Pearson/Brookes : body of evidence

 

At 10.00pm on Friday 2nd October 1998 Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson drove a 1986 3-series BMW into an open car park off James Street in the Butetown area of Cardiff Docks. Mike Pearson, wearing a discrete headset microphone, delivered his monologue 'blood' - made specifically audible and re-presented by Mike Brookes to the previously gathered audience, as they crowded around the open car, via a short range radio link through the car's powerful hi-fi. The text of 'body of evidence', originally written as the final part of Pearson's 'from memory' trilogy, represented a frank and controversial personal examination of the facts and evidence surrounding the brutal murder of Lynette White, a young prostitute, in her James Street flat on Valentine's Day 1988; and the subsequent arrest, imprisonment, and release of five local black men. The case remaining officially unsolved. The murder scene, police station, and other locations directly relevant to the murder and subsequent investigation, all lay within two hundred yards of the site. On completion of the text Brookes and Pearson re-entered the car and drove away; leaving the audience to disperse and the site physically unchanged. This event proposal was realised as a 'hit and run' intervention, without official announcement or permission.

 

* for related material please try the performance chronology of the archive and the Pearson/Brookes category of the blog