hiding continued

I have requested that friends and colleagues submit photos of potential hiding places in other cities.
The idea is to take a literal translation hiding as 'where I am not' to the extent of providing documents of where I could (not) have been, and where I could not have been. So far I have documentation of hiding in toronto, Ontario on Sunday from 4pm to 6pm.
I will post photos shortly.

hiding 5

Wednesday April 4, 3:30pm - 5:5:6pm
Quinpool/ Robie/ Vernon/ Pepperell
Ok! so here are a couple notes and I'll add more when I warm up!
2 and a half hours. It was cold. Under a wooden ramp.
My back hurt. Every time I do this project I realize just how easy it would be to hide a body in the city. Also how glad I am to be doing this in Halifax where hiding places don't smell like piss and aren't full of used needles.
I decided before I started the project that I cannot DO anything while I'm hiding, what I'm doing IS hiding. No multi-tasking, no reading, no writing. I spent most of the time worrying that I couldn't possibly sit outside in a cramped uncomfortable cold position for the full time. It seemed like so long. I sang to myself a lot, since no-one could hear me. I thought people probably thought I was a homeless kid. A lot of people didn't notice me so I felt really safe, also because I was hidden from view from all but one perspective, so I could see anyone who could see me. Also, I was lying/sitting on a sheet of cardboard, so I wasn't crouching or standing in uncomfortable positions, but there wasn't much headroom and any position is uncomfortable if you can't move too much.
I got really bored and tried to zone out, got pretty sleepy, but then whenever someone would go into the store they would walk over top of me and that was terrifying! It sounded like the world was ending, because I was in this sort of out of it headspace to pass the time and then the hugest explosions sounded like they were all around me and the ramp was going to hit me, but it was just cause the customers would ride their bmx bikes in or out of the store on the ramp.
Half an hour before the end a guy who worked in the store came down and asked me if I had a particular reason for hiding under their stairs. I said it was for an art project, his cellphone rang and he went back inside. A few minutes later he came back out and seemed interested. He asked what kind of art project and I said it was about public space,that I was hiding and cold. He said yeah it is cold and went back inside.
I said to him, I have 20 more minutes left. He kept going. I kept waiting, counting down the minutes until I could pee. A guy from NSCAD walked by, he caught a glimpse of me,I have a feeling he's in the class I TA. He backed up and smiled at me and kept going.
I saw a police van going up the street away from me. I was almost done. Then I saw the van pulling up to the store. Two police officers stepped out in full body armor (no swat team but still) they put on their gloves as they approached me. They told me I would have to come out. I said sure, and they asked me why I was hiding under the ramp. I said it was an art project. One of them thought that was really cool. He asked how much longer I had been going to be there, I said, actually only 4 more minutes. They asked about the project and I said it was about public space,and I said I was glad they had come because I was cold and wanted to stop.
They asked for my ID and I said that I'd rather not give it to them,but they said that since the owner of the business had called them they had to make sure I wasnt' wanted for manslaughter or something else in the province. I said I was sure that I wasn't but I asked if my student ID was ok. They asked what I majored in at NSCAD, since I looked like I was in High School. I said sculpture. We went over to their van and they ran my ID. The one who was into the project said we're not all dumb toughs in boots or something like that. I smiled and said I know, I'm not afraid of you. He asked what kind of art it was if nobody could see it, I said well thats sort of what its about, nobody notices art anyways and if you hide it people will notice it more, he said he disagreed, but seemed amused by the idea. Hiding in plain sight, eh? Yeah something like that. Thankfully, I'm not wanted for murder, so they let me go and wished me a good day, I said thank you for catching me, and they watched me leave.

I'm cold, but I guess that everything's ok.

hiding 4

I will post a description of hiding 2 and 3 soon, they were, however, uneventful, for the most part.
Today, April 2nd, from 9:30am to 12:30 pm I had committed to hiding in the location bounded by the streets Hollis, Sackville, Bedford Row and Prince. The location I selected was a basement window box that was about 5 and a half feet below the sidewalk. There was the width of the window across and the depth of my body so my eyes were at street level and I had about 2 or 3 body widths of space around me.
It was very cold today. I had planned to try to count the number of times I blinked during the performance, but because I felt exposed by concealing myself I found it challenging to concentrate on anything except how afraid I was of being hurt and how tempting it was to make eyecontact with everyone who passed. I picked a stone inside the window box about four down from the edge to stare at whenever people walked by. It was really difficult to know that I would have to stay here for three hours, since every minute seemed quite long in the experience of the cold and the fear of being 'discovered.'
My feet and back hurt from standing for so long. I tried to think about pigeons, the ocean, listened in on people's conversations.
A couple walked by and a man let out a startled curse as he recognized that what he saw (me) was unexpected. I continued to fight with my eyes to keep them lowered, and tried not to keep an expression on my face. It was most difficult for me to not be excessively aware of my external appearance. I felt more aware than I typically am of other people's gaze and how I appeared when I was being looked at.
I was hoping the police would tell me I had to leave because I didn't think I could keep convincing myself that this was a good enough reason. Nobody is looking for me, I'm not documenting the performance, I could just say I'm doing it and actually not do it, nobody would know the difference. Really. Why choose to hide? how ridiculous is that?
And of course then I heard a voice telling me, hey man, you're going to have to get out of there, you're going to have to do that somewhere else. I looked up, one man and then 2 others behind him. I said, I've made a committment to be here for another 2 hours, can I just stay until then? He said, no you're going to have to do your committment somewhere else, you're making the people feel awkward. I looked at him again, I laughed. He didn't get it. I hauled myself up and out of the space. looked at my clock. 10:47. I didn't even make it half way.

I have a theory fetish

There is no system that has not another system concealed within it.

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performed for my review:
the above text is written in chalk on a blackboard.
I wear my clothes inside out and lick this text off the board.

extended version:
after every theory class I will lick the board (I will have to wait until the class has left).

Slip

slipping my tongue into your mouth to consume my meaning, struggling to speak around the words that were never yours to begin with, you wonder: what is left that is mine?

breath-bread-breast

I will bake loaves of bread into the form of a mold of breasts.

yeah.
(probably mine)

hiding number 1

Friday, March 15
Barrington, Harvey, Morris, Queen.
12:00pm to 12:20pm

This is a description of my first hiding event - for a general description please see the post called hiding.
I had seen this hiding spot as I biked by at night. It appeared to be a bank of bushes that were trimmed into cube-like forms about 3 1/2 feet high and spaced about a foot apart. These were planted along the sidewalk to mark off a boundary with the parking lot on the other side. When I had biked by I thought that hiding between the bushes would break ulp their uniformity. I did not notice at the time that the parking lot served a building belonging to the Canadian government. Nor did I think about the nature of hiding in bushes that divided a parking lot from a sidewalk, namely, being exposed on both sides.

So, on the day of the mission, dressed in long-underwear and warm outerwear for the cold, armed with a clock so I could meet the agreement to hide between 12 noon and 12:20 I waited by the parking lot until I heard the canon indicating it was time.
terrified, I assumed my position, curling up into a sitting position between the two closest bushes, their branches pushing in to support my back and crushed up against my knees. My mind was racing with the realization that I looked entirely suspicious and pathetic. I could be a suicide bomber and my little electric clock could be the detonator for a bomb (I don't know what service the government building provided, but I was afraid). A car pulled out of the parking lot, I felt sure they were going to call security or the police. I looked at the clock: 2 minutes had passed. I tried to concentrate on the leaves of the bushes and to relax into my sitting position. Why was I doing this? I needed to be prepared if the police or security arrested me. I am an artist, I am doing research into the nature of public spaces. right, ok. I heard people walking and driving by and tried to keep my head down and my eyes straight ahead - I was hiding, I was becoming an architectural object, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't doing anything wrong. Sounds seemed loud and threatening. I felt like everyone who passed could see me and had to choose whether or not to be worried for or about my strange behaviour.
I heard footsteps approaching and felt certain that the police were here. A male voice said softly, "are you ok, bro?" I looked up, and registered a man, not a policeman, a creepy looking tall man with long hair, sunglasses, a fedora, a trench coat, his purple-pink skinned hand swollen and dry from the cold wind, holding a cane. I think he was wearing cowboy boots and tight black jeans, I don't remember, I just remember my instantaneously appraisal of his appearance and the way I judged him - I was doing something strange, but I responded to his concern by seeing him as not proper, as creepy and different from me. I saw him with my fear. I realized this after he left. Anyways, after seeing him (in this horrible, judgemental, negative way) I registered that he was saying something to me and knew that it was something nice, not threatening. I smiled and quickly said yes, I'm an artist. As his concern wained I said genuinely, thank you for asking. He walked away and I tucked my head back down on my chest. I felt so embarrassed for arousing his genuine concern for unneccessary reasons. Art is such a fraud. Why am I behaving like I need help when I'm just hiding, I'm toying with peoples emotions, I'm a sociopath. I felt so bad and still so scared, and I was getting cold. I still was worried that the police would come.
At 12:20 I got up, cold, exhausted and dazed, glad to become invisible again.

hiding

http://www.thecoast.ca/1FreeClassListbody.lasso?-token.fcparcat=16139.112113&-token.fcchildcat=16143.112113

The body of work I am currently developing deals with the visible/invisible as a mode of revealing/concealing the space between what is ‘me’, and what is ‘I’. I am socially awkward, defensive, obstructed. I try to let other people get to know me, but there are boundaries, some that I can predict, and others that I just stumble upon as they suddenly rear up, and I withdraw, dismayed. What is ‘me’ is private: concealed, recollected as past memories and projected into the future. I invest in and believe that I am the owner of what I consider to be ‘me’. Conversely, what is ‘I’, is public: I exist in public through and for others in their presence and in the space and time of the interaction. This project will be a thematic exploration of safety and security using my public body and urban architecture to create a performance of absence.

I am proposing a public performance in which I will hide. I will set out the square city block and time-frame in a newspaper listing describing where and when I will be hidden in the city, in simple, concise language. I will then hide myself within this outlined space/time block, remaining outside, crouching behind garbage cans, squeezing into corners or ducking behind hedges. Once I find a hiding spot I will remain in that position until the allotted time has elapsed, at which point I will leave. I will be hiding on public property, the spectators/audience are invited to seek me. If they choose to look for me, they may choose to stop and watch me hide or to mark my location and action with a glance and continue on to other attractions.

I am choosing to physically conceal myself in public city space as a manifestation of what I feel like when I am in public. Public space is supposedly common space, any body is expected to be able to cross through it, no-body is allowed to occupy or own it. I protect my ‘self’ in public, to keep my ‘me’ private. I do not want to linger in public. I hurry home with my eyes downcast. By performing absence through hiding, I am constructing a reversal of my everyday experience of public space as performed, as well as my experience of being absent to myself when I am performing (being in public). By hiding I will be covertly attempting to become present in public, to reveal my private and personal self by publicly concealing my public body.

For those people who choose to ‘seek’ me, the experience of the public space of the city will be altered. Looking for me, without any features for identifying me, anyone and anything could be concealing the artist – architecture determinedly obstructs the ability to survey space, the audience member becomes aware of the hunting and seeking that occurs in any performance – where is the art/ist? In this piece I am drawing a parallel between my private ‘me’, and the phenomenon of private property. By hiding my body in public I am refusing to make public any part of my visible self, refusing to grant anyone access to my ‘I’. I am inserting my private self into public space by marking the absence of my ‘I’. The newspaper listing will project a public presence to create my public absence. Whether or not the spectators actively seek out my hiding spot, my presence is marked by a public announcement: a feeble, preliminary form of advertising to alert the readers of where I will (not) be.

existent / insistent

1) wear clothes inside out. wear underwear inside out on outside of pants.

this is gross and scary.

do I have the nerve to do this?

intro-duction

this is my general working blog.
I am creating it to keep in touch with people like Michelle, Sarah, Sheena even if you're out there somewhere.

Come check out the work that I will post, send me comments or refer me to some good readings.