Advice on how to experience To Be Determined Sep 16, 2011
by Jessica
We've spent a fair amount of time talking through how best to frame To Be Determined and to guide people through the experience once they get here. But it was 11/12 artist Trimpin who we thought nailed it in this excerpt from Jen Graves' post on Slog today (emphasis ours):
"...At which point I ran into Trimpin. Trimpin is the Macarthur "Genius" Award winner who builds instruments as sculptures. He believes that all music is live, and that recorded music is not music. (It is something more like sculpture or architecture.) I love Trimpin.
I told him I was having a hard time getting my To Be Determined to be either determined or indeterminate, that it was sort of sliding by in unpleasant ways, that it felt too much like the rush of my regular life. (Maybe this is what I was supposed to feel. Life is just life, lemonade is just lemonade, the rest is up to you.) Trimpin told me how to do it.
"You have to keep moving," he said. "You watch something, you go get a drink, you come back and watch something else, you go for another drink or a smoke. It's great. I've been here since the beginning."
Wait: Trimpin, are you part of the art?
"I am not! I paid 15 dollars and I'm glad I did!"
At this moment I began to feel that it was me, not the "event," that was the problem. And in some ways, that's because TBD was designed to be critic-proof. (Aha! SBC one, Graves one.)"
Read the whole Slog review and get your SuttonBeresCuller tickets
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Each night the experience
Each night the experience would be different and each person’s experience would be unique. Does it mean that I would go for the experience (or to perform, since the audience interaction was part of the performance) more than one night? No. My first trip to “To be Determined” was promped by my trust and curiosity for OtB-chosen artists; going there twice would have been disgusting. SBC’s project left me a nothing-more-than-usual party evening, with feelings of emptiness and disappointment. I don’t want to spend my precious concert evening and $15-ticket to experience a dance party – even each night would be different and forever unique. (Paragraph) The installations were visually impressive, but not enough to make up for my disappointment. It felt like I had seen them or something similar somewhere else. The style of the installations, however, was fitting to the project this weekend. They were actually visually amusing; I enjoyed staring at and walking around in between the ceiling lights very much. (Paragraph) As I write this comment on the project, I believe in the artists’ intention and big heart for their artistic work, that they didn’t find the performing artists from CraigsList just because it sounded cool to do so at OtB, and because it would make the setting critic-proof. They did so because they were real people to be enjoyed with. (Paragraph) Even though the installations were visually amusing and the CraigsList performers were nice, warm, real people, it was not the night I was looking for. First the project was too expensive to be done in a theater, second it was boring and flat. If a dance party with installations was what I wanted, I could just go to any of my friends’ home parties (and put some installation picture books around the corners of the room; or even better, we could make some). I go to a theater because I want more life, or at least something that makes me feel more of/about it. The project made me feel wanting to move on and search for other venues to have it done. (Paragraph)
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