I gained a place in the School of Architecture at
Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1967. It was a time of worldwide cultural ferment but
not much was going on in Portsmouth. After visiting Jim Haynes's Arts Lab in
Drury Lane, London and spending a few evening and nights witnessing the body
shock of the People Show, enduring the meditative challenge of Andy Warhol's
films or the heavenly cacophony of John Steven's Spontaneous Music Ensemble - I
was inspired.[1]
The Arts Lab was supported
by the underground paper International Times which Haynes had also helped set
up and which sold upwards of 20,000 copies every fortnight. In his
autobiography Haynes talks about how the events were secondary to 'bringing
people together' and how he and Jack Moore would 'play host, look after our
guests, introduce ourselves and introduce people to one another'. It was
probably this that made the Arts Lab such an influential organisation.
One of the interesting things about the Arts Lab was
the number of other Arts Lab-like places that grew up in Britain within six
months of our opening. People were arriving from virtually every town in
Britain - to consult us about setting up an Arts Lab in their won towns.
(Haynes 1984 p168)
I went back to my provincial
town and started a weekly 'Arts Workshop' in some old stables loaned by the
'Poly'.[2]
People were doing similar things in provincial centres all over the country.
Guests like Roland Miller, The Exploding Galaxy, John Stevens and Mark Bolan
came down on a shoe string to lead the evening. Yoko Ono was about to come when
she was romantically distracted by John Lennon and had to cancel. But the rest
of each show was provided by local artists, poets and musicians for which we
were an open showcase. Each week a booklet collection by a budding poet was
published on an old Gestetner spirit printer. The printing plates were waxed
paper into which letters were impressed with a caste-iron typewriter. An
'environment' was made with black polythene and found materials. People 'did
their thing' - whatever that 'thing' was, it was welcomed. The events were a
celebration of everyone's creativity. There was a sense that we were radically
challenging culture, society and ourselves with these events. This was the
counter culture - the beginnings as we saw it then, of a new alternative
society. Our efforts were imbued with tremendous hope, optimism and utopian
zeal.
Occasionally we broke out
and put on some street theatre. A realisation of Apollinaire's 'House of the
Dead' was memorable: Acting like corpses in front of the War Memorial; Being
strewn with flowers; Awakening as if from a deep sleep we burst through
shopping areas; disrupting the prevailing complacency with masks and various
antics.[3]
The evenings between events were taken reading American beat
poetry, listening to groups like Captain Beefheart, thinking up what to do at
the next event and making preparations to do it. 'Do it!' was the hip slogan of
the moment.[4] People had
ideas and got to realise them. Everyone was welcome to do whatever he or she
could dream up.
Seeing the Exploding Galaxy
was the second great influence after the Arts Lab. The Galaxy presented a new
form of communal creativity. They had their own form of writing (known as
'Scrudge'), costumes, food, shelters, rituals, play, art work, poems and most
of all large scale performances. They were a living artwork - Life as art. Led
by the Philippino David Medalla and the Irish Gerald Fitzgerald they made an
instant tribal culture from the waste materials of the city. They had little
money and few patrons or public grants. They were outsiders in every sense.
After the Exploding Galaxy
period, David Medalla made a series of participation artworks called
'propulsions':
Ideas originating in the Galaxy period, when a group
of people lived and created works of art together, here became focused through
physical structures erected in a public space and open for any passer by to
enter. They simply grew and expanded by welcoming any number of contributions
from any number of people. For me they are the most brilliant works of avant-garde
art of the period in Britain. (Brett 1995 p90)
[5]
[1] "One of the things about the Lab, unlike a lot of
spaces, was that people didn't come to see something specific. But they would
say, 'Let's go to the Lab and see what's going on tonight.' When they arrived,
there would be a big black board, like a menu, showing all the different things
going on that evening. Quite often I wouldn't know until the last minute. There
would be so many spontaneous events." (Haynes 1984 p151)
[2] Helped by Peter Jones and
Mel Croucher, two other students of Architecture.
[3] Directed by Mark Holborn who
was then a local poet/student, later an author and editor, a specialist in
Japan and photography.
[4] Do It! : scenarios of the
revolution,
(Simon & Schuster, 1970) was the title of a best selling book by Jerry
Rubin (1938 - 1996).
[5] In spite of its title,
Exploding Galaxies: the art of David Medalla (1995), Brett's important book has very
little on the Exploding Galaxy as a whole. A limited edition book on the Galaxy
entitled 'Planted' (1969) is held by the National Art Library. In 2002 Medalla
was still active promoting open access art organisations with his 'London
Biennale', a do-it-yourself version of the Biennale format.