The Quickening

by Anthony Schrag, 10 Oct 2007

Tomorrow is the day.

There is some physical law, somewhere in the annuls of quantum mechanics, that outlines the equation explaining how time can (and will) speed up, get shorter and contract the nearer it comes to the completion of any art project. I am sure of this.

I have spent the past few weeks booking taxi’s, arranging helpers, booking cameras, arranging camerafolk, booking vans, buying filmstocks, renting mini-discs, borrowing microphones, organizing teas and coffees, all the while trying to maintain the “secret”.
(Which is hard to do when you have to get approval of budgets from the very people you are trying to keep in the dark)

I have invited several council members as well as some from the “Sectarian Advisory Board” and a few anti-sectarian groups as well as all of GoMA’s curators and managers. No one is supposed to know that they AREN’T actually coming to GoMA’s marble rooms with it’s warm Scandinavian lighting, but are actually being taken to the heart of Toryglen and its broken glass meadows, Buckfast labels and torn metal sidings.

It’s supposed to be a secret, but I am getting the feeling that everyone really knows about it, but pretends not to. It’s as if there’s something green and ugly hanging out of my nose, but they’re all being too polite to mention it. I think certain people are avoiding me.

I suppose it’s not REALLY about their physical uncomfortableness. I’m more interested that they should discuss the topics I’ve set them in the location where it matters most. That there should be sense of transparency in the discussion. There should be a merging between the ideology and location. Geography and Theory.

So, I rest in that almost fixed state – things have been planned, the goo has been shaped as much as it can be, and certain structures have been set up. As with any Live Art project, this time is the Quickening: what actually will happen tomorrow is unknown – it all rests in possibility. I can only hope that I’ve established enough of a structure to keep it flowing in the right kind of direction, rather than returning to an unformed, useless and ugly state.