WHAT DO I DO? (1970 - 2009) 2009

In What Do I Do? (1970-2009) Brown Council appropriate two seminal performance works by Vito Acconci from the 1970s. One channel depicts a tableau of four figures against a white backdrop donned in colourful, hand-made costumes. Looking towards the camera they repeatedly question: “What do I do? What do I say?” The second channel depicts these figures, one at a time, blindfolded against a white backdrop with tomatoes being thrown at them. What do I do? (1970-2008) investigates the mythology of the performance artist and the role of documentation in this process of mythologising. The absurdity of the costuming makes the performers appear as ‘characters’ or crude imitators of the ‘performance artist’. This work explores notions of the Australian artist as a shadower to European and American art histories and considers the weight of these histories in current practice by literally enacting our own ‘performance anxiety’ about the creation and production of the artwork.

THE 31 JOKE BIT 2009

(Excerpt)

The 31 Joke Bit is a short video/performance in which Brown Council deconstruct the formula of the comedic ʻbitʼ through the constant repetition of cliché jokes and badly executed impressions. Each performer is given a 10 second time limit to reach their punch-line. This impossible time limit results in a series of comedic failures, which in turn, undermine the role of the comedian and challenges the expectations of the audience to be entertained.

SIX MINUTE SOUL MATE 2008

Six Minute Soul Mate is a 1 hr performance that explores the nature of love and romance within a contemporary quick fix culture. Utilising the structure of a real speed dating night Brown Council examines contemporary modes of courtship and investigates how it is that we attempt to perform intimacy in a society obsessed with speed. In Six Minute Soul Mate short performative vignettes are spun into an absurd conveyer belt of images that spiral out of control like a barn dance doped up on cocaine. Cliches and conventions of romance, desire and love are played out and repeated like an old broken record.

Six Minute Soul Mate was produced by Vitalstatistix Theatre Company for the Adelaide Fringe Festival, 2009 where is won the award for Best Theatre Production.

Six Minute Soul Mate premiered at the Next Wave Festival in Melbourne, 2008.

SCRUM 2008

(Excerpt)

Scrum is a performance of athletic endurance. An abstracted form of scrumming is performed as a competitive game between two teams. Four performers in business suits, sporting shoes and warrior-like face paint competitively scrum for an hour. In Scrum, business-women converge with sports-stars, transforming into figures of fierce competition. These figures performing this difficult yet repetitive and in effect redundant game, conflate capitalist notions of competition and the business of art.

RUNAWAY 2008

(Excerpt)

In video/performance Runaway the four members of Brown Council each perform the same image of a running figure in a repeated sequence which builds over time. Through the darkness the female figure runs in slow motion, spurted in blood, her top ripped open and then in a bloody finale is killed in action and frozen in time. Theatricality and the filmic converge in an emotive explosion of fake blood, fake sweat and fake tits. This is a close encounter with a spectacular cliché: an onscreen body up close. This familiar conflation of pain, sweat, sex and death is achieved through home-made techniques of torch light, red fake blood and emboldened music. Runaway is everything and nothing at an instant: a seven minute sequence of trash and trickery.

FALLING 2008

Derived from a live performance, 2 channel video installation Falling inter-cuts two continuous shots between two lovers to the sound track of Roy Orbison’s Falling. This work alludes to a narrative of jealousy and rage, suggestive of possible tragedies and passions: is she falling in love or to her death? Falling uses derivative characters within a cliché narrative in isolation from their filmic genre. Through the use of filmic conventions and theatrical techniques we attempt construct our own version of parallel editing through old school trickery.

MILKSHAKE 2007

In video/performance Milkshake, Brown Council are each donned in hand made skeleton suits while performing a grotesque hip-hop dance sequence that pushes physical limitations. The skeletons literally perform the lyrics of Kelis’ Milkshake song by drinking one litre of milk while attempting to maintain a strict dance routine. What begins as a stylised booty dance warps into a shocking display of performative endurance, complete with burping, vomiting and cramps.

Kelis’ provocative lyrics have been hijacked and turned into a literal human milkshake while the booty dancing and scantily clad ladies from the film clip have been replaced with four androgenous skeletons. Their crude attempt at replication is met with an inevitable failure to perform as well as their physical demise once the litre of milk begins to take its toll. The ridiculous mash up of skeletons and booty dancing subverts the dominant representations of women in hip-hop culture in a playful and provocative way. The overt sexuality and parade of female flesh that is evident in the original film clip has been removed and literally turned into a bag of gyrating and sexless hand-painted bones.

LOVE & DEATH IN 8 MINUTES 2007

(Excerpt)

Love & Death in 8 Minutes is a 4 channel video installation in which 3 skeletons and a bloodied victim act out disparate images of love and loneliness. Moments of death and longing are re-enacted with the assistance of homemade costuming, atonal singing and sticky maple syrup blood. In each sequence the performer acts out their internal fantasy that may be a regurgitation of pop culture or a distance memory from childhood. The question is who are the performers performing for and why are they performing at all?

ENCORE 2007

Encore is a 30 minute endurance performance/video in which four soiled performers repeatedly appear for their imaginary curtain call. Within a black theatrical setting the four performers run into frame to line up and bow in front of the camera. Still dressed in their costumes, the performers appear to be concluding an amateur theatre production. They smile towards a suggested audience, bow and run out of the frame 'backstage'. The encore continues and the performers return to bow, over and over again, attempting to resurrect the dying moments of their performance.