Unsculpt

Unsculpt was a performance collaboration between sculptor John Hilliard and artist Ian Breakwell in February 1970. It took place at the New London Arts Lab, home of the Institute for Research in Art & Technology (IRAT) in Euston, London, the successor to the Drury Lane Arts Lab. The video was made in 2007 from the fragments of film, photographs and sound recorded at the time, by filmmaker Mike Leggett, a collaborator with Breakwell on several projects incorporating film, photography, sound and the new media of the time, video. The period marked shifts in the three artists practice away from established art forms towards outcomes that anticipated greater audience participation in influencing the nature of the art experience. M.L. (2010)
Digitally reconstructed by Mike Leggett (2007) with John Hilliard, from b&w 16mm, photographs and sound, including voice-recordings by John Hilliard and Ian Breakwell. Based on the Unsculpt performance at the London New Arts Laboratory, Robert Street, Euston, Breakwell describes the event and the process of collaboration between the two artists. Large paper sheets with the word Unsculpt are draped over Hilliard’s traditional sculptural forms, before they are destroyed. The whole performance is recorded to video and played back to the audience at the end. In the following weeks, each artist installs temporary artworks in the gallery that respond to its architectural features, before being dismantled and removed.
See more in Papers: Liveness, Performance and the Permanent Frame; also at Projects / Unword.