WINNERS & LOSERS
4 - 27 April 2008
Nicola Atkinson Does Fly
& Hanna Tuulikki
The starting point for WINNERS & LOSERS is the Drumchapel Table Tennis Club where Nicola and Hanna spent a week as artists in residence. The club is one of the biggest in Scotland with over 300 members actively playing table tennis every week. During their stay, they became acutely aware of the ways in which public art and sport often share a similar role within areas of regeneration. The work seeks to explore ideas of performance in new territories. A set of hand painted t-shirts form part of two performances where players battle it out in separate games across the city. The experience of the matches will be augmented by a live mix of sounds sourced from the movement of the balls and the players’ preferred music to practice with. The performances will also feature Glasgow based drummer Shane Connolly. The work is about collaboration and competitiveness in a dialogue of sport and music.
This artwork was part of the DIY SHOW
Nicola & Hanna presened a short Video DON’T STOP and discuss
the process at the Drumchapel Community Centre, Glasgow, Friday
4 April.@ 7pm.
Two locations and dates:-The first match took place at The Drumchapel
Community Centre at 1pm, Friday 11April and the second at The DIY
Show, 261 High St Glasgow at 2pm, Saturday 12 April.
I’m thinking about what Gordon Brown must
have felt while watching table tennis with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
in Beijing, in January of this year. I think, as is customary, the
British player lost the match and Mr Brown gave the crowd one of
his infamous homemade, heart-warming smiles, the type which could
easily be mistaken for a grimace. Here in Drumchapel’s impressively
bright community centre, an altogether different game of table tennis
is being played out with (to my untrained eye) the speed of an Olympic
match. And while there are no political commentators to be mindful
of, this game is even more carefully choreographed than the meeting
of the two world leaders.
As the sound of the ball’s bounce echoes against the stage
backdrop (exaggerated playfully with the positioning of huge microphones
under the table), it becomes apparent this is more of a dance than
a grudge match. The drumming in the background alerts the spectator
to the already inherent sense of a rhythm, to the thread of a narrative
being played out. What began with a dramatic drum-roll heralding
the start of the performance settles into a cyclical pattern and
then builds again towards something of a crescendo at the end.
This aptly named performance, Winners and Losers turns the age-old
adage that sport is about winning in a competitive setting, on its
head. It is a dialogue between two players in which the usual context
of winning has been removed. As orange balls collect around the
feet of the two nimble players, the most compelling desire is to
see them keep the game in play and it is hard to resist the urge
to step forward as a ball girl. Interestingly, though it is also
difficult to remove the desire for a slightly stronger narrative
in the absence of the usual satisfaction of seeing one man prevail
against another.
The fact that these two men are playing to a pre-rehearsed musical
score is not explained until the end when Nicola Atkinson Does Fly
and Hanna Tuulikki explain how the project developed as artists
in residence at the Drumchapel table tennis club. Unusually, there
is no sense of being cheated or duped. Instead the pattern and sounds
fall into place, as if someone had just handed over the synopsis
to an un-translated Italian opera
.
Whether removing the element of competition is an idea likely to
impress Mr Brown, Winners and Losers endures as a mesmerizing piece
of performance and striking way of, perhaps, engaging more people
in sport and art.
Lucy Adams, 12 April 2008
Nicola
Atkinson Does Fly 
