Cuddle Puddle (2021)

Invited by the Santa Barbara project space Riviera Parking between covid lockdown periods, this was a live installation performed over two days. I took the materials and characters from my ongoing project A BEAR SHITS IN THE WOODS and arranged them into a series of figurations, scenes, becomings and unbecomings. I invited photographer Ian Byers-Gamber to collaborate with me by making the recording of the work an integral part of the performance and installation, rather than invisible and separate as is often the case with art documentation. 

We performed a pas de deux: I would work to assemble a scene and then step aside for him to photograph it. Then I would take it apart and make another one, which he photographed, and so on. He also photographed me working, and I in turn photographed him at work, photographing. 

Visitors could view the sculptural assemblages as they happened, and they could also see polaroids which accumulated on the wall, of what had previously taken place. 

Influenced by Samuel Delany’s parallel accounts of Kaprow's Happenings and the Christopher Street orgies, Jose Esteban Munoz's subsequent interpretation of those accounts, and now-iconic photographic documentation of the Happenings themselves, the act of creating a record was as much a part of the performance as the materials and actions. 

The content of the scenes was inspired by a fragment by Heraclitus in which an image of children picking lice off each other illustrates that knowledge-formation is embodied, collective and of course always in flux.

The piece ultimately comprised a series of scenes always-in-process. There are, variously, moments of tenderness, intimacy, disintegration and formlessness, but never away from the eye of the cameras. The project asks how spontaneity, intimacy, free abandon and even dissolution of self can thrive in a time when everything is on the record.

Further, Cuddle Puddle finds a parallel between the notion of the artwork as the aftermath of an event, and the forensic aspect of documentation having something in common with crime scene photography (as seen in the transferability of the word “exhibit” between courtroom and art gallery). Notably also, one of the neighbors on the street enquired whether we were “shooting a porno”.

What remains of the work are three photographic series (selection from each below): 

Exhibit A. a series of polaroids taken by Ian over the two days of the event which were displayed in the space as they accumulated.

Exhibit B: a series of hi-res digital photographs taken by Ian showing the different scenes of the installation and Olivia at work making them.

Exhibit C: a series of phone photos taken by Olivia, showing Ian at work photographing the scenes she was making.

Exhibition text by Olivia Mole here.

More information on gallery website here.