The piece involved me learning to ride a unicycle over a period of five working days adhering to a strict schedule allowing for a 15 minute morning and afternoon tea break and a 30 minute lunch break. I clocked in and out at 9 am and 5 pm and for each break. These times were recorded on a time sheet. At the end of each day I filled out a performance evaluation sheet where by my performance was assessed against ten “Key Performance Indicators”. The performance took place at Sydney College of the Arts. The documentation consists of forty hours (eight hours per day) of continuous video footage, physical remnants and photographs.
The piece grows conceptually from the inherent absurdity of the unicycle. As a vehicle it is useless, it constitutes only an entertainment value; a circus trick. Therefore the tortuous nature of the skill acquisition heightens the aforementioned absurdity. The imposition of the time structure of the working day begins to imply a meaninglessness to a life of full time work. The working day of the performance is tortuously repetitive. The sensory deprivation provoked extreme psychological responses such as hallucination. In the end I didn’t learn to ride the unicycle, the stress of the situation and the inability to concentrate prevented moving beyond a certain proficiency.
The piece grows conceptually from the inherent absurdity of the unicycle. As a vehicle it is useless, it constitutes only an entertainment value; a circus trick. Therefore the tortuous nature of the skill acquisition heightens the aforementioned absurdity. The imposition of the time structure of the working day begins to imply a meaninglessness to a life of full time work. The working day of the performance is tortuously repetitive. The sensory deprivation provoked extreme psychological responses such as hallucination. In the end I didn’t learn to ride the unicycle, the stress of the situation and the inability to concentrate prevented moving beyond a certain proficiency.
