Sex Tape notes

Sex Tape - The Musical
Alaska Projects
Kings Cross Car Park level 5

12:00pm 21.08.12 - 12:00pm 22.08.12

The above performance shots are several of the documentation fragments from last week's twenty four hour Sex Tape performance. The intention for me with this performance was simple; to resolve some creative arguing i'd had with myself over what way to go in my slowly developing musical direction. The drama took place in a recently adopted storeroom in the Kings Cross Car Park by Alaska Projects. My one-man play involving three different characters, the long dispute involved one character (1) who played an ambitious young rock guitarist, another (3) who represented a more anti-establishment, artistic 'non-musician' and lastly another character (2) who acted as a the mutual friend/enemy between the two and often directed the discussions and frequent arguments. The change from one character to another was suggested by a subtle change of outfit between the characters and they generally had their set places in the room when acting.

Giving this inner discussion a dramatic public forum had the absurdest qualities l artistically enjoy and should that have become boring, the twenty four hour opportunity to play undisturbed with my music gear would make it worthwhile. The answers l was looking for were discovered early in, after about three hours having the assistance of the wall to document the discussions on (see photo 4) I decided that live music audiences today are more contemplative and needed to be treated that way, that l should be aiming for more of an ambient direction; lengthening out performances and trying to achieve my aims in more subtle ways. Like most current live music fans l would have really enjoyed to have lived and partied in a time before draconian OH&S measures and over zealous venue management, or maybe just when live shows were more volatile and extreme for reasons somehow lost these days, but given the current tamer attitude, l thought that was one of the most productive discussions l had with myself (technically) during this Sex Tape performance, something will be took on board with my next bedroom show in the coming week.

Until l'm too old to continue performing under the title Sex Tape with any dignity, it will always remain an imaginative creative outlet used again and again in performances like this. I tend to think Sex Tape has probably been used by some other group somewhere in the world with at least a few releases under their belt so it wouldn't fly for long with me adopting the name anyhow. Proper music releases as with all my output will simply go under Jim Shirlaw in future.

My very best wishes

Jim S

Occult Circuit (previously untitled)

I
work in progress: the Coffs Harbour commission

II
work in progress: as above (study)

III
today's trip to the shops: Sphinx

IV
today's voltage control

Occult Circuit (previously untitled)

at the moment

I know it's impossible to read in the entry above, but the Mind Map at the top of the first entry illustrates how this new body of work (Occult Circuit) will be split between 'Studio Practice' (SP) and 'Performance and Installation' (PI) further more the SP will then be split between paintings/drawings of 'interiors' and 'exteriors'. The two environments consisting of the SP will be executed quite differently from one another and will investigate a divided outlook into the spiritual impressions that human action/expression instill in an environment, that we (as people there after) come to associate with the atmosphere of a given place; in terms of presenting ghosts and poltergeists etc there will be some crossover with Occult phenomenon especially when addressing the 'interior' works in the series.

The two images above (I & II) show the early stages of two 'exterior' works. Formulated with oil pastel drawing over a hot red ground, these two images show the initial results of the ground which also roughly describes the detail in the work in preparation for the oil pastel drawing on top.

Jim S