Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Westminster
'Feature'
'Feature' is an interdisciplinary project operating between the practices of live performance and cinema. Conceived and filmed as a series of performances linked by an overarching narrative of The Battle of Little Big Horn, the output comprises a 55-minute film and an accompanying artist’s book (Feature: Reconstruction, Shezad Dawood, Bookworks, London, 2008, ISBN 978-1906012083). The idea of linking Native Americans (“Indians”) in North America and the Indian subcontinent is effected through the central persona of ‘Billy da Krishna’ (an amalgam of the Indian god Krishna and of Western legend Billy the Kid). Scenic backdrops, which interface with the landscape, have been inserted into a series of mock-historical vignettes interlaced with fictional interludes. These feature a cast of well-known artists and musicians alongside local performers. By titling the project 'Feature', the intention was to shift the emphasis away from being merely a Western to a parallel investigation of cinematic time and process. Dawood conceived the project and was responsible for fundraising, script development, structured preparatory dialogues, the organisation and direction of in-performance, in-shoot improvised sequences and overseeing and directing the editing process. Funding included an AHRC Research Grant: Practice-Led & Applied (£16,432), as well as a six-month residency at Wysing Arts Centre, and grants from LAFVA and ACE.
Please see portfolio for fuller documentation of research dimensions.
'Feature' participates in an on-going debate around how a live event can be manifest without a loss of coherence or purpose in a filmed documentary process. Notable prior examples are photographic documentation of early performances by Vito Acconci or video documentation of early works by Dan Graham. Research methods involved collaboration with curators, amateur and professional actors, and members of the local community in Cambridgeshire, where the film was produced. 'Feature' uniquely presents historical restaging and fictional invention (scripting, performance, filming, book production), within the scope of the overall production process. The artefacts (e.g. props, backdrops, performance and film edit itself) are created through processes of improvisation and collaboration with participants involved in the performance. The overriding logic of 'Feature' explores the idea of duration that is pivotal to both live art and film. It examines how the operation of time between these two very different spheres (i.e. performance and film) might allow them to be aware of one another. Central to this process is an exploration of how the different perspectives of participants inform both the live event and the process of editing as a post-hoc rationalisation of performance. In this sense, the project seeks to take up key performance documentation techniques (e.g. Acconci, Graham) and use them as a cogent set of tools for radicalising on-screen performance in a more contemporary form.
