Pledge

Sparwasser HQ, Berlin, 2004

 

 

solo show including:

a collaborative performance with
Tim Brennan

a drawing room response to Pledge by
Paul McDevitt

For further information please use this link
http://www.sparwasserhq.de/indexENG.htm

 

 

A map of Berlin grows on one of the walls. It is made up of little pieces of text that follow the lines of Berlin's streets. Some areas are left completely blank, while others are represented densely with the short texts overlapping and cutting across each other. This is an alternative map of Berlin because the texts refer to what Berliners are thinking about each day along their routine walks. The artist has invited the population of Berlin to pledge part of their daily routine to reflect on an historical political slogan that means most to them. It is these pledges come together on the wall of Sparwasser HQ to form an alternative map of Berlin.

In the window of the gallery, to be viewed from the street, is a double-screened video of a performance by Beech and Tim Brennan. They are on opposite sides of the street, talking to each other using paper and marker pens. They are talking about the future. Their words are an attempt to think about the way that words ­ thinking, theorising, understanding, planning, pledging, invitation, instruction ­ can bring about futures that would not be possible otherwise. And we see, between the screens, how the actions of one of the performers are modified by the words of the other. In this instantaneous reaction we see, in miniature, that words change things.

 

 

 

From the cellar you can hear Beech's unprofessional singing voice. He has recorded twenty songs based on simple invitation. He asked friends to write song lyrics that he promised to sing from the heart regardless of his own preferences. He sings the lyrics of others to no musical accompaniment except for the tunes in his head, taken from the songs he sings along to when he's alone at home. The tunes and the words are bridges between people; they acknowledge the links between us that remain even while we are alone.