Single-channel video: 21 minutes. Commission for "AFTERLUDE-PRELUDE : RESPONSES TO NAM JUNE PAIK"; National Gallery Singapore and SFMOMA, 2021.
Raisins in the Audience Dough: First Movement is a single-channel video made in collaboration with Melinda Lauw, and it is the first of a three-part project commissioned by National Gallery Singapore. Raisins in the Audience Dough: First Movement will be screened at AFTERLUDE-PRELUDE : RESPONSES TO NAM JUNE PAIK, a landmark webcast jointly organised by the National Gallery Singapore and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), that brings together unique contributions from over 20 artists around the globe, responding to and inspired by the legacy of Paik’s words and texts through performances, readings, and artistic interventions.
Referencing the shared artistic history of Paik and his long-time collaborator, Charlotte Moorman, Raisins in the Audience Dough sets out to redress art history’s sweeping dismissal of Moorman as a mere embodiment of Paik’s genius – his muse, a passive human prop. This project underscores Moorman’s creative agency through her distinctive and uninhibited reinvention of the scores she performed, her onstage audacity that fuelled Paik’s imagination, and her input as his active collaborator.
Raisins in the Audience Dough: First Movement draws directly from Moorman’s game willingness to try anything onstage, ingenuous eroticism, love of spectacle, as well as the sensibilities she shared with Paik such as their gleeful misuse of objects, irreverent wit, and an impish delight in absurdity.
Working from a specific shared “score” of Paik’s and Moorman’s materials, aesthetics, gestures, instruments, verbatim quotes, personal letters, phone answering machine messages, and performance recordings, Lynn (in London) and Melinda (in Singapore) each created a series of performances to camera. Their individual vignettes were then edited into a single-channel video, using Paik’s signature choppy juxtaposition of short video clips that function as visual poetry.
The video was directed, filmed, and edited by Ana de Matos, and Lynn’s performances to still camera were made in collaboration with Manuel Vason.
AFTERLUDE-PRELUDE : RESPONSES TO NAM JUNE PAIK artists include: Aki Onda (Mito, New York), Autumn Knight (New York), Ayumi Paul (Berlin), bani haykal (Singapore), Candice Breitz & Alex Fahl (Berlin), Chris Kallmyer and Zoe Aja Moore (Los Angeles), Christian Marclay, with performance by Elaine Mitchener (London), Geumhyung Jeong (Seoul), Lynn Lu (London, Singapore) and Melinda Lauw (Singapore), Michael Rauter (Berlin), Nam June Paik, with performers Hewen Ma (Shanghai) and Sophia (Shuhui) Zhou (San Francisco), Song-Ming Ang (Berlin, Singapore), Sue Kim and Jaehoon Kim with Diveline Ensemble (Seoul), Tad Ermitaño (Manila), Tini Aliman (Singapore), weish (Singapore), Yuen Chee Wai (Singapore).
Photo above: Walking on water (image co-created with Manuel Vason), 2021.
Lynn’s clear plastic gown was designed and fabricated by the nonpareil Annika-N.
* Special thanks to Steven Sharpe, Patrycja Stawicka, Abisia Stawicka, Leonora Fyfe, Darcey Girvan, and Kiki Lu-Sharpe.