Shane had asked me to participate in a performance of his, which involved cutting a large X on his back. I said yes. I got the script for it 2 days before the performance. I'd post part of the script but I don't know whether Shane would let me. The piece was called "Indoctrination" it was about signing over your life to forms and such. People [the audience] were not informed about it until we came out to clear the space.
At A Glance Author ConchyMcBleed Contact [email protected] IAM ConchyMcBleed When It just happened Artist Me Studio Grainery Lane Location Ballarat The techies sneered at us as we practiced in the afternoon, only practicing how to hoist Shane up. Unfortunately we couldn't get a block and tackle which would have quartered his weight. Instead we pulls the rope through 2 huge gauge rock climbing caribinas suspended from the rafters, which, incidentally took us ages to get to. The rigger had put them up there and not really expected us to want to get to them, or somesuch, and the scaff tower was being used by the arsehole techies, who didn't even help us find the huge ladder. So other Shane[Kerry} climbed up the ladder and threaded the rope through it. We got our rope up so that was the easy part done. Then the cool rock climbing dude called Tom rigged the knots around Shane's ankles. This proved quite painful because it was self tightening and it pushed the ankle bones together. So, me, Shane Kerry, Jay and Kat (we're known as the 'officials') pulled on the rope and not much happened, we got his legs off the ground, we increased our angle and with all four of us, we got him up to a fair height, then came to tying off. Tom rigged us a caribina to the rope and a little thing around one of the support poles so that we could clip two caribinas together to kept Shane at the desirable height.
Run-throughs aside, we got to a stage where we all knew what we were doing. We all went to Kat's and had tacos. Then we made out way back to Grainery Lane (the venue) and by this stage I'm getting really nervous, its not ever day you have to slash a great X in your boyfriend's back. This was my first performance with him and this is what he expected of me. We set up for Jesus Ate Something (our band) and went backstage to organise the rest of the props for the performance which were: a huge piece of rice paper, a black tarp, a monstrance (a bone with a golden sun on it), two long sticks and our masks. We were on after the first band. As that time drew nearer I spent my time pacing, headbanging, screaming and spending as much time with Shane as possible. I ended up crying into his beard because I was sick (and I still am) and scared. He kept reassuring me that I was wonderful and going to do fine. I had been drinking a lot of water and hyperventilating, he'd had one beer.
Now is the time. We were all dressed in black with white expressionless masks (see photo of Shane protesting) I was wearing one of Shane's skivvies. We walked out in a line, Shane had a white mask on and we all cleared the space of couches and tables and people. Some idiots on a couch wouldn't move so they got 4 faceless officials standing in front of them with their arms folded until they moved themselves and the couch. At this point Shane had retreated to backstage to change into no shirt and a black hood. Jay and I went to get him while Kat and ShaneKerry rolled out the black tarp. Jay walked in front of me and Shane, holding the monstrance out for people to see. I held Shane by the back of the neck and pushed him forward until we got to the middle of the tarp. People who had signed the disclaimer and indicated that they wanted to participate were ushered into a chalk square and held there by a menacing Kat. I pushed Shane down onto his back and ShaneKerry started to tie his feet. Jay and I went back to get the paper, which we placed, at one end of the tarp. Once Shane's feet were tied, we all, except Kat, grabbed the other end of the rope and pulled him up. Scott, Shane's idiot housemate, helped us, with 110 kilos of Scott at the end and not 75 kilos of me; there was no way we could drop him. So thus he hung. ShaneKerry was supposed to get the tray with the gloves and scalpels on it but he hadn't so Jay and I did. I grabbed my gloves and we out first, circling Shane as I put them on. As soon as Jay stopped moving with the tray I grabbed my scalpel. I'd pinched the tip of the blade so that it could only go in a few millimeters and stood behind Shane. At first I thought the cut hadn't done anything so I pushed a little harder and a split second later, the hairline mark I had made split and opened up. Blood came gushing out. Shane screamed. Later he revealed to me that after the first cut he wanted to tell us no more. But I continued, making the second cut a little shorter. Jay was kneeling under Shane cutting �>�w�� his knuckles; he got dripped on a bit. Then we rolled out the paper. Audience members were called out one at a time after ShaneKerry and Kat had demonstrated how push with the sticks and they too got a push. We went through about six people, Shane dripping blood everywhere, with a slow pendulum motion. Then after about 3 minutes at the most Jay put his hand up and we started to lower him down. Jay and ShaneKerry lowered him while Kat and I put out a white sheet for him to land on after we had removed the paper. As Shane came down we kept his legs elevated a bit because it hurt for them to come down and he screamed again. We wrapped him in the sheet and hauled him onto Jay's back. When Jay returned from dumping him backstage we took the paper back. I was to stay while everybody cleared the rest of the stuff up, with Shane to put Vaseline on the wounds to stop bleeding. I came into the room to see Shane running around saying, "lets go dance! I wanna sing! yeah!" he was so high on adrenaline. I told him to calm down and he got on his knees and took the sheet off. I wiped as much Vaseline on him as I could and wrapped him back up. Kat came in and said "to the hospital, now" I grabbed my glasses and we ran out. On the way out, people started to threaten Shane because he'd offended them so much. Someone behind me during the performance had said "this isn't entertainment" and it wasn't supposed to be. I felt like yelling at them.
When we got to the emergency ward, all the people waiting there stared at us, obviously. The triage nurse asked us what happened and we simply said, "we're theater people". Shane was taken into a room and we were left to pace in the foyer. Kat gave the people his details. I was let into the room about 10 minutes later. He was lying on his stomach with a rug over him and his hands up above his head wrapped in paper towel. He smiled when he saw me, I sat down next to him. We waited and talked for a long time until the doctor came. He said that Shane would need stitches, but that would take way too long, so they opted for staples. One of the doctors gave Shane a canister of Nitrous Oxide to suck on to numb the pain a bit, then they left. Shane got bored so he stared singing through the tube. Then the cleaning began, they took the rug off and put a bunch of gauze pads on Shane's back then poured an antiseptic the colour of urine on his back. This obviously hurt. Shane's hips went up and he twisted as they wiped the wounds clean. This took some time. When they'd finished, Shane had sucked the canister dry. Then came the staples. All 38 of them. The doctors seemed impressed that Shane wasn't too much vocal about the pain and that I wasn't at all squeamish. They stapled him back together and put betadine all over that, then covered that in pads of stuff and that second skin stuff they use to keep them on. Kat had come back at this point and we went to the toilets so Shane could clean his face. The hood had filled with blood so it was all over his face. I gave him the shirt of his that I was wearing, we grabbed our bag of "patents clothing" (which contained a bloody sheet and a black hood) and went back to Grainery.
There were needless to say, mixed reactions, you either loved it, or hated it and wanted to kill Shane. Some people were even more worried about me. I got a free drink and a lot of hugs. Shane spent most of his time talking to people, reassuring them he was okay and telling them the ideas behind the piece. Kat later told me that just as I was cutting him some ditzy blonde chick behind me exclaimed "OH MY GOD ITS A GIRL!" as if they didn't expect a girl to be able to do such a thing, let alone to her boyfriend, not that many people know that.
Since this piece, Shane has been threatened with physical violence and a lawsuit. Someone is rumoured to want to sue him for distress, even though there was a disclaimer. There has been much brew-haha about it and the whole town is talking. It makes you wonder why people react this way to reality. For a performance about a year ago Shane was beaten with sticks and set on fire. People cheered and egged the beating on. This seems a lot more violent than the cutting, and people cheered. It distressed me that people reacted this way towards something that was supposed to be visually and psychologically impacting, in a place that is supposed to be "fringe" and open minded. They could have talked about it, asked Shane about the meaning behind the piece, which, incidentally should have been in the program that was never printed, they could have acknowledged that it is performance art and it was his choice to be harmed. It is not a direct attack on them. This is definitely the end of "fringe" in Ballarat. People can't take it anymore.