Artists' Television Access

Bollards and the Comedy of Hyperindustrialisation

Sunday, December 29, 2019, 7:30 pm, $7-$10

@saintbollard is the moniker that Andrew Choate uses when performing in relation to bollards – the typically concrete and steel posts that form obstructions to traffic in order to protect buildings, equipment, and pedestrians. His images serve as an entry into a world of poems, songs, and stories that highlight the existential and comedic dilemma of making peace with the inanimate objects that surround us. 

This performance at ATA will be the North American premiere of a show that has only been performed in New Zealand, where it won Best Performance Art and the Warwick Broadhead Memorial Award at the Dunedin Fringe Festival and Best Newcomer at the Auckland Fringe Festival in 2019. The show combines @saintbollard’s images of bollards with analyses of social situations, songs, and poems – all with the imperative to access the emotional root of self-augmentation or purposeful debilitation in relation to pre-existing and often hostile architecture. The amatory is another emphasis 🙂

What real people say – Alexander Karasulas: I can’t express how whacky, surprising and entertaining Andrew Choate’s show is about…. well… bollards.

Tejo van Schie : This is an unexpectedly satisfying show. Very interesting and thoughtful and funny too.

Asia Kennedy:  I’m no closer to knowing what this show is, but one thing is for sure- there are few things better than someone being all in on something. This dude is all in.

Slate dubbed him “the world’s foremost bollard photographer,” and his project has been featured by Instagram, Atlas Obscura, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, Radio New Zealand, Quartz, and the Otago Daily Times.

https://www.postandcourier.com/free-times/arts/feature/columbia-native-andrew-choate-twists-his-words-and-visuals-through/article_a1038280-413c-566b-b95a-350f0f6c2068.html
Andrew Choate is a performer and poet. His bold visual and spoken-word performances can seem both choreographed and stream-of-conscious. The large and small mysteries of life and the ways one tries to inhabit a world shaped by others are at the forefront of Choate’s work. He is the author of several books including Learning (Civil Coping Mechanisms/ Writ Large Press), Stingray Clapping (Insert Blanc Press), Too Many Times I See Every Thing Just The Way It Is (Poetic Research Bureau), and Language Makes Plastic of the Body (Palm Press). He was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina. He currently hosts a radio show on KCHUNG and curates a concert series dedicated to the international world of improvised music under the name The Unwrinkled Ear.


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