Songbird (2000). Photo by Andy B.
SONGBIRD
(2000)
Solo performance • Site specific • Romantic poetry • Intervention
Behind a specially created hemlock and glass toilet door installed in a South London nightclub, a diamond-tipped cutter slowly etches fragments of love poetry across the course of a single night.
Presented in the toilets of Crash — a busy nightclub in Vauxhall — Songbird explored the possibility of creating something intimate and deliberate within the intensity and hedonism of the gay dance scene.
For the work, Robert replaced a standard cubicle door with a custom-built wall of glass, framed in hemlock wood. Sealed inside the stall for five hours, he inscribed passages of Romantic poetry by William Blake and Samuel Taylor Coleridge directly into the glass using the tip of a diamond. These words were written back to front, so they could be read correctly from outside the cubicle.
THE SICK ROSE
by William Blake
from Songs of Innocence & of Experience (1794)
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
THE DUNGEON
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
from Lyrical Ballads (1798)
And this place our forefathers made for man!
This is the process of our Love and Wisdom,
To each poor brother who offends against us
Most innocent, perhaps — and what if guilty?
Is this the only cure? Merciful God!
Each pore and natural outlet shrivell'd up
By Ignorance and parching Poverty,
His energies roll back upon his heart,
And stagnate and corrupt; till chang'd to poison,
They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot…
Songbird (2000). Photo by Andy B.
Songbird (2000). Photo by Andy B.
Songbird (2000). Photo by Andy B.
Songbird (2000). Photo by Andy B.
Songbird (2000). Photo by Andy B.
Songbird (2000). Photo by Andy B.
CREDITS
Premiere: July 2000
Duration: 5 hours
Place: Crash, Vauxhall, London
Made and performed: Robert Pacitti
Commission: Commissioned by Duckie as part of Nightbird
Context: Supported by a One-to-One Live Art Development Agency Bursary