which the man repeats to me dai-ly. Do not be stulti ed. Then he hands me atext, that will help.

[iv]

Now im writing a performance, which needsto emerge from scratch. Except it cant, be-

Resonance, 104.4 fm

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cause nothing ever does and in this case I al-ready started. Worse still, it seems Im hav-ing to do almost all the hard work, which isno longer exactly my work, its very muchhis.

[v]

My work, i say, is different. Its about new-ness. Absolute newness. Change, mobility,

progress. Moving anywhere. Going every-where. Breaking the lines. Basking in mar-gins. Finding some freedom from total con-trol. My work is limits, my work is people,

process and thoughts, public and privateand. gush. Well he says today the end-

point is open. But the process you go throughis not .

19th February, 2010

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[vi]

I pick up where I left off; Monday night, af-ter the man has veri ed that, yes, Im on theright track and, yes, Ive reached page four-teen. Im complaining because the methodis slow, and Im going to stay rooted to thesame book-on-loop for one hundred and for-ty pages. I cling to the method and whine: Im lost, I feel desperately lost, do you feel desperately lost? No he tells me, I just want a coffee .

[vii]

One man wants to speak, the other wantsto gure him out, and thats that. Thats allwe need to take us from one persons pri-

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vate idea to something more public. Then,when two wills agree that they both wantto know, they will produce a thought. Thiswill be visible to two men at the same time.Someone-one speaks it, someone-two givesform to it using his ears and his eyes, andthen they swap. This is a metamorphosis;

private to public. Its the effect of two willshelping each other out. Its supportive. Itssocial. You know?

[viii]

Do we need a desk? I agree that we prob-ably do. Shall we move it forwards? hesays. I agree that, yes, we should probablymove it forward.

19th February, 2010

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[ix]

When two people confront each other tospeak, speech becomes words and thenwords become thought. Does that soundright? I lost the page number. I start again.

[x]

An idea becomes matter and the matter be-comes an idea but he threw me matter long

before ideas; one hundred and forty pagesof matter. Page after page of matter, all mat-ter and not a scrap of will. Do you realise

you dont have much will? I tell him. I told you to transcribe that . He says.

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[xi]

Right now, in this situation, our intelligencedoesnt count when all you claim to knowabout this text, this thing, means nothing,

because you are just knowing, without verymuch doing. And in this case, doing is ev-erything. It says so right here. In your veryown text . Ill stop the recording now hesays. Its already 42 mega bites.

[xii]

I say, hes wholly inactive. He blames theapjack he ate for a snack, but continues to

read and know. Knowing is nothing, doingis everything! And doing is fundamentally a

19th February, 2010

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communication. For that, I know speakingis best, because it says so, here in the text.

[xiii]

Through speaking, a man stops transmittinghis knowledge and starts to speak poetry.And dont laugh out loud. Its your text thatsaid that, not me. So please, tell me, whatare you nding? If youre not nding that.

[xiv]

The communication between two peoplewho confront a text which they dont knowhow to read is simply the effort one bringsevery minute to translating and counter

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translating someone elses position. Thiswill help you understand your own. But hewont translate. He just reads. You just read the reading . He just reads about text, whichhell never inhabit because its always too

precious to live in. He needs it intact. Youneed it intact . So he can point to it and tellme thats evidence .

[xv]

Should we lose the desk? he says. Thehead-to-head negotiations are over.

[xvi]

The power of good translation makes one

19th February, 2010

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speaker confront another. Its social. Canyou help? He only half hears and busieshimself with a pile of proofs in the corner.He jangles his facts, and whistles out evi-dence.

[xvii]

Dont you understand that youre copy-ing . He studies his handbook. I want himto know that hes copying. He orders hiswords on a post-it note. I want you to knowthat youre COPYING.

[xviii]

Should we fnd a whiteboard? h e says.I agree that, yes, we should probably nd

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a whiteboard. We can transcribe, what you just said, on the whiteboard. It will give us some idea of where youre at.

[xix]

Wanting to do, is wanting to to say, andwanting to say should always be addressedto any reasonable person. To do this takes

practice. Its the practice of moving others.Its a language to learn, and youll never learn it from behind a text, because if your text tells you, show yourself and speak,what will you say then? What will you saynow? Now your text turned against you.

19th February, 2010

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[xx]Were thirty-one days in and Im starting tohave some ideas, but that was three weeksago now and today Im not so sure theyllhave worked. Nonetheless, I did propose thesolution and the solution was positions .To which he replied maybe . But Im in-dignant. Without a position well be noth-ing. Well make no progress, well be feebleinterpreters, tribute-bands, soul-suckers,hopeless, fruitless, academic D-listers. Butit doesnt work. Every position is attempted,then quickly abandoned.

[xxi]

Shall we have some lunch? he says.

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[xxii]

If im allowed to take a position, and closedown the ending, open the process andthrow out the method, well get somewhere,we will. But he likes the text-on-loop, withthe narrowest margins for error.

[xxiii]

We start at the start and read to the end. Wetake a fact, we nd a quote, we lay it down.Its a jigsaw. A giant one-man sport. Method,selection, perfection and goals. Do you re-ally believe this is thinking? Of course not.Its method, on loop, with no content.

19th February, 2010

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[xxiv]

By now, Im desperate. Im begging please,lets get out of this text, because its really

soon. In two-weeks time and somethings got to go in there. No he says. Somethings

got to happen there .

[xxv]

I have departed from my right way and lis-tened to yours and now I need you to listento me. I do not have a book. Or a fact or a method, but I do have a structure, whichwas always quite simple; 27 vociferous per-sons to disrupt your rhetoric at precisleythe choreographed time. But the 27 comes

from you. He says. Im not interested inthe 27 .

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Piece For A Male Speaker & Twenty-Seven Interruptions, 2010Documentation of a thirty-one day negotiation and a 9 hour 41min rehearsal, broadcast live.

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[xxvi]

This week, next week and the week after issimple. Ill commit to the text. Ill do as yousay. Ill read it, Ill read it, Ill read it again,Ill write it Ill break for tea, Ill drink cof-fee, Ill push it forward, Ill learn it as bible.So when can we start? Friday? No good?Wednesday? too soon... two evenings, couldwork, next week? Is better, a desk would begood, but should we move forward? ShouldI start? Should you? Here is a text, a spacefor us both, which Im reading and readingand reading outloud. And the interruptions?Arrive and arrive and arrive.

[xxvii]


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It remains that

thought must bespoken,

manifested in worcommunicated toother thinking

beings...Page 62, Stanfod University Press, 199118


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(2)

Rehearsal

(Re-enacted)

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6th February, 2010

Piece For A Male Speaker & Twenty-Seven Interruptions, 2010Public renactment of a 9 hour 41 minute private rehearsal for an undetermined radio broadcast.Edited from the original to (approximately) thirty-six minutes and twenty-seven extras.


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Learn to speakon any subject,off the cuff,with a beginning,

a development,and an ending...Page 42, Stanfod University Press, 1991

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(1)

Exhibition

Post-rehearsal

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CHELSEA Space

(front view)


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Translated fromthe original

ISBN: 0804719691

piece for a male speaker & twenty seven interruptions

Documents