Clive Robertson
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Country of Birth: United Kingdom
Province of Birth: Devon
Year of Birth: 1946
City: Kingston
Country: Canada
Type of Creator: Artist, Curator, Writer
Gender: Male
Mediums: critique, curation, media, performance, text-based
Add to List
Work by Clive Robertson
12,13,8,11
Work ID: 67989
Description: University of Reading, England, 1970.
Multimedia event based upon Apollo space missions using in-house NASA training films, Super 8 films, slides, give-away sound recordings, and Martin Gardiner's numerologies of Apollo 11 and 12. Also performed at Cardiff, Newport and Portsmouth Colleges of Art.
Collection:
Date Made: 1970
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Conversation Piece
Work ID: 67992
Description: Corrugated Products Ltd., Bracknell, England, 1971.
Performance constructed while working on a 12-hour night shift factory job.
Collection:
Date Made: 1971
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Partial Composition
Work ID: 67993
Description: University of Reading, England, 1971
Audio performance (with Graham Challifour) Signal generator tones were recorded onto audiotape. Playback characteristics were permutated using mathematical group tables read through a handmade Plexiglas score-reading conveyor belt.
Collection:
Date Made: 1971
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Light and Sound Increase
Work ID: 67990
Description: University of Reading, England, 1971.
Installation work. Slide format photos and audio recordings of 'dawn' intervals were projected and played back at 'dusk.'
Collection:
Date Made: 1971
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Air to Earth
Work ID: 67991
Description: Compton Abbes, Dorset, England, 1971.
Parachute jump component of investigation of eye and heart rate functions while falling (as in skydiving).
Collection:
Date Made: 1971
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The Bat Becomes a Real Flyer
Work ID: 67994
Description: 1st World Festival of W.O.R.K.S., Calgary, 1972.
Partial performance written for voices, signal generators, steel bells, cello, piano, toy instruments. Composition tuned to steel bell. (Performed with Su Clancy, Paul Woodrow and Eric Doolittle).
Collection:
Date Made: 1972
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Weather Music
Work ID: 67995
Description: CATV, Calgary, 1972.
Event score interpretation of live weather information provided on cable TV channel. Performers included Paul Woodrow, Judith Woodrow and Su Clancy.
Collection:
Date Made: 1972
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Identity Transfer Events (with Su Clancy)
Work ID: 67996
Description: Fluxshoe, Hastings, England, 1973.
Actions with summer tourists in Hastings during inter-generational traveling UK Fluxus festival organized by David Mayor and Felipe Ehrenberg (Beau Geste Press).
Collection:
Date Made: 1973
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Isolation Event (with Rick Holyoke)
Work ID: 67997
Description: University of Calgary Gallery, Calgary, 1973.
Part of W.O.R.K.S. performance/exhibition on the white cube. Rick Holyoke and myself locked ourselves in the gallery overnight for an action with the lights on and no speaking allowed.
Collection:
Date Made: 1973
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
W.O.R.K.S. Plays Cricket
Work ID: 67998
Description: Body Art, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, 1975
A performance and a set of postcards using sports analogies to describe the player interactions in the field of art.
Collection:
Date Made: 1975
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The Sculptured Politics of Joseph Beuys
Work ID: 67999
Description: Parachute Center for Cultural Affairs, Calgary, 1975.
21 hour performance that investigated aspects of Joseph Beuys' actions ending with a public re-enactment of his work How to Explain Pictures To A Dead Hare (1965).
Collection:
Date Made: 1975
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
In Video Traction
Work ID: 68000
Description: Véhicule Art Inc., Montréal, 1976.
Performance doctor's waiting and examination room installation performed with Marcella Bienvenue. Premiered at the Parachute Center, Calgary and presented at the Western Front, Vancouver; A Space, Toronto; and Véhicule Art, Montréal.
Collection:
Date Made: 1976
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
In Video Traction
Work ID: 68001
Description: Western Front, 1976.
Performance doctor's waiting and examination room installation performed with Marcella Bienvenue. Premiered at the Parachute Center, Calgary and presented at the Western Front, Vancouver; A Space, Toronto; and Véhicule Art, Montréal.
Collection:
Date Made: 1976
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Death of Television as Entertainment
Work ID: 68002
Description: Arton's, Calgary, 1977.
In Video Traction was made into a medi-electronics facility fiction videotape with the Death of Television performance as it's ending. Performance borrowed an audience - who pay respects to the death of television - following an evening's readings by poets, Steve MacCaffery and Opal L. Nations. MacCaffery and Nations read the (solid) state funeral voiceover live. This is one of a few pieces with a misleading title. Its reference is to the displacement of the TV set by the computer monitor.
Collection:
Date Made: 1977
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Explaining Pictures to Dead Air
Work ID: 68003
Description: Fifth Network, Toronto, 1978.
Performance that asks the question: Would network news be any different if it was read by Joseph Beuys? Performance ends with a pre-recorded conversation between myself and Beuys on the topic of artists using television. Performance written specifically for this national conference on independent video production.
Collection:
Date Made: 1978
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Eight Hours (with John Greyson and Michael Banger)
Work ID: 68004
Description: industrial space, Toronto, 1980.
My section of this suite of three simultaneous performances was a performance installation that simulates a light-industrial factory production line alluding to some common characteristics of drudgery shared by aspects of art and factory production.
Collection:
Date Made: 1980
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The Intervenors/Einschreiten (with Janet Martin)
Work ID: 68005
Description: O Kanada, Kunst Academie, Berlin, 1982.
A commissioned video performance wherein Janet Martin and I reconstruct some representational gaps in the federal cultural policy review hearings of 1981. (The Applebaum-Hébert Report) Performance ends with the song, O Kanada released as a 7 vinyl single.
Collection:
Date Made: 1982
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Brian and the Beanstalk
Work ID: 68009
Description: A Space, Toronto, 1985.
A pantomime performance about the relationship between Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan. The mostly silent performance plays out against a long rap song of the same name that determines its length. Also performed at Plug In, Winnipeg and for the Audio Arts Festival in Halifax.
Collection:
Date Made: 1985
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Brian and the Beanstalk
Work ID: 68008
Description: A Space, Toronto, 1985.
A pantomime performance about the relationship between Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan. The mostly silent performance plays out against a long rap song of the same name that determines its length. Also performed at Plug In, Winnipeg and for the Audio Arts Festival in Halifax.
Collection:
Date Made: 1985
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The Ganser Syndrome (with Alan Robertson, Frances Leeming, Johanna Householder, Luther Hansraj, Ric Amis)
Work ID: 68010
Description: A Space, Toronto, 1987.
A theatrical performance directed by Angelo Pedari with scenes about artists living conditions written by myself, scenes borrowed from Ronald Harwood's play, The Dresser, and a performance within a performance written and performed by Frances Leeming and Johanna Householder.
Collection:
Date Made: 1987
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The Ganser Syndrome, Artists Oath
Work ID: 68011
Description: A Space, Toronto, 1987.
A theatrical performance directed by Angelo Pedari with scenes about artists living conditions written by myself, scenes borrowed from Ronald Harwood's play, The Dresser, and a performance within a performance written and performed by Frances Leeming and Johanna Householder.
Collection:
Date Made: 1987
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Sinking of the Gigantic (with Frances Leeming)
Work ID: 68012
Description: Galerie SAW Video, 1989.
A performance constructed from watching a season of television programs including Masterpiece Theatre, together with scenes from The Petrified Forest (1936) a movie (starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart) about a waitress wanting to go study art in France. Ensemble cast included Karen Jackson and Richard Schacter. A portable theatre was constructed (by Mike Hewko) for this work that was also presented at YYZ, Toronto and Obscure, Québec City).
Collection:
Date Made: 1989
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
In a Drunken Stupor (Polish Version)
Work ID: 68006
Description: Interscop Festival, Cracow and Warsaw, 1990.
This solo performance about domestic violence and war was premiered in 1983 for Syntax, Calgary and widely performed across the artist-run centre network between 1983-85. The performance has a backing track of read texts, SFX and music ending with the song, What Can A Man Say? The texts are read by Janet Martin, Lisa Steele, Lisa Wyndels, Carole Conde, Joyce Mason and Lillian Allen.
Collection:
Date Made: 1990
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
In a Drunken Stupor (Polish Version)
Work ID: 68007
Description: Interscop Festival, Cracow and Warsaw, 1990.
This solo performance about domestic violence and war was premiered in 1983 for Syntax, Calgary and widely performed across the artist-run centre network between 1983-85. The performance has a backing track of read texts, SFX and music ending with the song, What Can A Man Say? The texts are read by Janet Martin, Lisa Steele, Lisa Wyndels, Carole Conde, Joyce Mason and Lillian Allen.
Collection:
Date Made: 1990
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Taschibosen – The Bridge
Work ID: 68013
Description: Scorpio Performance Festival, Tajima, Japan, 1991.
A performance about cultural tourism stereotypes exchanged between Canada and Japan.
Collection:
Date Made: 1991
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Le ptit train du Nord
Work ID: 68014
Description: La Gare, L'Annonciation, Québec, 1993.
Performance in a converted train station on an abandoned rail line featuring portions of cooked venison stew for the audience.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Talking Archive – The Confessional (12 hour performance)
Work ID: 68016
Description: Time, Time, Time at Art Metropole, 1999. A Fado series work that takes place in a tool shed confessional constructed by Ted Rettig. The tool shed contained a display of boxed excerpts from my own performance archive and an open confessional consisting mostly of one-on-one conversations on past and current senses of a shared art/artist community. A different version was also made for the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Talking Archive – The Confessional (12 hour performance)
Work ID: 68015
Description: Time, Time, Time at Art Metropole, 1999. A Fado series work that takes place in a tool shed confessional constructed by Ted Rettig. The tool shed contained a display of boxed excerpts from my own performance archive and an open confessional consisting mostly of one-on-one conversations on past and current senses of a shared art/artist community. A different version was also made for the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Speaking Tours
Work ID: 68017
Description: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, 2001
Curated by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher. A series of conversations at the museum sites participating in the project, Museopathy. (Guest collaborators: Jan Winton, Lynda Jessup, Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutinski, Susan Lord, Jean Bruce, Frances Leeming, Paul Kelley, Jessica Wyman, Laurel Aziz, Jeffrey Brison).
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The Butler and The Secretary (with Germaine Koh)
Work ID: 68018
Description: Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, 2003
An audience-service performance written separately by Germaine Koh and myself. The event was a cabaret and performance art auction for Fado, Toronto.
Collection:
Date Made: 2003
Materials:
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
