PULp  1976 – 2007)

See also Logos, Low Flying Aircraft, Rearrangements, Art is a Concept, Echoing Tower Bridge, Her voice is Pollen, Fall of Babylon, William Burroughs, Beat

I met Paul Burwell in 1976 and we started to work together in a wide range of situations, including with Stephen Cripps and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble with Richard Wilson, for the next 30 years until Paul’s death in 2007 (although I still often feel I am working with him). The images are from both ends of the 30 years, playing everything from sinking boats to blowing paper horns constructed around a mouth piece so that the notes changes as the horn shortens.

This early statement from the 1970s remained current throughout :

“The work has seen different concerns, ideas, energies and discoveries, varying means of expression and collaboration with a large number of people.

Change is the unifying factor throughout although it is not the concern.

Change is the result of tempering with elements and accepting their chemistry upon us. An experiment necessitates risk, laying bare receptivity and, conversely, control. We try and stand in the middle as both the experimenter and intrinsic parts of the experiment: the ambiguous area of perpetrator and perpetrated.

Our work is not didactic and not concerned with ‘communication’ per se. It is a sharing: a slice of life intersecting with what is encountered on the way and at the time. Our uncertainties and vulnerabilities remain acknowledged within it and its potency and strength lie in not working towards definitive statements or finished product but direct engagement.

This desire for spontaneous, large-scale use of dynamic materials such as explosives, combustibles, dyes and paints, swiftly and energetically combined in order to continuously redefine, revitalise and excite the space. This is only one manifestation of the concerns within the work and far less obvious physical equations of energy can create the same richness and involvement with the rapid generation of ideas.

Many of our performances evolve in a way which allows us to bring specific ideas and materials to a space and yet include the choice to reject, reorganise or completely recreate the initial impulse.”