Episode 1: THE END
[THE END]
Start as close to the end as possible.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr
[GREENROOM]
The first performance I will see at greenroom will also be my last.
It will also be everyone’s last.
It is Friday, 20 May, 2011 and a younger me is in a car with a younger Wes and we are driving to Manchester.
I remember the weather. The pale blue sky, the warm sun. I had recently graduated from an MA in Arts practice. I had yet to give up smoking. I was very optimistic about the future.
Optimistic despite the events that had happened two months previously.
On March 30, 2011 the Arts Council published the list of companies it would be supporting as National Portfolio Organisations for the next few years.
Another way of looking at it would be to say that they also published a list of the people they would not be supporting.
People like those at greenroom.
It was brutal.
2010 was the official start date of British Austerity. That short term measure that meant that ordinary people could help patch things up caused by the greed of bankers and politicians by sacrificing their freedoms and their culture.
That short term measure that is, thirteen years later, still driving policy and poverty like they are the same car.
Schools are crumbling, hospitals have queues, there are more food banks than McDonald’s, and the arts are being shredded on a regular basis, but at least there are some bankers who are not quite as poor now as they could have been.
On 30 March, 2011, we lost many arts organisations. Many people lost their jobs.
It’s hard to quantify the fallout, as in some cases companies limped on without funding, trying to make it work. Much fuss was made of the new companies that had received funding for the first time too. Maybe it was easier to take with a silver lining.
The Guardian recorded the figures as “110 newly funded groups and 206 casualties”
Casualties.
[THE END]
At 8pm on 20 May, 2011, the end started.
Specifically, ‘The End’ started.
It was a performance by Michael Pinchbeck and Ollie Smith.
Fittingly, for the last days of greenroom, here was a show about how to end a career. A show about a last performance.
The End was also about the start of something.
Michael described it a little like ourobouros. The snake that eats itself, an infinity.
The beginning is the end is the beginning.
[STRING THEORY]
String doesn’t have a beginning.
It has two ends.
The more you cut it, the more ends you have.
[CUTS]
It has been a constant feature of my time pretending to be an artist. The regular cycle of applications and cuts.
The “make more with less” attitude.
The, “Why should we fund the arts when we can’t even feed people”.
The, “The Arts brings in more money per pound of investment than any other industry in the UK”.
The, “It is with sad news that we announce… compelling application… Very proud of what we achieved… would like to thank… So long”.
In 2014 of the 58 to be let go, 43 were outside of London amid talk of ‘Leveling Up’ and ‘Geographical Spread’.
[EULOGY]
Following the recent disappointing news that greenroom is not part of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio for 2012/13 onward, the Board has made a decision that greenroom, Manchester, will close to the public at the end of May this year.
We would like to have continued but are unable to do this without confirmed funding or alternative income going forward.
greenroom, since its inception, has been at the forefront of discovering and pioneering Manchester, national and international ‘firsts’. We have been consistently committed to developing and presenting new and experimental performance, and more recently supporting and enabling artists at the start of their careers to be innovative, take risks and experiment with new ideas.
Our aim is to ensure that this important work continues through other organisations and individual artists/ artist companies, producers and promoters.
We are working with the Arts Council to provide information for people interested in the future production of this work and this will be available shortly on request by emailing enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk
It is with regret that we find ourselves in this situation almost 25 years since the venue opened, and would like to extend our thanks to all of you who have recently sent us words of support.
[EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR]
An end unseen.
At one point in ‘The End’ I think I remember Ollie Smith in a bear costume chasing Michael off stage. There’s something rather lovely about that. A demonstration of a younger performer ushering an older one out to make space.
As it happens, they have both continued to exist, to co-exist, in the arts rather happily since that point.
Sometimes you don’t need to kill something off so that something else can flourish. Sometimes it is not a case of either/or, but of having both.
Have cake and eat it.
But that fundamentally undermines the notion of austerity. You can’t have nice things like the arts and…
and what?
and hospitals?
and schools?
and living wages for the poorest of workers?
and massive corporations making record setting profits?
The truth is you never see the real end of things. You never miss what you don’t know exists. All of those artists and companies that never were or will never be. The ones that were but went before you arrived.
It’s all being chased away by a bear.
[BEAR MARKET]
A bear market is when a market experiences prolonged price declines. It typically describes a condition in which securities prices fall 20% or more from recent highs amid widespread pessimism and negative investor sentiment.
Bear markets also may accompany general economic downturns such as a recessions.
Money can be made in bear markets, lots of money, by short selling.
Short selling occurs when an investor borrows a security and sells it on the open market, planning to buy it back later for less money.
Short sellers bet on, and profit from, a drop in a security's price.
In other words, an economic downturn resulting in Austerity is great news.
[POST CREDIT]
The first one I can remember seeing is, “Ferris Bueller’s Day off”. The VHS copy we had rented was nearing its end. The credits were rolling. Some of us were already up on our feet, off to the kitchen.
‘Oh Yeah’ by the band Yello is playing.
And then…
“Are you still here?”
A confused Ferris stares out.
“it’s over”
He’s right, except we are still there and he is still there.
“Go home”
…we are at home… this might have worked better in the cinema. Still, it was novel and unexpected. It was my first encounter with a post credit sequence.
They are much more common now, to the point that a Marvel superhero film without one elicits disgruntled tuts from audiences that have sat through the credits of a hundred different visual effects houses.
But it’s an older tradition than that.
The earliest example credited with being a post credit sequence is the James Bond spy parody ‘The Silencers’ from 1966.
Many of these Bond films from the era would end with text saying, ‘James Bond Will Return in…’ before naming the next film. In this case the credits end and Dean Martin, as the protagonist Matt Helm is on a spinning bed, surrounded by women, as text announces the next film.
“Matt Helm Meets Lovey Kraveztt in Murderer’s Row”
Martin kisses two of the girls (one either side), places his head in his hands and says, ‘oh my god’.
Perhaps a better early example is from the wonderful, “Night of the Living Dead”, released in 1968.
This is an entire film about when death, the ultimate end, turns out to not be an end at all, which then turns out to be the end for a lot of people.
Following what can be charitably described as a downbeat ending, the credits roll.
And then, a fire is lit. A burning pyre. Is that a human shape amidst the wood and fabric? Is it still moving?
Is this the end, really?
[APOCALYPSE]
How do you think this is all going to end?
Tidal waves, climate collapse, killer virus, zombies?
The eventual heat death of the universe seemed pretty likely as the ultimate end up until recently.
In February 2023 several prominent physicists including the author Julian Barbour, proposed that the theory of heat death is the result of a misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics.
The new idea is that entropy can increase alongside order. In short, things can get spontaneously more complex.
You can never be guaranteed an ending, it appears.
…Except your own. Cryogenic freezing aside, it is fairly certain that your own ending is approaching. Your own personal apocalypse. Tailor-made, bespoke Armageddon.
But that’s not the end either. The story continues without you as an audience member, as if you just got up and walked out. You didn’t wait until the end of the show. You didn’t see any post credit scenes.
Perhaps you’ll bump into some over-eager universal employee on the way out, thrusting a side of A4 into your spectral hands, asking you to fill out a feedback survey.
[2012]
The Y2K bug was caused by short-sighted hardware and software manufacturers. They didn’t expect people to be using their products that long.
Why bother using a calendar that goes as high as 2000?
But people were still using their products. People in charge of air traffic and nuclear power stations, that sort of thing. People using it in contexts where the date clicking over and going all the way back to 1900 could, in theory be catastrophic.
Planes could fall out of the sky, medical equipment could fail, power stations could shut down.
These manufacturers were just making the same mistake that the Olmec made though.
The Olmec were probably responsible for the Mayan Long Count Calendar. An amazing work of mathematics and astrology that incorporates 144,000 days into a 20 Kʼatun, or cycles.
They did this back somewhere between 1600 and 400BCE.
However, despite this, the Olmec were unable to predict that some 2000 years later humans would take their work out of context and create a fabulous Armageddon story from it.
The Olmec calendar marks 2012 as the end of one of the K’atun, and a beginning for a new era. Possibly a cause for celebration much like New Years Eve. This was misinterpreted, perhaps willfully, as a marker for the end of the world.
Most of these predictions involved astronomical events and catastrophes. Almost none of them mentioned the fact that the Olmec frequently mentioned dates and events that would continue far past this date.
Obviously, the world did not end. You and I are here right now, and despite the total ruin we sit in, things are pretty much non-ended. However, one catastrophe did occur. They made a disaster film called, ‘2012’.
I’ll spare you an in-depth review, but it features very good looking Americans being saved from a great flood caused by a new type of Sun-excreted nutrino heating up the earth. Their world doesn’t end either. It just has all the poor people removed from it.
Strangely, there is no post credit scene.
[POEM]
I felt the panic rising at the back of my throat first. My father has only ever really made one artistic request of me, to make sure I read a specific poem at his funeral.
The panic.
I realised I had forgotten which poem.
We talk about funerals all the time. A large family encounters them frequently and each one is different. Some are somber, others are oddly joyous. We’ve stood at funerals with just a few of us gathered and we’ve stood there as a massive gang.
Burials, cremations… and the wakes too.
And inevitably we get to talking. How would you like to go out? Would you like music, would you like some words said?
My father said he doesn’t care much for the process. “I’m not going to be there”, he says, “You should do something that means something to you”.
But after a while he asks that the poem is read.
In my head, it goes like this.
I hand out small white paper bags containing pear drops. They are passed along and everyone takes one and pops it into their mouth.
As they do so I read the poem.
At the end I mention that, for then on, this poem is my contact with my father. The bit that remains. That and the smell of peardrops.
I explain that as a child I would know that he had returned from work because I could smell it in the kitchen. I know now that it wasn’t peardrops but the smell of the industrial solvent acetone. That smell never fails to remind me of him.
That and the poem. And I’ve forgotten the poem.
I send him a text.
“What’s that poem, the one you want us to read when you die?”
His response, “Do you know something I don’t?”
It is Crossing The Bar, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. That’s the poem, and by my father’s request the end of his life shall be marked by a performative act.
[LAST SONGS]
Did you know that the Co-op funeral service has a spotify playlist of the top ten most popular songs requested for funerals in the UK? Here is there 2023 list:
Supermarket Flowers — Ed Sheeran (Non-mover)
Wind Beneath My Wings — Bette Midler (Non-mover)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow — Eva Cassidy (Non-mover)
Dancing In The Sky — Dani and Lizzy (Up 1 place)
Angels — Robbie Williams (Up 3 places)
Simply The Best — Tina Turner (Non-mover)
You Raise Me Up — Westlife (Down 5 places)
Dancing Queen — ABBA (Down 5 places)
Flying Without Wings — Westlife (Non-mover)
Angel — Sarah McLachlan (New entry)
Just outside of the top ten you will also find ‘Soul Limbo’ by Booker T and the MGs. A funny enough title for a funeral song, but more so when you recognise the tune.
[CROSSING THE BAR]
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.— Alfred Lord Tennyson
[MUSIC]
Reports of the death of the compact disc appear to be somewhat exaggerated, and, for the first time in over two decades, sales of CDs are on the rise.
Around 50 million CDs were sold in the US in 2022.
Audiophiles, the sort of people that listen to music whilst sat in comfortable chairs wearing large headphones and definitely not looking at their phone, declare that CD is still the most faithful format to listen to music on.
Vinyl may be warm, and somewhat human in its physical accessibility, but the pops and crackles are not entirely what the artist was intending, and streaming services are compressed tracks produced for loudness over dynamic range.
If it is quality and clarity you are after, it appears CDs are for you.
However, another reason for the resurgence is probably an interest in retro tech powered by youtubers raiding their parent’s record collections.
Of course you can make your own mix CDs too. Some of you may remember foot wells of the passenger side of the car strewn with those CD folders containing mixes for specific journeys or types of trip.
Can you remember when you last used a CD?
Can you remember when you last burned one?
I bet people still have theirs… the ones you made for them.
The art of the mix CD, much like the art of the mixtape was all about flow and message. You couldn’t just put random songs together, no matter how good. The order mattered.
That’s something that streaming seems to care less about. The order.
The first track is obviously important. It’s a statement of intent. Think of your favourite albums and how they open. That first sound.
But equally important is the last thing you hear. The last track of your mix. It is the thing that lingers after it has finished. It was what you are left with after the end.
Or maybe, the end isn’t the end. The album finishes, but then leverages a unique property of the compact disc.
Endless black tracks whizz by.
And then, the real end. The hidden track at 99. The audio equivalent of a post credit scene.
The end after the end.
[THE BEGINNING IS THE END IS THE BEGINNING]
It was a time of musical scrabble scores.
U2 set the pace for Batman Forever with their long-titled track, ‘Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me’. That was the same Batman that gave us Seal’s, “Kiss From A Rose”.
The Smashing Pumpkins followed that up with, “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” for the ill-fated Batman & Robin.
Perhaps the Pumpkins were on to something though. Batman & Robin really was an end. It was an end for a revival that followed on from Tim Burton’s original 1989 Batman and had lasted throughout the 90s.
There was another film planned. In pre-production, apparently. It was cancelled after the awful reception of the campy, technicolor Batman & Robin.
But it wasn’t the end of The Batman. It wasn’t even the beginning of the end.
A decade later and Christopher Nolan would restart the franchise.
So technically, a better song would be called, “The Middle is The Middle is The Middle”.
Interestingly, in 2013, some time after showing ‘The End’, Michael Pinchbeck would return with a show called, ‘The Middle’.
[MONUMENT]
I’m not too bothered about the music. I mean, I’d like jazz, but I’m aware that many of you have an aversion to it.
You are, of course, wrong, but I won’t be winning this argument on account of my death.
The living lift the arm and drop the needle.
They press play on the Kenwood CD player.
However, I do have specific instructions for my body.
I’d like it to become a monument.
I would like my carcass to be encased in a rectangle of concrete that measures around 1m x 1m x 2m. I think I should fit into that, but please feel free to add a little more if it is required.
I would like to be orientated with my feet towards the ground and upright.
My last request is not performative, so much as it is sculptural.
[ENDLESS]
The website is still there. It’s a single page. Static. A digital monument.
https://www.greenroomarts.org/
The calendar is stuck at 2011.
But nothing is lost. The internet archive hosts two snapshots from 2011.
It is trapped in amber. It is preserved.
The Way back Machine greenroom
There were podcasts and behind the scenes footage as part of something called greenroom On Demand.
There is also a post-shut-down snapshot that directs people to the legacy site of greenroom UTD. A site that lists the people behind the building, the organisation and the performances.
However, that is, sadly, long gone.
[FIN]
The text has crawled up the screen.
We are still here.
Waiting.
Like a modern form of Prometheus.
We’ve been here before, and we will be here again.
It is an end, but it isn’t the last end.
[START]
Now that we have finished, now that we have made it to the end, let’s begin.
[POST CREDITS]
Stay tuned for the next episode of Modernist Punk, where we return with…
LIVE ART CLICHES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM
