'Object Without Perception' Workshop with Antony Hall
Antony Hall's Wedding Ritual began in the most intriguing manner when he told me that I would be receiving a package that would be a necessary component of his Something New - the 'Object Without Perception' workshop. This package failed and failed again to arrive, its tracking number indicating that it had been returned when it had not... to the point that Tony joked it had become an 'Object Without Reception'. But finally it arrived, a mysterious red box.
Tony then instructed me to join him for an online meeting. During the meeting, after some warming-up exercises, I was to open the box, find the light-eliminating goggles inside, and don them while staring at the screen. Tony then played a light sequence that he had prepared, to affect what limited visual perception I had whilst wearing the goggles.
I commented as I went along - I think the sensory experiment took about forty minutes - and the resulting video has been added to Tony's archives. My primary memories of the event itself are - firstly - of the sense that I was gazing, as if from a great distance, at some kind of cosmic phenomenon that was of a bright and beautiful blue or violet colour. It put me in mind of something from Star Trek. And then, at a certain point, Tony invited me to open my eyes within the goggles, and it was as if I was in an immediate light space, surrounded by fog - rather than in an open dark one. I kept having the sense that I was moving through the white fog and that at any moment white figures might emerge from it, who dwelled here.
A couple of nights after the workshop, I had a dream in which Tony was guiding me and a small number of others through corridors that he had found the key to exploring. These corridors were covered in (or perhaps made of) a lumpy white plaster like the plaster that he and I had used in sculpture at art college. I had a limited degree of lucidity and I understood that we were in some way exploring passages within my own mind. After a short time exploring, I lost my grip on my surroundings and knew I was 'waking up' - but in fact Tony was able to regather us for a second exploration. This second time, we encountered a door that led to a very small room (not much bigger than a phonebox). Tony went into it first, and closed the door behind him... but when I followed him, the room was empty.
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