Ben Judd

Work

Ben Judd’s performances and videos examine his relationship to specific individuals and groups; recently the choreographic and the rhythmic has been used as a method of constructing temporary communities. The work explores how the ritualistic activities of marginalised groups and individuals can be extended into an action realised by actors (one that itself hovers on the border between immersion and a more self-conscious, knowing state), and how, in turn, this action can be interpreted in a moving image work. Positioning himself and the audience as both participant and observer, he engages the grey area between ritual and performance, searching for an unreachable and idealised state of community.

While on residency in Colombia in 2007, Judd formed his own group by fabricating the contradictory movement I Will Heal You, which took its beliefs from an eclectic range of sources. This work culminated in a performance in which he adopted the role of the movement’s leader. The accompanying video (see I Will Heal You) was constructed through his contact with a witch, a parapsychologist, a Scientologist and the sole member of a new religion, during which he attempted to believe, even on a temporary basis, in what he was being told or was being asked to do. Key phrases from Judd’s interactions with these people were used as lyrics for songs, which were included in the video, altering the viewers’ interpretation of the words from ordinary to prophetic, or vice versa.. In May 2007, Judd was interviewed by Miser & Now [1] magazine on the work he produced there:

In previous work my intervention has largely been enacted through a series of voice-overs that provoke an almost imagined level of intervention in terms of what is being seen. With this work I wanted to put myself directly into the work and to join these belief systems. I wanted to add dimension and I really enjoyed it. I think that I built up the idea of the movement so much, and had so many collaborators on board, that a performative outcome became inevitable. There was an amazing sense of build up prior to the opening night. More and more things were being made, the space was being transformed, and at that stage I knew that if I wanted this thing to be believable then the ultimate conclusion was wearing the outfits and becoming the work. The project culminated in inviting people to visit the movement. This became an effective way to express the contradiction and dual function that I wanted within the work. People were invited to join the movement but also warned that it was a sham and that they should stay away. The manifesto for the movement was contradictory throughout. It was read in English and Spanish, so everything fed into this idea of a duality. It created a rhythm that in some way echoed the techniques of repetition adopted by many of the individuals and groups that I had been involved with.

In May 2008 Judd invited two mediums to explore a gallery space with members of the public, which resulted in a seance and a demonstration of clairvoyance (see the video Presence at http://www.benjudd.com/). Judd has also videod himself at a class for clairvoyants, in which he stood up in front of the class and demonstrated his clairvoyant abilities (see the video Close To You). As with previous work, Judd is interested in challenging his preconceptions about a particular belief system; as an atheist and a skeptic he attempts to buy into an ideology and adopt the role of a believer. Judd genuinely participates in the activity yet is also aware of his position as an observer, and of how the act of videoing will recontextualise what is experienced.

In 2010 Judd contributed to the exhibition 14 Interventions at the Swedenborg Society, London. His performance and video Concerning the Difference Between the Delights of Pleasure and True Happiness, used performers embedded in the audience in a seance-like arrangement, reciting text from the Swedenborg’s prose in an increasingly ecstatic cycle of spoken and sung phrases. Swedenborg, a scientist who became a mystic, embodied the conflation of the empirical with the unknown or invisible. His (often outlandish) descriptions of his encounters with the spirit world are mediated through his earlier incarnation as a scientist. Otherworldly experiences, for example of a spirit existing in his foot, are therefore brought back down to the here and now, and are in turn physically relayed by the performers. Victorian magic lantern projections acted as ‘scientific’ metaphors for his encounters with the spirit world. The piece further explored the notion of the individual in relation to the group, and the ambiguity of whether the group offers freedom or conformity. [2]

In 2014 Judd was commissioned to produce a new live work for the Whitstable Biennale (Vast as the Dark of Night and as the Light of Day). This performance formed a temporary, and fragile, community out of the ten passengers on board a 19th-century Thames sailing barge. Centred below deck, performers used texts from several different literary sources that described the narrative arc of voyage and return. The structure of the performance suggested a trip away from, and back to a starting point (that mirrored the physical trip of the boat). Also below deck was a magic lantern projection which showed original Victorian slides that mirrored some of these concerns. Ideas to do with closeness and distance, the collective and the individual, were referenced, sometimes obliquely, in the images. [3]