Black Factory Lecture (as delivered to Nova Art Fair Spring, 2006)
"How can you buy blackness when it grows on trees? They make it in labs; it's also in tea. When you're in Deutschland it's in every Frau. Gather round me now people and I'll show you how."
That was an excerpt from The Black Factory theme song. My name is William Pope.L and I am the CEO of the Black Factory.
(Video: Circular tour of BF truck, trailer, black objects collection.)
The Black Factory (or the BF as I like to call it) is a touring performance intervention on wheels on which I have been working for the last six years. The goal of the Black Factory is to reinvigorate a conversation and commitment concerning race, difference and community via a diverse set of strategies, for example, performance, provocations, tableaux, dialog, fundraising for local communities and acting as a hub to connect diverse communities.
The BF will begin its next tour in mid-June 2006. We will work in Chicago, June 24 - June 27, with venues at Gallery 400 and Hyde Park Art Center. Please check our website: www.theblackfactory.com for additional information.
The BF installation travels in a 22ft. GM panel truck. On site, its footprint is approximately 45' and contains: an inflatable archive of donated black objects, a gift shop and a performance table. Our typical stay at each stop is a day and a half but can be as short as 15 minutes. What you experience when you visit the BF is determined by when you visit and what you bring with you. People typically bring curiosity, good humor, anger, intelligence and suspicion. These states of mind usually take the form of conversation, participation in nodes (more about nodes later), witnessing, donating a black object, browsing, puzzling and shopping. The BF evolves and interacts with the changing conditions of the site. The idiosyncrasies of both the physical environment and the audience determine what the BF can be. The installation is in place for 6 hrs but the crew is in performance mode throughout their stay. The more conventional performance takes place during the 6 hr. installation.
During this 6 hour period, the performers do a rotation of nodes. A node is a chunk of time defined by an activity or an event. An installation can also be a node. All nodes are designed. Some are scripted. Some not. Improvisation is key in playing a node. The number of nodes in a rotation can vary. The most recent 2005 rotation involved between twenty and twenty five nodes. Once a rotation is completed, it is begun again from the top. The function of a node is to engage the audience-participant in an inward-outward journey. Most nodes are built around a theme, for example, stereotypical views of migrant workers in the U.S. Some are built around a gesture, such as giving away free watermelon. Most have a turning point where the meaning of what was first proposed is shifted to create a conflict or contradiction or enigma or silliness. All nodes have three parts:
1. The come-on which is the invitation to engage.
2. The shift, which is the raising of the stakes of the invitation. This can also be an introduction of a problem that has to be solved. An audience-participant can also raise the stakes.
On the 2005 tour, last year in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, whenever the crew talked about the World Trade Organization, during the WTO node, some folks in the crowd responded:
Person: That's fine but can you get me a job?
To which the crew members replied: I'll get you a job.
Then the person on the street said: OK, what job?
Crew person said: First you got to do something for me.
Person said: What?
Crew said: Suddenly you're picky?
Person: Damn straight.
Crew: Your job is to work with me, side by side and do exactly what I am doing.
Person on the street: That's easy. How much?
Crew: But you have to do exactly what I am doing.
Person: Sure, how much?
Crew: I mean exactly.
Person: OK, exactly.
Crew: No. Exactly.
Person: Exactly?
Crew: Yeah, ex —
Person: You, mean —
Crew: That's right —
Person: So I got to pay the next person half of what you paid me?
Crew: Exactly.
And all the folks in the street said exactly. And the crew said exactly and so it was…
The third part of a node is called the leave: this is what the audience-participant receives from the node.
People think that the BF only deals with blackness. This is a mistake. Of course blackness is important. Many of our nodes use blackness as a starting point but an early motto of the BF is still true: The Black Factory does not make blackness, we make opportunity.
The larger goal of the BF is to actively enter the world and step off the plank of knowing into the sea of I-wonder-what-will-happen next.
But why? And why do it this way?
Several reasons:
- To create an imaginative, social object that participates and engages with the world with fear, trembling, ignorance and joy.
- To give back to the world where it is needed.
- To take from the world where it chooses to give.
- To change the world because doing nothing is impossible.
- To play with the world and conquer with imagination.
- To conquer the world and play as if life depended on it.
- To be humbled by the world.
- To know the world with a shovel in your hand.
- To be surprised, delighted and disappointed by the world.
- To accept the world.
- To criticize the world.
- To be with the world.
But once again why engage the world in this particular way? Why an art object that loses money? Why a truck that gets 4 miles to a gallon of gas? Why a CEO, yours truly, who during every rehearsal period develops serious medical problems? Why do it? Why do it this way?
The level of commitment this project requires is an important part of doing it. I wanted to make a work that required me to think about someone and something beside myself. I wanted to make a work whose boundaries extended beyond the limits of my control and understanding. In doing this I am not trying to free myself from the work. I am trying to develop a relationship with it, a relationship in which I have to spend time with the work and see it change before my eyes whether I like the change or not.
(***VIDEO***)
Yes, I get something out of it, even if I do lose money. And as Dr Phil would say, "You would not do it if you did not get something out of it." So what do I get?
Well — I get to make a work I will never understand. I get to share it with people. People, who set me straight, get on my nerves and warm the cockles of my heart. I give myself the chance to take a risk out in public where anyone can see it. It's all a rehearsal anyway. It's not like anybody really knows what the map is and what the territory is. So much of the time we pretend. And we are tragically mistaken in our masquerade because we are ashamed that we are full of shit. We believe that our goal should be to convince other that we are real. What if being full of shit has its merits? What if this longing after so-called bogus reality is the real problem?
Perhaps the challenge is to offer ourselves new productive illusions like actually caring about each other and doing something about it even if these strategies are imperfect as surely they must be. But why? And why this way?
Asking me why I do the BF is like asking me why I get up every morning. It's a choice. I don't have to but I choose to. But why this way? Well, the only way to get up is one foot after another…
Thanks.