Conversation with David Moore, and actor and Theatre Maker Angela Clerkin June 2017 for Source Magazine
Lisa and John updates an archive of David Moore’s documentary photography work from 1988 titled Pictures from the Real World [published in 2013]. Actor and Writer Angela Clerkin, talks to David about his recent foray into the theatre world.
AC
Your theatre show The Lisa and John Slideshow, was first shown at Format International Photography Festival in 2017, at Derby Theatre. How did it come about that a documentary photographer and university lecturer made a theatre show?
DM
For me it's the theatre show, the set models and there is an installation proposal as well - they are all part of the same project. We met Professor Huw Davis of Derby University, who is on the Board of QUAD Arts in Derby, they run the Format Festival, and he offered me the theatre space without even seeing the script. That focused us around a very specific event, which was brilliant. I love the notion of somehow changing what photography can be. I'm interested in performance in photography and what I mean by that is the way a subject might perform in a documentary photograph and how that contributes to the pantomime of realism. And the whole project is an archive intervention.
AC
Your original documentary photographs were of working class communities in Derby and were since been printed in the collection Picture From the Real World in 2013. Tell me how it all started.
DM
I made this work when I was a student in 1987/1988 and it is full of youthful energy. Very much me finding my way as a photographer and being excited by the medium. There is always a difficult patch between those sorts of approaches and emotions and the subject matter, particularly if we are talking about documentary subject matter where working class families are being represented. My own background wasn't like this or the people that I am representing here, but I lived close to this estate. So, I have always been aware of that, and whilst the work has a validity as a subjective document, it is also problematic because of the dynamics and dialectics of production , the representation and so on.. I have made work since then about government and institutional power
AC
When and where did you get the idea of making a theatre show?
DM
I was exhibiting in Format Festival in 2015, showing my work from 1988 for the very first time since then. Lisa saw it and contacted me on Twitter, that is actually a line in the play, and I went to meet her after twenty five years. It just sort of came to me to challenge the authority and hegemony of the documentary legacies that I was working within then, and that were perpetuating in my work. One thing I could do was offer Lisa and John their own choice from the archive. So, we see the archive as a contestable space, basically this is my view, this is theirs. So I eventually left the body of work, pertaining to their family with Lisa and John, who by then had been separated for 20 odd years
AC
When you gave them the archive did you know you were going to make a show?
DM
No, I had no idea. At that time I was thinking of another book, an installation and possibly a photographic exhibition. I didn't think about any sort of performance until we got to the end of the process. I had left the contact prints with them for three or four months and I went back and sat with both of them while they went through their choices. We talked about their memories, about their kids, all the stuff that had nothing to do with my agenda whatsoever.
My first thoughts were, if we are looking at various movements and histories within participatory practice as a fine art movement there is potential for Lisa and John, if they are willing, to be involved in presenting this in public. We would be articulating and opening up what the archive can be, instead of it being a fixed point in of representation, which is always going to be a mixture of history and fiction anyway.
Straight away, to have Lisa and john actually talking about the archive activates a different discourse, and in essence is democratising, not fully but as a gesture. I said 'John would you be interested in talking about this in public, in some sort of supported environment?' and he said that he wouldn't. Lisa said, ‘no, no way’. So then I thought I could use this, I could create another representational tableau by working with actors based on the conversations I had with both Lisa and John, and that is partly what fuelled the script.
AC
Did you record those initial conversations?
DM
Yes process is integral to the work so it is important to make sure everything was documented. It was a very organic process. I worked with an assistant director and theatre facilitator called Gavin Dent I had this grand concept and Gavin was really good at coming in and activating those ideas theatrically. So the basis at the beginning was to work with the verbatim script that I had written. Writing a verbatim script adds a certain license to occasionally divert from what is actually being said and to make it theatrically relevant if you like.
AC
In my experience some verbatim scripts use the interviews as a starting point, while others are meticulous in only using the words spoken by the interviewees. I recently worked with Chris Goode & Co in a verbatim show called Monkey Bars and the author was adamant that we stick faithfully to the interviewees exact words, even when it meant saying the word 'like' five times in a sentence.
DM
I'm interested in this. I'd imagine Lisa and John will have other outings, in Belfast for example. I am also thinking about how I develop it. The temptation is to keep tinkering with this show but that's it now, I'm drawing a line. So for the next work that I make, I'm interested in that sort of absolute methodology that you've just described.
AC
In addition to the taped interviews how else did you develop the material for the show.
DM
The first version of this script was pretty spot on in terms of the translation from the audio, so to do character development at the beginning we used various improvisational games. I gave the actors Sarah and Alan, lots of information, I talked about Lisa and John back in 1988, and my more recent knowledge of them having spent a little bit of time with Lisa and John in the months preceding rehearsals. From those improvisational games came one or two things that sat quite comfortably with who Lisa and John were as far as I was concerned, so it is a blend of methodologies. Also both actors went to Derby to meet Lisa and John as part of the process.
AC
How did you as the author decide what material from the interviews to include, how much invented dialogue felt right, and what to edit out? I'm also interested to know if Lisa and John were given script approval?
DM
Obviously script approval was a very big thing. The process itself is underpinned by a facilitatory gesture, everything about it. It's present all the way through it, this critique, this questioning of my motivations. Also in the script, I have isolated playful questions about realism for example, at one point Lisa criticizes me for wanting to use a photograph with ashtrays in it, she is basically saying – ‘I know what you are up to David’
Lisa and John were given a script and I sought approval before we went forward. I sat with them, went through it. Had we have been in the same city then the collaborative possibilities would have been greater. They would have been involved much more with rehearsals and that would have taken us in a different direction. It's an interesting area and it’s useful talking and thinking about this. So I'd say to rely upon and ones own moral position can be a guiding light.
AC
One of my favourite parts of the show is when Lisa is looking at the final photograph that she chose and she says, “We never liked having our photo taken, but I like this one, all of us smoking, everyone smoked. We smoked so much, it will catch up with us one day. We do charity seances sometimes, something always happens, Craig (her current partner) says the smoke in these pictures is the spirits coming through.” I also really love that photograph, and the text you use in the script with it, I felt the intimacy you had with the family really shone through. So it was quite surprising to hear Lisa saying they didn't like having their photos taken. You included these comments in the show and I wondered what you thought about what she said?
DM
That was her being faux modest. I carried it through really because there is a really nice picture of Lisa in the slideshow. It’s of her coming in with a cake, she looks really nice and she says ‘that this is quite a nice one of me’ but then she doesn’t really say anymore about it. She flicks through really quickly so I honoured her observation in a sense. John can’t remember me being there anyway.
AC
How did that make you feel?
DM
Surprised actually, I didn't take it personally or anything like that. It's true he was there, he was working nights a lot of the time but I was in his face a lot, you know with the flash. I made this work between July ’87 and May ’88 but I worked with other families on the estate as well so I wasn't there all the time. I was probably in their house twenty or thirty times.
AC
So tell me about a photograph in the show that does have a strong memory for you.
DM
The photographs in the show are Lisa and John’s choices. It was interesting when I edited this book as a separate thing I had this idea of having my arm around my younger self, kind of it's ok to use that, but you have to change this one. There were two or three pictures that were chosen by Lisa that I'd also chosen as an edit for the book that didn't quite make it. So there's interesting crossovers like that but I think for me now the act and purpose of a single image and engaging with it, I don't feel that's my sort of thing now. That's more theirs. For me it is the mass of work, the archive work which is the interesting body of work.
AC
What would you describe as being the main themes that run through The Lisa and John Slideshow?
DM
Themes in the theatre show that arose are death, memory, family, all of those things. There is this idea that memory exists in the present and this notion got carried into the theatre script. The idea of memory is made more complex by John’s inability to recall any of the photos being taken. He says that these photographs are his memories now. Again we need to consider that photographs mean different things to different people. There is a conflict that can occur when one looks back at images and misunderstands or misremembers.
There is a picture of Lisa’s sister and in the play Lisa and John have a dialogue which I had to invent and this made us shift into a ‘devised ‘ mode of making theatre, so, from improvisation and the actors having a sense of Lisa and John’s relationship. This was because they are divorced now and had not met for years. I was going between the two of them saying ‘I don't want to get involved with this’ but, Lisa says, “That's never our Lisa", and John saying “She fucking is Lisa".
There’s themes of death right through too of course which are obviously born from Karen ( a close family friend who appears in the images) dying and how that affected the family, fifteen years on it is still very deeply felt for both of them. I remember Karen, she was a very bright woman. Of course the theme of death is also conveyed in Lisa's observations about seances and smoking. That was something that presented itself to me as a writer, as a narrative device that was relevant and important.
Also I recognise that while I am offering Lisa and John a sort of facilitatory space to talk about the way I represented them, actually their choice is restricted. It’s not all about them, what they are doing is responding to my work, so it’s like a Hobson’s Choice in some ways. That has to be acknowledged.
AC
You appear in the text, as the photographer and author, tell me a little about your decision to include yourself inside the frame of the show?
DM
Part of the opening up and the intervention into hierarchies of representation is about visibility and revealing the underlying mechanics, via a variety of strategies. I have lines in the play as myself, but I'm in the audience, so it is a clear disturbance of the narrative, a potential reframing for the audience as to what it is that is being observed. That's the Brechtian aspect we talked about.
I love doing it as well!
The models are the same because their currency, the discourse of the maquettes, is the production of the photograph, using a museological vernacular… a museum diorama so there are all sorts of connections with institutional knowledge being addressed in a complex manner.
AC
The set of The Lisa and John Slideshow was minimal and presentational - tell me why you made this choice and how it speaks to the piece?
DM
I think it came out of the initial idea of Lisa and John doing it themselves in this lecture style format. Chairs, a table, a beaker of water and a facility to project the photographs. I'm also drawing from my own experience of being an academic who delivers lectures to groups of students as well, that idea of presenting photographs and talking about them.
AC
Your decision to make it a live event. Was that important to you?
DM
What I have realised is that the whole project, the installation, the maquettes and the theatre show, they are all things that one has to experience by being there. You can look at them on a screen but this work is about being physically present. I didn't consciously do that but it's a sort of post photographic gesture if you like. Take the models, you can walk around them and peer at them, look at them from above and observe their detail. Through this gesture You onecan scrutinise the process of the photographic event in a way that a photographer might scrutinise their subjects.
AC
The installation is called "Lisa and John - Oh My Days!", and was also shown at Format. I'm looking at the fantastically detailed maquettes in front of me, scaled set models of two of your photographs with the photographer at the scene. Can you tell me more about them?
DM
The idea of this is to place the photographer at the scene, by specifically connecting the maquettes with specific photographs in the original series.
Alan Sekula, a writer on photography documentary makers, said “A truly critical social documentary will frame the crime, the trial and the system of justice and it's official myths." So that is an indicator of my intent with the whole Lisa and John project. To challenge the 2D nature of photography is to offer a multi-perspectivism that allows audience agency to explore the photographic event from positions of their choosing. The models perform this.
So, to walk around the object and to never quite experience the whole thing at one time perhaps, being free of the singular proposition of the original photograph. So you can see the breaking of hierarchy there. I, as photographer, am also part of this secondary inquiry. The photography is part of an inquiry. So this draws on ideological histories of installation practice and offers another route to exploring the archive outside of its own context.
AC
What of the maquettes themselves?
DM
Gavin Dent and I interviewed several people for this commission. We chose model maker, Beth Brett because of her attention to detail.You can see my Dr. Marten soles! That’s the camera I had and that’s the METZ flash gun I had!
AC
Because they are designed to be experienced?
DM
Yes, what you are doing at this moment! Peering from different directions and enjoying the detail. This is quite cheeky, this newspaper is from another photograph in the series, but I like the fact that she has brought it into the ‘wrong’ photographic scene.
AC
So tell me about your positioning in the scene, did you have a clear recollection or you can tell from the photograph where you were exactly?
DM
All of those things and I used the original photographs to work from. I have these wonderful sketches that I made. Sketching from memory partially, filling in the rest of the room and of course I had other areas in the room from other photographs that filled in the gaps.
AC
You've talked of you plans to create further maquettes, do you know which photographs you are going to use?
DM
I think it depends on how many we can do next really, obviously it's a funding thing. I might stray outside of Lisa and Johns family to do another one. The photograph with the newspaper is good, also the baby in the garden, and also one of the most popular photographs from the series is the one of John fixing the car, at the end of the book.
AC
John fixing the car is one of my favourite photographs, and him talking about getting stuck in the boot was one of my favourite parts of the show. Have John and Lisa seen the maquettes?
DM
No, their kids have. They loved seeing them
AC
Looking at this body of work, is it what you want it to be, have you achieved what you were after?
DM
Yes, I have actually. I feel really pleased with it, partly because people enjoyed it. I think you can offer populism based upon complex and well intended intellectual grounding. In that sense I am trying to make work here which speaks to lots of people but at its heart has this, the grist for the mill if you like, is the oppositional view…breaking the momentum of various legacies and offering differing ways of understanding the world. So yes, I am pleased with it.
|
‘Journal of a C21st Explorer’ 2000-2003
These semi-satirical musings were written after my visits to the House of Commons to produce the series
‘The Commons’ published in 2004. The foundation for this work was what I then described ‘an anthroplogy of the near’ and a sense of being inside of ‘panoptic’ spaces, facilitating a view only allowed by my presence as an image-maker.
“And after much to-ing and fro-ing we eventually secured access to the Palace of Westminster, a building at the heart of the nation's political life.
1st Day
The equipment we had chosen for the task was as follows;
Bronica sqa 6×6 body
Bronica sqa 110 mm macro lens
Bronica sqa 50mm lens
Several film backs
Two Metz flashguns with extension cords and spare batteries
Minolta auto IV light meter.
Mamiya c330 6×6
Mamiya sekor 65mm lens [this eventually proved unreliable]
We exclusively used Kodak Portra 160 vc 120 colour negative film.
My assistant, Laurent Betton and I met at 7.45 am on the first morning with a high sense of expectation. The project had been thought about and discussed for several years. Previous sorties, via correspondence from significant institutions, had resulted in terse denials of my entry to the chamber [1] and whilst others had had a degree of access in the meantime, their findings had barely touched on what we were about to discover.
So, on a bright June morning in the year 2000, I found myself outside of Black Rod’s garden entrance at the extreme western end of the Westminster. We passed through the first cordon and entered a room through a [proscenium] archway. There sat an X ray machine and a security guard. Our equipment was passed through and we waited for another doorway to open before us allowing us into the next preliminary level. At precisely 8.00am the small and hirsute desk clerk from the other side appeared and we went through, a little further toward our destination.
Foolishly, I had forgotten the authorisation sheet sent to me by
facsimile the previous week and the rather troubled clerk made much of this.
We sat and waited whilst various telephone calls were made and the situation began to resolve itself. Our guide was supposed to be
present as we arrived to meet us and lead us to the chamber but there was no sign of him. This coupled with the clerks boorish and unhelpful attitude had us waiting for a considerable time before we were able to proceed. It was apparent that unlike other visitors to the building, we were regarded suspiciously. Perhaps from now we should consider our appearance a little more. An ominous start.
After twenty minutes our escort arrived, a pleasant middle-aged man from the north east of England. He bore none of the anger of the clerk and we proceeded through labyrinthine corridors to the heart of government.
We passed oil paintings of indeterminate value, medieval sepulchres, domestic staff and cleaning equipment reeking of disinfectant. Oak panelling surrounded in marble walls crowded in on us as we made our way through the building.
Closed rooms and half open doors along endless corridors all promised something of my undefined goal, of power, lineage, an idea of England, dark dreams, long submerged within us and indistinguishable from our day to day thoughts.
At 8.23 am we arrived at the Central Lobby which opened up above us like a storm. The ceiling representations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England gave some sense of urgency to our passage through this anteroom and turning right we caught our first sight of the chamber of The Commons, warmly lit and largely un-navigated by outsiders such as ourselves.
The excitement was insufferable and as soon as we entered the chamber I instructed Laurent to unpack and assemble the equipment. I was immediately drawn to the space occupied by the leader and stared intently at the carpet immediately in front of his microphone until disturbed by Laurent handing me the camera and flashgun.
I began making my first photographs in that space at 8.30 am on the morning of the 26th of June 2000.
I started from the point that Laurent handed me the camera. Kneeling down, my first thought was of evidence of activity over the years preceding our visit. I made photographs of the bench area around the leaders sitting position, taking particular attention of how heels and toes of presumably well polished shoes and boots had scraped the surfaces, revealing lighter wood beneath the dark, oak surfaces.
Whilst in this position I looked up and could hardly believe what I was seeing. A piece of chewing gum or similar, had been left; maybe for devilment by another occupant of the chamber, maybe out of necessity by the leader himself, underneath the ‘Table of the House’ and directly beneath his microphone. [2] This was startling and I began making photographs of it immediately. The object itself can of course be found in many other places of interest, but it’s presence here lent an air of considerable excitement and hilarity.
We kept this from our guide, who possibly would have been compromised by the information. As we were to find out, the guides were an assorted bunch of characters, all ages, mainly of the working classes, many ex police or armed services. Their duty as incumbents of the Serjeant at Arms was to protect the Crown at all costs, even though the Monarch can never actually enter the chamber, vigilance is their code and they look like they would prove to be extremely efficient in hand to hand combat especially.
Our morning continued and we meandered around the chamber under the watchful eye of our guide. Photographs were made of the following;
Microphones, Carpet areas, Debris, discarded speeches, sweet wrappers and so on. [3], [4] and [5]. Conscious of time closing in on us I shot off the few remaining frames, concentrating on the microphones hanging from the ceiling. This was rather rushed and it was uncertain if any of these have any real value for my work.
Laurent and I then hastily packed away the equipment and were escorted off the premises by our friendly guide. This time we crossed directly over St Stephens Hall in a [northerly] direction, passing the cavernous [Westminster hall] on our right and being amazed at its size and beauty.
We thanked our guide, who was to return to his duties for the Serjeant immediately and found ourselves on the street at the St Stephens entrance. Slightly disorientated as we anticipated our exit from the chamber to be at the same point as our entry, but we were in fact, a 100 yards further west. We acknowledged that the proportions of the house and it’s nature would easily confuse all but the most experienced.
Laurent and I found a coffee house in St Martins Lane and sat for a while discussing the morning.
2nd day.[27th June 2000]
We again met outside of the Garden entrance. Two early mornings for us then and we began the same procedure at entry as the day before. The same attendants were in evidence and the desk clerk was perturbed to see us again. However, our guide was absolutely on time and at two minutes past 8 of the clock we were on our way to the chamber. We were taken an entirely different route today, no sense of our tracks yesterday but still we passed through areas rich with significance making me realise that a complete survey of this space would be an incalculable undertaking.
My concentration was not as intense as the previous day. I began to see the chamber in a different light and observed different things. Many trips would have to be completed I knew, before I could begin to make sense of exactly what was going on here.
Today we came across other people in the chamber. Men in brown technicians overcoats pored over the time keeping devices, attentive and concerned. They barely acknowledged our presence. A friendly young man whose accent placed him as from the Balkans, polished the Table of the House with care, the scent of industrial polish lingered after he had left and as I began to photograph the table this made me sneeze violently, permeating my olfactory senses. What compelled me however was that the area had just been ‘worked’ on. Our agreement with the authorities was that no people could be photographed.
Also this morning we saw our first sign of members of the house. A common practice, to reserve your seat for the day’s debate, is to insert a prayer card [6] in the back of the bench area where you would like to seat. Special receptacles have been provided and this practice assumes that you are at Chapel, or wherever, praying to your God. Because of this, your seat cannot be taken. Mr Skinner the notorious ‘Beast of Bolsover’ makes use of this practice everyday so I assume that he is a particularly godly fellow.
Some of course are the sorts who disgrace our nation with their misdeeds and on first sight there is little to differentiate the assorted types. This is also true of political allegiances, though today we did find the Conservatives to be rather more brusque.
Today there were several members of the House passing through, some known to us, some less so. Some left prayer cards and others were merely ‘en route’. The response to our presence was mixed. It was becoming clear to me that as my intentions were ambiguous we seen as either mildly amusing or slightly irritating. A more accurate way of putting it would be to say that we were tolerated. We had a commercial arrangement with the Serjeant at Arms, so we were not exactly ‘persona non grata’, however I was acutely aware that my negotiations with him were always in the balance and had to be undertaken with the utmost care for fear of my project being curtailed.
Today I photographed obsessively as if a fever had hold of me. It seemed thankless and endless. I began to wonder, to what end? After all of this waiting, I knew that perseverance and single mindedness was the only way forward.
Again our time flew and we packed our equipment together and walked through the hall to the exit. The sun outside was too bright after the low lighting and muted concentration of the chamber, the traffic too loud. Crowds of tourists queued amongst petrol fumes and my anxiety was the question of return. I had only arranged these two visits, leaving it open to re negotiate the others as and when was necessary. This of course gave the Serjeant at Arms leeway to bar my re-entry if it were deemed that my face did not fit or that I was some republican with ulterior motives. My task now is to look at the work I have made and consider it’s worth.
It’s soon to be summer, and Parliament will close.
3rd day [6th November 2000] 7.30amIt was cold and raining when we met. Laurent was sitting hunched on a bench, alone on St Stephen’s green, as the early morning traffic crawled into London, the weather thrashing around him. Summer had been demanding, travel to America and Europe had sharpened my appetite for this task. To see England from a distance is always beneficial, one understood it’s position in the world so much more fully. The position of the monarchy appears particularly precarious and open to ridicule.
[For Americans particularly, the Windsors are not much more than one amongst many attractions, I fear that the British nation regards them similiarly, our status as subjects largely hidden within citizenship].
Entering the security vestibule offered little comfort, and shortly our guide led us to the chamber. We proceeded, a different route again! As we entered the Central Lobby we found ourselves ahead of our guide, a young man of relative inexperience. What happened next was all over in a wink of the eye but exemplified the ingrained and unquestionable duty to ‘protect’. We turned into the Commons, Laurent and I, and were spotted by two uniformed and armed guards who, one of them, on seeing us and not our guide, as his small frame was hidden behind mine, reached for and unbuttoned his revolver. He was ready to shoot! Calamity! Our nerves were tested. He saw our guide an instant later and put the weapon away. We were not shaken. It is not after all
commonplace to have firearms presented toward you but the speed of the incident minimized the effect. We duly showed our authentication and we were allowed to continue.
We were wet and dripping against the hallowed carpet of the Commons chamber, unpacking equipment. Today I made many photographs of the ‘red line’. It’s presence in the chamber, as a piece of décor which catches the eye, far outweighs it’s apparent symbolic value. More ‘debris’ photographed and many more recordings of time keeping instruments, some apparently archaic.
4th day [7th November 2000]
It is difficult to imagine the noise and strife, which must be generated when this chamber is in full use. I understand that after the chamber was bombed, some 50 years ago; the emphasis on rebuilding it was placed on architectural sympathy with the original design rather than any changes which would assist the acoustics. Each sound is deadened, footfall is unheard and yet outside of this dark sanctum we hear shouts and activity as the Palace comes awake. The chamber gives an unreal sensation of security. The symmetry itself, if one is not wary, begins to order the photographs one makes. The near converging parallels of Tudor green benches, the red line, the symmetry, all conspire against me, as if to impose an appreciation of England, an illusion of order and democracy. It will be necessary to smash this down if I am to get to the bottom of it all, to understand.
Today was rather desultory, we were packed and ready to head back on time. On leaving Westminster we proceeded straight to a commercial engagement in the East End.
5th day.[27th March 2001]
The Palace of Westminster in cool, spring sunlight. The usual rigmarole with security and on to the chamber with our guide, who today was a pleasant middle aged female. Her knowledge of the house surpassed any other guide’s and we enjoyed our traverse to Commons, again a new route.
The chamber of course was unchanged, and today I used more rolls of film than ever before. Renewed vigour and a sense of a small breakthrough over the intervening period since my last visit here. Little to report, words are becoming superfluous.
6th day.[28th March 2001]
Today we showed the guide the way. He was a young man who had only been working here for a short while. In previous weeks we had generally arranged our visits on Mondays and Tuesdays, through some administrative quirk on my part, we were here on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. The chamber had more visitors than usual, inserting prayer cards all over the place. I was told that today was Question Time and various important matters were to be put before the Leader.
At one point a strident and fragrant lady member [Mrs Bottomley] for a country constituency asked Laurent for the use of a pencil. He became immediately enamoured of her, and rather distant I noticed. As she crossed the house to her chosen seat to write her name, Laurent’s eyes followed her. As a Frenchman he had not been living in this country enough years to have any history of her political life and was therefore bewitched by her apparent charms
No more diary entries after this date”