Abstract

Dr Catherine Burge invited artists Phil Eastwood and Chris Dunne, to participate in a visual arts research symposium hosted by the University of Lincoln (UK). The event was held on Friday 19th April 2013. Eastwood and Dunne used the opportunity to stage the fourth of a series of ongoing performance print events titled: Performance Print Situation No.4 - POST HASTE.

PPS4 consisted of a series of performed physical activities focused around the design and production of a body of images and text. A selection of the visual material produced throughout the event was scanned, printed and bound into a limited edition handmade book.

Central to the event was an improvised print studio assembled from components transported in vintage suitcases. Traditional artisan relief printmaking was supplemented through the use of hand cut paper collage, zerox, dry letter transfer, and a pair of vintage portable typewriters.

Playful freeform word association haiku poems provided a starting point for an open ended, and ongoing, visual and aural dialogue between the artists and the audience. Performed actions were interspersed with sonic interventions. Activities included a choreographed rubber-stamping performance, an improvised vintage typewriter symphony, a series of football rattle disruptions, a display of slogans printed on hand held signs.

An important aspect of the performance print situation was the use recycled material reconfigured into new imagery as precipitately as possible. Speed, or haste, was fundamental. Post haste simulated a high-pressure, intensive deadline production process. Deliberately speeding up the process increased the sense of urgency and immediacy. It lead to creative risk taking and playful improvisation. Elements were quickly placed and compositions rapidly realized. The focus of the visual emphasis was instinctive, and as such, an intuitive page layout, and pagination, evolved with a sense of spontaneity.

Eastwood and Dunne have also been invited to stage Performance print events at Anhalt University Dessau, Germany, in May 2013, and at the Peoples History Museum Manchester (UK), as part of the Radical Aesthetics/Radical Art (RARA) event - Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer, in June 2013.