part of Failure:Lab Vivid Ideas Festival 2016
Listen to recording: https://soundcloud.com/simone-sheridan/failurelab-sydney-somaya-langley
So let’s just get this out there – I’m a failed Sound Artist.
Actually, I’m a failed Sound Artist and
a failed Producer. The story I’m going to tell you is about creative collaboration
that spans two personal relationships; two collaborative partnerships. Two
stories that – at least in my mind – have
interwoven into one. One meta-failure.
To me, failure is about grief.
Many years ago I was deeply in love with and living with another artist.
The connection we had (at least from my perspective) was beyond intense. I
wanted absolutely to have it all, y’know
– be one of those “arts power couples”. We lived in Japan together for a bit and
then began working collaboratively on audiovisual projects. (But I was probably
pushing my desires for creative collaboration onto him.)
A couple of years into our relationship we’d pulled off two significant funding
opportunities – a major grant and a commission. Not bad for two
twenty-somethings.
An Australian media arts organisation, called Experimenta, had commissioned
us to produce an interactive audiovisual installation. It was about the sense of
isolation in large cities – a work we called “alone/apart”. (Should’ve given that name a bit more
thought.)
Things were a bit weird and one evening he came home and dumped my ass
with a 20-minute leaving speech - telling me that he was seeing someone else we
both knew. So, while I was packing up and moving out that very same night, he took her to his work Christmas party. You
can’t fault him on his efficiency.
Despite this deeply traumatising situation, I was so wedded to our
creative project, particularly the ideas in it – I refused to let it go.
Against everyone else’s better judgement – cause I clearly had no idea what I was thinking – I refused to
‘let go’ of the commission. I didn’t want him to take all the credit for the concept.
In order to for he and I to work together, the commissioning
organisation had to meet with us to organise a mediator. One hot late summer’s afternoon,
we met at the café with an Experimenta staff member, who had to mediate a
meeting between us in order to organise a mediator. (Have a think about that for a minute…)
With the mediator, we spent several months meeting each fortnight to
develop the project (again in a public space of course – as I
supposedly know all the tricks about deescalating difficult situations). The
process damaged me beyond belief.
Needless to say, the work wasn’t ‘excellent’. He wasn’t speaking to me (he’d
only speak via the mediator) and I was on the verge of tears the whole time
anyway. As a result alone/apart was never exhibited by Experimenta… or anyone
else. They still chose to pay us (though god knows why). The project was an utter
failure.
I never made audiovisual installations with anyone else ever again.
Somehow, the end of my relationship and creative partnership threw me
into a place where I found my voice, my creative voice.
I even performed a sound art piece on April Fool’s Day (which incidentally
would’ve been our 4-year anniversary) at a Sound Art event he and his new girlfriend
were running. (They were both visual artists.)
My performance ended with “well fuck you, and fuck your art”. If he was
no longer speaking to me, and I had things to say, then why not put them out
there, in front of 100 others.
For a while he, his new girlfriend and I all lived in the same small
city, and it was truly awful. I eventually threw myself into the world and
moved to Berlin (something that he and I had been planning to do together; we’d
even been going to German language evening classes).
Instead, I did it alone.
Berlin was both a personal and creative re-emergence for me. I had found
my home; the place where I truly belonged. I made new friends there – who are
now like family to me.
Two weeks before my visa ran out and I had to leave Berlin, I met my
second personal/creative soulmate. It was a different connection, but as I
found out years later – it was even more connected and intense. That’s another
story, however, and Hindsight’s a real
bitch.
I was even happier to connect with this new person because he wasn’t an artist.
He was a technician (a sound engineer) - so I was pretty relieved, actually. We
met working together on a Sound Art festival. He was the technical director, I
was his tech assistant. It was the burgeoning of another collaborative
partnership.
To me, this was my second chance.
As I’d lost so much in my first big breakup, it was a huge deal, a
MASSIVE fucking DEAL for me to introduce this new guy to my friends and my
creative networks. (And, I told him so.) Despite the risks, I took the leap and
offered him connections, networks and opportunities here in Australia.
As I no longer had a visa that enabled me to live in Berlin, nor did he have
one to live in Sydney, we straddled two countries, going backwards and forwards
– working together when we were geographically co-located and even when we were
apart.
Sometimes I was his tech assistant and, other times I ran the show, with
him working to me. (He definitely didn’t like that as much.)
The day after Valentines Day (he
knew I hated Hallmark occasions), he asked me to marry him… and started referring
to me as his fiancé (something I’d never experienced before… and haven’t since).
I sunk everything I had, my heart, my soul, my evenings and all my fucking finances
into being together – working towards an “intent to marry” visa.
(A visa that – should you need to
know – only lasts for 9 months. We started calling it the ‘knocked-up’
visa). In fact, this was a recommendation he’d been given by staff at the Australian
embassy in Berlin, should we want to expedite the process.
Incidentally – I’d busted an ankle around this time, just after running
a major festival. (My friends told me I
needed a break – but that’s not kind they meant.) With a major injury, I
wasn’t in a place to relocate back to Berlin until I’d sorted the ankle shit
out. Hence asking him to move here for a bit…
I turned down invitations to play gigs so that I could ‘spend time with
him’ when he was here in OZ. And – since
I had to stay here for a bit – I’d even sacrificed a paid career that I really
wanted, working as a part-time Producer at the ABC. In order to pull off his visa,
I needed a full-time job (the whole “eligible sponsor” thing for the Australian
Government). The only full-time job on offer was in the city I’d left behind
(with all those memories of my previous big bad ex). It was also in a different
field, outside of the arts. (So yeah, I
didn’t want to go back there.)
I told him that going back there was my Joker. My post-Armageddon
“Somaya is desperate for paid work to pay her rent (and in this case pay for a
visa)”… The one last card up my sleeve.
But I loved him so damn much, I threw that card down on the table. Hard.
I thought I was tough. I thought that – even though I didn’t want to go
back to that city (the one with the memories of the big bad ex) – I’d overcome difficult times alone overseas without income.
I had nothing to prepare me for what came next. Due to a workplace-bullying
situation in the new job, I wasn’t coping. And in turn, he couldn’t cope with
the depressive spiral I was rapidly sliding into. I was alone, in a city that I
deeply disliked, without friends, and in a terrible workplace situation.
I awoke one morning to an email that read, “don’t ever call me…” To this
day, we have never spoken again.
In case you need to know - it only takes 7 minutes to read an "I'm ending it" email… twice.
Germans: guillotiningly efficient.
Unlike the end of my first creative and personal partnership,
when my ass was dumped via email, I didn’t find my creative voice. And I still
haven’t.
Not only have I not built any creative working partnerships, I’ve not
been able to be creative at all. It’s like a massive four-year-long constipation.
The sacrifices I made for our relationship were immense and, as I’ve found out, not ones I’ve been
able to reverse.
Not only did I lose him, I lost our creative working partnership (something I don’t really have words to
express just how much I miss), and, no one has ever invited me to perform
or exhibit ever again.
I also lost my beloved Berlin (because – no more visa), I lost friends
(he made a grab for some of those), and I lost professional networks in the
arts. I also lost the career I’d wanted as a Producer. To this day, I’ve never
been able to land another producer or production manager role.
My failure – doing this damn shit twice.
I’ve always said it’s not the end of relationship that does the damage –
it’s how someone ends it and everything they do afterwards. I was lucky enough
to have found my second chance in Berlin, but it seems, there are some losses
that are too great to bear. The creative wind seems to have been completely
knocked out of me this time.
