The bedroom is typically thought of as a place for sleeping, dreaming and sexual activity. Combining all three in our performance will cause an interesting reaction. Sexual fantasy and dreaming is an interesting topic and very little is known about the relationship between them. Freud created the notion that all dreams could be considered to have sexual references within them; it is all down to the interpretation. However, not all psychologists share this view. “The typical male dreamer has 12 “sex dreams” per 100 dream reports.” ((Domhoff, G.William (1996) Finding Meaning in Dreams: A Quantitative Approach, New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation.)) This is a relatively high number, considering dreams are a fairly regular occurrence for most people. Freud “also claimed that much of dream imagery represents repressed sexual instincts or desires.” ((King, D, DeCicco, T, & Humphreys, T 2009, ‘Investigating sexual dream imagery in relation to daytime sexual behaviours and fantasies among Canadian university students’, Canadian Journal Of Human Sexuality, 18, 3, pp. 135-146.)) Therefore, presenting a male voyeur with a sexually charged situation has the potential to make them conscious of their sexual fantasies.
Our performance separates the sleeping element and the dream content. The audience member in the bed is put to ‘sleep’ while the voyeur has the sexual ‘dream’ revealed in front of them. This shows a distortion between dreaming and sex. They are relevant and they can exist in the same place but people might not always remember a dream or it might not have an obvious meaning. This will only have this effect if the voyeur is a male. Males are reported to be “more likely to dream of someone other than their current partner.” ((King, D, DeCicco, T, & Humphreys, T 2009, ‘Investigating sexual dream imagery in relation to daytime sexual behaviours and fantasies among Canadian university students’, Canadian Journal Of Human Sexuality, 18, 3, pp. 135-146.)) Therefore, it will still be as effective seeing a naked stranger or acquaintance as it would be to see their own partner. It could be considered to be more effective as they might feel like they should be repressing their reaction.
Another interesting point to monitor on performance day would be the audience member’s interactions with each other. The person in the bed will be completely oblivious to anything else that would have happened and so will have to be informed by the voyeur. The voyeur might be very descriptive when describing what happened, or they might become embarrassed and leave out important details.
It is completely normal to want to have a thorough understanding of the world around us and the way that most of us do this is to create categories, to organise things by function, appearance or by any number of unknown criteria in order to form neat groups. This building of taxonomies is part of our everyday lives, in fact my initial response to our site was to break it up into three such groups, The ‘Simulator’ includes rooms that have been made to simulate the feeling of home without actually being inhabited, the ‘Office’ category applies to those rooms that have no illusion of home and exist only to facilitate the illusion of the rest of the house and finally the ‘Home’ which can be used to describe those rooms that were left untouched as the house became a simulator and as such retained the traces of a true home. Each room in the house was then placed into one these three categories by its function.
Here we have the first point of interest the way we express this categorisation is through our only universal form of communication, language. For Saussure “Nothing is distinct before language” (( De Saussure, Ferdinand (1974) Course in General Linguistics, New York: Fontana Collins, p.111-112 )) so that part of our perception of an object is tied up in how we can describe that same object. You can only distinguish between things than can be described to be different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGlN_EaEgPQ
The clip above (( DuckPlumberThe2nd (2011) The Two Ronnies – The Confusing Library. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGlN_EaEgPQ (Accessed: 9th April 2013) )) is the heart wrenching tale of the compulsion to classify gone horribly wrong, the man is completely unable to find his book because of the monstrous disregard the librarian appears to have for a logical taxonomy (though it must be remembered it was in fact the architect’s idea). This fable does however raise some serious questions, why is it absurd to order books by colour, size or thickness? It seems it is all a matter context, which is a quite vague answer and definitely requires further scrutiny. The aim here then is to challenge the pattern of classification, to ask which criteria we choose and why. Why is it any less valid to be looking for a large green book than for The Twisted Spur?
The most obvious answer is that we define things by function because that is the most immediate way in which they will relate to us. How can I use this item? It does not matter to us what colour the item is if we currently need it to mash potatoes (unless of course you are an architect).
What happens then when an item is rediscovered? I.e it’s use is unknown, then it is a matter for the historian or archaeologist to place it in a taxonomy, the first step towards this is describing the item, here the job of the historian/archaeologist seems reasonably simple they must “articulate it into a description acceptable to everyone: confronted with the same entity, everyone will be able to give the same description; and, inversely, given such a description everyone will be able to recognise the individual identities that correspond to it” (( Foucault, Michel (1970) The Order of Thing, London: Routledge, p. 134 )) . Obviously there are huge challenges in creating universal taxonomy and Foucault further advises historians/archaeologists to describe using only what can be observed as fact or by use of “by analogies that must be of the utmost clarity” (( Foucault, Michel (1970) The Order of Thing, London: Routledge, p. 134 )) .Then we go back to Saussure to the idea of the sign, signifier, signified which relies, as Foucault observes, upon “the common affinity of things and language with representation” (( Foucault, Michel (1970) The Order of Thing, London: Routledge, p. 132 )) he continues however “things and language happen to be separate” (( Foucault, Michel (1970) The Order of Thing, London: Routledge, p. 132 )) .
It is here, the space between signifier and signified, in which we can successfully incorporate the performer, for it is his (my) job to take the idiosyncrasies of the world and expose them. So if we take the job of classification away from the so called expert (the historian/archaeologist) and hand it over to the performer (who then becomes the performer/historian/archaeologist) what might we discover?
Let’s start with something as simple as the category of ‘things that were found in this garden’. While that is what binds each and every one of my exhibits together, can there be more to it than that? What happens when we throw off this context, take those items out of their immediate context and place them somewhere else, somewhere neutral, a museum perhaps? What links those objects now? I (performer/historian/archaeologist) know that these objects originate in the same place but if the language that accompanies the exhibits, the language that is responsible for their context refuses to supply it, the audience is forced to make their own taxonomies of the seemingly disparate. What connects the bird feeder and the plug socket, the cigarette lighter and the hat stand? These are the questions the audience must be encouraged to ask, and then logically the nature of our classifications as a whole.
The exhibits are connected by one abstract factor, none the less they belong in the same category according to this particular performer/historian/archaeologist. This should then ask, in societies quest for order and definitive answers, what are the possibilities we overlook?
This shed is like the office or lab it is a place in which to retreat into thought, it is a shrine, the domain of the expert, the place where he plies his trade, makes his assumptions with divine tunnel vision. If, as Saussure assures us, there is no distinction without language then what effect do the lies/mistakes of the performer/historian/archaeologist have on the nature of the object? That we will have to find out in performance.
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.
“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.
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.))
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].))
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.
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.
David Rodinsky’s headstone, 1999. Photograph by Rachel Lichtenstein
Hoarding is a form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) it usually begins early in life, and can be seen in children. Children create extremely intense attachments to objects and have a tendency to personify things. Hoarding expands to become a modest problem in the 20’s and 30’s and becomes a severe problem in the 40’s and 50’s. Hoarders feel attached to their objects for several different reasons. These attachments take the form of attaching human- like qualities to lifeless possessions, feeling grief at the prospect of losing the objects, and deriving a sense of safety from being surrounded by objects. Other beliefs hoarders have are the necessity of saving things to keep memories and to appreciate the beauty of the objects. They also believe in not wasting objects or losing opportunities that are represented by them. When researching hoarders I came across a survey comparing people with OCD who are hoarders and people who are non-hoarders.
This grave shows the feelings and emotions of a hoarder and a non-hoarder.
“Living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to precluds for which those spaces were designed” ((Nedelisky, A, & Steele, M 2009, ‘Attachment to people and to objects in obsessive-compulsive disorder: an exploratory comparison of hoarders and non-hoarders’, Attachment & Human Development, 11, 4, pp. 365-383, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 7 April 2013.))
This quote was taken from the survey/ article and I think it relates very closely to our performance, we are setting out to make our audience feel uncomfortable. Making it difficult for them to walk through a living room like you would in any other normal house. Giving them the feeling that they would actually experience in a home of a hoarder. They will walk into the room, and be in total shock at what they see, but try to not disturb and act as if nothing is it out of the ordinary. Something that most people would do when they are faced with something unexpected when they are guest in someone’s home, the experience we would like to give the audience is one they have never experienced or seen before. Our group do not want them to enter and us to perform and show them our room; we want them to take what they want from it whether that is disgust shock or fascination. The audience may understand the reasoning behind our performance, and why the room is full of pizza boxes and beer cans but they may not, but really it doesn’t matter we are there no one really knows why or what has occurred before they opened the door but that doesn’t matter. ((Etchells, T 2006, ‘Instructions for Forgetting’, TDR: The Drama Review, 50, 3, pp. 108-130, International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text, EBSCOhost, viewed 7 April 2013)) ((Fugen, N, Steven, W, Jennifer, A, & Dean, M n.d., ‘Compulsive hoarders: How do they differ from individuals with obsessive compulsive disorder?’, Psychiatry Research, 200, pp. 35-40, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost, viewed 7 April 2013.)) ((Fischer, S 2001, ‘A Room of Our Own: Rodinsky, Street Haunting and the Creative Mind’, Changing English: Studies In Reading & Culture, 8, 2, p. 119, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 7 April 2013.))
Every Sculptor , like every performer, must to some degree tackle the questions of site, ‘what am I creating?’ and ‘how will it interact with its surroundings?’. There are artists that put this concern at the forefront of their work, their site is their stimulus, their source of material and it defines their work.
Within these artists there is further distinction, which element of the site is it your sculpture aims to subvert/complement/interact with?
Taken by Greg Heins, 14 November 1980.
In 1979 a group of sculptors undertook a commission to create site inspired sculpture around the campus of the Wellesley College Museum, Stehpen Antonakos was one of the artists commissioned, his unique response was rooted in the pre-existing architecture “in terms of its formal stylistic features” (( Hoos Fox, Judith (1980), Aspects of the 1970s: Sitework, Boston: The Wellesley College Museum , p. 3 )) . His final piece Red Incomplete Neon Circle (pictured here) completely breaks up the straight oppressive geometry of the existing building, creating a new dialogue between the conflicting angles.
This dialogue between architect and sculptor then transforms the entire building into the art work, forcing the observer to re-assess what was took for granted before, this is then a prime example of site art; It both responds to and enhances the site on which it is built. Antonakos’s ideas, however, are somewhat distant from my own, he focuses on the finished product, assembling it in his own workshop off site. My work needs to take shape before the audiences eyes, the sculpting itself and the possibility of collaboration within that makes it not simply site art but also site performance. It is a single artists visual response to a visual stimulus, as such it is a simple piece, which hold resonance only if we wish to think about the structure, there is so much more to site which we can access however.
Another artist tackles the same question with a very different process. Lars Kordetzky travelled to a decommissioned psychiatric hospital shortly before it was to be demolished, in order to create an artistic response to the site. He began building sculptures that would suggest the psychological footprint of the isolation cells former inhabitant. Using the drawings of a former inmate Kordetzky began to understand that to this inhabitant the room was not as small as it seemed, instead he found complex mesh of worlds built in “a different scale for different mental dimensions” ((( Kordetzky, Lars (2001), Saw Only The Moon, New York: Springer-Verlag Wien, p. 80)) . In isolation the patient had created numerous worlds within his cell, invisible to all but himself, consisting of whole towns connected by an impossible network of tunnels. His sculptures (one of which is pictured below) start with a cuboid frame, then gradually he begins to build up each individual world of the patients imagination, the picture below (( Koredtsky, Lars (2010) Sequences: Saw Only the Moon Online: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/lars-kordetzky-sequences/ (Accessed 6 April 2013) )) shows one such world which has clearly been ripped into three by the fragmented nature of the patients grasp on reality.
Kordetzky recognised that the worlds and towns that the patient had created were not fully formed, each one bled into the next, this “Architecture of blurredness” (( Kordetzky, Lars (2001), Saw Only The Moon, New York: Springer-Verlag Wien, p.86 )) as Kordetzky calls it is shown translated in to the sculpture as wood and plastic intersect and interrupt each breaking through the imagined barriers of the worlds, none are enclosed or separate, each is forced to interact with those around it. The Effect of looking through one of Kordetzky’s sculptures is then to perceive the world through the eyes of the patient, within the frame there is such a chaos of these intersecting worlds that the frame is no longer obvious, the observer like the patient can no longer see the physical boundaries, which form the metaphor for walls of the isolation chamber, but are enraptured by the contents, the insanity of the interior. Kordetzky then accurately recreates the psychological landscape of his site and most importantly for my own work, roughly half way-through the process he asks the inmate to come and assist with his work. This is of course the only person that can help Kordetzky, being the only person with any actual knowledge of what is being recreated.
The Shed is a place for thinking, “Spaces we construct in which to dream” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln, p.114)) and here is the similarity, the isolation cell serves to isolate the individual and confine his madness, while the shed exists to facilitate the thinking. They leave a somewhat similar psychological footprint, that of place which is a concentrated centre of thought, dreams and creativity, the only difference being that between the rational and the irrational, which is quite possibly, not such a huge distinction after all. Kordetzky when concluding his project explains that the inmates “eternal struggle for home, means creating structures of one’s own” (( Kordetzky, Lars (2001), Saw Only The Moon, New York: Springer-Verlag Wien, p. 24 )) these structures are psychological for the inmate but could just as easily be made physical. Indeed men in their hobbies often build models, jigsaws, spice racks or even as the patient does whole towns of their own, perhaps in as literal a form as a model railway. Both are spaces which exist primarily for thought and dreaming, the only difference is between the necessity of the isolation room and the luxury of the shed.
Because of these similarities there is more in my project to sympathise with the process of Kordetzky than Antonakos because like Kordetzky’s project, mine seeks to go beyond the physical remnants of site into something which is not immediately obvious, it calls upon the subjective experience of the individual co-inhabiting the site.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs the aim of this half of the performance was specifically to settle the question: ‘how are men perceived?’, but in light of the kind of work that was undertaken by Kordetsky, I feel it might be appropriate to focus the question a little more upon dreams, so for now the question is “How do we build a dream, from the comfort of home?” and these dreams belong to everyone, so it makes sense to invite anyone to to contribute to the sculpture as it slowly develops.
