1970 : 1971 :1972 : 1973 : 1974 : 1975 : 1976 : 1977 : 1978 : 1979

UNWORD 4

The audience then passed through to the performance area to find it filled with seemingly impenetrable sheets of paper stretching from ceiling to floor (15ft high) and covered with words (random extracts from Ian Breakwell's prose texts.)

Two films were projected onto the front wall of words. The first film lasted three minutes and was called 'Language Lesson'; the second film, also lasting three minutes was called 'Bio-Mechanic Man'. A third film was then projected onto the sheets of words, a film demonstrating how to shear sheep; simultaneously a tape-recording of eye-sight test dialogue began to play. Both tape and film continued throughout the subsequent action.During the subsequent action a film of an aero-engine destroying itself was run continuously onto a side wall in forward then in reverse, and gradually the film itself was physically destroyed by the projectionist.

Five minutes after the beginning of the tape and film, Breakwell appeared from out of the forest of words and slowly began to bite at the sheets and to tear down the sheets of words with his teeth. As he tore down a layer of words another would be revealed, until eventually he reached the back wall of the room, and the removal of the last sheets of words revealed a seated girl, her body completely enclosed in a white straight-jacket. On the front of the straight-jacket were stapled a dress, stockings and shoes in the appropriate places; a hat was on her head. Her face remained expressionless.

The projected film-image, which had inevitably increased in size as each layer of word-sheets was removed, now covered the area of the back wall which included the seated girl.Breakwell pulled off the clothes which were fastened to the girl’s straight-jacket. He nailed the clothes and hat in the outline of a figure onto the wall beside the seated girl. He then took the torn sheets of words which covered the floor and stapled them to each other and to the girl’s straight-jacket until the girl and the floor area were covered with words in a kind of robe which stretched to the feet of the audience.Breakwell exited and John Hillard entered wearing a polythene suit and carrying a crop-sprayer filled with black paint on his back; he sprayed the complete word-robe. (Edited version of a text written by Ian Breakwell in the Papers and photographs relating to Ian Breakwell and Mike Leggett's UNWORD, Acc. No. 2004.455, Leeds Museum & Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive)[...])

[...] The filming of UNWORD however was not merely to document the performances. Leggett was observed by the audience as an implicit performer who was free to move at will and film wherever and whatever he wished. The subsequently processed film footage became part of the multi-projection elements of the next UNWORD performance, which was also filmed, processed, and then projected in the next performance.
(Worsley, Victoria. Ian Breakwell's Unword, 1969–70: Early Performance Art in Britain. Essays on Sculpture 52. Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 2006.)

Photo: © Ian Breakwell estate and Mike Leggett; Leeds Museums & Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive) [no reproduction without prior permission by copyright holders]