The
Guy Debord Show: Episode 9
Current (Elizabeth McTernan)
Current is a live performance comprised of an orchestration
of consecutive events happening in completely disparate locations. These
actions are taken by their authors more or less in physical solitude,
without cameras, but with the awareness of being connected to the other
participants through their scheduled synchronization. The live broadcast
itself is the artist announcing each of these events as they unfold,
one after the other, beyond the scope of the fixed camera lens. Collaborators
have been invited from all over the world to make punctual actions during
the scheduled time of broadcast, whether it be putting a loaf of bread
in the oven, performing oral sex, practicing Taekwondo, watching the
sunrise, humming a song, orhitting the alarm clock snooze button. These
actions may be mundane or dramatic, momentary or sustained over a length
of time. The performance will create a fragmentary domino effect, forming
a current of relational actions tethered by time alone.
A television news studio has a fixed origin while the members of its
audience remain largely variable, multiple and unknown. This broadcast
of the artist's own sort of current events will not only be directed
at the usual anonymous, mute public, but it will signal a similar kind
of presence constituted by the invisible yet very real performers. Since
no documentation of the actual events will be broadcast, all participants
have been required to sign a contract with their respective names, times,
and actions in order to reinforce the expectation of their follow-through.
And, as with any other news broadcast, the viewer will be left to trust
the artist's "authority" as conductor/announcer of these occurrences
in order to believe that they are really happening.
Elizabeth McTernan was born in Rhinebeck, NY in 1981. She attended
The Maryland Institute, College of Art, where she received a BFA in
General Sculptural Studies in 2004. Since then, she has resided in Yosemite
National Park, South Lake Tahoe, and Brooklyn. Her work has been exhibited
internationally, including venues in London, Liverpool, Sweden, Baltimore
and New York. Upon moving to Brooklyn two and a half years ago she witnessed
someone slip and fall on a banana peel - in real life. Liz currently
lives, works, and walks in New York City.
