Unword (with Ian Breakwell)

"Based on performances by Ian Breakwell which took place in London, Bristol and Swansea, Unword is an amalgam of text, performance, sculpture, sound and projection. The series of Unword mixed-media performances during 1969-70 incorporated the simultaneous projections and visual recording of each event as part of the performance by Mike Leggett. The subsequently processed film footage would become part of the multi-projection elements of the next Unword performance, which would also be filmed, processed, and then projected in the next performance, and so on. The projection of the footage was on a Spectro stop frame analysis projector, (a scientific examination tool), running at 2 frames per second. The scarcity of such projectors meant that the Unword stop frame film which Mike Leggett edited after the end of the series of performances, could only occasionally be shown together with a soundtrack on tape compiled from the original tapes of language lessons and eyesight tests plus voice-over narrations by Ian Breakwell used in the original Unword performances."

In 2003 Mike Leggett and Ian Breakwell digitally reconstructed the Unword film as a video installation. Collection of the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds and Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London - see catalogue essay (2006) by Victoria Worsley in left column.

In 2010 a questionnaire devised by Breakwell in 1970 was located, together with my responses to aspects of the collaboration, its production and reflections upon its affect.