Carrying Lyn

A PHOTOGRAPHIC CONTRIBUTION BY

PAUL+A

Carrying lyn: pearson/brookes

On Saturday June 2nd 2001 – the day of the Wales – Poland soccer international – Mike Pearson, John Rowley, Richard Morgan, Paul Jeff and disabled performer Lyn Levett made two journeys across the centre of the city of Cardiff.
The First Journey: At 12 noon Pearson, Rowley Morgan and Jeff left Cardiff Central station and carried Levett through the crowded city streets, on a predetermined route through nine agreed and fixed locations. Each leg of the journey, ten in all-to be completed within precisely 10 minutes whatever their distance apart-was tracked and videoed by Mike Brookes. At each location there was a pause of precisely 5minutes, recorded by a single group photograph, shot on colour polaroid film by Jeff. The journey culminated at Chapter Arts Centre two and a half hours later. An enigmatic event experienced by the passer-by, en passant.
The Second Journey: At 7.45pm they set out to retrace their route precisely, through the same locations and durations, across a city which, within the space of a few hours, had changed its nature. Now videoing themselves and recording their pauses on black and white 5×4 polaroid photographs shot by Jeff, the group members passed these documents immediately to waiting cycle couriers who ferried them back to Chapter, within 10 minutes of their making on the street. An enigmatic event experienced by the passer-by, en passant.
The assemblage: from 8pm, for an audience in Chapter’s studio theatre, Mike Brookes simultaneously constructed and presented possible versions of both journeys, in real time, from the available documentation: mixing video and audio recordings from the first journey with footage from the second couriered to him directly from the street, and juxtaposing this with the presentation of still images and recordings of short theoretical and critical reflections on the contemporary city. To create a complex impression of one city on a particular night. The reconstruction of the journey thus took place within a 15-minute time delay of the live event, a delay that was both revealed and confounded by the eventual arrival of the performers in Chapter.

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