writing commission for [a-n-na] - 2001
Commissioned by Anna Best as part of her project Away Weekend
[an] THE ARTISTS INFORMATION COMPANY - Year of the Artist Media Residency

Away Weekend was a team building weekend specially designed by Anna Best for [an] THE ARTISTS INFORMATION COMPANY. It took place in May 2001 with Reivers Development and Ultraventure in Northumberland, and consisted in a hybrid programme of traditional activities such as paint-balling and team-building tasks, and Best's own ideas for group activities.

[a-n-n-a] MAGAZINE utilised [an] MAGAZINE design and aimed to present the intimacy of Away Weekend to the wider audience of [an] MAGAZINE's subscribers. I was commissioned to explore writing as a performative process and an alternative to documentary video. I was asked to write 'including as much visual description as possible'. Like a court-room sketcher or silent witness I was not briefed at all about either the activities or the participants.

I was asked to write for as much of the time as possible, and I followed the group during and after activities, typing on my laptop: perched on stools, sitting on a trunk in the forest, out in the cold and at improvised desks all over the facilities. In the writing I allowed my mind to wander into itself from time to time, giving also a sense of my position on both political and emotional fronts.