The conductor is what.

[by Cranky]

Right now the conductor as I understand is a director-style figure, everyone else seems to just slot in around this person somehow. The way they fit seems to be entirely at the discretion of the conductor/boss. The boss says (however they say it): “number 1, go now! number 2, go now! number 3 and number 4, go now! number 2, shut up! number five, go now! number 5 and number 1, shut up!” etc etc.

This makes the whole game a game more or less owned by the boss, their manner of ‘conducting’ is at their discretion (indeed the ingenuity of this could make or break the game as it now stands) and everyone else seems to slot in at the behest of the boss. This model makes everyone peripheral, more or less, which I don’t think is great. Furthermore the way the individual ‘logs’ rap together depends on how good the boss is basically. The individual bits could each be pure genius but if the boss doesn’t have an enthralling and ingenious way of prompting everyone, or if the boss through the conducting produces a mishmash that just doesn’t work in a performative sense then that’s it, craphola. Unless experimenting (and failing) in public for it’s own sake is your major source of satisfaction then I’m not sure it’s so great to go along with a model of the boss/conductor as it stands presently.

To me there’s a number of things we can/should do to rejiggle the scenario at this point to avoid a bad outcome. I propose each of these with the hope that they will increase the group ownership of the ‘conducting’ thing (rather than leave it totally at the discretion of one person). That way if it all flops we all need to re-evaluate, and not just go “dude that was crap” to the boss-person.

ONE: we all collaborate like motherfuckers and devise an excellent mode of conducting. We do this BEFORE someone is elected/chosen/self-nominated as the boss. That way (in theory) anyone can be conductor, in theory a name could be pulled from a hat on any given night and whammo! They’re the boss for the next agreed-upon period of time (ten minutes, half a performance, the net twelve billion performances, whatever). This agreed-upon mode of conducting should emphasise creativity so that the boss isn;t left in a purely directorial or practical role.

EXAMPLE: the group decides that the mode will be reading their work or performing it as they normally would, however whoever is elected boss must specify particular words that start/stop the others. For example, the boss tells everyone a different start word and stop word that occurs in their log, everyone then has to begin and pause their logs whenever those words arise in the boss’s own logging. You could have words that tell everyone to start or pause, words that tell every second logger to start or pause (or either), or any variety really…. Now this may work, it may work in part, it may not work, maybe everyone will dig it but maybe nobody will, I’m not sure I do. But the idea is to embed the prompts within something creative, rather than have a series of flash cards or hand signals or something (unless the boss’s log is a whole poem read in Auslan or if they happen to be a dancer?!?!)

TWO: We reverse the process, ie a boss is elected, then everyone else listens/watches the boss’s logging once or twice, and selects for themselves (ie not telling anyone else) moments they would like to start and pause, eg they choose words, gestures, moments that seem to fit snugly with their own logging… This may seem to defeat the purpose of being “indeterminate” (gag barf vomit… sorry…) but think about it, if nobody else knows where people will start/finish/pause etc then all sorts of confusing shit coul happen. Whether “confusing” is the particular brand of “indeterminacy” (BBBLLLUUUUEEEERRRG GGHHH!!!!!!!!!) we’re after is another matter entirely. This way also removes a lot of the ‘power’ from the hands of the boss figure and delivers it in a (potentially) poisoned chalice way to the loggers themselves, even though the boss’s logging is still integral.

EXAMPLE: I get up and perform my log as the designated boss, I say the words “Every day I vex about sausage on bread and I always smell onions when I’m in bed I wish I was dead I wish I was dead put a bullet in my head” over and over for three minutes. Someone decides to themself that they’ll start every time they hear the word “vex” and finish the first time they hear the word “wish”, someone else  also decides to themselves they’ll start with the word “sausage” and wait until the next time they hear “sausage” until they stop, then they start again with the next “sausage”, then the third logger may start their bit at “bread”, pause at “onions”, start at “bed, pause at “bullet”.

THREE: the boss figure is moved throughout a single performance. So say if nine or ten of us are involved, we choose three people to be bosses and the rest are ‘mere’ loggers. I guess this could be done with either of the above two proposed modes. If we tried multiple bosses with the first above, then the bosses would each have to fit with the group-proposed mode of conducting however may have the discretion between themselves of deciding who prompts who, or maybe one boss would be the one who gave “starting” triggers to the loggers, one would be in command of the “pause” triggers, and one would be in change or “everyone start/stop”. It could get strange. OR if we incorporate mode two and three then individual loggers decide or themselves who they’ll be triggered by and when and then let the bosses figure out among themselves how/in what order they’ll do their ‘boss logs’. The boss figures themselves could work in an integrated way, ie they could trigger each others’ logging and let whatever devised method of triggering the others take its course.

“EXAMPLE: I really don;t think I could be bothered trying to make an example out of this. But I think the best bit of a ‘multiple boss’ scenario is that the onus isn’t purely on one boss, and that we are dealing with a model of conducting that involves offshoots and branches and roots (hehe) in a multi-layered sense… could be pretty hard to pull off (hehe) in practice, but as some have said we should try before we buy (or don’t buy?).

Let me clarify that these proposals are just that. I won’t cry if they get chucked out. They do not represent a desire to ‘organise’ a previous proposal that rested on an indeterminate (heave chuck spit) notion of performance. I *think* what “indeterminate” (yargggghhh) means is a way we can all pursue our own shit within a framework that accommodates both individual work and brings it all together in a flexible way, in a way that can change from day to day and does not propose one person perform the same function within that framework. I think. It all sounds complicated and pretty systematised I know, but did anyone imagine that it would be simple?

That’s all for now. Have a nice thingy.