Author: Samuel Davis

The End.

Samuel Davis / / Uncategorized

After three performances, my time at East Lodge is over. I have really enjoyed the process from the very beginning when I first explored the house. At the time, I was asked to pick my favourite room; I am glad I chose the living room. It provided many different opportunities for performances due to its positioning in the house and the large amount of space available.

I think the most striking part of our performance was the fact we were completely still, unmoving and frozen in time. The notion of injecting a space that visually looks like it has been left for months with human bodies created an interesting piece of performance. I spoke with some audience members after the performance to gather feedback; I received similar responses in that they felt very uncomfortable in the room. I think this is because the audience were left to their own devices, they weren’t told specifically to do something. However, this brings me to a point in our performance where we had to adjust slightly. Originally, Hayley would bring the audience member in and ask them to sit in a particular place on the settee. However, we realised if we didn’t give them this instruction, then it gave them a choice. It opened up the possibility of allowing them to explore the space, or just simply sit in complete silence for ten whole minutes.  Some waited for us to move, which also added to the tense feeling that some experienced. Others tried to interact and when they failed, they resigned to sifting through the material. Initially, we were frustrated that some audience members simply sat down for the whole ten minutes whilst some really got into the material and explored the whole of the room. However, retrospectively, for those audience members who didn’t move and stay sat down, that could be interpreted as them joining in with the performance. Perhaps they thought that they should keep still too.

Visually the room was littered with a massive amount of detritus that was collected over a long period. I personally wanted to create a lasting first impression for the audience members. This was the second performance space they would get to see and I wanted them to open that door and be completely surprised with what lay behind it. The material not only made it difficult for the audience to navigate our room, but it also gave a glimpse as to the type of people who may have lived in this space. In my previous posts, I have talked about Rodinsky’s Room; there are many other examples of rooms that have been uncovered after years of been untouched. (Most recently is this example of a Parisian apartment that has been left locked for seventy years. ((http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323297/Inside-Paris-apartment-untouched-70-years-Treasure-trove-finally-revealed-owner-locked-fled-outbreak-WWII.html))) For me, the importance of creating that feel of a lost room was something that I think we achieved.

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A panorama photo of the living room on performance day. Photo taken by Sam Davis. 

Tapping into what normally happens in a living room was also important. I decided to buy different sized photo frames for the living room; I then inserted the detritus from around the living room. One photo frame for example had a Quavers crisp packet inserted into it. I think this was very effective; it is something that people do in their homes. They display photos and memories with pride, I wanted to create a similar sense but use the environment and the material around us to seed into that.

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A collection of the frames that were displayed in the living room. Photo taken by Sam Davis.

There were many ideas that developed and evolved over time. Originally, we were going to order pizza in the performance. We thought the smell and act of watching someone eat may provide an interesting performance. However, we soon realised this was too literal, we needed to think more about the space and what that could do rather than the actions of us the performers.  Also we decided on four different screenshots from films that were changed each night. We used Hitchcock’s Rear Window and a recent film called Disturbia – both touch upon the act of watching someone else (voyeurism) and both have really striking images that frame what our room is about. The final image that I chose for the last performance was a pre-recorded sequence that had been filmed using the CCTV cameras, I decided to use the very beginning of this clip where the living room is empty. It provided a contrast as it showed what the room looked like before the material had taken over. It tells the audience that something has happened in this space.

A selection of the screenshots shown across the four performances.

LivingROOM3 1) Rear Window film dir. Alfred Hitchock LivingROOM4 2) Disturbia film dir. D.J. Caruso
LivingROOM13) Pre-recorded CCTV footage LivingROOM2 4) Rear Window film dir. Alfred Hitchock

We have took the neglected state of the house and created our own extreme version by using all the collected waste scattered through the room. Our aim for this, was to subvert the audiences thinking of how a room should normally be looked after. Thinking about this after the performance has also made me think about the other extreme. What would of happened if the living room was empty, there was no furniture and yet it still tried to retain the sense of being lived in by using a still human body to insert some sort of humanity.

Personally, I think site specific performances have to let the audiences share the space with them. These performances rely on some form of participation. I think our room worked well because it allowed the audience to share it with us, this is something New York artist Vito Acconci advocates:

“setting up a field in which the audience was, so that they became a part of what I was doing… they became part of the physical space in which I moved” ((Goldberg, R. (2001) Performance Art. New York: Thames & Hudson. p.156))

Whilst the performance on West Parade didn’t go to some of the extremes that Acconci does in his performances, I do agree with this statement. If audiences do become part of the physical spaces in which they enter, then they can fully share the range of emotions, feelings and understandings that is associated with site specific performance.

Secrets of the Lost Room

Samuel Davis / / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Research, West Parade

After extensive research and from information that I have gathered, I can speculate that the house on West Parade was where a commissionaire may have lived. We also know from council records and the house itself that it was built in 1932. The notion that the history of the space can influence and seed into a performance is something I became interested in.

Using this as a stimulus, I intend to use found texts to generate the feel of ‘the past’; receipts, photos, TV guides, stories, newspapers, mail, shopping lists and leaflets will build up an extensive amount of material. My aim is that this will make it impossible for the audience to gather a full picture of what any of it means. This ambiguity is not to confuse or trick the audience but to create the feel of a room that has been left untouched for many years. If someone were to open it, they would have to sift through the material to work out what happened in the space. Rather than looking for what has happened in the space, it is instead what hasn’t happened here – ‘things’ haven’t been thrown away.

This has largely been influenced by a guidebook called Rodinsky’s Whitechapel – this guides readers around London’s Jewish East End.

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“Workmen refurbishing one of Spitalfields historic buildings have revealed a twenty year old secret. They have uncovered a lost room in a weaver’s attic room on Princelet Street. The room was the home of a reclusive Jew called David Rodinsky.” ((Lichtenstein, R. (1999). Rodinsky’s Whitechapel. London, Artangel.))

This exposed and ‘lost’ room had been an undiscovered time capsule for over 20 years; a thick layer of dust, spectacles, a cup of tea and a pan of porridge left on a stove were just some of the objects that had been left in 1969 when Rodinsky suddenly disappeared. A plethora of his work, personal and miscellaneous objects were scattered in the attic room.

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A photo showing Rodinsky’s Room as it was found in 1980. ((Forum.casebook.org (2012) East End Photographs and Drawings – Page 122 – Casebook Forums. [online] Available at: http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=63682 [Accessed: 7 Apr 2013].))

Rodinsky was known by the locals at the time and some people from the street even grew up with him as a child. Lichtenstein herself had a direct connection to Princelet Street as she was the granddaughter of Polish immigrants who had settled there in the 1930s. She became obsessed with Rodinsky, trying to find out who this man was and why he mysteriously vanished in 1969 “Overtime, my obsession with the story grew. I began to excavate the boxed-up remains in his room. At first this arbitrary archaeology revealed little, the objects seemingly mute with the loss of their originators voice. But slowly, through careful examination of his vast collection a faint image of a man began to emerge” ((Lichtenstein, R. (1999). Rodinsky’s Whitechapel. London, Artangel.))

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Photograph: Rachel Lichtenstein – A to Z taken from Rodinsky’s Room. ((Lichtenstein, R. (1999) AtoZ. [image online] Available at: http://www.rachellichtenstein.com/content/rodinsky%E2%80%99s-whitechapel-1999 [Accessed: Sunday 7th April 2013].))

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Photograph: Rachel Lichtenstein – A note found in Rodinsky’s Room. ((Lichtenstein, R. (2013) Note found in Rodinsky’s room.. [image online] Available at: http://www.artangel.org.uk/projects/1999/rodinsky_s_whitechapel/statements/michael_morris [Accessed: Sunday 7th April 2013].))

Her growing obsession and personal relationship with the Jewish East End led Lichtenstein to create her own art and performances from it.  The huge amount of detritus she collected from a seemingly mysterious man formed part of these performances and art; this was reflected in her performances that were “themselves broken in nature”. ((Guardian, T. (1999) The lost spirit of Spitalfields. The Guardian, [online] 22 May. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianreview9 [Accessed: Sunday 7th April 2013].))

Lichtenstein never managed to figure out exactly what Rodinsky was like. She had often heard conflicting and contradicting memories from people who knew him “He was, according to different witnesses, both very short and very tall. He was backward and he was a genius. He was rich and he was poor. He was painfully shy and he entertained others by playing the spoons in a local cafe. He was clean-shaven and he was bearded. There was no photo of him. At times he seemed like a man who did not exist.” ((Guardian, T. (1999) The lost spirit of Spitalfields. The Guardian, [online] 22 May. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianreview9 [Accessed: Sunday 7th April 2013].)) Comparatively, our own performance is similar as I intend to gather a mixture of found texts that will not expose a specific event that has occurred. Of course, with the amount of material filling the space, it will perhaps create a broad and vague sense that something has happened in the space; something has happened, but no-one will know what. Currently in the space we are frozen and still, this sense of being frozen in time links to Rodinsky’s room on Princelet Street as it remained frozen for over two decades. What happens when a space that is frozen, still, motionless and unmoving is injected with bodies? This very notion is something I am going to explore, there will not only be these scraps of detritus and junk but a living presence that contrasts against this sense of a neglected static space.

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Our own detritus and material that has been collected. Photograph by Sam Davis

As mentioned earlier, Lichtenstein used “arbitrary archaeology” ((Guardian, T. (1999) The lost spirit of Spitalfields. The Guardian, [online] 22 May. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianreview9 [Accessed: Sunday 7th April 2013].)) to uncover the material in Rodinsky’s room. A similar occurrence will happen in the house on West Parade, there will be no direct connection between one object and the next.

Rodinskys Grave

David Rodinsky’s headstone, 1999. Photograph by Rachel Lichtenstein

Human Space? Heart Space?…..or rather OUR Space!

Samuel Davis / / Documentation, Home, Research, Rooms, West Parade

“So we ask, what does homeliness mean and how is it created?” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press p.142.))

This is an interesting thought, how does one create homeliness? If we apply this notion to the house on West Parade, we can look at the aesthetic and objects of the house. Most room’s contain furniture to identify the use of each space (i.e. bed = bedroom, sofa = living room) however would these room’s still create that sense of homeliness without the furniture? In the living room we have experimented with the feel of the room, simply by moving the sofas into different positions has made us feel more relaxed and made the room more homely.

Keeping the doors shut moves onto another factor that adds to the feeling of homeliness, warmth. Feeling cold instantly changes the mood and feel of a room, I think this is perhaps why the ‘cot room’ creates the opposite feeling of homeliness as there is no radiator meaning it is always cold which makes people feel uneasy. ‘What does homeliness mean?’ – Personally, I think it is a dwelling in which you can feel comfortable, relax and be yourself. However, I think this is only possible if the environment can totally put the individual at ease. “Warmth, seclusion, size, security, stability, history and objects” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press p.144.)) are all factors that have the potential to make a space feel homely. It is these factors that we want to weaken to challenge the notion of home and make the audience distinctly aware that this space is not a home.

“One must also be able to see that the room has been lovingly cared for. But even though disorder and neglect have a disquieting effect, an excess of orderliness is also oppressive, because one is afraid of disturbing the order. The room must also show that it is lived in, and this means that certain signs of life – a book that has been laid aside, work that has been begun – should be recognizable in it.” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press p.144.))

This stimulus is at the very heart of what our group intend to create as we plan to play on the fact that a room should be lived in by placing stacks of empty pizza boxes and alcohol bottles all around the room.

LivingRoom

The living room of the house on West Parade showing pizza boxes, beer bottles and other materials. Photograph by Sam Davis. (Please click on the picture to view the Living Room page to learn more about our performance ideas)

Using this as an extreme of a home that has been lived in, will subvert the audiences thinking of how a home should be presented and feel. The living rooms aesthetics already provide a contrast to the belief that a home should be cared for, the wallpaper is stained and peeling.

Creating surroundings that show they have been cared for and lived in will always be artificial in a performance.  This is typified from the history and the use of West Parade house as it is set up to represent a certain dynamic. However our space can be changed and moulded to present a different  home artifice. An artifice that says: “Everything looks okay on the surface, but is it ?”

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     Photograph from Human Space book cover. ((Bollnow, O. (2013) Human Space. [image online] Available at: http://www.mottodistribution.com/shop/publishers/hyphen-press/human-space.html [Accessed: 22nd February 2013].))

Putting on a Front in your Front Room

Samuel Davis / / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Research, Rooms

Tiffany Thompson 

The living room normally where the family sits and socializes. This room was once was used for special occasions, this room was the best decorated. It also was used as a resting space for dead, the late family members would be laid in their coffin in the best room of the house, the living room.
However, times have changed “The modern era has seen the focus of the room shift from the coffin to the box” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln. p.36.)), now the television is the center of the living room with all the furniture pointing to it with families staring into a void of reality TV.

Samuel Davis

With Heathcote’s quote in mind about the television as a focal point, we decided (Me, Tiffany and Lauren) to use the TV as a focal point in a performance. To start this process, we watched a series of films to gather research. Whilst doing this, we wanted to feel comfortable so we played around with the feel of the room by moving the furniture and creating a cosy feel. At the same time, we interacted with people moving in and out of the room (which frequently happened). The first film was The Moon and the Sledgehammer ((dir.Philip Trevelyan)) which followed a 1972 family who lived without running water, gas or mains electricity. The ideas that sprang from this was how the use of technology has killed any social interaction that once occurred in living rooms. Phrases now familiar in living rooms up and down the country feature ‘turn the TV up’ and ‘be quiet I can’t hear the tele’. Many ideas began circulating after the film and our first thought was too create a performance where audience members would encounter technology being used in the living room, slowly this would be taken away, until there was no electricity, TV, or anything technological.

However, we further developed our research by watching Hitchcock’s famous Rear Window film and realised that we could include as many normal activities that we do ourselves in our living rooms.

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The 1954 film poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. ((Paramount (1954) “Rear Window,” Colour Poster 1954 Paramount. [image online] Available at: http://uk.imdb.com/media/rm1147639808/tt0047396?ref_=tt_ov_i [Accessed: Sunday 7th April 2013].))

Lauren will talk more about these activities later in this post, but it will happen live during the performance and create that notion of being in a living room. Looking back historically we learn that the living room was often ‘saved for best’ as it was used for deceased family members “The front room was preserved – like the cellophane-shrouded three-piece suite – for best” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln. p.35)) Following this, we wanted to create a juxtaposition of reserving the living room for best by playing on the natural design of the scruffy West Parade house. We will do this by changing the aesthetic of the living room by using certain objects to create an effect.

Living Room

Photograph showing how we have moved the furniture to create a ‘homely’ feel. We also played with the idea of performing outside. Photograph and editing by Sam Davis.

I think the use of the television will be integral to our performance. One idea was to have a loop of different TV shows playing. I thought it would be interesting to keep these TV shows on a similar theme so that they all talk about the notion of home. For example, we are in the living room at East Lodge watching an episode of Eastenders where the characters are at home watching TV whilst talking about an aspect of home. Then the TV will flick channels to Rear Window ((dir. Alfred Hitchcock)) or The Moon and The Sledge Hammer ((dir.Philip Trevelyan)) showing their family home.

Lauren Walker

In our performance we want to incorporate the feelings that you would, (in your every day life) feel when sat in your living room. We also wanted to merge the different ‘rituals’ that happen when you are sat in your living room, this could be simply turning the television over. The living room in the house has a very ‘shabby’ look to it with its ripped wallpaper and old fashioned décor which in certain aspects makes it not very ‘homely’ so we have decided as a group to play on the setting of a mistreated living room.

We have decided we would like the room to be very untidy and neglected. With the use of props and objects like empty pizza boxes and bottles of alcohol, we will be doing the usual things you would do if you were to sit on a weekend and relax in your living room such as drinking alcohol, ordering a pizza, watching films etc. The alcohol we choose to drink is important in our performance because although we are not playing characters, we do not want it to seem in any way classy or civilised. We will also be interacting with the audience and talking to them about everyday things, also offering them a drink or a slice of pizza. There is a cupboard in the living room and one of our ideas was to fill it with unwanted objects. This means if someone was to open it, things would fall out and this would show how neglected the room is. The cupboard also symbolizes how we put on a front too the people who are coming into the living room. A lot of our discussion has been about the feeling when someone is in your living room and you tend to play up to it and ‘put a front on’ we explored how that made you feel when people were sat with you in your living room and how you feel that you cant fully relax “he word ‘gemutlich’ (comfortable) described in ‘human space’ as “conduct in which man abandons the exertion of his will and of active behaviour and allows himself to relax in peace and quiet” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press p.142-143.))

 

Take me home, to the place where I belong

Samuel Davis / / Documentation

My first impressions of the house on West Parade from outside was that it looked like any other house on the street. Upon entering the living room I noted the shabby wallpaper, odd coloured sofa’s and admittedly what seemed like an out of place modern TV. I say ‘out of place’, because everything in the room surrounding it looked so old and worn.

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The Living Room in the house on West Parade. Photograph by Jozey Wade.

The kitchen was indescribably homely, maybe because the set up was that of an ordinary kitchen, in an ordinary house. The architecture of the shed/outhouse possesses a possibility of making an interesting performance space. It is ideally located close to the kitchen and garden and contains a window viewable from the back door. I believe that transforming this space into something else could be intriguing. The aim being to highlight the contrast between the dust -filled shed against the comfort and security of home.
The large garden allows enough space for the audience to look into the house to watch the performance (looking into the action) or vice versa. The idea of the audience peering into the house creates a thrilling voyeuristic experience, it’s almost perversive.

Moving upstairs, I immediately headed for the CCTV room, it was so interesting to look at each room on the screen and watch everyone moving around the house. The CCTV room is by far an excellent performance quality that can be utilised. In the performance, I thought it might be an interesting idea to not tell the audience that there are CCTV cameras recording. Then at the end of the performance, revealing that they have been watched the whole time making them feel extremely uncomfortable. Also, I think broadcasting or streaming the CCTV to laptops, TV’s, phones to audiences in their home would also make an interesting performance quality. That notion of being watched or watching someone else would add to the performance.

The landing of the house is appealing because every room can be seen, this has the potential as an area for the audience to sit or stand and see performances occurring in each of the rooms. The last room held nothing more than a cot, surrounded by mouldy walls with peeling wallpaper. Upon entering you were engulfed by an unsettling eeriness. The cot in the room felt symbolic of childhood innocence and vulnerability.

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The cot room in the house on West Parade. Photograph by Sam Davis.

My first impressions of the house were ones of curiosity and excitement. Now that I have seen the house, I have so many ideas for the performance and can’t wait to try them out. From discussions when we first saw the house, I found it interesting too note that we as a group are forming the fabric of the house and becoming part of the archive just by being in the space and performing in it:

“A place owes its character to the experiences it affords to those who spend time there”. ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p.16))

I think this is true of the house on West Parade because we become as contingent as the space is. The house creates it’s own parameters of performance due to its history and characteristics. I think this is why it is important to find out as much historical context as possible about the site to properly understand the environment we are in.