Performance to mark the first filling of hydro lake Dunstan, Clyde, New Zealand - Lloyd Godman Lake Fill I - May 1992

INITIAL CONCEPT

When I first arrived at the river \ lake site to carry out the performance work, I had intended to work from the premise of the lake filling with water as the authorities had stated in a newspaper item a few days before and I had confirmed during my telephone conversation with Electricorp officials to gain clearance to work on the lake shore. During this period, they had calculated the lake level was to be rising at 2m a day, which I had estimated would allow me to lie prone at the water's edge for about 3hrs, mentally absorbing my body into the soil, becoming part of the earth, but at the same time becoming drowned as the land around me submerged with the rising water level. 

As it turned out, on the day I had traveled up to the site to complete the performance, coincidentally, Electricorp were testing the diversion gates and the lake levels were fluctuating wildly both up and down. This created a problem with the concept of my original hypothesis and I had to quickly adapt and reconceptualize the work to suit the situation and the environment I now found myself in. However, I felt by the end of the work, this modified concept brought stronger aspects to the work, brought a degree of sophistication, brought more of a challenge both to me and the viewer than the earlier idea. It related to the sense of place and the event with a range of iconic, symbolic and indexical references.

While the rhetoric of image-making might assume an intention, and audience, these presumptions can be undermined or at least minimized. The intentions of this work are somewhat explained in the text, but I the audience of the performance would be exclusive and include only a few friends who were willing to document the event with both video and still cameras.

The work involved a private performance with two friends, Ludmilla Sakowski and Eng Teong Low and a television crew to document the work, acted out in a ritualistic manner. The physical movements were slow, methodical and mostly intentional. Initially, a variety of construction tools and materials needed for the work were laid out neatly on the coldness of the bare earth near the selected site. Some distance away, and out of sight from the viewers I changed into the insulated security of the black dry suit which had now became the `ritualistic costume'.

At this point the work proper started, and in this black costume I became a strange silhouette, seemingly out of context with the yellow dry autumn earth of Central Otago, I walked slowly, robot like, toward the chosen site. Emerging from the infinite space of the land I directed my presence to the selected area for the work, becoming visually larger to those few watching with my every step. Once the performance precinct was reached I selected from the tools, equipment and materials arranged on the ground, several pieces of pre-cut white cardboard.