Post Visual Criticulous

Mr Criticulous is back.

The dramaturgy of the post-visual is a wilful act of vandalism. It rejects the boundaries of space and time, and privileges the atemporal existence of 'the performance' in a digital drive. It dispenses with the need for actors - a prerecording will do fine - the necessity of a director and the public venue. The post-visual happens in the mind, although it is ready to command a theatrical space.

Since the collision is at the centre of the post-visual aesthetic, it is appropriate that its very name comes from an unfortunate juxtaposition. The post-dramatic, being mainly a form for academic appreciation and boring audiences in the name of intelligence, has been whipped by the culture of the DJ, of the sound artist. Visual theatre, which repeatedly failed the most basic tests of meaningful definition, is consigned to the dustbin of performance studies.

Post-visual theatre begins with a text. Not a script - who really has time to read Uncle Vanya? The text is stolen, of course... a series of recordings by amateurs, bad acting and all, downloaded and fed into a programme. Then cut and pasted and drowned in sound. 

Post-visual theatre begins with Auslander. Like most academics, his knowledge of Marxist theory trumps his aesthetic taste (anyone who can talk about Eric Clapton as a signifier of the real (without noting that he is one of the most musicians who destroyed their 1960s' reputation (by making dad rock into his dotage)) needs to update their i-pod). He points out that the idea of liveness in art is a fiction, and that live performances often hark back to a (recorded) perfection... he knows that rock might talk of authenticity but this is all facade... he realises that the dominant cultural form (he wrote this when it was TV, just before the internet took over (making his book instantly out-of-date (although his Clapton chapter helped to do that))) dictates the form of the defeated cultural forms (in his era, that was theatre, which was going through another period of trying to dig the Gesamtkunstwerk by having loads of video projections).

Post-visual begins with the magic of the DJ, who hacks up and recombines sound and thereby has a visceral impact on the audience. 

Post-visual theatre is the application of William Burroughs' cut-up technique to performance (and about time too (Burroughs adopted it in response to the timidity of literature (which was looking antique next to visual art (which had already taken on board the ideas of bricolage) and claimed that it could predict the future)).

Uncle Vanya Act One (in Dub) by Gareth K Vile on Mixcloud

Vile Fifty

The arrival of The List's Hot 100 ought to be my excuse to start moaning about the choices and their positioning - frankly, having spent a week laying out Clingfilm for Tramway Young Critics, I'm disappointed that there aren't more Hot designers in the top ten - but that seems as easy as poking fun at Creative Scotland. I'm more interested in the diversity of talent that the 100 reveals. Then again, Ewan Morrison would probably be excluded on my list, because he tried to steal my drink last night.

The cultural profile of Scotland is stunning. It's what keeps me chained to the computer, trying to cover it on the blog and for The Skinny.  Whether I would place David Greig below Cora Bisset - both are included, pretty much on the back of the same two productions, Glasgow Girls and Whatever Gets You Through The Night - is irrelevant. What matters is that they are both making internationally acclaimed theatre while still being based in Caledonia.

Although I have no idea about the politics of independence, the Hot 100 is a stark reminder that Scotland does have its own distinctive identity: it is jarring when certain names appear who are either no longer based in Scotland - and who have perhaps made their impact in a broader context - or the occasional artist who is generally not seen as Scottish. David Byrne may have been born in Scotland, but his work has always featured an American voice. It's not so much that the nation can't claim him, but that the rest of list emphasises that it doesn't need him.

Of course, what the Hot 100 really needs is a few talking heads - minor comedians or DJs perhaps - to comment on the individual's moments of glory. That'll make it more like those TV nostalgia shows, and give legitimacy to the whole enterprise. Either that, or it must finally acknowledge the hard work of critics - without them, none of this creativity would reach an audience in the first place. Since there are plenty of awards knocking about at this time of year, I am instituting the Vile Fifty 2012. There's no hierarchy - everyone on it is number one - and it goes out to the editors and critics writing for The List, The Skinny, The Herald, The Scotsman, to the on-line bloggers and the press departments and freelance PRs who keep the wheels of culture turning.

Ambiguity (Ring @ Tramway)

Ambiguity - dontcha just hate it? Theatre criticism is supposed to be a simple affair: 250 words, kicking up with a plot summary and ending with a recommendation. Bish-bosh, and out. Simple enough, as long as the play has the moral complexity of a pantomime or Macbeth. But allow anyone involved in Shunt to write it, or give the choreographer a grant from a scientific institute, and 50 non-sexual shades of grey fill the stage.

Contemporary performance - whether it fits in with established norms of script and Shakespeare, or comes from those wild and wacky live artists who can't decide whether to be visual or performance art - thrives on ambiguity. Don't let the enduring popularity of Macbeth fool you. Shakespeare's story of patrilineal succession is so out of fashion, the only way directors can stand doing it is to subvert the meaning. When this works - as in the NTS' version starring Alan Cumming - it draws out an intriguing subtext. When it fails, I'm left wondering why paramilitary organisations are so worried about their children.

The solution is probably to obsess about the details of a particular performance: was this actor any good? Did the script have the ring of authenticity? It doesn't resolve the ambiguity, but it gets the article written. Bish-bosh and out.

Of course, this doesn't do justice to the seriousness of the art, or the potential for theatre to become part of a broader discourse. Tales of Magical Realism and Ring (both at Tramway and both, typically for the venue, slipping between genres of performance) refuse any literal representation of reality, or nice simple plot. Reducing their narratives to introductory paragraphs fails to embrace their emotional impact.

Ring's plot is relatively, and deceptively, simple. An encounter group, which decides to meet in the dark (with the inevitable potential for masturbatory shenanigans), picks on one of the members, accusing them of all sorts of murderous antics. Whether naughty Frances has actually killed, stalked or irritated anyone is never made explicit. Even better, the part of Frances, thanks to audio trickery, is played by every single audience.

From the gentle introduction, Ring inducts the audience into darkness and a group riven by petty rivalries and serious menace. Guy Dartnell, the genial host, is replaced by a chorus of voices who alternately whisper viciously, croon love songs and reassure. A fragmented journey backwards in time, perhaps finally unveiling a secret death, takes in the comic - the description of a group for chronic masturbators, some trite bickering - and the vicious, with muffled screams and at least one member of the group suddenly and violently expelled.

When narrative is this disjointed, something else has to take its place to maintain the piece's coherence. David Rosenberg uses binaural recording, giving the illusion that the events are happening around the room (in truth, the audience is wearing headphones and the actors are not present). Removing even the slightest light - Ring is experienced in complete darkness - the soundscape is heavy, threatening and intimate. The occasional sound of muffled screams, or the smash of a glass become jarring and the whispers are sensual and disturbing.

Every audience member experiences the performance alone, wrapped in sound and the dark. This stark alienation makes Frances' story personal, and the noises hovering at the edges of comprehension all the more terrifying. The encounter group's reasons for coming together are never clear and the descriptions of violence, and unpleasant sexual encounters, may be delusion or fantasy.

The power of Ring is poised on this ambiguity, between what is really happening - strangers sitting in a room, listening to the same script yet separated - and what the script presents - a series of arguments, memories and scenarios, played out by sound alone. Ring doesn't make any grand statements, suggesting rather the isolation of the various characters and the irony of their understanding of each other's situations: instead, it pokes at the frail fabric of how reality is shaped. The subtle binaural recordings, which map sound in such a way as to apparently position the sounds in space, mocks the way that the mind maps sense data and the constant shifts of scene and perspective shatter any consistent perception of events.

It's the true horror of ambiguity, the nightmare of social disorder. Alliances are made and broken, a child may have died to the nonchalant notice of one adult, a woman may be performing sexual tricks in a hotel, the group may be trying to unravel a past conflict. The group dissolves, reforms, bullies and cajoles. It feels so intimate and yet it is a prerecording that is the same for every audience member.

It could mean anything... I am lost... it's black... the lights go back up and only one demon is left.... is this supposed to be a review? It starts off like another one of his lectures...

I hate theatre. Not really

If it didn't provide me with an overwhelming sense of purpose and meaning, and save me from sitting alone at home in a cold flat of an evening, I'd hate theatre. When I am not sitting in the dark listening to an encounter group lambast for imagined crimes (Ring at Tramway) or being lectured on the psychology of patriarchy (Bluebeard during Sonica), I am being transported to bleak industrial universes (Tales of Magical Realism, part 2) or sharing an Irish Jew's midlife crisis (Ulysses at the Tron). It's not surprising that I have multiple critical personalities: the stage is a life-lesson in the fictional nature of identity.

Theatre criticism is a thankless task. Well, it feels thankless after reading Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn. Bitter? Of course I'm bitter. When Brookner attacks a reality television show with a particularly florid simile, comparing, say, the host's personality to that of a too authentic Jimmy Saville look-alike, it's likely that more than half a dozen people know what he is talking about. When I describe an event that has made me reconsider the entire basis of reality (let's say, VSPRS by Les Ballets C de la B), it just sounds like I am making shit up.

Brooker's criticism is instructive though: he made his name for his brutality and uncompromising hatred of bad television. Unlike Brookner, I never need to wade through a sea of garbage, picking out the used condoms that masquerade as celebrities and swallowing the unprocessed human excrement which is the raw material for most soap opera plots. Even the worst theatre is better than a solid episode of TV drama. Sure, both can suffer from actors who studied under foresters rather than voice coaches, and the scripts can honk when the writer decides to try capturing a character that either has no analogie in reality or comes from a different social background. But the physical immediacy of theatre gives it a short-cut to emotional connection.

Brooker treats the people on TV as two dimensional caricatures, incapable of feeling the pain of being compared to abyssal trench monsters or threatened with cartoon violence (if Brookner directed his reviews against a politician, some zealous member of the secret services would have discreetly offed him round the back of The Guardian offices by now). It's no accident that he stopped being so vicious around the time he started making TV himself. He admitted it himself: suddenly, they were real people.

This is where theatre can't compete: it completely fails to dehumanise the performers, creating instead a community in the audience - even sitting in the dark, listening to headphones, Ring still feels like a communal, shared experience - and a strange connection between the actors and the watchers. It's why the NTS' Macbeth was such a hit. Alan Cumming, in person, on the stage, radiates a presence that can't be filmed.

Of course, being a Platonist, I have my problems with live theatre: these people are not only lying, they are seducing my sympathies. The allegory of the cave is often read as a predictive warning about the power of TV, but its moral panic about delusion was more likely modeled on Plato's reaction to tragedy. Leaving aside my usual insistence that Plato was joking, his sophistic arguments against theatre at least do it justice. Theatre can play around with emotions in a way that TV can only rarely achieve.

That's why I would probably hate theatre, if I didn't love it. Not because it is too much work to appreciate, although it does demand some serious attention. It's an emotional journey - even watching a shit work evokes fear and pity, usually for the poor actors - that is ultimately fraudulent. And it doesn't even offer the luxury of allowing the critic to be vicious about the work. They've been presented as real people.

Robocritic decommissioned

It's with a considerable degree of regret that we here at A.I.M have to announce the temporary decommissioning of Robocritic. It appears that the integration of the technology and the human was not quite as complete as we had hoped, and I am sure that you have already heard about the regrettable incident earlier today at Tramway. We believe that it was the result of too much cheap coffee, which flooded Robocritic's system and led to his wild rampage along the corridor that leads to Scottish Ballet.

When we developed Robocritic, we hoped to by-pass the usual problems of populist critique, and discover a scientific approach to the critical process. This unfortunately caused Robocritic's obsession with statistical data. He downloaded his consciousness onto a discussion forum, infected a box office system and began a flame war with a group of conceptual artists. His insistence that audience numbers were the only way to gauge the worth of a performance, and his subsequent refusal to review any art that hadn't been on television, made him functionally worthless.

The "radical subjectivity chip" which we fitted to his critical faculties was supposedly a safeguard against this particular problem - essentially, the chip was supposed to use his relative enjoyment of any individual show as the basis for analysis. Somehow, he got hold of Tower Hamlet's press release about selling off a Henry Moore sculpture to benefit local residents. Faced with the impossibility of resolving the tension between aesthetic and financial worth, the chip exploded and Robocritic drunk more coffee than Robbie Williams managed that time he went into rehab.

Robocritic is currently undergoing rehabilitation. Later tonight, he will be seeing Sven Werner's Tales of Magical Realism. This involves being blindfolded and listening to a story on headphones. The isolation from external stimulation will re-calibrate his sensitivity to art in and of itself, regardless of the broader political or social context. Werner's soundtrack has some rather soothing voices and David Lynch style music. Robocritic will be going on a personal journey into a mythical land - a vision quest, if you will - and will stop bellowing that Michael McIntyre is more important than Robbie Thomson.

The extent of Robocritic's problems became evident when he said he'd rather watch Live at the Apollo than see Ecstatic Arc. Frankly, any standard of judgment clarifies that Ecstatic Arc is more exciting and cooler than watching a hyper-active observational comic bounce around a stage, unless the comic falls over and hurts himself.

The Birth of Robocritic

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here today. I know that you have all heard a great deal about our work here at Advanced Ideas Mechanics, and our reputation is not exactly squeaky clean. Those unfortunate battles with the Avengers, the rumours that we are planning to dominate the entire world through our technology, the rather stupid outfits we wear in our public appearances. And yet, today, I hope that we'll prove how A.I.M is working towards a better future for everyone.

In a moment, we shall unveil our latest, most powerful creation: Robocritic. As Robocop was touted as the future of law enforcement, we believe that Robocritic will redefine the critical appreciation of art. A team of scientists has been hard at it, working out definitions of performance, contemporary dance, electronic composition and aesthetics for the past seven years: their dedication has reached a culmination with Robocritic.

Like many scientists, we were inspired not by what already existed - a cohort of professional, serious professionals examining the arts from multiple perspectives - but a cheap science fiction film. It's well known that Star Trek's Spock (that's Mister, not Doctor - Dr Spock was an anarchist expert on parenting) inspired a generation of physicists to research outre ideas and write filthy stories about Captain Kirk and his science officer. Now A.I.M is proud to admit that a 1980s action thriller, with a side serving of social satire, has encouraged us to build something neither wholly human nor completely machine - but totally rad.

Robocritic was designed around three prime directives: to address all art forms and discuss their commonalities; to ceaselessly seek answers to questions previously considered irrelevant; to communicate those ideas in a format that allows plenty of argument. If asked to boil these down to a single slogan, we'd suggest: "Robocritic doesn't know, but he sounds like he does."

We had difficulty finding the right person for the job: our early experiments went awry, as the average human mind failed to cope with extended exposure to Live Art. Fortunately, when we discovered the broken body of Mr Criticulous - he succumbed to shingles after the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe, and has been wandering around shouting about "the death of the script" for the past twelve months - we had our consciousness. His Jesuit education had already taken him beyond the edge of reasonable philosophy, and his attempts to combine scientific method and theology as a method of aesthetic assessment mirrored our own madcap schemes to organise the world's governments under one system.

Just as soon as he stops talking in binary, Robocritic will be a regular guest on The Vile Blog. He'll be sent into territories that don't yet have clear definitions, and make a big enough fuss to, hopefully, set out some kind of map for further discussion.

Creative Scotland Awards part 2: my victory speech

When Creative Scotland announced that one of their awards was for an Arts' Ambassador, I immediately set to work. My acceptance speech took me a few hours, because I had so much to say about how my contribution to the arts was vital to its on-going health, and quite a few anecdotes that ended with the line - "needless to say, I had the last laugh..."

It turns out that Mr Criticulous didn't make the short-list. Fortunately, I am as gracious in defeat as victory. I thought I'd give everyone the chance to read the speech... just imagine me in my grubby black suit, badly shaved and my hat pulled over my unwashed hair: striding to the podium and holding aloft my trophy...

"I'd like to thank everyone who has come here tonight: I know you've been forced to sit through a delicious meal and hear from some of the greats in Scottish Arts, but now the main course has arrived. Gareth K Vile, also known as Mr Criticulous - and a variety of other aliases that even my parents aren't able to name - the great ambassador not just of the arts, not just of Scotland, but of criticism itself.

While it was obvious that this award would end up in my hands, I'd like to take a moment to remember the plucky outsiders who were nominated alongside me. Allowing them to bask in my reflected glory seems only fair.

First of all - The National Theatre of Scotland. It has been a real pleasure, during my time as a critic, to watch the NTS grow in strength. In this year, when they embrace a new artistic director, The NTS continues with its commitment to expanding audiences and making theatre that is experimental - think of Lifeguard at the Govanhill Baths, which combined Adrian Howell's intimate performance with community development - and popular, like Appointment with the Wickerman. 

Apart from providing my radio show and blog with a stream of interesting guests, The NTS has managed, despite the diversity of its output, to find an articulate, coherent voice . Eschewing a house style, they nevertheless have an identity that is recognisable. The writing of David Greig has helped with this and works like Glasgow Girls, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, Black Watch represent the combination of the populist and the challenging. 

The NTS is restless, always looking for new ways to reach out: their policy, of being artist led, has allowed them to support a new generation as well as the veterans. And frankly, being a national theatre is a minefield - Scotland itself has enough diverse groups that "staging the nation" was always going to be a challenge. Yet, like me, the NTS has never lost its belief that it can speak to the world.

Donald Shaw has presided over Celtic Connections during a period when it has moved from a wee fill-in during a quiet season to a showcase of folk from around the world. Rather than be insular, he emphasises the "Connections" and brings musicians from around the world who would never make it this far north.

Again, CC has given me plenty of guests for the Radio Show, and defines my playlist from November until the end of January. It has never lost its inclusiveness - plenty of chances to learn as well as listen. In a time when national identity is a major question for Scots,  Celtic Connections brings the world to Glasgow, showing off the city's eclecticism. It is more than a question of letting Glasgow see the richness of music around the world - there's no tokenism in the programme: it reminds the world how switched on and smart Glasgow audiences can be.

The third nominee is Patrick Doyle. Glasgow has some world class composers - James MacMillan springs to mine, Matthew Whiteside, so many more even ignoring my weekly contribution to sound art through the Vile Arts Radio Hour. Yet Doyle is out on the international stage: his scores have enhanced  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet, and Disney/Pixar’s Brave.

I liked him best when he used to turn up on a Saturday morning on ITV, but his alliance with Kenneth Brannagh took him to the silver screen. His score for Thor is my favourite, as it supports the comic book fantasy of the story with lush, evocative composition. 

I suppose what all three of this nominations do is remind us that Scotland isn't just making work for local appreciation: as a nation, it punches above its weight and adds to the sum of international creativity. The borders may be up for debate, the relationship with England in discussion: yet Scottish art carries an identity that makes it part of the global heritage."

He's Had Enough, We'd Better Get Him Into the Ambulance

This is why writers ought to work alone. Eric and I have been "discussing" - well, only one of us ended up with a bloody nose - the reasons for the fashion in theatre to break the fourth wall, the history of cabaret and the possibilities of a "new queer art." These topics explain why I don't get invited to parties, although Eric was out last night until two in the morning, hobnobbing with The Creative Matyrs and Kim Khaos.

We also had an interesting adventure, starring Ricky out of the pub next door. Vile decided to ask him about his feeling on conceptual art, which concluded in a tearful monologue about gender identity. Consequently, articles on Iron  and Made in China will be published tomorrow, as soon as Eric picks Vile up from A&E.

Before he was hospitalised, Vile was very kindly explaining the history of burlesque, and how the pattern of increased rights for women co-existing with more explicitly sexual images available in the public domain may well have found a common point in the burlesque revival - a pattern Vile insists replicates a similar situation in Classical Greece. Eric had been to The Gatsby Club, while Vile hit the one-man-and-his-pig electronica extravangza at Tramway, and innocently inquired about how burlesque, which occupies a contested position in relationship to striptease.

Inevitably, this descended into another attempt to find out what the purpose of art might be. Eric reminded Vile of how neither of them had seen Roseanna Cade's My Big Sister Taught Me This Lap Dance because Vile had worried that it would be too compromising for a critic to be in that intimate a performance with a performer. However, they both realised that the element of erotic danger this represented - crossing an emotional line, being forced to confront and assess a response to an act that is fundamentally intended to be erotic - was an important part of Cade's intention, and that the cognitive dissonance she was setting up made this a prime example of queer art. By embracing the marginalised, it asked serious questions about the public perception of sexual display.

As Sunday comes to a cold close, the legendary Vile Arts review machine marches onwards, giving critiques of its own empty existence and making grand statement about work it hasn't seen.

Transcription of Conversation about Ben Frost

"Classical music and rock'n'roll have never got on too well. It's been the problem of rock since about 1966 - probably about the time that the Velvet Underground started fiddling about in Warhol's Factory. It wants to be taken seriously as art. There's nothing worse than stupid rockers trying to make serious music. Don't believe me? I've got the complete works of Yes on my hard drive, have a listen."

"Are you saying you don't like Lou Reed?"

"Never met him. But he doesn't come across too well when Lester Bangs interviewed him. The point isn't whether the Velvets are any good - but the presence of a vinyl copy of their first album in Urban Outfitters suggests that they are more of a fashion accessory than a vital musical force these days. Yes, I know they don't make music any more, but part of the recording revolution ensured that music could exist even after the musicians had had their respective emotional or pharmaceutical crises-"

"This is the last time I ever take you to a concert. You just enjoy moaning..."

"(Expletive deleted). No, I am developing a critical discourse around the status of electronic music. With added alcohol. I'm not saying that Ben Frost comes out of the same tradition as the progressive rock of the 1970s - frankly, you wouldn't have got me in there if I thought he had anything to do with Jethro Tull. But the event we saw tonight did enforce the idea that rock and classical ought to remain in opposition."

"Ben Frost isn't rock'n'roll, and it's another one of your deliberate misreadings to suggest otherwise. Your ambition seems to revolve around applying inappropriate aesthetic parameters..."

"And seeing what happens. I've explained this before. I do exactly what Ben Frost does - I test what happens when you place one art form in a different context. Admittedly, Ben Frost is probably more interesting in The Old Fruitmarket than I am wandering around The Merchant City full of coffee..."

"Do you want to tell me why you think Ben Frost is rock'n'roll? Here's the objections: he uses a laptop to manipulate sound, he shapes albums in a way that has little in common with traditional pop structure and the three minute track. He takes on major themes and is not limited by the industry that surrounds rock music..."

"Yes were under the impression that their albums were influenced by eastern philosophy. That's a "major theme". But that isn't the point. Frost's instrumentation echoes the rock format: guitars, a bit of drumming and the electronics, although manipulated by a computer, are just a natural move from the experimental approaches of bands like Swans. Remember the start of the gig, before he came on. There was the new Swans album playing and his kit was all over the stage. A computer - I love the way he taped the cover to hide the brand, so anti-commercial - a drum  kit which is probably pretty close to the ones used by every rock'n'roller since Elvis - and a big whack of speakers. That was all an announcement: I am here to rock. And rock is the musical form that is most concerned with volume."

"I'd argue that the laptop is more associated with either techno or the soundscaping that is so often used for choreography..."

"See, this is what makes Frost fascinating. He comes from a tradition that includes Brian Eno - his ambient music militates against rock's macho posturing - someone even wrote a book about how Eno's production style was the antithesis of rock'n'roll. But Eno was in Roxy Music and he produced U2. They might not be fashionable - and part of their uncoolness comes exactly from the awkward sterility of Eno's production against the band's instinct to be a good time rock'n'roll band - but U2 are a by-word for stadium rock."

"Even Eno can't make U2 hip. But that's probably because of Bono. So is Eno, and this tradition you are inventing, rock or not rock?"

"It's both. That's the tension we saw played out tonight. On one level, there's no reason at all for Frost to perform By The Throat live. It's a wonderful recording, made all the more fascinating by the process of creation - those wolf sounds were apparently made on a double-bass. And it is conceptually complete. It's a studio creation, and although he remixes it live, it doesn't need the presence of the performer to make it immediate and visceral."

"But by playing it live, he adds the presence - which is very rock'n'roll, I suppose. And all those instruments - signifiers of rock?"

"Yep, and rock itself is a signifier of something aggressive, energetic, powerful. In theory, adding that to By The Throat lends it... well, a toughness. And look at how Frost performed - guitar slung over the shoulder, getting the drummer on to give it some tribal punch. It's rock'n'roll right there."

"However... after your first sip of that double espresso, you were burbling about classical music. Was that just the caffeine talking?"

"No, it's where the problems come in. Something about Apollo and Dionysus. The way that the venue was designed for a classical show - "

"There were no seats, that's rock..."

"Yeah, but most people just stood and watched. The lack of seating is more usually to give people space to dance."

"I saw that you went for a stroll."

"I was dancing. I was improvising a one man non-contact jam. Interestingly, the music was much more exciting when I was pacing about. But the way the actual music was presented, the way it was received, had more in common with a classical concert. And, given the best way to listen to the album is as a single piece, the audience weren't wrong... unlike me, they weren't misreading it."

"That's the non-rock part being played out, then? And his lack of rock'n'roll front man antics. As theatre, it's pretty boring to watch."

"Hence people have a wee lie down, or closing their eyes to listen. Or me staring at the bar for ten minutes, watching people buy drinks to this glacial soundtrack. With the red neon above, it became a lost scene from a David Lynch movie."

"So you are saying that the gig served two functions - or  has a dual identity? Rock and not rock? But that's fascinating."

"If you perceive it through a series of sign-systems, yes. But rock draws on an energy that is immediate and visceral. So, as rock, it fails."

"So it's classical?"

"Well, I didn't get confused and think I was listening to Arvo Part,  so no."

"It's beyond classification?"

"We could call it "electronica" and recognise that the simplistic systems I have applied don't work. Electronica craves its own format for performance, but falls back into the twin defaults of classical and  rock."

"It's pretty hectic being you. What's it like going to a hardware store?"

"Like entering a room full of cyborgs. But I have a suspicion that Frost knows about this problem. There's a bonus track on By The Throat called Studies for Michael. It is a typical title for a classical piece. But I reckon the Michael in question is Gira, out of Swans. So, he's making a point about the music he makes."

"(Laughter). David Stubbs does compare bits of By The Throat to Arvo Part. Major fail, Criticulous."

Extract from (Highly Pretentious) Essay on Musical Performance

The connecting strand between Ben Frost's live re-enactment of his By The Throat album, the Minimal festival's evening of Arvo Part's choral music and Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers - all appearing in Glasgow in a single week - is not so much in any shared musical heritage as each performance's balance of the theatrical and the musical. Taiko drumming comes from a Japanese tradition - made explicit by the welcome guest appearance of Mugenkyo's teacher - while Part's compositions are very European: the use of language on stage during the recitals, Japanese and Latin respectively, emphasise that the manipulation of noise into music is culturally determined and while Frost and Part share bits of their audience, Mugenkyo attract a very different crowd. Despite the simple categories of newspapers and magazines, grouping these three shows together is not as obvious as it appears.

Although the word "performativity" has been heinously misused in recent years - originally part of Judith Butler's attempts to disassociate ideas of gender identity from naturalism, but now a bland catch-all for the performance potential of any action, and flung about with abandon by critics and students to describe anything that has had a performance made about it - it might be the best approach to understand both the similarities and differences in the three events. Disconnecting it from any feminist context, perfomativity will be defined for the rest of this essay as being the qualities of performance that are defined by the nature of the art. This definition does not address the problems of misapplying Butler's original idea, but it does help to clarify how Ben Frost's live show is fundamentally different from Mugenkyo.

First of all the actual instruments and performers used during each of the three performances need to be considered. In brief, Ben Frost predominantly uses a laptop, slings on a guitar to build up some treated and distorted loops, sits down at a piano for a spot of mutant honkytonk - the Jools Holland collaboration may be expected in the next decade - and invites a drummer on-stage for the occasional bash on a classic rock kit. Two performers - Frost himself, doing most of the work, and the percussion. 

Although the Arvo Part performance features a variety of line-ups - the first half alone has assembled choir, choir with added big drum, solo voice and organ - it works around a combination of the untreated voices of  highly trained singers and acoustic instrumentation associated with western classical music. Stabat Mater, which made up the second half of the evening, pitched two trios together - violin, viola and cello against soprano, alto and tenor. 

Mugenkyo Taiko, meanwhile, had a wide variety of drums from Japan. They all looked really cool and, not coincidently, very foreign to the western tradition. The core Mugenkyo team consisted of two women, who also looked really cool piling about the stage and whacking big drums, and five guys who had this sweet martial artist meets rock'n'roll vibe about them. They were joined by their teacher and two of his students - these three were given much respect by Neil Mackie, Mugenkyo's main man and the compère for the evening.

Even this limited and increasingly fatuous analysis of the three events clarifies the fundamental differences between the artists. Despite the writer's apparent inability to maintain the academic tone of the first paragraphs, and the sudden descent into self-referential analysis, each event offers a different foundation for musical performance. That both Ben Frost and Mugenkyo had their kit set up before they arrived on-stage suggests that the instruments themselves were offered as a form of introduction: the spectacular array of Taiko drums or Frost's tangled electronics present a clear setting for the subsequent mood of the performance - even if the musicians would later subvert it.

Scene 4567a (Third Draft)

Show Name: I Love Criticulous and Criticulous Loves Me
Artist: Gareth K Vile
Venue: Arches LIVE 2012
Date: Sat 29 Sep 2012 |2pm onwards | Foyer| Free

Descriptions (from The Arches Website): He took confession, investigated murder, chatted to stars and was locked up in a basement for his art. Now Criticulous faces the ultimate challenge: collaboration. 

Unwilling to admit that criticism is not the original art form, Criticulous fights his ego and mounting anxiety to present a series of pieces that brings dance, radio, dialectics, sculpture and the audience into his relentless quest to understand a world he did not create but reflects.
Contains desperation. 


The therapist asked me why I believed that criticism was the original art form. I thought that psychiatrists were supposed to listen. Instead, I got a lecture about how criticism, by its vary nature, is responsive, and cannot be original...

"In any specific incidence, let alone in the wider context of art itself. Are you insisting that criticism pre-dates any other artistic medium or genre?"

I replied that I thought therapy was supposed to be about my mental health, not an abstract discussion of aesthetics. There was a nice, comforting silence. I started to feel at home. It's like that time I decided to recite William Burrough's story about The Man Who Taught His Arsehole To Talk at the party for my grandmother's sixtieth birthday. Another minute, and tumble-weed would have rolled across the room.

"I'm interested in where you draw the line. It seems that so much of your identity is tied up within definitions of art, your response to art. And it never hurts to call a patient on what is, frankly, a delusional opinion."

Quick as a mood change in Alan Ayckbourne's mid-period comedies, I retort that plenty of people have delusional opinions, and that doesn't get them hauled up in front of the reality police. 

"Give it six months," my therapist smiled. 

I'd heard humour was often used in therapeutic situations to help the client feel at ease. I am not sure whether this is supposed to extend to alluding to conspiracies deep within the government to round up Christian fundamentalists.

"Dear God, are all of the scenes like this one? A serious point is presented, and the script wanders off to banter about the first thing that comes into your head?"

"Pretty much. Although I tend to make more references to where I steal my ideas from. This scene is a tribute to that one Punch, which had the famous puppet up on charges for assault and battery. Starred him out of Frisky and Mannish."

It's a shameless act of self pollution

Show Name: I Love Criticulous and Critculous Loves Me
Artist: Gareth K Vile
Venue: Arches LIVE 2012
Date: Sat 29 Sep 2012 |2pm onwards | Foyer| Free

Descriptions (from The Arches Website): He took confession, investigated murder, chatted to stars and was locked up in a basement for his art. Now Criticulous faces the ultimate challenge: collaboration. 

Unwilling to admit that criticism is not the original art form, Criticulous fights his ego and mounting anxiety to present a series of pieces that brings dance, radio, dialectics, sculpture and the audience into his relentless quest to understand a world he did not create but reflects.
Contains desperation.

The idea for I Love Criticulous was inspired by Joseph Beuys. I don't want to give too much away... there isn't that much to give away, anyway. But then Vile remembered seeing An Oak Tree by Tim Crouch and decided to rip it off. And he was listening to Radio 3 while he was writing the script, and realised that he could pretend that the piece was a celebration of John Cage's hundredth anniversary if he built in a random selection process. 

The thread that runs through the script is a darkly cynical exploitation of the work of other artists. In the absence of any real inspiration, Vile figured that he could pose as a post-modernist by collaging the inspiration of others. His conscience bothered him, so a great deal of the text involves explaining the references, acknowledging his sources.

But there is a core message at the heart of all... and not just that no-one ought to trust a critic who claims that they are making a collaborative art work. To be honest, we've been rehearsing it for three weeks, and I am not entirely sure what the message might be.

Oh yeah, that's the interpretation thing. Apparently it is all about how every possible reading is valid. That just sounds like a pitiful excuse, to be honest.

Messianic Musings

Show Name: I Love Criticulous and Critculous Loves Me
Artist: Gareth K Vile
Venue: Arches LIVE 2012
Date: Sat 29 Sep 2012 |2pm onwards | Foyer| Free

Descriptions (from The Arches Website): He took confession, investigated murder, chatted to stars and was locked up in a basement for his art. Now Criticulous faces the ultimate challenge: collaboration. 

Unwilling to admit that criticism is not the original art form, Criticulous fights his ego and mounting anxiety to present a series of pieces that brings dance, radio, dialectics, sculpture and the audience into his relentless quest to understand a world he did not create but reflects.
Contains desperation.

I rather fear that I am suffering from an existential crisis. That's unsurprising. I am an imaginary construct, designed to express the various neuroses of Gareth K Vile. Fortunately, he has got plenty of them, and I'll be around for years while he tries to work them out.

So, of course, technically, I don't exist. But that isn't what an existential crisis means, anyway. It's people with more thought than intelligence wondering about their purpose. My purpose is very clear. I am cleansing the earth of its existing notions about criticism, and replacing the popular image of the critic with something new.

But thinking about it, the popular image of the critic is of an intelligent, honest writer, who applies a detailed, practical knowledge to the assessment of art, before communicating in a straight-forward entertaining prose.

That's not so bad.

And the new critic I am supposed to be heralding? A buffoon who forgets the names of artists, who does not do research, who can't even decide how many stars a show is worth. 

And damn, if I don't lack agency. I am just a cypher for someone else's half-baked ideas. I bet this is how Jesus felt just before the Romans caught him. 

Criticulous thanks Grant

Show Name: I Love Criticulous and Criticulous Loves Me
Artist: Gareth K Vile
Venue: Arches LIVE 2012
Date: Sat 29 Sep 2012 |2pm onwards | Foyer| Free

Descriptions (from The Arches Website): He took confession, investigated murder, chatted to stars and was locked up in a basement for his art. Now Criticulous faces the ultimate challenge: collaboration. 

Unwilling to admit that criticism is not the original art form, Criticulous fights his ego and mounting anxiety to present a series of pieces that brings dance, radio, dialectics, sculpture and the audience into his relentless quest to understand a world he did not create but reflects.
Contains desperation.

You know who the really important guys are in theatre? Really... I bet you think I am going to say the critics... Yeah, well, right. Think again.

It's the technical guys behind the scenes. Seriously. Sure, there is always that nice moment when the cast points to the sound and lighting people  - after they have had their own applause, of course. And they sometimes get their names in the programme. But no-one really takes the time to thank them. And even if they did, the tech guys are usually too busy to hear it. They are cleaning up the bloody mess the "creatives" leave behind.

I've just spent some time with my personal tech guy, Eric Karoulla, and chatted with the wonderful Grant from The Arches. Eric's reward will be to get to be part of the show tomorrow - I can't wait until he sees the outfit I've designed for him - but Grant just arranges stuff and never gets a just reward.

On the other hand, if Grant wasn't so efficient, Criticulous would still be an idea in the back of the Vile mind. But don't hold that against him. Criticulous can give thanks, but accepts full responsibility for the consequences...

It's a cheap act of self promotion!

Show Name: I Love Criticulous and Criticulous Loves Me
Artist: Gareth K Vile
Venue: Arches LIVE 2012
Date: Sat 29 Sep 2012 |2pm onwards | Foyer| Free

Descriptions (from The Arches Website): He took confession, investigated murder, chatted to stars and was locked up in a basement for his art. Now Criticulous faces the ultimate challenge: collaboration. 

Unwilling to admit that criticism is not the original art form, Criticulous fights his ego and mounting anxiety to present a series of pieces that brings dance, radio, dialectics, sculpture and the audience into his relentless quest to understand a world he did not create but reflects.
Contains desperation.


The rumour is that Vile is trying to retire me. He did that thing in the Fringe - The Passion of Criticulous -  and it got me into a fist-fight with a Polish political company. I don't think it is an accident that he keeps making works that involve me either insulting people who are bigger than me, or being put into clear and present danger. The last time I went, I was performing in a lift-shaft. Health and Safety?

Oh, I am sorry. Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mr Criticulous. I am the world's only performance critic. That is to say, no-one else would be stupid enough to do something like this. I have been working with The Vile Arts for about three years. I represent the attempt by Vile to break the fourth wall, from the audience's side.

This particular production - I Love Criticulous, and Criticulous Loves Me - is supposed to be the last part of the Criticulous Trilogy. It is the final Criticulous performance, in much the same way as Status Quo did a farewell tour in 1986. Get real. I'm The Vile Arts' cash cow.

You'll notice the intelligent reference to Joseph Beuys in the title. Originally, we intended to recreate the classic Live Art work, in which Beuys spent some time in a gallery space with a coyote. Sadly, we clash with Alien War in the basement, which does something similar to far more visceral effect.

You can insert the jokes here about how no self-respecting scavenger would want to share a room with a critic.

I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you  to come along and find out what we've decided to do instead. I'll be blogging on and off all day, giving you little extracts of the show, reflecting on the process, making slurs and revealing showbiz secrets.

Murder on the Royal Mile

There is a concern in the state of Criticism.

Perhaps that should be - there is something rotten in the state of Criticism... too pretentious? Never a good idea to quote the Bard to introduce a far less worthy treatise...

I heard they found a body on the Royal Mile, three stars in the skull, two stars in the heart... not breathing, presumed dead at time of discovery...

A long roll of paper wrapped around the neck, a series of one word quotations etched into the flesh. They say that it was already in an advanced state of decomposition when it was discovered.

"The fundamental barrier to criticism as an art form is that it is merely response: it cannot generate the original material that is the watermark of fine art."

Nobody appears to be upset, but everyone is moaning. There are plenty of simple jokes, blunt and vulgar, to be passed around the playground and green room. There are even those who said the victim was asking for it.

Criticism is dead. Criticulous has been called in to investigate. Interrogations begin at Summerhall, 21 August, 10pm.

Wau and Gemmell

Back and Balding

Having spent two weeks inside Edinburgh's Dance Base (collaborating with Ultimate Dancer on the world's first ever Live Art/Criticism/Choreography mash up performance - details to follow), I have had little time for my usual casual engagement with Glasgow's art scene. Of course, as soon as I nip out for a moment, they put on a massive international celebration of visual arts.

I am hoping to catch up with the bouncy castle down on Glasgow Green soon enough, but I am only really aware of the various events and exhibitions being put on by the ever wonderful Mutual. And that's only because I did a seven hour live radio show with them last Sunday.

But this is a quick warning: I am back in town, and I have a new haircut. It was done by children. I am probably more likely than ever to throw childish tantrums: not because I saw some bad art, but because, already, two days back, and I am already wondering at how much I am missing...

More Truth and Lies

Foxy and Husk

Fox-day Afternoon

“Our success is still something of a surprise,” admitted Foxy before taking to the stage at the SECC. “It doesn’t seem that long ago that we made our first appearance in Scotland, in a small venue down a back alley!” Undoubtedly, Foxy and Husk’s rise has been meteoric: from roots in Live Art, their idiosyncratic mix of miming, pop video surrealism and wry irony has seen them elevated into something like rock stardom.

Tonight’s show is a triumphant review of their greatest hits: quoting from last year’s science fiction concept work, based on the writings of Stanislaw Lem – and weaving it around  populist remakings of various pop shorts, it builds to a dynamic finale. Joined on stage by some of their most famous fans – the cameo from Lady Gaga is priceless, although Coldplay are a little limp next to Husk’s brash energy, the duo confirm why they have reached the heights: an undeniable charisma charms the audience and their knack of catching a song’s subtext and exaggerating it makes them intelligent and funny.

The balance between tough and cute is perfect: whenever the choreography threatens to become too serious  - and the middle of the show has some moving meditations on the joys and pains of determined individualism – they pull it back with a cheeky wink or a slapstick flick. The energy on stage is infectious: it is rare to see an entire crowd dancing along to a pair of dancers who parody and pay tribute to the magic of pop and furry costumes.