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Stuff Version 1

Gary Stevens

1993 – 2024

Solo performed by Gary Stevens

A naked performer sits in the Royal Academy life drawing room. He is in the place of the life model. He has a microphone stuck to his face and a radio transmitter gaffer-taped to his back. His disembodied and synthesised voice is only heard through a speaker system under the benches that surround the platform. He describes an alternative body, viewed by another audience in a different place. His actual body and the circumstances in the room are conspicuously denied by the fiction. A small chorus simulates body sound; heart beat, breath, air rushing through lungs, creaking bones. The fiction attempts to recreate the physical aspect of the body, while everything in the account is codified. The account becomes more absurd and removed from the situation. A game is described where a man has to kill a rival, but the events are presented in disguise, where an innocuous act such as shaking hands could be the ‘kill’.

The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Festival: Court in the Act, The Life Room, Royal Academy, London July 1993

Performer: Gary Stevens
Sound technician: Kate Tierney
Assisted by: Georgina Carless, Beth Hardisty, Terry Smith

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