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Um... Right! Comments, questions?
I think that would be great, but I think you... In a way, in this performance, you need to do it... you need to...
I personally felt that you needed more information, you needed to keep throwing more stuff at us. Ah, yes...
You were very concerned at getting the button right, which is great, that's fine, but we needed...
You could have carried on. That could almost be like something that you're doing... you know, like [inaudible]
Yes, that's something I've really considered doing but, right now, I just haven't had the dexterity
to do both things at once. And it kinda reminds me of that thing people say where women can concentrate on
several things at once and men are more focused on a single thing. Anyway, might be a...
And a woman can sort a drill out...
About the cultural issues and cultural roles... I... had a few freinds in Athens once an one walked in on me
ironing a shirt and... she was Italian... and she was like: "I've never seen a man iron a shirt before".
There you go!
There's a very strong role thing going on. And it's not about the sexism, it's very much a cultural thing,
very difficult to... it doesn't matter how much you change, how the world changes,
that cultural habit is... very, very strong.
The thing is, you haven't actually sown a button, have you?
Well, I have sown button other than that...
But what you've done there, you haven't sown a button. No.
You've taken your power tool, drilled a wall, used metal instead of thread,
and then you have a ***-off button made of wood.
They're very masculine materials. Exactly!
So I do hope that you're not trying to make a point that... "oh no, all genders should be able to do all roles"
and all this contra-conventionalist art rubbish, because you're actually not showing that,
you're saying quite the oposite, right?
In the beginning, when I... I'm doing the M.A. at Chelsea and in the beginning, when I started the M.A.,
I was actually trying to approach the question in that way. A, let's say, "serious" way, you know,
where I was quite trying to say exactly that, "all genders can do everything, and blah, blah blah..."
I never actually got anywhere with that. And I think there was a lot in what I was doing that was kinda like this.
It was a man, trying to do something that in his culture is deemed "female", and trying to make it look
manly in some way, and failing miserably. Because, at the end of the day, it was all just pointless.
My attempts to make things look manly just made them useless. Made them pointless. So, in a way I felt it was
more relevant to kind of um... make a satyre out of that, than to actually approach it seriously.
So you're trying to be the bad guy, you're trying to get me annoyed with you?
I'm being deadly serious, are you trying to get me to... dislike you a little bit so as to make a point?
Are we on the same page? I mean, I'm not going to reveal whether I do or do not respect that position.
I'm just asking you, would you want me to actually think "who does he think he is?" to then... make a point?
I mean, are you sacrificing your credentials at the altar of gender equality?
Or are you just not aware of gender equality?
I'm making my position clear and I said I wouldn't state whether I like one or the other,
but I think I'm making it very clear which side... which one of you I would prefer.
The one I would hate or the one I would like.
Just a question on top of that, to clarify that question. Would I be sacrificing my credentials,
let's say, as an artist or as a man?
No, as a person committed to gender equality.
Oh, right! Yeah! Well, I think there is some... You know that kind of thing people say where there is always
some truth to every joke? Or to every... game? I don't know how that goes in English. Um...
I think I'm trying to come into that area where I'm making a big joke out of it, out of gender equality,
but in the end, still wanting people to think about it. To think about what side are they on,
are they happy with the traditional male roles, are they happy with the current situation,
are they happy with the way they are?
What do you think about maybe finding a new technique that... as a way to sew a button,
that is completely not related to like, women or men in particular? Is there a way you think you could then
reintroduce this subject of gender equality, but do it in a way that you can
find a technique that would be completely separate from that?
There is, I think, one risk in doing that which is avoiding the gender discussion altogether.
When you get a technique that isn't, let's say, pertaining... I don't know if that's the right word...
pertaining to women of to men, you kind of avoid the gender issue.
You'd still be sewing a button. It would just be a different technique of doing that, or something.
Oh, right. Yeah. That might be a way to go about it, could be a next step for it.
I just haven't actually been able to reach or come across a technique that I personally wouldn't
consider to be male or female, traditionally male or female.
I mean, they are techniques, any male or female can use both sides, both techniques,
but I think there's some kind of understanding of gender to a few of them.
What do you think about your audience, most of us knowing how to sew a button? You're talking to a very few,
so the performance seems to be self-referential, rather than audience participation.
I like the idea that she said, "why don't you get a girl in the audience to do that?"
That would kind of let us interact. Because we do know how to sew a button.
Well I don't, and she doesn't either.
I know what you mean and I would be... I mean, I've never considered actually getting a second person
from the audience to do that and it's something I'll be thinking about...
And then the idea that some of us do know how to sew a button, the idea that you're showing us is kinda patronizing.
But then again, I'm not doing it... correctly.
I don't think he's being patronizing whether people know how to sew a button or not, because he's not really like,
specifically right about it. He's not like, in a way, trying to teach us something. It's kind of... it's a joke,
If you take a look at all the steps that I've talked about, they're not entirely correct.
There are things that I had to take out of the whole tutorial, there are things that I've had to put in,
so it's not an actual tutorial, I'm not actually teaching.
What I was most interested in was the idea of creating a situation where people are being asked to take a stance,
and if you are trying to do that... is that an issue, or are you? Because if you're using humor
[inaudible]
on an issue that most people have a saying... well, I mean, semantics [inaudible],
that a lot of people's takes on gender issues would be "it's a lovely situation
in Brazil or somewhere else, so why should we care? Why do we need to engage in your frame of reference
as something that's going to shed some kind of light on it?" There should be levity to it.
But we might want to know why and how far off in that situation that levity is being pronounced.
Well, I feel that I like it very much, it's very refreshing form to be dealing with what is
clearly a very serious subject, gender issues and um... I.. I liked it very much,
specially from a man's point of view.
I think it more or less answers to his question in a way. I think for the research I was doing
in men's issues, I researched a lot of women's issues as well. And I came across works from
both scales, let's say. People who were being very humorous about it and people who were being
dead serious about it. And it just felt to me, I guess, that when people were being serious,
as I was in the beginning of my MA research, you had a tendency to see the audience just
yawn and dismiss all that. Whereas when you got some kind of humor into that,
people were actually paying attention. If you actually got them to think
and question that afterwards, that would be even more...
It's more than just paying attention, it's also the fact that if you talk down to people,
they basically won't listen to you. So they'll be more inclined to listed to you,
or at least to have a reaction or think of you as "the fool", which is what I was going on earlier about.
But, having said that, like some... maybe it was you who said something about it: "but I can sew a button".
And then I was thinking [inaudible]. Because I too didn't until I was 30, probably. Um...
And then I had to look it up on the internet, I think. Um... But [inaudible] perhaps...
Because it can work very well in a Mediterranean country, for example. But maybe not in India.
Maybe a fitting example for this audience... 'cause you have yourself said that this is your
first performance and you take me into a performance, if you make the decisions you've made
with your performance, you haven't used just performance, because it's time-based and audience-based.
It's not [inaudible], though you could have if you'd taken it further. What I'm trying to say is,
perhaps you would need to find an activity that is still deemed female in London today...
and right now I can't think, but I'm sure there are.
Yeah, I was going to ask...
Even the way people smoke... Anything. Anything that is definitely female, and making sure
you don't go into *** orientation, you stay in the gender definition.
And then you try again that performance to an audience and see what happens.
It's intereseting because that's the problem I've been having a lot with the MA.
The first thing I've actually learned was that there is a difference, a cultural difference
between Mediterranean, or what we call Latino cultures, and European cultures. And as a whole...
Well, there is the Mediterranean that is not a Latino, but carry on...
Well, yes, I know what you mean... But yes, there is a difference from my own personal culture,
my own cultural background, and the one that I'm experiencing here. And dealing with that has been difficult,
at the same time challenging and interesting. So, I'm taking into account that idea that you had: searching
for something that is still deemed as female here...
I'm picking up other issues that might be interesting, such as economics: you saying that in Brazil
you have a lot of maids. Or just the materiality of the wood. These things are all there. And, you know...
For instance, I haven't sewn a button before because of economic issues. If my shirt looses a button,
I buy a new one, [inaudible]. These things could go into the ideas that you've explored
and overlap them and might actually be interesting.
There is... Personally, I'm interested in the gender issues specifically. If the discussion goes
into other territories, like you said, the economic idea of the maid in Brazil, that's even better.
When I started looking at that here and seeing that people didn't have that experience,
I thought it was interesting as well, but it's kind of... personally to me,
a side issue, let's say, to the gender discussion.
I think that I like the whole point made and I liked that you were nervous, and I kind of liked
the things that went wrong, but I also liked you talking at the same time. So when you were kind of
saying about your girlfriend who has this job, I was thinking what would be quite interesting was
if you had like, the main... you kind of talking someone through the main... like... event
or whatever this thing is, sewing the button, and doing the same, but then in between that
you'd kind of give these kinds of examples of gender things that you're talking about.
I mean you need the examples, 'cause that's the thing that's making you think,
but I just thought that instantly, I thought that everyone warmed to you and everyone was interested.
You've got this kind of personality that fitted this quite well. But I just thought you needed
more of the kind of like... more examples, you were saying "my girlfriend does this
and when I met my uncle back in Brazil we did that..."
I was thinking about making a list of those. But you know, it's like I said, at some point I just
get caught up in this and the rest... But it is something that I'd like to... to do that.
I was thinking, apparently the British thing that men don't do... would be very different but,
there is only a very small period when men buy their own underwear. From about the age of 19,
basically when their mothers stop buying it and when the girlfriends start, or the wives...
[inaudible]
Would the issue, throughout this discussion, be assuming of what the other was actually...
me as a female, or males... assuming things about the other that has put up many of the biases
and is kind of a cooperative social assumption? And do you think that
this has actually caused a sexist conversation?
Well, I think the assumptions do cause a sexist conversation, but I think it goes both ways. We're pretty...
I think, at least in my experience, we're pretty used to shouting out when the discussion is sexist
against the woman, but when the discussion is sexist against the man, it's just understood as humor.
The example I always give is Homer Simpson. You have this idea... and it's not just the Simpsons,
you have the whole slew of cartoons that portray the father of the family as a complete imbecile,
and the mothers as briliant. And nobody says anything about it, if it was the other way...
[Inaudible] ...they can be as stupid as they want. Because in those cartoons families portrayed,
the man has the power. He has the utmost power of decision. And the fact that he is being made
impossibly imbecile and fat, means that... it's a bit like that *** star who was horribly ugly and fat.
it's giving the same message. You can say anything you want, as a male, it doesn't matter what you look like
or how stupid you are, you'll still be on top. So, that's what it is.
Yes, that's interesting. Because I've seen situations where that particularly happens,
and it's a sexist discussion, but we only tend to rise up to it when the woman is put down.
Because it doesn't even [inaudible], completely.
I was wondering if you found out generally where buttons are produced, where they...
Is there a country that produces buttons?
No, not yet. But it might make it interesting to see who produces them.
[inaudible]
Ok, thank you very much!