Images from Intersection4, 19 May 2019 – a GAIP event initiated by Ren Walters.
Ren Walters
Events next week
Tuesday 14 May 2019, 8pm
Clinton Green & Barnaby Oliver duo
Make It Up Club, Bar Open (upstairs), 317 Brunswick St Fitzroy

Sunday 19 May 2019, 9-11pm
INTERSECTION4
Corner of Swanston and LaTrobe streets, Melbourne
The fourth roughly-annual GAIP event/happening of Intersection. Ren Walters ‘explains’ below:
Please join in for a wander around together for part or all and invite whomever may be interested. SOUNDING, sitting, STROLLING, conversing, TRAVERSING, processing, obsessing, STARTING, stopping, observing, draping, SKATING, voicing, running, CRAWLING, stalling, jaywalking, SKULKING, SILENCING, mumbling, bumbling, INTRODUCING, intersecting, WHISPERING, breathing, ARRIVING, LEAVING, fumbling, tumbling, huddling, falling, REVERSING, INTERSPERSING and so on . . .
To quote a past participant; “I came along, couldn’t see nothing so I went home”
And; during the performance I received a text from a co-performer “where is the music, where is the performance?”
The following is the original “score”;
INTERSECTION – (a point or line common to lines or surfaces that intersect.)
Participants continuously cross at the four traffic lights on each corner of the intersection, for one to two hours duration.
The dream is to be invitational through practicing/embodying openness and generosity toward the environment and fellow pedestrians. Taking the uncontrived opportunities that arise through this immanency.
This mode of being may be enhanced or facilitated by particular movements, gestures, appearances, sounds, props etc., when understood as ‘enabling strategies/techniques’ to generate momentum, to supplant self-consciousness, to stimulate a ‘performative frame’.
In circumnavigating this space, our attentive presence and movement will charge an energetic field in the vicinity.
If for some reason you become diverted from this prescribed activity (by engaging in conversation, missing the green light because you were staring at the sky, taking a tourist to the nearest bus stop, etc.), this can be considered fortuitous. Then just return to your activity.
Where Does ‘Your’ Space End and the Next Begin?
A new book has just been published, edited by Candice Boyd and Christian Edwardes, entitled Non-Representational Theory and the Creative Arts. The book also features a chapter focussed on A General Assembly of Interested Parties (GAIP), the loose collective of artists and activities initiated by Ren Walters, of which I have been involved with as well. The chapter ‘Where Does ‘Your’ Space End and the Next Begin? Non-representation Geographies of Improvised Performance’ is written by Candice (a GAIP participant herself), along with several other GAIP participants, including myself. In it, we recount various GAIP-related experiences and events (complete with colour photos), which Candice assimilates into a theorectical context. It’s very satisfying to see this serious consideration of GAIP and it’s actitvities emerge, which sits besides Paul Blackman’s in-depth review of a GAIP-related THIS Ensemble happening last year.
The book is available from the link above (for a very expensive price), students and academics might prefer to check their library holdings. If anyone is interested in seeing the aforementioned chapter, please contact me and I’ll provide you with a copy.
Summer 2019 events
- Clinton Green/Barnaby Oliver – Saturday 23 February (2pm), Quiet Noise VIII, West Footscray – Facebook event
- Screening of my four screen video work The Four Seasons: suite for turntables – Thursday 28 February (8pm), Music with Intermission II, LongPlay – Facebook event
- Solo performance – Wednesday 20 March at The Tote, Nothinge album launch – Facebook event
Intersection 3
The third iteration of Ren Walter’s Intersection event/non-event will take place from 11pm to 1am on Friday 18 May 2018, on the corner of Swanston and La Trobe Streets, Melbourne.
Ren writes about the concept:
For those who have not participated in such an event before; there is no expectation of performance. The process for me has been one of traversing/ being present at the location without necessity to overtly perform, although certain things have happened that would perhaps contradict that statement. For me, INTERSECTION began as an investigation into the when of performance alongside the how and what of performance…No formalities are undertaken just turn up and find your own way.
Video from the first Intersection in 2015:
GAIP/THIS Ensemble at MAP Rainbow

Next week I’ll be participating in GAIPscape at MAP Rainbow on Saturday 28 April, in Rainbow, Western Victoria. Organised by Tony Yap, the festival kicks off at 1pm and features a variety of contemporary performances, including sound, movement and visual art. GAIPscape, convened by Ren Walters, will take place in the Town Hall between 3-6pm. The personnel assembling is looking a lot like THIS Ensemble, who haven’t performed publicly since 2016. All performances are free.
CURRENT 2017/18
CURRENT 2017/18
Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 February 2018, 1:30-10:30pm
Aeso Studio, 83 Brunswick St, Fitzroy (enter through laneway at rear via Palmer St)
$10 per day, or $15 for both days.
CURRENT has been a significant event in the Melbourne improvised music and performance calendar for several years now, and this year I’ve been humbled in being asked by founder Ren Walters to guest curate it along with Michael McNab.
Michael and I have spent that past few months planning a two day structure that will see a ragtag bunch of 30 performers (musicians, poets, dancers, visual artists, performance artists, and ‘in-betweeners’) divided up into new ensembles to improvise. Each performer will perform twice, once on Saturday and then again on Sunday in a completely different ensemble. We were on PBS-FM’s The Sound Barrier last night discussing it – listen here.
Performers:
Juana Beltran
Georgia Bettens
Jennifer Callaway
Mick Douglas
Matt Faisander
Simon Fisher
Susan Frykberg
Cor Fuhler
Llara Goodall
Dale Gorfinkel
Clinton Green
Martin Kay
Kim Kerze
Cam Love
Scott McConnachie
Derek McCormack
Siobhan McKenna
Michael McNab
Sage Pbbbt
Amaara Raheem
Emma Riches
Allanah Stewart
Erin K Taylor
Josh Twee
Ren Walters
Giles Warren
Mitchell Welch
Samuel Harnett Welk
Music with Intermission
Music, with an intermission of film and live improvised soundtrack, then different music.
MUSIC – Super-Luminum – debut duo from Cat Hope (bass) and Lisa MacKinney (guitar).
INTERMISSION – video by Ren Walters, with live accompaniment from Ren Walters, Clinton Green and Michael McNab
MUSIC – Ernie Althoff – mechanised music
Thursday 3 August, 8:30pm at LongPlay, 318 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North
$10.
Facebook event – https://www.facebook.com/events/318808508560960/
Walters/Green/McNab on PBS-FM
On last night’s instalment of The Sound Barrier on PBS-FM, Ian Parsons spoke to myself, Ren Walters & Michael McNab about our new album At The Salt Museum. You can hear the whole programme, including our interview in two segments, here. It’s not your usual, run-of-the-mill interview.