​no man's land ​
across the London Underground
Sunday 11th November 2012, 11.05am
15 Tube Stations Spots, 15 Musicians, 15 Sculptures, 15 Poets​
15 performances simultaneously across central London​
​​​​​
through a one-off live performance, no man's land invites artists and public to consider why they hold the opinion they do on conflict and war​
​
a project deliberately blighted with bureaucracy, boundaries and barriers, the performance reflects on how society functions,
how events unfold, how the actions of the individual ripple out
100 years ago life for many in the West was developing even faster than today, ​
​
invention and innovation were creating opportunity, optimism and anticipation​
yet society was walking blindly towards a gathering storm, a storm nobody could ever have imagined...​
From ‘In Parenthesis’, by David Jones, sent to fight in France with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 1915
"We doubt the decency of our own inventions, and are certainly in terror of their possibilities. That our own culture has accelerated every line of advance into the territory of physical science is well appreciated-but not so well understood are the unforeseen, subsidiary effects of this achievement. We stroke cats, pluck flowers, tie ribands, assist at the manual act of religion, make some kind of love, write poems, paint pictures, are generally at one with that creaturely world inherited from our remote beginnings. Our perception of many things are heightened and clarified."
David Jones, (2010), In Parenthesis, Preface xiv, first published 1937, Faber & Faber, London
Photo: Bran Jones, Performer Duncan Menzies
