Hold the lavender er

Text for booklet / Image for booklet

Glitter handshake text…

1 We rework, tweak an existing textual musing on the glitter handshake performance and our wider practice…

2 Or we go with a fictional/poetic/ambiguous text… that compliments the image we choose

3 Or we focus mainly on an image with limited text…

1. Rework/draw on the text (or parts of) we included in our Casino application :

If + Trust

28 April 2012
Intervention at Magic Bar, Rotterdam, NL
Intervention components: Glitter Handshakes (performance at entrance), Do you Trust Me? (video installation in stairwell), Queer Contract (projected image in main bar), FFF+ currency (notes stamped by bar staff), F+ cufflinks (poster over bar), More Trust (posters in bathroom).

A glitter-encrusted handshake greeted every guest at the door to Magic Bar in Rotterdam. For
one night only, All the Cunning Stunts performed a welcoming, smiling, glitter transfer, that, like
our other interventions into the space, permeated the evening with alternative forms of circulation and economies of tRUst. “Do you trust me?”, we asked, via a seductive video portrait, shrouded in gold and continually calling out to the audience. The question mirrored concerns alluded to within
a short text piece (installed in the bathrooms for ultimate intimacy): What other kinds of economies are present? Can we renegotiate the limits of our trust? Queer our contracts? Taking centre stage
in the main bar, a digitally adjusted, colour-stained, image bank image of a business handshake is celebrating its emancipated symbolism, projected on a screen, as if frozen, like a corrupted power point presentation. Perhaps we are witness to the illusive queer contract in action? Hard currency did not escape comment either, as we engaged the bar staff in an illicit performance: every euro note that passed through the till as visitors purchased drinks was stamped “FFF+”, bearing a reference to its historical precedent the early ‘70s ‘gay dollars’, the power of the positive ‘fail’, faggots, femmes, females, et al. These euro notes are now free to re-circulate, an artwork distributed through the channels of daily exchanges within the EU.

2. I realise I must have lavender binoculars on at the moment - why else would I post pale lavender shag pile carpet!

What if the colour of glitter we use for this performance is - Lavender - (eek) and (while this is pretty cliche - it could possibly work - we could connect glitter handshake to economies of trust… through a ficto-text that references lavender?

Option A: This is from an old blog post for Magic Bar research: http://allthecunningstunts.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/holy-shiz-trust-can-be-seen-as-ecomonic.html

Lavender is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of Lavender are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment. Any kind of object or secure verifiable record that fulfills these functions can serve as Lavender.

Lavender originated as commodity Lavender but nearly all contemporary Lavender systems are based on fiat Lavender. Fiat Lavender is without intrinsic use value as a physical commodity, and derives its value by being declared by a government to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private".

The Lavender supply of a country consists of currency (banknotes and coins) and bank Lavender (the balance held in checking accounts and savings accounts). Bank Lavender usually forms by far the largest part of the Lavender supply.

Option B: This is a poem I wrote that refers to a person called Lavendula:

Lavendula, Lavendula

There’s a girl on your hockey team called Lavendula. It may come as a surprise that you are on a hockey team but never mind that. Lavendula says she likes sandy or gravelly soil best. It’s true that she plays a better game on grass than she does on synthetic turf. She tells you that you can squeeze her for essential oil, however you decline very politely. She tells you that bees are often attracted to her, and that it is in her power to produce boutique honey. She’s prepared to sweeten dishes, though she will not collaborate in potpourris. In Roman times, a person might’ve paid the equivalent of fifty haircuts from the local barber for a pound of her extremely distant relatives. Lavendula stops coming to hockey practice. You aren’t surprised. You call her and get no answer. Over the next few weeks you continue to make enquiries. No one can say for sure that she moved to Auckland, however a mutual friend confirms that she boarded a train to get there. The friend says a bird landed on the electric wire just past Hamilton and burst into flame. This delayed Lavendula for two additional hours. After calling this friend to communicate news of her hellish twelve-hour journey, Lavendula dropped off the radar. On your way to work this morning you press the pedestrian light knob as usual on Kent Terrace. Someone has plucked a stem of Lavender and left it balanced on the rim of the button. Lavendula, Lavendula, you whisper to yourself, and ponder who and what she might be infusing at this very minute with her redolent fictions.

3. We focus on an image (such as the Trust Me/Don't Sweat Me text/image Liz created) with some minimal text accompaniment...

Where do we want to place the emphasis? On an image or on a text or bit of both? We have limited space. I'm available to work on this tomorrow so any thoughts as to what I might work on would be superlative.

xxxR