November : Notes
"Join us as we cast out the stale air of the fading summer and move together into winter. Celebrating Halloween and the changing of the season, we come together online to exchange our collected thoughts across the Internet whilst each eating garlic cloves".
November is a networked performative encounter between four people that took place in October 2006. It was recorded simultaneously from Cornwall and London UK and was encacted by Kate Southworth & the late Patrick Simons (Glorious Ninth) and Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrrett (Furtherfield). The piece employs peer-to-peer instant messaging software and audio visual exchange, via webcam, and it was launched exactly 9 mins and 41 seconds before midnight 23.51.19 GMT (as determined by the length of the piece), on 31st October 2006. The performance consists of a braiding together of spontaneous and pre-meditated actions, such as reading from texts, listening, and improvised speech. Celebrating Halloween and the changing of the season, the four participants met on line to exchange collected data whilst eating prepared garlic.
November is a calendric ritual that marks Samhain, Halloween and the changing of the season from summer to winter. During the event, the performers collaboratively created a shared intimate space. Even when connected via webcam, a live narrative emerged as the performers listened attentively to the others at the same time as reading their text. Their overlapping voices produced a rhythm that contracted and expanded, pulsated, ebbed and flowed. November emerged from a fear of the forthcoming winter. Moving to rural Cornwall after having lived in the city, Southworth and Simons found their first winter there hard to bear. Being so exposed to the death and decay of vegetation and the bleakness and darkness of the days they felt a sense of isolation. As spring arrived these feelings dissipated but an underlying fear remained. They needed to prepare mentally for what was to come during the dark months ahead. They felt very strongly the need to act – to create something that would mark this change of season.
Each participant was invited to find or write texts around the idea of Halloween, darkness and death. It was agreed that each of them would talk and listen simultaneously. If they decided not to speak for a while, they would eat raw garlic that Simons had grown especially for the performance. They agreed that they would allow 60 seconds of silence at the beginning of the performance, and then anyone could begin speaking. They would allow 60 seconds at the end of the performance, although it was not predetermined when the end would be.
In the video of the performance a co-emergence and co-fading is seen. The rhythm and the energy get faster with a release of laughter at the end. Each participant is reacting to particular words, or facial expressions, actions or rhythms of the other, through which a collective instinct develops.