Like all of the residuals performances, Residuals #5 was co-created – but this time with an artist who prefers not to be named, and who I’ll address in this article as the Unknown Artist. The idea of blocking movement – which in the visual arts would be ‘masking’ – also has a social narrative too. This performance was at OVADA, Osney Mead, Oxford on Tuesday 6 August 2024.
Residuals #5 was a duet of me and the Unknown Artist. Paper measuring 1.5 by 3 metres was placed on the ground as a dance floor, and charcoal was measured into a tub and emptied, creating regular conical shaped piles on it.
This meant that the charcoal was already on the surface of the paper and there’d be no need to repeatedly reach off the paper for more of it – unlike a painter loading a paint brush for example. Although, water was used in the drawing which did necessitate reaching to a bucket of water!
The role of the Unknown Artist
All of the residuals series have involved movement on the surface of paper, rolling and drawing charcoal granuales over it with the movement of the body. In Residuals #5 then chairs were used to block the movment of a dancer – me – and create movement pathways. The Unknown Artist also filmed and photographed the performance. Hence they are behind the camera and not shown.
Thank-you to the Unknown Artist.
A simple score was agreed with the Unknown Artist. The piles of charcoal are deposited on the paper by the drawing dancer; chairs are placed upturned on it in an improvised manner by the Unknown Artist; the drawing dancer using charcoal and water marks the paper; the Unknown Artist repeatedly arranges and rearranges the blocking chairs to change the movement pathways and hence the drawing. The result is much like a visual artist applying a mask to a surface before painting on it.
The venue for Residuals #5 was the OVADA warehouse (Oxfordshire Visual Development Agency) on Osney Mead, Oxford where I had an artist’s residency with a number of other artists in August 2025.
Three performances
There were actually three parts or performances for Residuals #5.
Firstly, a performance with no charcoal or water and only the paper and chairs (‘rehearsal’); secondly, one with charcoal and water and mark making; and finally a third, where there was a mirror dance by me and the Unknown Artist laying flowers on the surface of the marked paper with the charcoal remaining on the paper and the chairs removed.
The third performance – with the statis flowers and mirror dance – was in a sense, an act of kindness. The blocking is an act of frustration as the dancer is blocked – repeatedly – by the chairs and their arrangement and re-arrangement.
The dried statis flowers were used in the first two performances at the end of each as a way to mark the ending each performance. The Unknown Artist hands them to me to indicate the end. In the third then the performance ends when all the flowers are laid on the paper.
For simplicity these performances are called Residuals #5 part 1, Residuals part 2 and Residuals #5 part 33. Though: part 1 – no marking (rehearsal); part 2 – blocking & exclusion; and part 3 – kindness; might be suitable titles for the three performances.
Social narrative
To block a person or to exclude them can be a social act when it involves another person(s). I can say that at that time of this performance, a social situation occurred of this nature and so an interpretation of the blocking as a social narrative is appropriate. It is a kind of cruelty or that’s how it feels. (Note: this had nothing to do with the Unknown Artist … although they performed in this work. They were ‘merely an actor’.)
The third part of the series ‘kindness’ is an antidote to the cruelty of blocking and exclusion, and hence its inclusion. It also – by use of flowers – allows colour to enter into what is otherwise a monochrome or monograph of just the black of charcoal and white of paper. We might say these performances are a social monograph as it has both a social dimension and for part 2 and 3, it’s black and white.
Reveal
Once the performance was complete then the surface of the paper was covered with mounds of charcoal. In itself it’s a finished work: an installation.
However pratically, the drawing needed to be removed for storage and further work. The brushing of the charcoal aside the the eventual lifting of the paper reveals the image on the paper. Rather like printing and developing a photograph in a darkroom.
