Category: What is /a:t/?
As we were founding our group, we thought of a group that can be art in itself. A group which is more oriented towards the process of making art than the product itself. It is absolutely crucial to us how we interact with one another and in our group, enjoying the process is a must. Therefore, it is an artist-oriented group rather than audience-oriented, although you cannot usually tell for sure who is the audience and who is the artist. Our set of rules are set as such:
1. It is important to be on time. So we make money out of late-comers. For every quarter of an hour, you pay a fine;
2. It is easy to enter the group even easier to leave it, but quite hard, financially, to re-enter it once you have left. For each session you are absent, you pay a fine;
3. Each new member contributes a sum to group upon entrance;
4. The acceptance of every new member is dependent upon the approval of all previous members;
5. Ideas to be performed by the group are formed collectively. However, all the members of the group help to execute the ideas of every other member when the idea is worth it!
6. The main material of our performances are cardboards, wet glue labels, and people. Ideas most be translated into the determined material;
7. We love to design and build the space of our performances;
8. We do not limit ourselves to galleries or learned audience. We enjoy working for people. We would love to be looked upon and paid as workers;
9. Any regulations ratified in any session serves as law for those who have been absent;
10. An agelast can never be an avant-garde;
11. You should teach others to take seriously what is not serious;
12. Only that cuts a paper with scissors who has never held a cutter in his hand;
13. Any cut edge of a cardboard must be covered with wet glue label.
The following photo shows an original document sent by a cutartist to justify her absence:
/a:t/BrE
/a:t/BrE is how Britons pronounce art. It is the name of our performance art group when pronounced correctly. Other pronunciations are the names of other groups. We do not consider our perfromances ‘art’ in the proper sense. They are rather art in its improper sense of the word, hence the title /a:t/BrE.
Cutartist
Each member of the group is called a cutartist, for, we build our performance spaces by cutting and sticking together cardboards. Anybody pronouncing it fast will experience some kind of Aristotlian catharsis.
Performance Box
Our performances can be gallery-free, i.e. performed anywhere and even commissioned and tailored to a single audience. We sometimes build our portable galleries out of cardboard which we call performance box.
Structurls
Everything we build is a structurl–a churlish structure.
Partying Tools
Interactive objects made out of cardboard made for the enjoyment of a guest in a party. Most partying tools facilitate communication and interaction between two guests.
Millstone Ruff
The millstone ruff is a round collar made of pleated white linen. It was fashionable in Holland from the late 16th century to about 1625. They began small, but became increasing broad until finally resembling millstones. We wear paper ruffs due to its resemblance enlarged section of a cardboard.
Ejragostaran Moaser
Since we were gradually making money out of this non-commercial art known as performance, we thought of registering the first Iranian performance art company with limited responsibility. We chose a rather cheesy name for it, meaning ‘those who promote contemporary performance’. Company names in Iran need to be combined of three words and hence the combination, ‘Ejra Gostaran Moaser’.