Bill Aitchison

I am a theatre and performance artist, based in London, working in and between performance, writing, collage, sound and video. I make solo performances and events and also collaborate with theatre, sound and visual artists on larger projects. Live performance remains my priority as I value the danger of the moment and the experience of being part of something unrepeatable. Coming from a society in which presence is more an idea than a self-evident reality, my work counters this texture of everyday experience. I view my work as a way to both understand and communicate my experience of the world and as such, it is perpetually in process. I place myself within the frame of the work and expand out from there, playing upon the fault lines of the personal and the public, of art and life.

Many of my performances have been about or have included journeys, either real or imaginary. A consequence of the travel and decentredness of my practice is the incorporation of multiple languages into my work. A political understanding informs this (the role and function of the English language globally) and so too does it inform my use of space and technology. There is in my work a sense of the urban environment being encountered from below, of imperfect and out of date technology, and a deliberate refusal to support myths of progress.