Participating artists:
!WOWOW!, David Burrows and Simon O’Sullivan, Aaron Barschak and Mark McGowan

Saturday 31 March
Various locations between 4pm and 7pm
David Burrows and Simon O’Sullivan
Plastique Fantastique Ribbon Dance featuring Aryapala as ‘Plastique-Hare’, David Burrows as ‘Staabucks Metrosexual’/ ‘Ghawkin’, Simon O'asullivan as ‘Fox-Owl’ Andrew Hunt as ‘Refusey Worky’, Alex Marzeta as ‘(Borromean) Knot-Head’, Cherry McCloughlin as ‘Clown-Sack-Head’, Vanessa Page as ‘Ribbon-Weave-Head’, Robyn Payne as ‘Glitter-Crow’, and samudradaka as ‘Ribbon-Head’. The ritual will begin with a torch-lit procession through the city to Victoria Square, continue along New Street, and end at the launch party at Curzon Street Station (address below) at approximately 7 pm with a ribbon ritual to make a Pre-Industrial Modern—the figure of the Ghawkin crying.

Saturday 31 March
Various locations between 8am and 8pm
Mark McGowan and Aaron Barschak
A durational performance that will proceed to various locations in central Birmingham throughout the day, arriving finally at the launch party at Curzon Street Station (address below) at approximately 8pm.

Saturday 31 March
Between 6pm and 9pm
!WOWOW!
The group will provide a wide variety of high-energy performances at the launch party.

The focal point for this part of ‘The Event’ will be a three-hour performance at the launch party by !WOWOW!—a collective that numbers around fifty members in total, and is known for its members’ love of glitter and day-glow material. As an interventionist group that often reclaims disused or derelict sites to perpetrate acts of creativity, the group has functioned as a multidisciplinary venture renowned for its focus on the spectacular. Noted for its roots in Pagan, Medieval, and post-druidic mythology, juxtaposed with a multi-age, multi-ethnic take on popular youth culture, there seems to be little hierarchy in the group. Each member offers what they can to realise projects and opportunities. The group will arrive in Birmingham on Saturday 31 March 2007 and assemble en masse at the pre-arranged venue in Curzon Street Station to perform a series of fantastic and bizarre actions. In one respect the members of !WOWOW! could be the same ‘un-generated’ characters that inhabit the parallel world of David Burrows and Simon O’Sullivan’s ‘Plastique Fantastique’. Burrows and O’Sullivan will create a procession through New Street and other locations in central Birmingham. The artists’ march will operate in a similar manner to that of a séance, and as well as making a number of small assemblages or shrines that will serve to call forth the presence of what they term ‘the Pre-Industrial Moderns’ at planned stops on their route, other monuments will be used as a maypoles, and the action of ‘wrapping’, ‘untying’ and ‘retying’ will be repeated at the launch in the centre of the room, once the artists and their horde of unruly followers reach the party. Meanwhile Aaron Barschak and Mark McGowan—who, with reference to his recent Birmingham action Dead Soldier (2006), has been described by Will Self in the March 2007 issue of GQ magazine as ‘the pre-eminent performance artist working in Britain today’ —will slowly make their way to the launch party. The duo have teamed up to create a ‘surprise’ endurance performance for ‘The Event’, which will start at around 8am in the morning and continue throughout the rest of the opening day. Barschak and McGowan will arrive at the party at approximately 8pm (which by then, will already be in full flow) to join in the festivities with !WOWOW!, Burrows and O’Sullivan, and the rest of the launch’s visitors.

Curzon Street Station
Curzon Street, Digbeth
Birmingham B4 7XG
(opposite Millennium Point)

The artist Mark McGowan and the notorious Aaron Barschak, the comedy terrorist, are coming to Birmingham to perform an extraordinary event in Birmingham City Centre.

Aaron Barschak came to public attention on 21 June 2003 when he gate crashed Prince William’s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle whilst wearing a pink dress, a false beard and a turban in a fashion similar to Osama bin Laden.

Mark McGowan is a UK-based artist who has entered the news a number of times for his unconventional approach to public protest and demonstration. He recently ate a swan, pushed a monkey nut with his nose and left a tap running for one month in a gallery, in an attempt to highlight water wastage.

www.internationalprojectspace.org
info(at)internationalprojectspace.org

Title of ritual/performance: The Plastique Fantastique

Ribbon Dance to call forth the Pre-Industrial Moderns:
1 Untie retie.
2 Call forth the pre-industrial moderns.
3 Make the Ghawkin.

The ritual has ten protocols:

1. Each performer dons a mask to become an avatar (a figure that embodies an idea/concept/attitude). Masks will be made for some of the following: Ribbon Head, Fox-Owl, Plastique Parasite, Staabucks Fukkee, (Borromean) Knot Head, Disco Harvest Festival Head, Crystal Head, Plastique Weaver, Traitor Prophet, Plastique Hare. One person will be chosen, then blind-folded and bound (arms will be tied), a rope will be tied around the neck with a lead, a sign will be hung around the neck of the figure reading, ‘Metrosexual-smoothbody-logohead’.

2. A slow march to a drum beat to Gormley sculpture.

3. Tie ribbons around the Anthony Gormley public sculpture in Victoria Square to make a rustic cock ring.

4. Fox-Owl reads out sixth ‘Plastique Fantastique Communique: We the ungenerated remain ungenerated, Do theyz owe uz a living, course they fucking duz!’ Every time Fox-Owl asks, ‘Do theyz owe uz a living?’, the masked figures will shout, ‘Course theyz duz, course theyz fucking duz’’

5. Glow sticks are ‘lit’ for the glow stick/torch light procession to the launch venue from the Gormley sculpture. The procession chants ‘The Ghawkin, the Ghawkin, is in your blood, mix with glitter and mud. The Ghawkin, the Ghawkin is in your blood, bleed, bleed, bleed The Ghawkin. The Ghawkin is in your blood, bleed, the Ghawkin.’

And other chants.

6. Arrive at the launch venue still chanting.

7. Candles and incense are lit, Metrosexual stands on felt mat and has honey poured on her/his head, then glitter and/or straw is sprinkled on the figure. Fox-Owl reads out the seventh Plastique Fantastique Communique: ‘What is a Pre-Industrial Modern? The Ghawkin must be made!’

8. The Metrosexual has the blind-fold removed but is then bound in ribbon. Fox-Owl asks ‘Who has the Ghawkin’s ears?’, the ears are produced and taped or tied on to the metrosexual. Fox-Owl asks, ‘Who has the Ghawkin’s cock,’ and then ‘Who has the Ghawkin’s eyes, cunt, arm, (only one arm with a scythe on the end)’. There is much laughter at Fox-Owl when he asks, ‘Who has the Ghawkin’s nostrils?’—as everyone knows the Ghawkin doesn’t have a nose. The Ghawkin is made.

9. The Ghawkin reads out the eighth Plastique Fantastique Communiqué: ‘Message to the good people of Middle England, (the Ghawkin demands a sacrifice), general public declare that you do not exist, ungenerate yourselves, untie yourselves!’

10. Masks are removed and all lie down as if dead.