Faye Rose Mcdool – Page 2 – ________-Safe House-_________

“CCTV surveillance which naturally invites comparisons” Norris and Armstrong 1999

Faye Rose Mcdool / March 5, 2013May 13, 2013 / CCTV

We created a teaser for the public to see to advertise our performance. We decided to use placards for the trailer to not reveal too much about the performance and to demonstrate a brief idea of the piece. With this, we used quotes from Pearsons “Site Specific” ((Pearson, Mike 2010, Site Specific Performance, Palgrave)) and also definitions from the Oxford dictionary so who ever watches to teaser will get a grasp of our concept.

Creating the trailer did come with its difficulties as we were unable to cut and crop shots from the CCTV recording system as we had no kind of advance technology. We explored the full use of the CCTV system and played around with using the different camera angles.

One more trailer we made was an Hangman game trailer which eventually read “West Parade”. This enabled the CCTV group and I explore with becoming technical with the equipment we are using. Also this trailer revealed more to the audience.

“CCTV surveillance which naturally invites comparisons with bentham’s nineteenth-century design for the new model prison, with its central observation tower, allowing the augraads to see everything without ever being seen themselves” ((Norris, Clive. Armstrong, Gary, 1999 The Maximum Surveillance Society; The Rise of CCTV. Berg. p91))

After exploring with the CCTV and trailers, ideas were formed for this to be used during the performance. We wanted to focus on giving the audience a message which they could leave the house with. During the performance we will hide various placards which will only make sense when the audience arrive in the CCTV room. As the screen is split into 9 shots of the house, we thought it would be interesting to have relevant quotes stuck around the house and it would all make sense when unravel only in our room. “Explicitly provoked the reader’s self-reflective awareness of relationships between text, space and eye movement” ((Kaye, Nick, 2007 Multi Media; Video Installation Performance Routledge p101)) . Gillian Wearing, a photographer, uses placards in her work collection called “Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say”. She expresses her thoughts and feelings by using members of the public to hold her signs up. This would again revival what we have witnessed and why we have been watching the audience member throughout the performance.

Gillian Wearing OBE, ‘'Everything is connected in life...'’ 1992-3 — Gilliam Wearing ((image: online (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wearing-everything-is-connected-in-life-p78351) accessed 05/03/2013)).

To expose the hidden message, there will be pre-recorded video which follows a person on the screen as they take a tour of the house, uncovering the messages from room to room. However, we would be using the CCTV blind spots and the CCTV 9 grid layout to create the sense of the person going from room to room in the order of the 9 grid on the CCTV screen.

IMG-20130129-00499 — Taken By Faye McDool

The pre-recorded performance was influenced by Fiona Templeton and Michael Ramtomski’s Recognition performance. This piece largely influenced out idea as it involves “audience participation” were audience discomfort was at risk, “interaction” and “opportunity to take part” ((Templeton, Fiona May 2006, Audience Interaction: A Presence Workshop. accessed 05/03/2013 http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/1107)) . We wanted to play on these three concepts to for the audience to feel as they have created a relationship without them seeing us apart from on the prerecording. Again, the audience will fully understand all of your work when they enter the CCTV room.

Liminal, Compact and Ignored Spaces

Faye Rose Mcdool / February 18, 2013May 13, 2013 / Research

Ignored Spaces

From working with the CCTV, I noticed and discovered all of the spaces which could be used and what is normally ignored by it being a threshold or somewhere we usually store belongings. I want to draw the audience attention to these spaces and how they can be used impermanently. I again looked at Eve Dent and how she embodies the spaces she is in. “My work explores the boundaries between the physical body and the body of a site.” ((Dent, Eve , Eve Dent 2003 online:http://www.an.co.uk/artists_talking/artists_stories/single/59462 (acessed: 18/02/2013))

85934-4 — Eve Dent ((Eve Dent, ‘Anchor #3’, May 2002. Photo: Mike Young)).

Eve Dents work is similar to Lindsey Jennings Hill piece which is a journey of the Stage Left Staircase at Hoxton Hall ((Jennings Hill, Lindsey 17/12/2009, Stage Left Staircase, p9)):

“There is a curve in the wall here. Why is it there, what is it for? My body moulds perfectly into the curve in the wall, it feels like it was waiting for me, like I complete it, fill its spaces to make it whole. (I lean my body into the curve filling it with my body).”

The idea of her embodying the wall, I found was intriguing and thought it would be effective for the audience to appreciate these places they wouldn’t normally notice.

I was then guided to look at the work by Willie Dorner. His work entails of

“squeezing human bodies into nooks and crannies for his Bodies in Urban Spaces project. Groups of dancers, climbers and performers wearing brightly coloured clothes run through busy malls and high streets and cram themselves into doorways, alcoves and any gap they can find in public buildings.” ((Bodies in urban spaces by Willie Dorner The Guardian, Sunday 21 June 2009 15.09 BST Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/jun/21/bodies-urban-spaces))

Willie Dorner ((“Bodies in urban spaces by Willie Dorner” The Guardian, Sunday 21 June 2009 15.09 BST Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

artanddesign/gallery/2009/jun

/21/bodies-urban-spaces)).

Willie Dorner ((“Bodies in urban spaces by Willie Dorner” The Guardian, Sunday 21 June 2009 15.09 BST Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

artanddesign/gallery/2009/jun/

21/bodies-urban-spaces)).

From looking at these three artists, I explored use places in the house like the cupboards, under chairs and desks. In these, spaces I would photograph my experience of being cramped and discovering the site. I decided to have this project separate to my work in the CCTV room as we have develop a different concept.

“Home is where the heart is…”

Faye Rose Mcdool / February 1, 2013May 13, 2013 / CCTV, Documentation, Home

IMG-20130129-00496 — Taken By Faye McDool

Home is “the place of one’s dwelling and nurturing, with its association” ((Little, W (1969) “The Oxford Universal Dictionary”, London: Oxford University Press.)). Entering the house, I got the complete opposite feeling to this definition of home. My first impressions were that the house was cold, damp, dirty and therefore a perfect performance space for a site specific performance.

From the reading, Pearson lists the differences between a performance on a stage and site specific. “At site, it is always as if for the first time” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p17 )). Gaining the unique opportunity and experience to devise a piece from the house made everyone begin to have ideas for the final piece. Using the CCTV equipment installed in the house, the idea was said to prerecord some material and play it during the live performance causing juxtaposition. This could be used to a great extent as we could play with the audience and their reaction to the performance by filming it.

Learning how to use the CCTV system was very interesting to see the rooms from a different prospective . I found Govans Revisioning Place “ inhabiting space” interesting reflecting on the CCTV. “Making performance which deals with travel, context and orientation” ((Govan, Emma, et al (2007) Making a Performance, Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices Oxon and USA, Routledge p121)) From watching the groups in different rooms and how they adjusted to them to make a performance made me think of this as they all explored the rooms and what was in them. They also played a lot with props and explored the cupboards so they became more familiar with the space after their orientation.

When watching the groups, I was reflecting on how I could see everything in the rooms and what performance rehearsals were occurring. “From a different disciplinary standpoint” ((Pearson, Mike 2010, Site Specific Performance, Palgrave p23)) I had an inspirational idea from Eve Dent. Her work involves adjusting her body to where ever she decides to hides and only being able see her if you’re looking for her but to most people, she is invisible. This gave me the idea of the audience to explore and challenge them to find places to hide around the house. Some should be obvious that other but in some rooms like master bed room, there is a cupboard where you can fit at least two people and it would be interesting to see if they open the cupboard to find the performers. “Organic connection between art and the environment.” ((Govan, Emma, et al (2007) Making a Performance, Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices Oxon and USA, Routledge p133))

dent — Event Dent ((Eve Dent, Tel Aviv,, Google Images Accessed 1/2/2012))

060405ab — Eve Dent ((Eve Dent, Bird in the House,, Google Images Accessed 1/2/2012))

While I was watching the other groups on the CCTV, I had become familiar with listening in to their conversations. Making this productive we recorded it on the CCTV then writing down creating a script which we then went to that particular room and repeated it to them. This is the use of Verbatim. “The term verbatim refers to the origins of the text spoken in the play. The words of real people are recorded or transcribed be a dramatist during interview or research process…actors take on the characters of the real individuals whose words are being used.” ((Hammond, Will & Steward, Dan , 2008. Verbatim p9)) We tested and their reaction was just what we was looking for. This also links back to the reading and the Last Supper. “gives voice to the voiceless.” ((Govan, Emma. Nicholson, Helen & Normingtion, Katie 2007 Making a performance. Routledge p115)) As an audience member, one usually may think they are not allowed the speak during a performance and giving the the realisation that they have been watched. However, we had the idea of listening in to their conversation when none of the performers are in the room and repeating it to them when they least expect it.

“This sense of evoking the invisible is increased through a number of devices, including the director’s encouragement of ‘non-performing’, … Indeed, the whole status of the performers is ambiguous. Are the actors themselves? (they are named as such in the script.) Are they personas? Are they momentarily representations of the people whose words the speak?” ((Govan, Emma. Nicholson, Helen & Normingtion, Katie 2007 Making a performance. Routledge p115))