Wildlife Producer is a story. When it began in 2004, Wildlife Producer was supposed to be about architecture and socio-environmental space. A lot of Lefebvre informed it and there was also this idea that it had something to do with skateboarding and graffiti. More than anything it was inspired by the mad, irrational collision of architectures in central Newcastle – partly the legacy of T Dan Smith’s wild ambition.
At first it seemed essential that the films were shot from a tripod, a pocket-size one, to convey this sense of naughtiness, of doing something furtively transgressive. But already at the legendary Starbucks session, the need to change camera angle was obvious. Once we did our first summer 2006 sessions, it suddenly seemed too limiting, the tripod. DavidFloat had been frequently offering to film our sessions, so by the time we started back in September 06, he was part of the team.
One of the most noticeable changes straight off was the way Float’s involvement did away with several ideas and preconceptions. Ideas are limiting, of course. Wildlife Producer was always meant to go beyond improv – by improvising the performance context and the setting each time, it was inevitable that comfort zones would be further dismantled. But the furtiveness of the earlier films was definitely a defining characteristic. Now, with the active observer built in, the openness of the agenda was further exposed. There was never an prescription (set up somewhere and make noise) and there was never a sense that there ought to be content as such – just activity.
Of course that’s all bollocks really. The idea cannot be abandoned, but its primacy can be marginalised. DavidFloat quickly took on a directorial role, choosing settings and making various suggestions. There was only one outing with just D*v and Gwilly before Fletch joined, which was the Monument (with the park tagged on at the end). Typically, Floatsworth’s first challenge to the performers was to set up and play in the busiest spot in town. So that was the first big change – crowd participation. Comments, green and both red, irate buskers coming to appeal to the Producer’s good will and turn it down. No such. But of course that was an issue raised immediately. A simple one, of course: how much less of a right do the samplers of Wildlife Producer have to play in a busy public place than a couple who have very self-consciously done themselves out like some imagined 60s free-livin’s, further polluting the consumerscape with vague-ass, folk-inflected positivity. Harmless and bland.
Consumerscape. Culturescape. Urban equiviscape. Sheepscape. Shitscape. The quiet coach. The setting for Wildlife Producer performances is the human. The social. The fucking gnat!
Fletch’s first session was the Rydale Bridge. Float’s first directed setting. At rush hour, the traffic is constant and fast, whooshing by, no mercy, but no congestion either. That time of day, too, in late September, the light is keen, cutting across, but never mean or unforgiving. The video captures the sense of desperate urgency that fuelled the performance. An urgency that betrays an all-too-obvious lack of necessity, the impertinence of its all: there is virtually no way that a meaningful dialogue can develop between the musicians. D*V and Gwilly were on their SP404s, FX-tweaking to an absurd extent, crush delays, moong reverbs. Fletch was the virtuoso in this set, digging into the circuit board of his SK1 with a pair of screwdrivers, sampling himself shouting ‘Wanker!’ and ‘Bollocks!’ to be spangled at a particular kind of passer-by.
The bridge session was the beginning of Wildlife Producer’s dialogue with disconnection. From that moment on there would never be anything remotely like a fixed agenda. Wildlife Producer is a story. And it will continue to tell a tale of engagement and dissing, a child remorselessly plugging in and unplugging out a Christmas Tree’s worth-per-second of energy like the one you never encountered or even dreamt of. When Fran began her participation in this Beatrix Potter inflected cultural insurrection, she found it to be this way, and that is why the whole thing continues to explode and expand. But that, my mice, is for another instalment. Wait for it.
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