List of Performances Itinerary, 1999 -2018.
Rolling up my sleeves, 2009-2018
‘Before I perform today I would like to just roll up my sleeves’.
This is often the first line of my live performance set.
Once my dad told me how he rolled up his sleeves just one roll above his wrists, to show how comfortable he is with everything, it became a bit of a running joke about understated confidence.
The social etiquette of how far one should roll up one’s sleeves? Presenting the best you, not an exhibitionist, not desperate but an understated confidence a can-do you who’s going to get things done. And how do you show all that with one subtle barely noticeable public gesture. That’s where rolling up your sleeves by just two rolls comes in. ‘Just above the wrists says you are comfortable with yourself’, ‘any further means you are a desperate, needy person’. I perform this sleeve rolling, then I break free of the rules - just wanting rolls, the more sleeve rolls the better, stretching the jumper to its limit. I bring out the scissors to cut through my jumper front and back, ruining the tension of the garment and the performance work itself, its all gone now. Rolling my entire jumper up into two doughnuts, ‘I just want doughnuts’ over the years this work has developed through its re-performing.
Celebration of Failure (Delivery Man), 2018.
Three-day performance for Look Again, Aberdeen.
In this performance I walk through the city as a delivery man with an over loaded trolley (pallet) pulling the trolley through town, as if delivering boxes.
The boxes are piled too high and keep falling off. People come up and point out my stacking mistake. Telling me: ‘That’s going to fall-off mate’.
I perform the act and action of delivering boxes that fall onto the pavement, continually. I don’t have to be anywhere at any time.
I act out the role of a delivery man, honing my expressions.
Wearing a delivery man outfit with boots and a Hi-Vis jacket.
I have a google map of Scotland sticking out of my pocket, I consult the map of Scotland throughout the day, for no reason.
Placing the boxes back onto the trolley and moving on.
Pulling the trolley, a little further. Then the boxes fall off and I stop and look shocked again, how did that happen!
Developing a public character, a man with boxes to deliver, an honest man doing an honest day’s work. With a serious face for an idiotic philosophy.
Delivering to a non-specific address. Going earnestly no where, round and round the city day after day.
At one point I carried some boxes by hand to a point in the street. I seen another delivery man do this, so I know it is an authentic gesture. I cross roads and boxes fall and bus drivers beep and try to run over me.
The outline for the work is to celebrate this failure, my objective as a performer is to work at the failing situation produced with the trolley, pallet and boxes. To earnestly deliver boxes to a non-address. Repacking them badly on top of each other. Balancing them on the edge of each other so they will fall off again.
At points the Delivery Man chats to the public, sitting down on the boxes - if the opportunity arises. Every now and then I tell someone that it is an art work, and someone says ‘we thought you were up to something, we were looking at you - thinking, is he for real?’.
People often help the Delivery Man as he goes on and the boxes fall off and spill and it becomes a celebration of failure. Many people look out of their windows transfixed by the bad workmanship. The entire scene, developing a work-like mess in the street.
The Hi-Vis outfit was a revelation like a badge of honour, an award. I felt like I had been initiated into some kind of worker’s club. I felt purposeful walking around in my worker’s outfit. At one point the police came up and told me they had been watching me on CCTV, and why was I heading towards the motorway?
‘Where are you going to sir?’ they said.
‘Over there’ I said
‘Whats the address?’ they said
‘I’m not really going anywhere, its an artwork’ I said
‘Where were you born?’ They said
That conversation with the police was a highlight.
Turning the blind eye, 2016-2018.
Brussels Independent Art fair, 2018.
I paint twenty table-tennis balls with painted-on black pupils. I spin the balls into the audience with my table-tennis bat while performing a monologue, shouting out issues I choose to ignore, environment, plastics, equality .. on and on referring to my list of hypocrisy and calling for fairness. I set up this self- righteous performance hitting balls into the audience. At one-point shouting that it’s a hypocritical world and that ‘I’m the biggest hypocrite in the room’. One heckler shouted back ‘yes you are’. It was a proud moment.
Some people throw blind eyes back at me, others take them home.
The Zero One, 2017.
Punjabi Junction Edinburgh.
Stand up performance set.
‘The Zero One’ is a monologue with a keyboard prop. The keyboard prop has two large rubber buttons, Zero and One, I made and glued them on to a keyboard. I hit the keyboard with my head while giving the greatest Steve Jobs Key Note speech of all time. ‘I have been a nightmare to work with getting the lighting in here just right, your fired’. I act out a mock Steve Jobs impersonation. Potential employee’s will hit the Zero-One keyboard with their heads coding everything by smashing their heads off the keyboard. The Zero-One creates jobs for all, workers are always punch-drunk living semi conscious lives. Increasing inefficiency and national confusion, promoting employment equality and a happier lost society. It’s the future.
Channelling Jim Morrison, 2014-2017.
Channelling Jim Morrison is a live stand-up scripted performance where I channel Jim Morrison from the dead, I find him in a bar in the underworld, with Kurt Cobain, Janice Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix. Oliver Reed is doing press ups on the bar. I find Jim and he wants to say something to the audience, ‘I’ll be your medium Jim’. I have been channelling Jim for some years to see what he thinks of current affairs, politics and music. Jim has been drinking and drugging heavily since his death. ‘Good on you Jim, you old dog’. I channel Jim singing and dancing and rolling around on the floor in his own shit. His insights are always astounding and relevant. Surprisingly political and to the point. A blues man at heart.
Total Crap, 2015-2019.
Inside my painted suitcase I have 100 small hand made white papier-mâché boxes painted with statements like ‘Total Crap’, ‘Total Crap Job’ ‘Total Crap policy’.
I set myself up as a travelling sales man, selling total crap. Total Crap is always £9.99. I promote the work in different ways by telling the audience that ‘this work is appreciating big time, selling on eBay for £100’s - being shown in exhibitions all over the world - in Zurich, London, New York and Milan’. The titles and statements painted on the boxes of ‘Total Crap’ are related to current topics, people can engage with ‘Total Crap’ on a humorous, political, economic or philosophical way. It functions as an art prop to discuss topics with the public and to make a little money. I have made over £5000 currently from selling Total Crap.
Red Sauce Brown Sauce Mania, 2013-2018.
You arrange to meet up with your friends in a public spirited manner but then practically it seems impossible to meet up with anyone, you just want to cancel everything, there’s too much going on and now you don’t want to see anyone. But what about those plans you need to cancel. This is an improvised scripted performance about where and when I could meet a friend ‘Any time any place I’m free all the time’ and subsequently the excuses why I can’t meet ‘My parents are coming over, the dogs run away and caught fire’. I combined this with pouring red sauce and brown sauce over my face while lying on the ground shouting out this monologue. The work becomes more manic as it progresses. Squeezing the last of the plastic bottles of sauce onto my face shouting out an ever increasing set of ridiculous reasons. With my face now covered in sauce I can’t see anything and have to blindly walk off the stage.
There should be a decompression tank to lie in, after a performance to prevent performers from getting the bends. Performances are always interesting like a study of yourself in an intense moment. A slightly altered you. The experience is valuable to think back over, an exaggerated version of yourself.
Selling Receipts, 2016-2017.
I bought a cash register to programme and sell the receipts as a performance. For each show or event, I programme the cash till to the specific event with a different text/poem on the receipt relating to the project, selling receipts as limited edition art works. The receipt becomes the artwork, selling receipts is a form of performance that is as much about socially connecting with people. Telling people that they can also put this artwork through their tax return at the end of the financial year. Discussing the integrity of the artwork? The fading receipt, how long will it last in the sun light? Fading to nothing, just a little piece of white paper.
Objects of Immeasurable Value, 2016.
Cabaret Voltaire for Manifesta 11.
For Manifesta 11, I made twelve small ambiguous grey sculptures. I gave these works titles relating to their immeasurability, like ‘The immeasurable value of reading a book’. I arranged for a salesman / assistant to sell the sculptures, and to haggle a good price for the value of the immeasurable sculptures, this being the performance. I had instructed the salesman to discuss the sculptures giving them some meaning in the process. At one point the sales man came over to ask if this one piece could be viewed as a Buddha? A potential buyer wanted one of the little ambiguous sculptures to represent a Buddha. I said ‘maybe’.
Me and My ladder, 2015-2017.
This performance includes a sculptural prop of two small ladders held aloft, accompanied by a song to the tune of ‘Me and my shadow’. My lyrics for this singing performance relates to the symbols of social status and how we naturally judge people on a materialistic level. Placing ourselves on ladders at all times.
Lyrics consist off: ‘Me and my ladder walking down the avenue judging everyone, oh look at your nice Land Rover aren’t you doing well, oh look at you lying in a pool of your own piss not doing so well, look at your tatty shoes your down at the bottom and you - well you’re up here near the top with your sailing yacht’. I walk around the stage singing and point at people with my little ladder sculptures.
The skyline is fine, 2016.
This is a song about finding a tarot-card outside my front door and looking up its meaning. I knew if I picked it up, it would be my tarot card reading. It was the 3 of pentangles. I like to use this song to upend a performance, to get peoples attention, to sing about the card. It’s a little self portrait of a time. My granny loved astrology until the church banned astrology saying that it was not a good thing to do. So she stopped reading into her stars or studying them seriously as a prediction of the future but she did keep reading them to me as a boy when I would visit. I acquired an in-depth knowledge of the banned texts.
Classification of Class, 2016- 2017.
In this work I read out a list that I have composed of over 200 classifications of class. Giving everything a symbolic class. What is class now? Are there 42 new classes or 200. Many people are delighted with their class. Some people come up and tell you what class they are and it never feels that great to hear someone else say they are a certain class, I’m not sure why that is.
Shoe Compositions, 2016.
Wearable sculptures for individuals and groups, these shoes are cut together stitched, glued and joined using lengths of wood and hinges. These works effect people’s movement and self-control. People are often thrown together in a game of walking twister. We set the shoe compositions up outside GoMA leaving the different connected shoes out on the ground and the public came along and tried them out. Strangers walking around with each other in different sets of mitred shoes. I remember walking around with a man at close quarters like an awkward dance talking about his job.
Striker, 2015.
This work involves a series of LED signs ‘Open’ ‘Pizza’ ‘Burger’ and a scrolling message board to be worn by a performer who acts like a mannequin. The scrolling message board is programed with marketing phrases such as ‘form utility’ and ‘product placement’. These low quality signs are everywhere flashing and beeping from chip shop windows.
Squeaky Shoes. 2015.
I bought twenty squeaky dog toys and sellotaped them to the soles of my shoes for a Squeaky Shoes walk around Edinburgh for the Arts Festival. It felt like some kind of clowning, I perfected a straight face for the work to send it up even more. It really fitted in with the festival, most people laughed, some dogs were interested in the squeaking. One builder asked me what I was doing and I said ‘It’s a very squeaky day today’. He didn’t like the joke and he repeated it in an angry voice, it was an off the cuff comment that didn’t have a punch-line but in that moment I sensed he wanted to punch me in the face for acting the clown while he was working hard in a building full of dust, so I just walked on quickly squeaking up the road thinking about that interaction.
Lemming people, 2015-2016.
This scripted performance relates to ideas concerning evolution, human nature and technology, relating to Bruce Hood’s ‘Domesticated Brain’ and Yuval Noah Harari’s ‘Sapiens’, other conversations, TV and radio programs.
In this work I perform an improvised script based around human evolution over thousands of years and how we deal with death where and when ‘Pissed off’ started, also relating to ever-renewing technologies and the madness of the human condition. Relating human behaviour and the thoughts of a calculator. How do calculators stand us? ‘We are brilliant at dying we have been dying for hundreds of thousands of years, calculators are petrified they are shitting themselves they only started out in the 60’s we are the lemming people we have been dying for hundreds of thousands of years, we love it’.
Journey Unknown, 2014.
This work began in Cuxhaven Germany while on a two-week residency at the Hapag Hallen, a point of mass European emigration. This work incorporates direction, decision-making, business advice and emigration. Consisting of hand made sewn and stuffed sculptures to wear as performances, and hanging sculptural objects. The sewn hands point out in different directions, to go anywhere and everywhere.
Time Based Sculptural Performance Ready Made, 2014.
I have twelve white t-shirts screen printed with Time Based Sculptural Ready Made with twelve different corresponding times
In this performance I change my t-shirt every 10 minutes. Each new t-shirt is printed with a new time, corresponding with real time of the day, stating that the wearer will become a ‘Time-based, Sculptural, Performance, Ready-made’, at for example at 2.00pm and then different individual t-shirts with times for the twelve different times every ten minutes throughout a two-hour period.
During this piece I will stand, chat, walk, sit, blink and move around with my t-shirt on until I become the artwork at the time printed on the t-shirt. After which I will change my t-shirt and await the next appointment to become an artwork again. I remember shaking a can of coke at the London Art Fair walking around shouting into booths that it was going to ‘blow’ ‘this will rue the day’ I was apprehended by the security. Later I crawled along the ground driving a toy car loudly through the Art Fair floor, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder saying ‘David you have to come back’, come back where? I thought.
Got Any Big Sandwiches Coming Up, 2013 -2017.
In this monologue I pretend I have been asked about ‘what art exhibitions I have coming up?’ And instead I talk up the big sandwiches I have coming up. As if I have a big career in sandwiches:
‘Well, then, there’s this - BLT in Shanghai and a grilled pepper’s in Sydney on cranberry and walnut bread.
Fucking hell that’s huge man and then what?
I have a blueberry and pork in Cork.
Holy mother of Shit. That’s some massive sandwiches coming up man!’
Then a pastrami and dill on rye.
Wow.
Go over there, 2012.
Song documenting materialistic bargains in an imagined store ‘over there’, the song develops into bargains not to be missed in consumer items progressing to concepts like: ‘clean air’ and ‘real experience’. ‘Don’t be a doughnut get the deal of the day’. I moulded this song loosely around Jonathan Richman’s ‘Road Runner’.
Living Luggage, 2010-2012.
I realised that luggage was an ideal and accessible performance material; I could cut cheap large pieces of luggage up in different ways and wear them in gallery spaces, for example, sitting on a shelf installed high on a wall at MMX Berlin hands trapped in the luggage feet and head sticking out trapped on a high shelf. One person who saw this performance was described the piece as a combination of ‘Nelly the Elephant’ and ‘Humpty Dumpty’. One performance in luggage happened in Turin train station. I made five different ‘Luggage Works’ in different spaces. These works felt like a set of paradoxical situations, which were precarious. I sat waiting as luggage and owner lost, in-transit going no where, living out of a suitcase, you’re a total nutcase in a suitcase. The luggage works seem funny initially becoming boring and then funny again. In Liverpool the gallery staff had to look after me as I kept walking around with luggage on my head bumping into the other artworks in the exhibition, knocking them over. At one point they had enough and lead me outside into the street, where I wandering around in the dark.
The History of Wrinkles in Art and Comedy, 2011.
The History of Wrinkles in Comedy. In 2015 I spent the day walking around the Edinburgh Arts Festival with my 100 photocopied images of comedians in my hand, asking strangers if they would draw the different comedian’s wrinkles onto my face, with a black pen, building up the first history of wrinkles in comedy. I had hundreds of black lines all over my face. I ended my day at the National History Museum of Edinburgh asking staff if they would include my history of wrinkles in comedy, into the collection? The reception staff were very receptive to the idea and phoned management some moments later I received the disappointing news that my history of wrinkles had been refused into the museum collection. I did get an agreement from a member of the reception staff that my archival history could be an ephemeral exhibit if I wished. I decided to accept that and they suggested a position beside the Eskimo Case on the ground floor. I had a photograph of myself taken beside the the Eskimo sculpture, I was not allowed to get in the case.
Electrical Appliance, 2011.
The performer lies on the floor and is linked to a large model of an electricity plug by a large black flex-cable, joining to the performers head. This performance lasts two hours, the performer looks upward silently and motionless. This work responds to a lifestyle and culture revolving around electricity, oil and consumption. Asking how are we going to sustain this energy based existence. Every aspect of life involves being plugged in.
100 death poses with an actor, 2011.
With the help of an assistant, I outlined a set of guidelines, instructing the performer to enact a series of dead or death poses in the gallery space each lasting a short period of time around 2 minutes. The entire performance lasting one hour.
Lifeless drawing class, 2011- 2018.
Carl and Yvette’ are a married couple. They met at GSA, both working as life-models. Carl is from Canada and Yvette is from Glasgow. They love lifeless modelling as they are cardboard people who can sit still for hours and hours.
I set Carl and Yvette up sitting posing. We start the class with different life drawing exercises. Everything is going well until half way through the class Carl slumps! Are you ok Carl? No he has just had a massive heart attack.
I announce this to the class and everyone is shocked.
I rush to help, giving him ‘CPR’ but it is too late. Carl is,.. well he’s dead;
‘I am sorry everyone but Carl has just died’.
Yvette is distraught but she wants to continue with the class because ‘its what Carl would have wanted’. It’s a shocking situation and I am utterly devastated but now we have an opportunity to draw a living lifeless model and a dead lifeless model. Yvette wants to continue even though she is very upset. It is one positive - coming from a terrible situation and that is always good? Right?
At the end of the class we put a cloth over Carl.
We fold Carl and Yvette up into a bag for another day.
Carl and Yvette live in my studio in a bag.
Whats it all about, 2012.
In this work I read a text/ list of 200 humorous and anonymous comments people have made to me about my work and the art world over a period of 15 years. These comments range from insightful, insulting, funny and honest.
A girl said my work was like marmite.
A man said it was bullshit.
Someone asked my wife what it was about.
One guy said my older stuff had a lot of spunk.
One lady said she was impressed by how I’ve kept on doing what I do this long.
One guy said I don’t think it’s just frivolous; it’s got a serious side.
The life of a finger, selling my fingers (cancelled performance) 2011.
I sold my fingers as performance, lasting until I die. ‘Each movement and action my fingers make is a performance which you can own until I die. Anything I do with my fingers is a performance which you can own’.
I sat at a little home made sales booth chatting to people at an Art Fair. Talking up the work and selling my fingers explaining the idea. A life long performance to own. And so I sold each of my fingers to ten different people at the Art Fair in Glasgow. They own my fingers until I die. Over the next days I was organising how to send the new owners the work, which consisted of - the contracts, a little photo and plaster casts of my fingers, I was also arranging to collect my sales money (£900). I started to loose confidence in the idea being meaningless. It started to take on meaning and substance. Then I decided to cancelled the work after feeling strange about the whole thing. I started to see my fingers as someone else’s and no longer mine. It was a strange time, it felt as if I had hypnotised myself. A few weeks later, I remember laughing about the whole thing, it was a nice work, but somehow I had convinced myself that my fingers weren’t mine anymore and that felt very strange. The contracts and exchange of money made it real and binding and I was confronted with the reality of not owning my fingers for the rest of my life. Instead of it being a light hearted joke, it became something more serious. It was the commitment that hit me. Like selling a piece of property or a drawing I had sold my fingers and at that final moment the loss of this ownership became a big deal. I knew if I went through with the work there was a chance I would never get over that, which was pretty scary thought. I cancelled the work and killed off the idea.
Duchamp’s plaster of Paris, 2010 -2018.
I was asked to giving a talk and making a performance in Antwerp in 2011, at the ‘Gunther’. After the talk we all went for a drink to a local bar. In the bar I started talking to a man who told me about his collection of dead artist’s effects, clothes and other items. I was fascinated and said it sounded fantastic.
Jens invited me to his home outside of Ghent the next day.
I agreed and met him in town and we drove to his house.
I was amazed by all the different art effects he had collected, he had Louise Bourgeois shoelaces and Gordon Matta Clarks masking tape amongst many other pieces. I seen a bucket of plaster in his house with Duchamp’s name on it and asked what it was, 'Its from Duchamp's estate' he said, ‘never used’.
I couldn’t believe it and said ‘Wow that would be brilliant to use in a performance’, and so he scooped some of the dry plaster powder into a jam jar screwed the top on it and handed it to me, I couldn’t believe I had it, I was so excited.
So for this performance I throw some of this Plaster of Paris onto the audiences like an art blessing. Gold dust.
I still have some of Duchamp’s Plaster of Paris in my studio.
Living the dream after death, 2010.
While doing a performance in Basel I met this woman who shared a studio complex withSteven Parrino in New York. She told me all about him and it was fascinating to hear her story about what kind of person he was, his life and success. ‘He never made any art unless he had a show somewhere’ she said. She told me about his death and how everything blew up for his work, how he became really successful after he died. And how it doesn’t always work this way. I began to look more at his work, and think about his life and posthumous success. I liked his paintings and visual instillations of his work. I came upon this idea of making a large painting to sit-in and to be part of, with my hands and legs and head poking out of the body of the painting, for a performance at GAK Bremen. I asked for a large black canvas to be made, by the gallery. Luckily they liked the idea and agreed to make the canvas which was 5 meters by 3 meters. When I got to Bremen and seen the pre made canvas painted black, it was amazing. It was huge and brilliantly painted black, double stretchered, it was a super canvas. I remember thinking it was such a shame to mess it up. I cut the paintings wooden stretcher in half so it folded onto the ground and then I cut holes in the body of the canvas for my arms, legs and head to stick out, so I could sit in the painting on the floor leaning against a white wall. I sat poking through the canvas for two hours on the opening night. I did not respond to anyone. I just sat there really getting into painting.
Health and Safety Effect’, 2010.
I had a residency at Deveron Arts researching Health and Safety. I made this research project, into a publication and performance entitled the A-Z of Health and Safety consisting of stories testaments and drawings. I documented the good and bad sides of Health and Safety. Some of the information I embellished a little to make the piece fun and reflective of public feeling. I amassed so much research from many off-shore workers and professionals, I remember meeting Billy Dean from ‘Dean’s Short Bread’ in his board room. I went on a Health and Safety course in Elgin gaining an award. While in Huntly I got a call from the West Midlands Fire and Police service to perform my A-Z at their AGM in Birmingham, I agreed. When I got down there I was shocked by the large hall full of uniformed police staring at me. Actually it was a nightmare. I didn’t get the laughs I was hoping for or any reaction from the performance but one officer said he liked my drawings and I did perform at the West Midlands Fire and Police AGM in Birmingham.
Pen lids performances, 2009.
I became interested in Bic Pens and the design introduction of holes in their lids to protect people from choking on them. Bic introduced the holes in their pens in 1991. I remember the moment at school, the change in my pen lid and how I could no longer make it stick to my tongue, it was a before and after moment for some reason it remained in my mind for a long time. For this performance I stood in the Ikon Gallery Birmingham foyer for a day breathing through one Bic Pen lid in my mouth and one in each nostril. I subsequently made a large Papier-Mâché Bic Pen lid to wear on my head for a performance at The International 3 in Manchester, dressing up like a Bic pen for the day. Recently I read an article about a primary school teacher who told the children to take little breaths while in the play ground which was beside a busy roundabout. This story reminded me of the Bic pen breathing piece.
Complaints, 2009.
Wanting to make an alternative gallery reception desk, I decided to paint ‘Complaints’ on the front of my little cardboard desk. I set myself up as an alternative official, with a name badge and clipboard talking to people about any complaints they would like me to listen to. I realized that this was a needed service. Its popularity was amazing and on day two in the gallery and out in a local shopping centre I had a queue of people waiting to have their complaint heard and written down. It was a wide and varied list from Airlines to broadband, phone charges, bus timetables, benches, service, food, fruit, TV Celebrities, politics and water. On and on it went.
Coloured hair performance, 2009.
I grew my hair really long, no I didn’t do that, I bought a really expensive wig. I wore the wig all the time while I was in Basel, around all the art fairs and everywhere pretending it was my hair, I met a few people I knew and I told them ‘I have grown my hair for a performance’. I have never told anyone about this part of the work for 10 years because it has never come up in any conversation until recently when I showed the video of this work and I was explaining what happened and I thought there’s no point in not telling the truth. So all this time it was like a joke, its my best joke, a ten-year-old joke, that’s not that funny and no one should really care about. Anyway I wore the wig as I got off the plane in Zurich until three days later when I left Basel. It entertained me as I was on my own anyway. In this work I lie on the floor with my long hair straightened out and an assistant pours orange paint onto my hair which is spread out on the floor. I remained on the floor for two hours as the paint dries. Then my assistant cuts my hair, freeing me from the paint on the floor, leaving an orange painting that also contains my hair on the floor. It looked great, I really got a kick from standing there looking at that bright orange painting on the floor with my hair sticking out of it. I had a pretty odd hair-cut to show off after this. I produced a series of photographs, prints and a video about this work. Later that evening after the performance I was on a panel - discussing the performance series at ‘Liste Basel’ and a woman in the audience kept asking me if ‘I was wearing a wig’ and I said ‘no’ and she said ‘why would you lie about that’ I said ‘because its not a wig its my real hair’. But she kept asking and I kept saying it was my real hair, it was a lot of fun to just pretend it was my real hair for some days. And then for years after, Albert Camus said, ‘I was probably in the realm of truth. But truth cher ami, is a colossal bore’ and that’s right no one really wants truth, it’s an insult. That’s why I kept that going for years just for me but now its time to reveal the real truth: that it actually was my real hair, I grew it really long for that work. Its true it was my real hair, a colossal bore of real hair.
Running for the tram, 2010. (Running for the Bus 1999).
For this work I spent one-day running for trams that were beyond catching.
I would start my attempt to catch the tram when I thought it was pointless, just when the tram was beyond catching I would suddenly sprint after it. After missing one tram I would then walk back to the same tram‐stop and repeated the action again. Using the same tram stop all day. Waiting for the next tram, watching it move off and then run after it full pelt. I continued like this throughout the day. Utterly pointless, utterly happy running and waiting and running like Ground Hog Day. I carry two bags of shopping in each hand. People started to notice the performance and a crowd gathered to watch the piece. Shopkeepers looked out at the work. Tram drivers notice I am up to something. This work is a repeat performance of ‘Running for the Bus’ performed in Glasgow in 1999. On one occasion while making this performance a bus stopped for me and I had to stop also and look at the wall until the bus moved on and then I could start running after it again like a game of cat and mouse.
Just popped out back in two hours, 2008-2014.
In this work I sit motionless on a chair and silently looking forward with my mouth open for two hours. A post‐it note is stuck to my forehead. The post-it note has a hand written statement which reads ‘Just popped out back in 2 hours’. Like something you would find on a corner shop door. I usually perform this piece myself and on five occasions it has been performed by assistants. The work explores the total absence of consciousness in a living breathing body. For this performance I use the meditation technique of counting out-breath silently to myself to remain still and concentrate on my task for two hours. The audience often tries to put me off and sometimes people come up and make of-hand comments as if I am not really there. ‘You just want to slap him’ one person said to a friend as they looked at my performance. It’s a very interesting work to perform. Kind of about performance in a way as there is so little happening other than presenting yourself to the public. People always react to the work, because it’s a durational work people often come back to check if I am still there ‘Popped out’. Glasgow Museum of Art bought this performance in 2010, which means I have sold an idea and also a history of its making.
Regulations for Irrational Procedures, 2007-2017.
Performed at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Edinburgh 2012
In this work I bite a crescent from the top of my thumbnail and stick this crescent nail onto the end of my nose with masking tape. The thumb nail pointing out.
The crescent can point up or down, the performer stands still and silently with the thumbnail pointing out from the tip of the nose for up to one hour, or it can be a casual performance where the performer interacts in a normal manner, it can be a short performance of 2-3 minutes. I have been making this work for over 10 years. It was initially a reaction to advertising a live performance at an opening and having something so subtle being performed that it is barely noticeable. People come up and say ‘when is the performance starting’? and I say ‘this is it’ and point to my nose and the nail - sello-taped on there. Pointing out majestically like the most absurd beacon.
No Rolo, 2006.
Made while on Residency in Bamberg Germany.
In this performance I went into a shop buying all the Rolo’s in the shop, after coming out of the shop with 18 packets of the sweets, I sent a friend into the same shop to ask the shopkeeper for some Rolo’s. I had my friends tell me what the shopkeeper’s reaction was when he came back from his ‘No Rolo’ escapade. The shopkeeper explained ‘You wouldn’t believe it but someone just came in and bought all my Rolo’s’. I have kept the 18 packets of Rolos and still have them in a box in my studio. They are 13 years old.
Great meals I never had, 2006.
I went to a series of restaurants and sat down outside where people had just finished eating a meal, where their plates had not yet been cleared away. I tried to decipher what the meal was from its remains. When the waiter came over to me I said to him: that the meal was ‘fantastic’ and then I tried to pay for it, pretending I had just eaten it. I didn’t succeed on many occasions but on one occasion I did succeed in paying for someone else’s finished meal. It was the greatest meal I never had.
Brushing Teeth, 2004
Creative lab residency at the CCA Glasgow.
During a creative Lab residency at the CCA Glasgow. I advertised in the Evening Times newspaper in the job section, looking for a person to brush my teeth every morning for a month, visiting me for less than 5 minutes each morning. I wrote up a job description and interviewed a series of candidates in the CCA with the CCA staff. We choose a lady called Anne from Glasgow. The job lasted one month. I videoed each morning having my teeth brushed. I also got to know Anne quite well. We talked about holidays, the war, jobs, kids, and what was happening around the city. After it was over I paid Anne £400 and I missed our morning chats.
Confrontationally Polite, 2001.
In this work I bought a series of items in a shop and confronted the cashier with politeness, by thanking him repeatedly after paying and receiving my change. I stood there in the shop thanking the sales assistant repeatedly for some minutes, I was deadly still thanking and looking at the shop assistant, it was an odd experience, I felt kind-of insane in that moment. The sales assistant got pretty irritate he began to get animated behind his sales till. All of the people in the shop began to look at the cashier, waiting to see what he was going to do. I could sense the pressure building and building. At one point I thought the cashier was going to punch me. I can remember thinking outside later that I never want to do that again. I said to myself I never want to make art that I could get punched for. I thought about what I was doing and what it could mean. Was I trying to out wacky myself as an art form, that was never the point. I remember making up some new rules for myself.
Serial Psycho interviewee, 2000-2002.
A self published account in an edition of 200.
For this work I applied for and attended a series of job interviews, which I had no intention of doing or accepting.
My interest was to just do the interviews and to interject and maybe upset the normal interview. I spent some months making this work making phone calls and sending off letters. I gained five interviews, I bought specific clothes and shoes and had an interviewee haircut. All of which I documented in a self published account. All of the interview experiences were pretty strange in their own way. I can remember one maniac interviewer saying that I was ‘Just the ambitious kind of person they were looking for,
‘You’re a good seller David aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes I am‘ I said.
‘We need you to sell holiday packages to old people?’.
‘I can do it’ I said.
‘We have a great employee, she’s a terrier when we get an agreement’ he said.
‘You’re a total nutcase’ I said.
Advancement Into Retreat, 2002.
On St Vincent Street Glasgow.
I was thinking about the street and how it had its own rhythm.
I was thinking about my next door neighbour who had dementia and would turn up lost in our flat.
I had an old framed door installed on the pavement on St Vincent Street Glasgow. The door was opened slightly and I stood behind the door. I dressed up like an old lady wearing a wig and a dress. I stood behind the slightly opened door situated in the pavement. I was smiling out at people walking by, I tried to smile like Jack Nicolson’s ‘Here’s Jonny’ scene in the ‘Shining’. On the front of the door was the works title: ‘Advancement Into Retreat’. People came up to me wanted to know what I was selling. Workers were watching me from their offices all day and couldn’t resist coming over and talking to me. Some people thought I was doing it for charity. I can remember an interesting group of men who were walking very fast, giving me some serious abuse. There was a team of builders working near by in the shop beside me and they got a kick out of the performance. I remember them all having their lunch out the front on the street beside me, watching people’s reactions.