Do You Want To Get Married?

This piece is for both audiences.

First of all there are the participants. The people who are to be wed.

Then secondly there are the spectators of the wedding. The people who are stopping to watch the wedding.

Thirdly there are the spectators that are passing by on the street, looking upon both the participants and the spectators of the wedding.

And wait there is a fourth.

This video allows there to be a fourth audience.

An audience that can witness the event without being and experiencing the event.

This audience are able to view all the spectators and participants.

“It is assumed that the documentation of the performance event provides both a record of it through which it can be reconstructed

(though, as Kathy O’Dell points out, thereconstruction is bound to be fragmentary and incomplete) and evidence that it actually occurred.” (Auslander, 1956: 1) live art gets to perform again through documentation.Our documentation is us trying to reproduced our live art for an audience that can view it later on.

Wearing smart casual attire I was dressed for the part. The Vicar.

In this piece I invited the public in, calling on anyone wishing to get married.

An impromptu audience.

An audience that weren't aware of their invitation to the wedding.

'Spec-actors.'

The impromptu audience became actors within the piece.

Other passersbys ended up viewing the 'spec-actors'

Fictional Dogshelf recreated and renewed their wedding on a massive scale.

On the Roadchef Sandbach Services on the M6 Motorway on 20th September 2002.

They visited the same site over the period of 18 months.

They got to know the locals.

They understood what the public wanted.

They wanted a bench.

Fictional Dogshelf installed a bench.

This piece is tipping towards Site Responsive.

This interactive performance art was installed underneath

The Bargate Archway in Southampton City Centre.

It is an archaic monument that is part of the Walls of Southampton.

The Bargates structure and aesthetic adds an overall atmosphere to the piece.

It gives the fake weddings a picturesque, an image.

Influenced by Fictional Dogshelf and Carl Lavery I went into

Southampton Town Centre and performed weddings under the Bargate.

I married friends.

I married strangers.

I married the same person to many different people.

There were same sex marriages.

There were opposite sex marriages.It was a day of celebrating love and

binding people even if they did not know one another.

This is not real.

I am not certified to bind people in marriage.

This is a false ceremony but a true celebration of love.

The series of photographs within the project 'Touching Strangers'

by Richard Renaldi consists of strangers posing for a photograph together.

Richard Renaldi, a NYC artist, invited the public from the street,

asking them to pose with a complete stranger in an intimate position.

The series of photographs can be found under 'projects' on his website here.

Could I get strangers to marry?

Taking it upon myself I set out to fulfill one of Carl Lavery's tasks under

“21. Situations designed for a mass audience of

‘spec-actors”.

And that task was to: Arrange a mass wedding in the city centre.

I had a set bride, a set usher, a set vicar, a set camera man x 2.

All we needed was a partner.