Well that’s our performances finished, can’t believe it’s over. Things have changed and developed so much from our first tour of the house on west parade. All of our ideas have expanded so much. When we first chose the living room we were concentrating on our feelings for that room, but as we progressed we realised that the living room is so much more then just a place to ‘relax’ and feel at ‘home’ because there is so many different homes. Our first initial thought were so different to our final performance but in some sense very similar we originally wanted to create an experience for an audience that would be something that is familiar to them, doing things that they would do on a daily basis in their living room, and also bringing back memories of their experiences. Exploring things like watching television ordering pizza and having a glass of wine. We then realised that was quite typical and showing someone life in a living room isn’t necessarily about doing obvious things, maybe it was more then that. Stripping back all the technology and conversation and sitting there in silence gave the audience a chance to reflect on their experiences, It became more about us as performers and the notion that our body images a sort of still picture, were more important then doing something very typical of a living room “I strongly believe that the most powerful tool today is performance is the artist herself”. ((Conroy Colette (2010) Theatre & The body London:palgrave macmillan))
Sitting in silence and being completely still is harder then I first thought, but the more audience members we had it became easier, by sitting still in silence you begin to really feel the value of silence and find yourself in a relaxed state. “What kind of mental exercise should the performer have to do to prepare?” ((Conroy Colette (2010) Theatre & The body London:palgrave macmillan)) is one the questions Colette Conroy asks in the book “theatre and the body” I feel that this question relates perfectly to our performance because we did not have to prepare physically like in other performance we needed to prepare ourselves mentally. Our minds had to be cleared and we needed to concentrate.We almost became a work of art, a still image that the audience could interpret how ever they wanted to. In my opinion because we had the paused image on the screen it was like someone had pressed pause on our lives.
One thing that I feel went well was, was something we didn’t anticipate because our performance was at night was when it became dark the only light was the light from the television and it reflected on the rubbish and created shadows and an outline of the clutter. This added to the affect that, like the rubbish was art in a some sort of form.
“Audience’s reactions to our room were very different to others in the house, it was very interesting to see how every different audience member did something different. Some people seemed as if they were very comfortable and explored the room as if it was exciting and others found it very daunting and uncomfortable to be in. One audience member could not stand the anticapation and tried to get out because you could see that she phyiscally could not stand that she didn’t know what was going to happen next. The clutter and rubbish shocked the audience even more, and you could tell they were trying to work out why it was there. I feel we filled the room well and had enough stuff to give the feel of a hoarders front room, but we still could have had more!
Photo Taken by Tiffany Thompson
“A man walks across this empty space whilst someone is watching him and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged” (( Brook, Peter (1968) The Empty Space, London:pelican books)) . I feel that this quotes sums our performance ideas perfectly. Forgetting for a moment that our room was filled with clutter. The fact that we were sat amongst it as still images is our ‘perfomance’ we did not need to move because the images were enough to create tension and questions for the audience members.
“The task of making text for performance” ((Tim Etchells (1999). Certain Fragments. New york: Routledge)) The process of writing performance is something our living room group have always been interested in. We have found ‘Tim Ethcells’ certain fragments fascinating and we have tried to incorporate this into our performance, without it being to obvious. We also struggled to find text or come up with one that related to our room. When reading through a past blog I came across the idea I had when watching ‘Life is sweet’ about how some people may feel like prisoners in there own home. I then expanded on this idea, and so did the rest of our group by coming up individually with a reason why we would be a prisoner in this house. We then decided to use the props we were using, for example pizza boxes news papers and receipts and tell our story without making it obvious to the audience, if they happened to pick up a box with a sentence on it that related to our story and then picked up a receipt with a another sentence or word it wouldn’t matter they didn’t understand it will get the audience asking questions and participating the performance asking questions like Why are we there? Why were we still? What had happened before they entered? , our intention was for the writing to be a code for the audience. The stories we came up with could be anything fiction or non fiction, we tried to make them fictional as possible even if they didn’t make sense. Reading end land stories gave me loads of ideas. (( Etchells Tim (1999) Endland stories London:Pulp Faction))
The story I came up with goes…
My father abuses me mentally, but the more he abuses me mentally the affects show physically. When he died my face stayed like this forever and now I don’t want to leave to leave my house this causes me to have the disease agoraphobia.
Some of the sentences scattered around the room from my individual story was..
HE makes my face look worse
People stare why should I suffer when they are ignorant?
Replace fear with selfishness and indifference
I don’t want people to see this ugly stressful face
After four days and about 16 hours of performing…the safehouse is closed!
There were setbacks, complications and few expressionless audience members, but overall a huge success.
To lay out the scene – firstly a couple would ring the doorbell, where I would answer and ask them the password/phrase, in all cases they did know it, so luckily I didn’t have to shut the door in their faces, then I would take them through to the waiting room, which was minimalistic and fairly dark as the curtains to the window were closed to stop light filtering in, but also to avoid people from the outside as “it is nearly impossible to prevent your gaze from wandering into the private lives of others made suddenly visible” ((Heathcoate, Edwin, (2012), the Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln Ltd, P.99)) and it would ruin the whole performance if the audience could see into the house before they themselves had even entered, as well as destroying the illusion of the ‘safehouse’ because if you can see into it so clearly – how is it safe?
The most challenging parts of my performance were firstly – being professional yet approachable as I found when I performed in a manner that was all corporate with practically no humanity that the audience were more withdrawn, and not as inclined to divulge any information I asked of them. After I had seen this error, I changed my demeanour and added a little more friendliness to my performance, and I saw instantly that almost all of the audience members seemed more relaxed and therefore were able to answer my questions with more ease. Another challenge I faced were difficult audience members, some were absolutely expressionless! It seemed that no matter what I did or said, nothing affected them. Even when I shine an incredibly bright light in their faces, they didn’t even blink. So to counter these types of audiences members, I cut off any of my friendliness, I treated the situation as if were incredibly serious, and for most of those difficult audience members – it seemed to work.
I also encountered several technical difficulties, I made a 3 minute video for the audience, which explains issues such as safety and audience decorum whilst they were in the house, it features Lizzy, portraying Agent L, she simply talks to the camera explaining said issues –
The problems I encountered with this were only small, on two occasions the video would not play, and I had to improvise – asking the audience more questions such as ‘what do you know about the art of spying?’ whilst working on the computer, and trying to get the video to play, which luckily succeeded before too much time had passed. Additionally I learnt after the video had been made, that there was only one fire exit, but had stated there were two on the video, which after it had been played, I reiterated back to the audience, but informed them of the new information, and showed them said fire exit on a map so the audience would have no doubts about what to do in the event of a fire. With the video, I was trying to create a sense of anonymity, letting the audience know that this is infact an operation, it is not just me in a room pretending to be a spy, Agent L is a part of the operation, her eyes are covered, her identity hidden. For those who saw performances where Lizzy was not there, her appearance on the video remains a mystery by building “electronic identities: out there, we are disembodied, depersonalised.” ((Pearson, Mike, (2010), Site-Specific Performance, Palgrave Macmillan, P.125.)) Which I believe adds a more realistic element to the performance.
The most problematic technical problem however were the phones – the CCTV room and I had worked into our performances phone calls back and forth, with at one point whomever was performing in the CCTV room speaking directly to the audience via speakerphone. The problem that ensued were connectivity related – occurring more often than I would’ve like, the person upstairs would miss their queue to ring, and I would have to call them instead, but for some reason the calls would not connect, leaving an awkward silence the first time it happened. Of course after the first encounter with this problem, despite not being able to fix the technical side, I prepared more dialogue and more opportunities for the audience to speak whilst the problem was occurring. With enough foresight I managed to overcome any future possibilities of silent moments, which made for a better performance.
The only other problem I encountered were timekeeping related – making sure I let people into the house at the right time, only having two couples in the house at one time. This was difficult if we overran, or were under the time schedule. Making sure I knew where everyone was at any given time was the biggest responsibility I undertook, and making sure everything ran smoothly was probably the hardest part of the whole performance.
Altogether, I feel like the performance as a whole went incredibly well, and I am proud of my participation in it. I have learnt new things about myself, and found a new sense of self-believe in my abilities which I will carry with me in the future.
For the first two nights of our performance my role was to be a curator of my installation pieces as well as a guide telling the audience members which room to go to next. However, as I was on the landing at all times it meant that people didn’t feel free to explore the space or express opinions. This was especially true for the toilet room as even though I asked each audience member if they wanted to explore the room, only two did so.
As an experiment, on the third night I agreed with the performers in the other rooms that I would hide, mostly in the CCTV room, and observe how the audience reacted to the installations without being watched or feeling coerced. This had very encouraging results, with verbal responses to both installations replacing the silences of the first nights, and every audience member looking around the toilet installation.
A Reflection of Invisible Rituals – Video Performance/Installation
My final video consisted of six different rituals, of around two minutes each, played on an infinite loop. The order of the videos came from looking at everyday lives and the order in which people tend to do these actions; cleansing (wiping my face), drying (talcum powder), grooming (brushing hair), moisturising, daydreaming (looking into the camera) and writing in a diary (writing on a mirror). I also put a different twist on all of the videos in order to make the audience think about those actions in a different light.
Above: My final performance video. ((Louise Peason (2013) Louise’s Site Specific performance video. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAwnDoNSu-A (Accessed: 12th May 2013). ))
For the cleansing, grooming and moisturising videos I tried to slow down or extend the usual way in which we would perform these actions, turning something we would do in under ten seconds, into an action extending to two minutes. This was similar for the drying, day-dreaming and writing in a diary, but as an alternative to extending the length of the ritual I altered the way in which I performed them. Instead of using talcum powder in the usual way, I poured it slowly over my feet until I was eventually covered with powder and stepped out of the frame, leaving a shadow where my feet had been. Inspired by Marina Abramovic and the story of Orpheus and Eurydice my daydreaming video comprised of me staring into the camera, as opposed to a spot in the distance, and ‘snapping out’ of the day-dream when I suddenly turn to look behind me.
For my final video I played with the idea of mirror writing (a style of writing that is also sometimes used for secret messages, like in a diary) as when reflected the backwards writing will actually read forwards. This was an interesting video to observe reactions to, to see if audience members figured out that the writing was actually created backwards.
For my set up of this installation I had intended the mirror to face the staircase so that the audience could see themselves as they came up the stairs, but due to health and safety restrictions, as well as the mirror not being free-standing, I decided to hang the mirror on the wall at a 90° angle to the stairs. This did mean that it was safer for my video monitor and stand as they were further into the landing, rather than being close to the top of the stairs. To the wall with the mirror on it I added a short description of the installation and a backwards clock to add to the theme of reflections and altering the perspective of time in which we perform the rituals. In addition it had a practical purpose, giving me a clock to keep track of where the audience members should be at particular times.
Top Left: The video monitor from the top of the stairs. ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Video Installation [Photograph]. ))
Top Right: The audience’s view of the monitor through the mirror. ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Audience’s perspective [Photograph]. ))
Below: My installation description. ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Video description [Photograph]. ))
Reactions to my video varied, with many responses that I hadn’t anticipated. An interesting comment was that my video might be a live stream of me in a different house and if they asked a question then I might respond. There were also some responses to my mirror writing with people exclaiming “she’s writing backwards on a mirror, in a mirror!” which was very satisfying as I was relieved that people understood the complexity of that clip. The most satisfying reaction to my video was in response to the hair brushing clip, when one audience member likened it to the horror film The Ring which used similar videos of everyday activities just before the girl crawls out of the screen. The audience member feigned fear that he would die in seven days or that I would come out the screen to attack them. This reaction was something I had not considered, having never watched The Ring. It was fascinating to see such a diverse range of reactions to my video, each observer’s own imagination or experiences shaping their interpretations.
If I was to ever re-film this installation or perform in the house again I would create a longer video, either by adding new rituals to it, or extending the existing videos as (due to the ten minute performances in each room) when audience members left the different rooms they always ended up seeing the same clips. I would also find a more effective way of covering my monitor stand as the sheet which covered it didn’t give a very neat finish, although it did serve the purpose effectively of hiding the DVD player and all the wiring. If I could, I would still like to try having the mirror facing the stairs rather than at an angle so that the full effect can be experienced of discovering the installation immediately when coming up the stairs. This would be useful as some audience members did not understand that the video is to be viewed through the mirror and instead stood to the side of the monitor observing it from the front. In terms of the video content I would try to create a higher quality video, experimenting even further with the speed and style of my movements as well as controlling the brightness and focus of my videos which automatically refocused at inconvenient points. I would want to re-film my talcum powder clip as the colour of the carpet was quite distracting and did not match the neutral tones of the other clips.
Life Beyond the Window – Installation
My final installation piece comprised of 50 individual sheets of observations which were photocopied several times. The reason I chose to do this rather than write an entire room’s worth of observations is the amount of time it takes to write a single sheet of A4 paper; the 50 sheets took an exceptionally long time to write by hand but when stuck up covered less than half of the narrow wall. However, the result of sticking up the large number of sheets to the walls, ceiling and both sides of the door was an impressive installation, and unless closely inspected, it was hard to tell that each page was not individual.
Left: Low angle of installation ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Low angle of the Installation [Photograph]. ))
Right: Toilet wall ((Pearson,Louise (2013) Toilet wall [Photograph]. ))
I attached a description of the installation to the door, and set the engaged/vacant sign to ‘engage’ as a subtle message to the audience to engage with the installation rather than become introverted, as is usually the case when one uses this room. I also left the light on and the door wide open so that it could be seen by people coming up the stairs.
Above: My toilet installation description ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Installation description [Photograph]. ))
Below: Engage sign ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Engage [Photograph]. ))
During the performance it was difficult to get any audible responses to this installation but over the CCTV cameras it could be seen that the toilet installation was more interesting to some audience members than the video performance; when I wasn’t on the landing the toilet room was actually the first place most audience members were drawn to. My fellow performers complimented me on how impressive the installation was and they were appreciative of having something interesting to read when they had to use the facilities.
Above: A panorama of my toilet installation. ((Louise Pearson (2013) Louise’s Installation Panorama. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx2rW0kDhYE (Accessed: 12th May 2013). ))
If I was to do this again I would dedicate much more time to generating the observations so that the room could be filled with unique pages, thus making it even more impressive. I would also use different sizes, types and colours of paper in order to make the final project look more visually appealing. The variation in size would create an easier way of ‘wall-papering’ the odd shapes and pipes on the walls.
The house where we are doing our Site Specific performance and the home I grew up in have certain similarities so it was slightly unnerving walking up to the landing for the first time, as it felt strangely familiar, especially the layout of the upstairs rooms which sparked a lot of childhood memories.
Above: My landing observations. ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Landing Observations [Photograph]. ))
I spent some time exploring the landing in detail and recorded my observations from different positions in the room, intrigued to see how the changing perspectives influenced my perception of the space. I also quickly sketched the layout of the landing and added in ideas for performances that could be staged within this small area.
The thing that struck me most is that the landing is almost a non-place (it is not a room per se as it has no function other than as a place to pass through) which makes it feel terribly lonely. I toyed with idea of somehow making the landing into a real room, perhaps a room in miniature or like a small flat with bits from every room. This would give a purpose to the previously dead space whilst inverting the idea of what a landing should be.
The landing is also a gateway area for anyone walking up the stairs yet is not a place where people linger for long. Another idea could be to have a gatekeeper/guide at the top of the stairs who would direct the audience around the upstairs rooms or even give them a choice in where they want to go, by giving clues as to what is behind the closed doors.
I thought about using the nails in the walls to hang pictures or photographs to make the room more homely; these might be of our own or staged families. It would also be interesting to hang a mirror within a picture frame to encourage the audience to reflect on their own homes and families.
Leading on from my idea of turning the landing into a room, I decided to try decorating the space as if it was a living room to see firstly if there was enough space for any seating and secondly, to see whether it inspired any performance ideas. Luckily there was just enough room to create a make-shift sofa and chair though it did make moving around the landing awkward for the other performers.
I began to devise a narrative about the history of the house, as well as the etymology of words such as landing and stairs. I then considered the daily rituals which we perform without realising their significance. I was inspired by Edwin Heathcote’s The Meaning of Home (2012) where he talks about mini-rituals such as ‘opening the [front]door… welcomed in the sun and light of the new day’ ((Heathcote, E (2012) The Meaning of Home. London: Frances Lincoln. )) which led me to think about the daily rituals we all carry out, such as brushing our hair, which I know many people perform in the same order every day without thinking, and therefore ritualising it.
However, these ideas were short-lived as it felt wrong to try and disguise the landing as another room rather than explore its own features. I decided to scrap the living room idea, but I did still want to incorporate the rituals somehow.
Left: Chair ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Chair [Photograph]. ))
Right: Sofa side view ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Sofa side [Photograph]. ))
As a contrast to my first idea, I next removed all the extraneous objects from the landing and focused on the movement that occurs within the space and began creating a new performance concept. My plan was to get the audience to play a game, where they had to navigate around the landing only using parts of the floor which would never usually be stood on. In practise it was very difficult to explain the rules and aim of the game, especially in view of the small size of the landing, which would be very easy to cross.
I then began looking at ways of performing which required minimal movement; I played with the idea of rituals again, and sat in front of a mirror on the landing brushing my hair to see if it gave me any ideas. Performing different daily rituals came to mind, but unless I explained them, it didn’t make sense for me to be performing them on the landing; surely rituals such as brushing my hair would be done in the bedroom? So I turned to video art to see if that could produce the effect I wanted while not appearing out of place.
For the video I filmed half hour clips of myself performing a variety of ritualised activities, which I then played on my laptop but which could only be viewed through a mirror placed opposite it. The idea was that the video would become an installation piece set out so that when an audience member walks up the stairs they would first see themselves in the mirror and would then need to position themselves directly behind a monitor (which is playing my video) in order to see it through the mirror. I was inspired to display my video in this way by the film 33 x Around the Sun which is ‘a dreamlike journey into a world where nothing is quite what it seems’. ((Flamin (2005) 33 x Around the Sun, Available at: http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/33_x_around_the_sun (Accessed: 9th May 2013). )) In one scene in a cafe, the beginning is filmed through a mirror, which is eventually revealed during the scene. The idea of not knowing whether a film clip is shot through a mirror or not fascinates me as it creates an Alice Through the Looking Glass perspective once it is revealed.
I was also inspired by Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present in which she sits unmoving across from a chair in which audience members may sit and share a moment of contemplation with her.
Above: Background information on Abramovic’s performance at MoMA. ((MoMAvideos (2010) Marina Abramović: Live at MoMA. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GD5PBK_Bto (Accessed: 9th May 2013). ))
This inspired one clip of my rituals video in which I watch the camera for an extended period of time as a representation of daydreaming, where our eyes are often fixed on a distant point. Though the clips themselves worked well as an endurance piece of film, I believed they were too long for audience members to appreciate the aim of my piece. Consequently I cut my clips first down to 10 minute segments, then finally to a 12 minute complete video with 6 clips of around 2 minutes each, playing on an infinite loop. This meant that audience members who would only be on the landing for a short amount of time would be able to see at least two or three clips.
Stairs
My original idea for the stairs was to number each stair, and to have a fact on the wall which related to that number either to do with the house, the street or about our group of performers. Though this was interesting for some numbers, many of them were uninteresting facts merely acting as fillers.
I then moved on to researching stories involving stairs such as the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and the Biblical stories of Jacob’s Ladder and when the Queen of Sheba visits Solomon. Though none of these ideas led to any final performance ideas, I did use some of their aspects in my video performance. In both the Biblical and Ancient Greek stories there is a lyre or harp involved which led to the inspiration of my clay model. I also took influence from the ‘don’t look back’ aspect of Orpheus’ story as well as the Biblical tale of Lott’s wife, both of whom ignored the warnings given and turned to look back. In the clip inspired by Marina Abramovic, at the end I turn to see what’s behind me as a subtle indicator to my research into these ancient stories.
Toilet Room
My original idea for the toilet room was to create an anonymous open canvas upon which audience members could leave their messages and memories of home. I also prepared a list of questions that I would ask the other performers, about their ideas or memories of home. Though this did work well as an idea, it would have been time-consuming for all of the performers so I decided to focus on creating an installation through all of my own work.
After reading Georges Perec’s An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris I was inspired to do my own observations of everyday life, which I would then stick up all over the toilet room walls. In this way I would bring the outside world into the private area of the toilet room, subverting the inward-thinking nature of the room.
