Not Nada: Susie J. Lee at Strikethrough

Image: http://seattleschool.net/

STRIKETHROUGH
Seattle School's Monthly Performance Series
of World Premiere Works

FEATURED OCTOBER ARTIST:
Susie J. Lee
performing
"Indeterminacy
or, The Observer's Paradox"

Monday, October 27th @ 8pm
Rendezvous Jewelbox Theater
2322 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA

ADMISSION: NO ONE ADMITTED
No Public. No Press. No Family. No Friends.

I'd been assuming the no admittance line was a publicity stunt.

Not so, Seattle School's Korby Sears told me via email. Here's what he wrote when I asked him to provide more info:

Actually, I cannot. STRIKETHROUGH is a private performance, a personal work that is between the participating artists and themselves (or, between them and the Cosmos, so to say). The public and press and even friends and family of the performing artists aren't allowed to witness it. This is clearly stated in the press materials and in the ad.

I produce the show and curate the artists, and I don't even know the content of their performance pieces (once I set everything up for the artists, I typically leave and go drink in the bar until they are done. In the months leading up to the show, they are asked to reveal their content to no one, ever, including me). All I ask is that they create a world premiere work, which they will place in their resumes as part of their oeuvre, and that deals with something personal or private and doesn't require an audience, and that no documentation of the work occurs (no photos, recordings, videos, etc). STRIKETHROUGH is an act of privacy, committed in the middle of a downtown metropolitan area, swimming discretely between the currents of a Facebook / Twitter / Flickr era.

And here's what the invited artists see in the packet Sears' provides.

Isn't this just a bunch of ironic / Dadaist / meta / publicity stunt crap?

If you have read this far and still think this, then STRIKETHROUGH is not for you. We appreciate your time, and will waste no more of it.

Irony, like sarcasm, is for teenagers: it died around the time of Clinton's second administration. Dada is a term thrown at anything not easily digested immediately. As for publicity stunt, that doesn't make sense: no tickets are sold, no one is allowed in, and if they sneak in, they still don't get to see a performance.

STRIKETHROUGH is sincere. It is about privacy, the personal, and giving artists a chance to evaluate their impulses in real time. STRIKETHROUGH means it.

Is it art without an audience? Do artists perform at a specific date and time in order to answer certain questions for themselves? Does the unseen work need out, with content that might not be possible if there was an audience?

We won't know. The artists are sworn to secrecy: it's a private event forever after.

For a list of previous participating artists, look here. The list is curated by The Seattle School (the folks behind the Bridge Motel project and other creative happenings), and offers a suggestion as to who to pay attention to.

Susie J. Lee created a gorgeous electric rainstorm inside Lawrimore Project in late 2007 (if you missed it, you missed a significant beauty). I for one wish I could get a peek at her thinking.