An 83 channel composition but only 62 of the channels seemed to work at a time.

As I read my latest copy of Heat magazine I decided that strategies of human competitiveness needed rounding out and investigating. Humans have survived on this planet for longer than I care to remember, even though in the Jurassic Park Ages we were almost wiped out by a big dinosaur. Not that I’d ever eat dinosaur meat but it’s not as though I could anyway because dinosaurs died long ago from too much climate change. Is this the fate that awaits us?

Even so, I can’t help feeling that had the dinosaurs invented Pret a Manger they would still be among us. Can you imagine what a dinosaur Pret would be like? Racks stacked with puffy tacos packed with small mucky mammals.

The Chopped Nuts and Fruit Case is more than just a site specific performance – it is effectively an initiative to detrivialise and duplicate certain imitative tendencies within synchronical human structures e.g. the art of the rip-off in traditional Western opera, Eastern westerns, Northern rock and Southern Rail. The soundtrack is simulated laptop music with lots of funny snackles, crackles, pops and plagiarism in it.

The piece is realised through a close inspection of Chinese DVD piracy, emangungu masks as used in the initiation rites of young men among the Bembe and Vivien Leigh’s portrayal of The Queen of the Borg in the original Star Trek series – the image as other. Director Elia Kazan (who like the actor Sterling Hayden cravenly capitulated at the HUAC hearings) said of Vivien’s acting – ‘She’d have crawled over broken glass if she thought it would help her performance’.

I have often thought I would crawl over broken glass to heighten one of my performances. But, naturally, being me and being brilliant, I’d dress up first in a thick Kevlar catsuit so I didn’t get scratched. PING!

Conceived by Kaffe Matthews
Concept by Kaffe Matthews
All suggestions by Kaffe Matthews
Directed (as per Kaffe’s instructions) by chua gim teck
Visiting Artist/Tea Maid (invited by Kaffe) – Nobo Kwamk
Text (all original ideas by Kaffe) by Con Malto
What meek staff!

Con Malto and Nobo Kwamk @ Palais de Tokyo Weds 2018 – photo by William Bradford

After a weeks tortuous workshop in Scunthorpe Royal Infirmary the work will open at at the Nancy Reagan Theatre Festival, Los Angeles, October 02st 2014.