Have been meaning to blog about make-shift, an ongoing performance series by by Paula Crutchlow and Helen Varley Jamieson, which I joined online on 1 December. It was taking place just down the road but I wanted to have the virtual experience. The event linked two homes in Exeter and Munich with an online audience to explore the theme of ‘disposability’ in its broadest sense.
International communication (without the carbon emissions) was a great way to underline the work's ecological agenda, and I enjoyed the way the artists highlighted our addiction to stuff - especially plastic stuff - through personal and emotional narratives. There was a powerful recurring motif of feeding and nesting.
For me, however, the real theme of the evening was clunky technology (mostly my end, but a little bit down to them too). It meant I never felt fully involved (for example the whole webcast crashed every time I tried to join the online chat). I still can't quite decide if patchy, juddery, disjointed and frustrating connections are a meaningful part of the make-shift experience (geddit?) - or whether domestic technology's just not up to the job.
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