Faye Rose Mcdool – ________-Safe House-_________

Worn out one’s welcome of the Safe House

Faye Rose Mcdool / May 7, 2013May 13, 2013 / CCTV

During the performance, I feel my photos of my Liminal, Compact and Ignored Spaces project worked successfully. As they were scattered around the house in different rooms, it allowed empty places in the house like window ledges being filled and like the concept of my project, draws audiences eyes to these disregarded places creating a larger relationship with the Liminal, Compact and Ignored Spaces in the house. “leads us beyond the spatial area of the dwelling into general human relationships.” ((O.F. Bollnow’s 2011 Human Space, London: Hyphen press p143)). These abstract photos also fitted in most of the other rooms due to the other concepts of the performances. For instance, rooms like the bedroom and also the shed and were also used during that performance but did not steal focus. I sincerely think my images reflected my inspirations, Eve Dent, Willie Dorner and Emma Hack and succeed the surrealism of the images in the frames around the house.

**Click the image to link to all my Liminal, Compact and Ignored Spaces images**

For the CCTV performance, all of the pre-recorded were set up around the room with the audio playing on speakers and headphones. However, during this, to help out another performance and to set the theme for the house, we interrogated the audience members while they were sat in the waiting room with ‘Agent H’. As we could see them from the CCTV room, but they didn’t know they were being watch, we asked the audience a series of questions via telephone loud speaker:

“Are your glasses prescribed or a disguise? What’s in your bag? Is your electrical chipped or can be used as a weapon? What’s the first thing you see when this key is in use? Is your fringe long to disguise your face?”

After this we recall, and stated the “Access has been confirmed” and wrote the answers on the white board. When the audience arrived into the CCTV room, we were situated on a chair at the back of the room wearing a shirt, smart black bottoms and shades which are dark or mirrored so the audience is unable to see our faces. From this position, we stared at the live CCTV 9 screens and unable to react or speak to the audience.

When some audience members entered the room, some took a different approach than others. As the audience had just become comfortable with the house, they had forgotten about the interrogation at the begining and have to return to this environment. “Thus comfort represents an essential component of the domestic sphere in the contrat with the tension of life outside the house…” ((O.F. Bollnow’s 2011 Human Space, London: Hyphen press p143-3)) Some tried to speak to us while we were sat on the chair but was unable to answer. Others came straight in and listened to the night filming and its narratives. Being in the dark room with all the pre-recorded footage being played created a taunting atmosphere in the dark with the whisper of voices and only light from the various screens. One audience member found it difficult to be in the room and listen to the audio, especially through the headphones. When the audience members realised that they had been watched and that the CCTV 9 screens were live, we had a variety of reactions as some already realised but others felt guilty as they felt they were spying on the rest of the house. One audience member said:

“Maybe this is the message! It is rude to watch others even though we have just been watching them perform and now we are watching them on here?”

Following this, asking if he could exit the room if he got it correct as the room creeped him out. To Complete, I feel our pre-performance and the audience interrogation set the tone for the overall process from out time in the Safe House. It was a successful final room for the audience to experience as they were able to see the journey they had just taken. Also, to experience footage with audio of being invisible allowed them to have a range of overall views on their experience in the Safe House and being able to witness it empty and at night.

Link to all the videos:

Bedroom

Cot Room Half and Half Face

Living Room Spotlight

Front Door

Room of Screens

Faye Rose Mcdool / April 17, 2013May 13, 2013 / CCTV, Performance process, Rooms, Technical

We have decided to allocate the CCTV room as the room of screens. In here, we will place all the Night filming footage with the recorded narratives played screens scattered around on the desk, book case and tables with the large TV screen showing the live CCTV split 9 screen . Each screen will be allocated a different room from the filming with head phones attached to some devices and speakers to others. When the audience enter the room, it shall be blacked out with no natural light leaking in and only the light pollution from the computer, laptop and IPad screens.

For the narratives for the night filming footage, we have decided to base it on feminism and edit the original text which were written in the researched books. I have chosen to write the text for the Bedroom, Cot Room angle 2 and the Waiting Room. However, for the waiting room, as the images is so strong, I have decided to leave it silent without any text but with a strong static sound. The narratives for the other two rooms read:

Bedroom

Lying like this, I felt as if I had become part of the fabric around me, absorbed into the earth like a dead woman I had no individual existence. At that moment, I suddenly felt as if I had connected heaven and earth like a bridge. By trial and error I had found the position that enabled me to exist fully in that particular space. ((original text from: Oida, Yoshi. Marshall, Lorna 1997, The Invisible Actor. Cox & Wyman, Reading Berkshire))

Cot Room 2nd angle/Half and Half Face

Being invisible and without substance, a disembodied voice, as it were, what else could I do? What else but try to tell you what was really happening when your eye was looking through me? And it is this which frightens me as the interior. Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you. ((original text from: Rattray, David 1993 How I Became Invisible , Semiotext,U.S.: Central Bks))

The ordering of the clips depends on the audience and which video/screen they are attracted to first. The sounds on the video will be played into headphones and speakers on which the narrative printed out and placed near the screen so they can read the text also. The audience members will not be able to hear any noise pollution from outside and from the rest of the house.

Liminal, Compact and Ignored Spaces

Faye Rose Mcdool / March 26, 2013May 13, 2013 / Performance process

From placing my Mosaic image of my body back into the space it was taken, wasn’t clear enough due to the dark clothing and the awkward positioning of the cupboard. So I decided to explore the house more and change my costume to beige, flesh coloured clothing which also blended into the walls of the house due to the cream walls. Exploring more of the house and the tight spaces it offers was interesting to know how and various ways to adjust my body into the compact spaces.

wall editied — Photo Taken By Jozey Wade. Edited By Faye Rose McDool

“As you gain a greater awareness of your body, it preferences, and begin noticing how even tiny physical changes can affect your inner state. You start to really inhabit your body and see how the subtest in your body affects your inner landscapes” ((Oida, Yoshi & Marshall, Lorna 1997, The Invisible Actor, Cox & Wyman, Reading, Berkshire p35))
With the new images I have taken, I have edited them, layering the images to make my body look fixed in that environment and into the photo. This will also get the sense of my body inhabiting the space, just like Eve Dent and Willie Dorner creations. This also will draw the audience attention to the ignored spaces in the house and show their possibilities. “Responding to the site and creating a new set of questions” ((Weileder, Wolfgang 2005, House Projects, Birmingham p25))

Emma-Hack, Oriental-Bouquet-Cradled-Ringneck-346x346 — Emma Hack ((Emma Hack, Utopia: Oriental Bouquet Cradled Ringneck, Accessed 26/03/2013 http://www.emmahackartist.com.au/emma_art/emma_utopia.html#.UVGPXByeNTk))

After I edited my photos, I saw a resemblance to Emma Hacks work. She is an body artist who paints bodies the same pattern as the background to make them blend into that environment.

My idea of become part of the House is also going to be reflected as to where I am going to place my images. They are going to be scattered around the house in family photo frames with each image appropriate room, as to where the photo was taken, placed on window ledges and shelf’s This gives the sense of the images of becoming part of the family home as well as the images them self of me becoming the building.

Becoming Invisible: CCTV but in a new light

Faye Rose Mcdool / March 26, 2013May 13, 2013 / CCTV, Performance process, Research

We enjoyed the idea of revealing a message, however, we thought we could be more creative with this take more advantage of using the CCTV during different times during the day. The title of the Site Specific piece is ‘Safe House’ so we began to question two people where they are most comfortable in their house/flat student accommodation.

We questioned this because, like in the Safe House, we are not permanent residents but we are simply there temporarily and can get attached to one room. Like the two on the video getting attached with their bedrooms, we are most comfortable in the CCTV room as that is where we spend most of our time during rehearsals.

From getting this information, we wanted to challenge the meaning of Safe House and making the audience feel uncomfortable when watching our pre-recorded footage. The definition of Safe House is “a dwelling or building whose conventional appearance makes it a safe or inconspicuous place for hiding, taking refuge, or carrying on clandestine activities.” ((Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer IEEE: Dictionary.com, “safe house,” in Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Source location: HarperCollins Publishers.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/safe house. Available:http://dictionary.reference.com. Accessed: March 26, 2013)) . We wanted to take the aspect of hiding in the house so we have played around with using darkness with the CCTV. To do this, we film inside the house at night time. Doing this was interesting because we all of a sudden felt a sense of fear of going through the house just because of the darkness and due to being unfamiliar with the other rooms. Over the top of the recordings, we have found quotes for various books to describe the thoughts and feeling of being invisible in the darkness.

We looked at “The Invisible Man” By Ralph Ellison which expresses the thoughts and feelings of an African man in society and how he feels invisible compared to the rest of his society in the twentieth century. “I am a man of substance of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids” ((Ellison, Ralph, 1947 The Invisible Man, Penguin Books, New York p7)) . Using this would link wonderfully without CCTV recordings as you can see a silhouette of a body during the footage but only when the body is moving or light shone on them you notive there is a human there. We looked at other books to find this sense of hiding and invisibility:

The Invisible actor By Yoshi Oida & Lorna Marshall ((Oida, Yoshi. Marshall, Lorna 1997, The Invisible Actor. Cox & Wyman, Reading Berkshire))
How I Became Invisible By David Rattray ((Rattray, David 1993 How I Became Invisible , Semiotext,U.S.: Central Bks))

Among quotes from these texts, we created our own words to record and say over the footage for the final edit for the video to create a narrative. We edited the text also to focus it on feminist views instead so we could connect more with the text we had found and going to write.

When creating this, I also realised how much in common it has with my own work of Liminal, Compact and Ignored spaces and the sense of hiding but wanted to be seen in the space. Because of this, I have decided to place some of this work in the CCTV room on the cord board along with the pre-recorded CCTV video.

Liminal, Compact and Ignored Spaces

Faye Rose Mcdool / March 5, 2013May 13, 2013 / Documentation, Performance process

Compact Spaces

Exploring the work of Eve Dent and Willie Dorner, I explored the places in the house where we don’t normally place out bodies. My two favourite places were the bathroom and living room cupboards. One was compact and another was ignored due to the boiler being its main purpose. I wanted to mould and force my body into the spaces as much as possible to create a relationship within them.

With these images, I am going to experiment with chopping them up and replacing them into these spaces so it is as if I am embedded within the spaces. I have practiced with cropping and distorting one of the images. I may have to re take the images to present more skin to show there is a body there.

IMG-20130305-00643 — Photo Taken By Jozey Wade. Edited by Faye McDool

This distraught image was influenced by Pablo Picasso work. He distraught’s portraits and painting by splitting the images up into blocks. The most famous painting of his where this is exampled is ‘Seated Nude’ (1909-10).

Pablo Picasso, ‘Seated Nude’ 1909-10 — Seated Nude ((Pablo PicassoSeated Nude 1909-10 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/picasso-seated-nude-n05904))

Distinguishing the image, hopefully will make the audience see the surreal image of my body in the space.

“The reproduction of a painting or object, however perfect, is always, definitively, its betrayal. And that betrayal is the much greater when it invovles not objects or paintings but the whole space” ((Buren, D. 1973, Five Texts, London: John Weber Gallery and John Wendle Gallery p19)) .

I came across another artist work which fitted my photo collage creation. Sir Eduardo Paolozzi sculpture gave me the inspiration to place my cut up image back into the place, however to mould the image so it created a 3D image as it seemed to be embedded into the wall.

Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, ‘Michelangelo's 'David'’ ?1987 — Sir Eduardo Paolozzi ((Sir Eduardo PaolozziMichelangelo’s ‘David’ ?1987 online: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/paolozzi-michelangelos-david-t06944))

However, when trying this, as the image was so dark, it was difficult to see the image when it was placed back into the site it was taken.

Continuing this idea, I shall retake the images, however showing more flesh, so the audience can see on the images that it is a human body in that space.

With this inside the space it was originally taken, I may challenge the audience to find me and to ‘join me’ within the space. This will also link with my work with the CCTV as I will be watching if they take up the challenge and having audience participation with my experience. ((Kaye, Nick 2000, Site Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation. Routledge))