Homage : A Personal History 1979-2010

Abstract

Having been invited to participate in the 30th Anniversary of the National Review of Live Art in Britain. Marty St James will present his rendition of Homage, a performance art, video vocal sculpture in time and space..a sense and senseless exploration into language, meaninglessness and the meaningful. Homage is a homage to: .all fedora hats, including my own .my hat maker in the East End of London whom I have been visiting for twenty five years .my step-grandfather, who stepped out of his First World War helmet into his Fedora .Rembrandt and his hat in his self-portraits, which I visit as often as I can in North London .Beuys, whose hat met mine on a number of occasions .existing, ‘somewhere between the moving and the static’. .in this context this performance is a Homage to friend, former manager and part founder of the NRLA, Steve Rogers. Homage is a video portrait and live performance taking its cues from ‘other’ less popular, often forgotten cultural communities. Based on the notion of connectivity, it is a transmission from one time and space to another with no limitations. The work uses the simple object of a hat to engage the person, the hat representing community. It attempts to address the viewer in a direct but purposeful manner, locating values of being via image, movement and sound, reaching for a sense of consciousness. People have a high intelligence that is often discredited by systems, institutions and mainstream politics – creativity can release this via technology, tapping into individuality within a sense of place and global community. ‘Communitas’ means 'the same' but at the centre of the same must exist the individual. In a world where global connection can potentially come to demonstrate a sense of ‘flesh isolation’ Homage relates to a sense of personal history (Grandfather), creativity (Beuys) and community in place and time.