Category: Rooms

The reality of the ‘kitchen cycle’…an evaluative response.

Andrew Tinley / / Documentation, Home, Music / Sound, Performance process, Research, Rooms

Site specific performance has given me the opportunity to explore material which would be futile if transformed to a black box studio or stage. To explore and create something without the theatrical limitations or instant audience preconceptions provides you with a plain, empty foundation for discovery.

“The presence of an audience is central to the definition of theatre, and the twentieth century saw an explosion of interest in the audience’s role among experimental theatre practitioners” (( Freshwater, Helen Theatre and Audience 2009, London: Palgrave Macmillan). ))

The kitchen provided me with a range of ideas which to begin with were instantly based around visualising images food and consumption. Audience preconceptions about kitchens and mine as performer were hard to stem away from. This challenging lane of thought however provoked me in to thinking about a kitchen were control was restricted or lost. I intended to remove this element of socialising which had been part of a kitchen’s heritage for centuries. I had to make audience respond to the kitchen differently. Going against the norm was a tricky performance idea when the site was set up so appropriately for social engagement and ease. This focus on the lack of control forced me to think about a kitchens purpose and function.

The sounds of a kitchen are what users find familiar. These audio ideas were created through simple experimentation with basic kitchen objects and creating the sounds of different aspects simultaneously. These basic ideas stemmed towards the final result and post production of these sounds. Listening to familiar noises on an audio device initiated a performance element instantly, focused around your senses. My sound manipulation coincided with the element of disorder to create an audio performance that consisted of familiar kitchen site noises collaborated, distorted and edited together to create an sense of digestion and lack of order. To make the listening more performative, features were added to the set to increase the feel of manipulated digestion and consumption.

Audiences’ responses to the soundscape varied. Due to the added sensory features and my chaotic consumption, audiences were forced to visualise the site with the added soundtrack to the performance. The headphones in most cases disabled the audience to converse, leaving the performance to be an individual encounter. Only you know what your body does, and it’s something that is rarely spoken about and so to graphically hear elements of contrasting audio sound clips reinforced the lack of control theme which was evident in my initial planning. Audience members tend to stare at me, as if I was an animal in a zoo, enhanced by the torches this made me feel like an object on display, a cog in a machine that wasn’t working properly, something unreal or dysfunctional. It was very interesting to see that some people had confidence when exploring the jars full of various rotted food as others were tense, anxious, and claustrophobic.
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(All pictures taken by myself on 2/5/13 Documentation)

The ability to communicate your message without the norm of speech enabled this performance to become a definite sensory performance. To use senses to transfer messages creates specific independent responses. The reaction to sound, smell and sight vary heavily to those of speech. This excited me as a performer because you were able to engage with them visually, as if they were performing. For the audience/performer shift to be present throughout the performance made the piece heavily link back to a kitchens normal purpose, yet simultaneously taking it out of its original context.

 

The Exhibition is over, pack up, go Home.

Samuel Mant / / Performance process, Rooms

That was, in a word, exhausting.

I know I shouldn’t complain and I know that everyone was in a similar state to me (or worse if their piece was durational), but performing each night was extraordinarily draining. That’s not to say it wasn’t deeply satisfying. Looking over my previous posts, I don’t think I ever precisely outlined the terms of my performance, so I’ll elaborate, now that there’s nothing to spoil for the public.

I was the Blind Curator, a tragi-comedic character – this is a man who lives in abject squalor, in a crumbling room, barely large enough for another person to be in there with him. His ‘collection’ is a banal one – everyday objects, often in a state of disrepair are carefully displayed on the shelves of his room. Here are some of them now:

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A thoroughly uninspiring collection, aren’t they?

But just as the audience think that this room is full of worthless items, of no value, the Curator opens mind to them. To his blind eyes, they are treasures, artifacts. They all speak of places unfathomably far away, even if that place is the one he is in now. Suddenly, to the audience members who choose to engage and see these objects through his mind’s eye, they are amazing, they are beautiful, they are ancient and powerful and magical. Those who visit the Blind Curator’s gallery are swept away to worlds of fantasy and imagination, if they let themselves be.

The piece was designed with a basis in the idea of ‘make strange’ that Gob Squad displayed in their office performance (n.d.). I had gathered from around the house (and some objects from the wider world) objects that were, if we’re being brutally honest here, junk. I collected this rubbish and put it on display. But then I freed it. By being blind, I was able to experience these objects with something other than my eyes. And they spoke to me – they told me to lie. The concept of how long one has to have inhabited a space to lie about it was one of the concepts I’ve toyed with and in this case, not only the space became fictional, so did these objects. I weaved narratives around them, dressed them in mythology, gave them new pasts, new futures and ultimately was a liar. But the audience was given a choice – not obviously, but subconsciously. Would they see my narratives as absurd, watching this blindfolded man witter on about what was patently not true? Or would they allow themselves to believe the lie, just for a little while? Unfortunately, due to my blindfolded state, I couldn’t see this decision play out on the faces of the audience, but I could get a sense of how engaged people were in my tales and, for the most part, the audience wanted to believe.

One of the most interesting things I find, looking back at performance, was the unpredictability of the audience. I was particularly bemused by some of the choices that the audience members made when it came to choosing objects to listen about – here’s a tally:

Lock: 7

Mirror: 8

Stone: 3

Cloth: 3

Keyhole: 10

Jack: 8

Curtain: 2

Cardboard: 2

Soap: 8

Bolt: 4

Box: 5

Key: 6

Alarm: 5

Queen: 2

Splinter: 12

Book: 8

King: 0

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The Unloved King

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The Bizarrely Popular Splinter

Still now, I cannot fathom the popularity of that sliver of wood, it puzzles me and makes me second guess the understanding I thought I had of people. I even experimented with changing its positioning yet still it was chosen repeatedly.

Aside from my bafflement regarding that, the whole performance went off without any trouble (with the exception of one woman who wasn’t tall enough to reach up and trace the cracks of the ceiling with me) and was a deeply satisfying experience. While I’ll not miss my time in the gallery, as in was often cold and always cramped and uncomfortable, I shall look back on it fondly and always try to remember the narratives I wove for it.

References:

Govan, n.d. Revisioning Space, The Place of the Artist, [e-journal] P. 123, Available through: Lincoln University Blackboard: http://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk.

Bye Bye living room!

Lauren Elizabeth Walker / / Home, Performance process, Research, Rooms, Uncategorized, West Parade

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!

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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. 

Over and out!

Hayley Misseldine / / CCTV, Home, Rooms, Technical, West Parade

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 –

videoscreenshot

 

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.

Espionage 101:

Hayley Misseldine / / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Research, Rooms

After spending a couple months working on the estate agent idea, the concept of the performance changed – as we could not come up with a name for our performance, when it was finally decided, everything changed, mostly for me. The new concept was called Safehouse – for most of the rooms in the house, this did not affect them, but primarily for me and the CCTV room it did. I had to change my performance to fit accordingly, now I was a ‘spymaster’ in charge of the whole Safehouse, my room no longer needed to look welcoming, so the ‘inspirational’ poster idea was out.

This idea to me was more exciting than the estate agent plan, as soon as I was aware of the change I had many different ideas about what I could do, and where I could go with this. The first thing I did was to get myself familiar with the perception of a spy, I watched two films in particular, the first being called Safehouse –

In this film, Ryan Reynolds plays the ‘housekeeper’ which is essentially what my role would be, the film is American, and with it are the American spies which in this case are the CIA. According to this film, being the ‘housekeeper’ of a safehouse is a small task, assigned to young, inexperienced agents, which explains why the term ‘housekeeper’ is used. On the other hand, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy;

is a film about British espionage, the safehouse used within the films plot, is a place not only to keep from being detected, but is used to pass along secret information, a woman lives there under a pretence that it is her home in order to avoid detection, and in a way she is the ‘spymaster’ or ‘housekeeper’ of that particular safehouse.

These two film versions of the type of character I will perform are completely different in a sense that one is for certain an agent/spy, whilst the other is most likely a civilian. At the same time, both of these characters are similar in their inexperience which is something that I will infact be, although I will be performing it differently in the sense that I want to appear experienced and professional to the audience, so they will believe as much of it as possible.

The dictionary defines the term safehouse as – “a dwelling or building whose conventional appearance makes it a safe or inconspicuous place for hiding, taking refuge, or carrying on clandestine activities” (((2013), Dictionary.com, Online: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/safe+house (accessed: 12 May 2013).)) In keeping with this point, we decided to apply a password/passphrase to the performance; we would give out four different passwords/passphrases to the audience members for each of the four days we were performing. I was told if someone forgot the password/passphrase or said it incorrectly, I would not let them inside, just shut the door in their face. I had to rewrite a new script and a new script for the short video we would be showing the audience, primarily discussing issues such as safety and how they should conduct themselves in the house.

In regards to costume and set design, the term I would use to describe it as a whole – minimalistic, strip everything down to the bare minimum, a spy would have no need for unnecessary objects cluttering up their room, and I wanted to look organised and appear to know what I’m doing. But I am aiming to make the room devoid all any personality, it will be as if I have just walked in a put some things on the desk, and if necessary, will be able to leave in a second if I have to. I need to make sure the audience know that my life in the house is temporary, this is not my home – it is my job. The audience will feel uncomfortable and unsafe in my presence, which is to set up how they should be feeling for the majority of time around the house, “Thus the dwelling must not only express an individual, but at the same time reflect a long past, if it is to give us a feeling of security and stability in life”. ((Bollnow, Otto (2011), Human Space, Hyphen Press, P.145))