Newcastle University

Cally Spooner (b. 1983) is an artist based in London. Recent solo presentations include Collapsing In Parts, International Project Space, Birmingham (2011) At Five to Ten, Neue Alte Bruecke, Frankfurt (2010) and A Solo Event for Thinking, Basso, Berlin (2009). Recent group shows include Outrageous Fortune, Hayward Touring; Double Bill, LOOP Festival, Barcelona; The Department of Wrong Answers, Wysing Arts Centre (all 2011); Perform a Lecture!, The Office (curated by Ellen Blumenstein and Dieter Roelstraete), Arsenale, Berlin;With Words Like Smoke, Chelsea Space, London (both 2010)

With outputs ranging from performance, film and broadcasting, Spooner writes in dialogue to script the anxieties and obstructions of turning theory into thought, thought into text and text into events (plays, projects and productions). Drawing on theatrical tropes and devices, she embodies this movement between states using historical thinkers as alibis to help her write, and casts of colleagues, friends and actors to help her perform. By fracturing her writing into parts for her cast to carry, she finds and occupies multiple positions through collisions of arguing characters, looping narratives and unrelenting disturbances from impossible stage directions, most often delivered by Spooner herself. Spooner’s work typically emerges from systems of research within which editions, acts, versions or chapters are scripted and performed. These exist alone as smaller pieces, contributing to the live and public unravelling of her thinking. They eventually settle into larger multi-part productions, films and readings packed with slippages, disjunctions and the promise of future events. Her work occupies the space between extremes; freedom and regulation, speaking and text, chaos and control, as she frenetically finds something to say, do and write, whilst destabilising any fixed or conclusive form.

Image A solo event for thinking