a timelapse by Philip Gamblen of the deinstall.

a shot every 30 seconds. 30 frames a second. over 3 hours of work condensed into 13 seconds

sat 4th - deinstall

just when we though it was over the saga continues

Friday 3rd - final performance

Thanks to everyone who came down to witness the madness that was our final performance. The two and a half hours we agreed on proved to be a test of endurance and focus particularly to stay in role with limited conversations happening between us and no toilet breaks (!)

Thought I'd post below some text from the catalogue that we had outside - mainly for people who were being exposed to our work for the first time. As we were inside doing whatever it was we were doing for the duration of the night we don't have any documentation shots to post but if anyone out there took any feel free to email us (contact details in our profiles) and we'll stick some up.

Also thought to add if anyone is interested in our future projects send us your email addresses and we'll keep you posted.

Site Fiction 3rd October 2008

Hello,

Welcome to Site Fiction – our evolving visual playground. Here you join us for our final performance/ installation/ action in the former Arcane Bookshop. Over the past three weeks we have inhabited the shop front in an attempt to activate a disused space and engage with a potential audience. Working in such a public space, not traditionally considered as an art space, has presented us with a number of restrictions or challenges that has shaped and directed our project.

The first and foremost being no public access to the space. The glass barrier divides us from
the street, distancing working space from viewer in a kind of visual, staged environment. As events can only be viewed from the street, the street must become the ideal viewing location. It is no longer a case of inviting an audience in to see/experience something rather it is an experiment in alternate means of viewing, a kind of ‘art as public spectacle.’

and public it is. The bookshop exists as one single room. There is no backroom in which things
wanting to remain unseen can be pushed. Everything that goes into/ happens in the space remains visible at all times. No behind the scenes.
A further challenge presented itself in the literal physicality of the shop front. We must
work with and around the existing architecture: the unreachable height of the ceiling, the random nails and hooks in the walls, the uncontrollable light from the street. Our actions tonight reflects how we have found ourselves moving in the space working with the challenges the shop presents us with whether it be teetering atop a ladder or pressed against the glass in an attempt for an immediate engagement out to the street.

Working within these conditions we have committed to changing the space each day, creating a new visual experience for dialogue. As a kind of cumulative, dialogic and open ended
process the works have resulted as a kind of negotiation of these restrictions along with the experience of being within the space.

An interstitial art process in an interstitial space

The Arcane bookshop holds a place in the collective memory of Perth. A place which one could find unusual texts. something rare to Perth. secret. mysterious. obscure. We find it fitting to present this mini publication in spirit of the old arcane- the narrative continues. For further reading and/or to comment please visit our blog,

Inter collective
Anna Cocks ∙ Claire Krouzecky ∙ Laura Hindmarsh
This is the third project Laura, Claire and Anna have done together, but the first time under the name inter collective.

Forming a collective was important for us in acknowledging the working relationship we have developed over the last year and bringing a sense of cohesion to the work we have done. It has also allowed us to see beyond art school and to see the possibility of expanding a private practice into a larger community.

The name inter collective relates to what we are interested in doing in many ways. Primarily, though, it is about communication which is mutual or reciprocal. We are not interested in presenting, but with engaging and interacting. Inter suggests the space between, the relationship itself, which is established from both sides as a dialogue.

wed 1st - chez claire

free haircuts: tonight only. scissors in hand, red and blue, claire wraps her subjects in newspaper cape, and with a flourish works her magic on their hair. removing a pony tail, removing a dreadlock, giving some layers, leaving some tufts. the hair stays on the floor after we are gone, like a trace, a footprint of what happened in the crazy house of newspaper that night.

update - final extravaganza

one last performance before we decamp the arcane and hand the keys back to EPRA

come down/walk past/loiter. grab a prime viewing seat & a drink at the brass monkey for one last time before the lights go out and the newspaper is returned to the glass.

we'll be out at 9. join us for a well earned drink

Tuesday 30th 89 - 35 + 18 + 4 = 76 newspapers (and approx 200meters masking tape)

it is easy to lose things in here, everything gets camouflaged. things we lost include the roll of masking tape, the key (nearly), and our minds.

Monday & Tuesday- where is my mind?

the room is covered with a combination of Out, The Senior, JA News, X- Press and Have-A-Go News. Mainly Out, the room is very colourful. it's pride month so it's appropriate. we also learnt a lot about safe sex, were introduced to the Green gay, lesbian and bi candidates, found out about personalised seniors group travel, that 90 Australians die of bowel cancer every week and that August was a busy month for WA- Japan cultural exchange! we got kinda obsessive. Monday we did the floor and as far up the walls as we could reach. we covered all our stuff which was against the wall, we had to uncover the ladder when we decided on Tuesday we wanted to go all the way. we can't stop now. must reach the ceiling. it's difficult on the wall where all our stuff is, it's fragile and the ladder is a little unsturdy and not very high, we can't reach. we borrow a broom and a mop from the mini mart they provide for us yet again. we develop a technique, the corners masking taped , the piece of newspaper rests on the broom gently lifted up to position, the corners rubbed on, quickly turn the broom around and use the handle to stick them down. up the ladder, down the ladder. cursing, threatening the paper, we are frustrated but determined. the space is all consuming, suffocating, we smother the walls, our belongings, a chair, a stool, a witches hat and eventually the final consumption, the ladder. our hands are black, our feet are black, our necks are sore, but we achieved our goal. the space is completly transformed and we're not sure where we are anymore.

Mon 29th - 89 newspapers

Sun 28th - 120meters of poly twine

so we arrive at the shop, we have some balls of string, and lots of small ends of string. we decide to start tying up the short ends to form one big single strand.

we map out the space with string. using points only from the existing architecture of the bookshop we loop the string through, it is a three-dimensional drawing of the interior space. we are learning so much about the space as we go. as it gets more and more web-like we must negotiate our way through the space. it is a challenge.

we realise from outside the string is not immediately visible, and so it looks like we are ducking and swerving and swinging our legs around for no apparent reason. interesting!

we turn the UV lights on at the back, and the spot lights on a the front. the string is visible in different phases and states. it is most effective with us moving through it.

Sat 27th

The shop presents us with three stages of space.

glass
interior space
back wall

I - I

How to simultaneously use all three has been a challenge for us. Something which is responsive to spatial situation given - a shop, only accessible visually from the outside.

The screen hangs in the central interior space. Translucent it divides the room yet doesn’t block out the back wall. The projector casts our shadows onto it which we inturn cut away allowing a shadow of our original shadow to be cast on the back wall. Our figure is then outlined from outside the glass further playing with traditional hierarchies of spatial organisation inside/outside, front/back, center/periphery.

it is simultaneously something & nothing, an illusion, a representation & reality.

Friday 26th

success. after massive efforts from anna in organising a projector claire is able to turn up the visuals projecting live hypnotic colour long into the night.

claire says: the colour is intense and enveloping. warm yellows and reds permeate the entire space. abstracted by the lack of frame, and thus the inability to determine where, what, how, the subject is the colour. its slow movement about the wall swallows you in whole, you are transfixed by the swirling, evolving forms, you are one with the colour, you are inside the yolk. this yolk is disturbed by a sudden burst of green, a dramatic flash of white light, the room is once again changed, and the colour goes on living, constantly, seductively inviting you into its engulfing depth. gradually the light gives way to darkness, and the deeper you are taken in, the darker it inevitably becomes.

Thursday 25th

Laura and I, armed with our fat liquid chalk markers, planned to go and draw on the windows during peak hour, unfortunately we got caught in peak hour ourselves, so got there a bit later than we planned. Still we made it and spent about an hour and a half in the windows doing our thing with our markers- it was fun!

Later Claire and I tested out the projector for tonight's performance, which we discovered might not be possible due to all the light coming into the shop from the street-ahh! but there's still hope if we can get a better projector otherwise it's plan B- wing it ha! So there will still be a projection of some sort tonight at about 7:30, we're probably going to bakery after so if you want to come meet at Brass Monkey first we can go out from there.

ps. probably the most interesting expereince of yesterday's events was the two (extremely) drunk homeless men who decided to make the shop alcove their shelter. It took them about half an hour to realise Claire and I were in the shop, despite projectors, lights and movement. Mostly they ignored us, we were slightly concerned though when one of the men decided he wanted to try and get in and tell us about his art career, we thought he might be angry at us (we're not sure why) and weren't sure how we were going to leave. In the end the vocal guy had gone off somewhere and the other guy didn't even notice us leaving despit his head resting against half the door.

Wednesday 24th- the sea's the possibilty

today was very spontaneous and improvisational. Anna and Claire, white dresses, red stockings, stand in the window, not really sure what's going to happen. We put on Patti Smith. We start pressing our bodies against the glass, we start moving to the music, we forget we are standing in a shop front on William street at peak hour. The glass is cool and smooth, and the hotter and stickier we get the more we want to press our skin across it's cool surface. Pressed in the corner of the window, arms strectched across, rolling back and forth, ear, face, arms, back pressed and flattened, swaying, it's a true romance with the window, we dance with it. Eyes closed, occasionally open to find a crowd gathered on the footpath, the occasional camera flash, the video camera across the road, the bus at the traffic light. People watch, some try to interact. We are too absorbed in the music and the glass. After an hour and a half hot and sweaty, the lights go off, we bow. the end.