Rooms – Page 11 – ________-Safe House-_________

The Language of Sheds

Tom Briggs / January 28, 2013May 13, 2013 / Home, Performance process, Rooms

The Garden Shed is “an attempt to create a separate world within a world, over which we have control and the means not only to imagine but to shape” (( Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln, p. 114 )) .

Man has always sought refuge, originally from the elements, building huts over which he had complete control, more recently as huts developed into homes these became the domain of the woman, be it the matriarch or the housewife. The man required refuge from the home itself, an inner sanctum, for some this is the office or the study, but for the everyday man a slapdash construction of corrugated iron and broken down fence panels could become a shrine to all things masculine, a place “for retreating into and thinking” (( Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln, p.115)).

Our sheds stand opposite each other almost mirror images. Their measurements are almost identical a square of concrete 6ft X 6ft for a floor, a single window facing out onto the shared courtyard, a large porcelain basin against the wall that stands on two pillars bare brick like the walls.

Everywhere the sure signs of decay, chipped and peeling paint, years of dust and cobweb are mingled with long dead insects and their living relatives. These sheds do also have their own individual characteristics which distinguish them and their former inhabitants, show the inescapable signs of practical minds in these confined spaces.

Shed A (named solely because it is almost always the first seen) is a bright space, full of the marks of human habitation, the slightly shoddy handmade shelves show a man more interested in function than design, further evidenced by the range of colours that can be seen on the walls. Most interestingly there are pencil marks recording long forgotten measurements for some project or other. These reveal the workings of a practical man, one of precision and detail, the man who builds.

Which brings us to an interesting stand point, the perceptions of man, there has for some time been a dichotomy in the perception of the masculine and inherent contradiction whereby the male creature is equally expected to be builder, protector and all round knight in shining armour and at the same time being suspected a pervert, peeping tom and general sexual deviant.

It occurs to me that this contradiction, and these extremes are incompatible and a solution must be found to reconcile them. It does equally occur to me that a reasonable person is capable of comprehending that to a certain degree these traits exist in all men and equally in all people, but performers are by and large not reasonable people, so I think it’s about time we took these two extremes the peeping tom and handy man and the various materials of their trades/hobbies/perversions locked them all in a room for 16 hours and see what we can be built, what can be corrupted, and where is the balance? If sheds are “Spaces we construct in which to dream” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln, p.114)) what shape will this dream take? These are some big questions and will probably require some further thought, so I’ll be in the shed if you need me.

What’s mine is mine

Angela Michelle Graham / January 28, 2013May 10, 2013 / Rooms

Coming to uni never seemed like that big a deal to me just another step in life. To be halved moved out with the option to go home whenever I want for however long I want. I was lucky enough to find a kindred spirit here at university and she had the room next to me, it meant I instantly had someone who had the exact personality of my friends back in Wakefield (although with a weird accent), and to top it off one of my friends from Wakefield ended up coming here which meant it never felt like id actually left. Even now I’m happy to call Lincoln my home, but its different from my house in Wakefield as when I lived there (before university) it was my home but when I think of it now home is my bedroom in Wakefield rather than the whole house it’s just that one room, in comparison to my house in Lincoln as the whole place is home. It even goes back to the house I lived in for the first 3 years of my life obviously I don’t have a mountain of memories I have videos and pictures but my only true memory of that house is sitting in front of the fire on a snowy day with my friend. That to me has left the impression of only that room being home I could tell you the colour of the sofas the wall paper , the rug and carpet on that day but any other details of any other room and I draw a blank. I guess it falls down to possession for me not the material things (although nowhere is home without my teddy) but my ability to feel possession for the place, be that simply with memories as with my first home, things and memories as with my second home or literally being the one that pays for the place as with my current home here in Lincoln (but I’m quickly getting more memories and things than I thought possible). So I guess what I’m saying is home is where you make it not where your memories are as you can have them from anywhere such as park benches, or people as my family will always be my family but I think I’ve outgrown my home being the same as theirs.

Shed

Samuel Mant / January 25, 2013May 10, 2013 / Rooms

This space – which I’ll call ‘The Fisherman’s Shed’ to avoid confusion – seems to me like a substitute. The West Parade house unfortunately lacks a cellar, but this shed gives some of the impressions of one. While it is not oppressive like a cellar, as it has windows and its odd little slapdash hole nestled in the wall, it has a very bleak feeling to it, a stark loneliness brought on (most likely) by the colours, the decay and neglect and its sheer bareness. However, the shelved anteroom in the living room (side note – what do we mean by living room – where we live most? Where there’s more living to be had?) exhibits these qualities too but doesn’t have the same feeling about it. I think it may be all to do with positioning. The side room of the living room (another meaning – is the living room exactly that – alive?) is next to the beating heart of the house. This shed however, is entirely separate (doubly so, as it is next door’s, but I’ll talk about the notion of trespass later). The dynamic I see between attic and cellar is that while an attic is part of a house, a cellar is part of the earth. It doesn’t belong to what is above it and is potentially infinite – especially in darkness. The shed, to me, is the house’s cellar facsimile – something other, not belonging and so, clothed in mystery. Its Spartan features speak of a fear to populate and furnish it – the house is not comfortable to populate and furnish it. The cobwebs and decay show that this space truly belongs to the outside world. Creatures inhabit it, alien to us in their ways; ‘The creatures moving about in the cellar are slower, less scampering, more mysterious’ (Bachelard, P19). Time and the elements have ravaged it – a pipe is torn from the wall, the paint flakes, a socket raped mercilessly by the onset of rust – this place does not belong to humanity, we are merely tolerated.

(The Fisherman’s Shed)

The other unsettling feeling here is the feeling of trespassing – not just in the florid and prosaic sense I just wrote about, but literally – this is next door’s shed. There is something fundamentally wrong about the feeling of trespassing, even if it’s legitimised somewhat in this situation. In the same manner that a burglary violating your home gives you an awful feeling of vulnerability, trespassing makes you vulnerable from a different perspective. A fear grips you – the fear of discovery. I think what it really boils down to is a human desire to belong and when we trespass – not necessarily into areas, but into groups or conversations as well, that need to belong isn’t being fulfilled.

References:

Bachelard, L, 1969 The Poetics of Space: Boston Mass: Beacon Press, p. 19. Available through: The University of Lincoln Blackboard website <blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk> [Accessed 25 January 2013]

First impressions and ideas

Lauren Hughes / January 24, 2013May 13, 2013 / CCTV, Rooms

When I first wandered the house I sensed an eerie atmosphere as I’m sure others did to, which potentially could work to our advantage when devising our piece. The use of CCTV in the house is a great aspect we could play on which we discussed in the session such as pre-recordings used in the performance to be played on the television and in various rooms around the house, to make the audience aware that the house may have a history within its walls.

I chose to sit in the room with the CCTV screens in to explore and brainstorm ideas of what part that room could play in our piece (if at all). I liked the idea of the audience seeing this room towards the end of their exploration around the house, with the realisation someone has been watching them throughout the piece transforming them into performers. Or do the audience know they’re being watched from the beginning making them part of the performance from the very start? There was also a whiteboard in this room which we could use to our advantage with photo’s or writing about our audience members (if we know who they are) giving that feel they’re always being watched.

While sitting in this room I sat and watched people roaming the house, putting my self in a position where I felt in control. After a few minutes of writing my ideas I noticed people making eye contact with the cameras which suddenly transformed my emotions to a sense of vulnerability, they knew I was there. Could that be a feeling we want our audience to feel when in that room and in the performance as a whole?

Each room in the house gave me a feeling of exposure especially as each room has a camera in other than the toilet for obvious reasons.

“Whilst site-specific art might constitute a form of institutional critique and more intense engagement with the everyday world, it has the capacity to articulate and cultivate local particularities, accentuating difference in the face of globalizing tendencies.” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, London: Macmillan p.12)) There are many other performance ideas you can see within the house that can relate to this such as a party atmosphere. Bringing the audience in as visitors to ‘our home’ with footage on the television of what really happens behind closed doors (which someone mentioned in the session) contradicting what is happening for the audience, portraying the performance people put on for visitors into their home. I really liked this idea as it applies to everyone, everyone puts on a show for visitors entering their home; the welcoming into the home, maybe offering a beverage, asking how their days been etc. Researching the house’s history may trigger more ideas or help us develop on our own ideas further.

So…I Am Sitting In A Cupboard.

Lauren Bethany Elouise Watson / January 23, 2013May 13, 2013 / Home, Rooms

Cupboards and “doors open onto an ever more private realm of intimate things” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning Of Home, London: Frances Lincoln, p. 77)), and because of this unique quality they give you a chance to find a place to hide away, somewhere different faraway….and safe. On another plane, not quite belonging to a floor or area. Something not used just for storage of things, but also of memories, people and tears. This is what I found in our new house.

The cupboard in the bedroom instantly reminded me of my last home. An old bedroom. A walk in cupboard which housed the boiler…my favourite teddies. A place to play hide and seek, or a place to go and cry. Until five years ago it had always been my room.

I have one stand out memory of this hiding place. It’s not exactly pleasant, so I think that’s why the feel of the house triggered them.
I had been told off at school for talking during a Math lesson, and I remember getting home, getting into that space, and crying. In the space, I started to do maths wrong as a sort of punishment on purpose. It was a place where I could judge myself without being judged by my mum, or being a burden. I have never really cried in front of my mum, even to this day, because I thought (and indeed still think) that I had to be strong for her – to be a ‘big girl’ and help look after my brother because we were a single parent family.

Now the boiler is gone, and the room is no longer mine to claim…but it still feels like home to me.

To close the cupboard door and sit in silence was perfect, and something I still crave. Not necessarily a cupboard anymore, but just the darkness and a closed door. I got brought up to be independent, fiercely so. I didn’t have much of a choice – we moved around a bit, I helped raised my eldest younger brother, and I became my mum’s confidant. I had to be strong for her so never cried. I had to grow up quick.

So, sitting here in my cupboard in our house on West Parade, not quite in the darkness with the door open, the cupboard floods me with memories. Memories of crying where no-one else could see. A place of putting myself down. It’s the dark cupboard that let me cry and I’ll always be grateful.
A little place where I could go to be a child.

A place where, looking back, I developed my gratitude and strive for learning.

A place which shaped me.

Taken by Jozey Wade, 3rd February 2013.

In this anti-space, I can see something quiet and personal being developed, something hidden that the audience has to find; a human installation. With personal experiences, transforming such a small space could be something very beautiful and touching, allowing “[our] past to surge into the present” ((McAuley quoted in Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 10)). The bedroom (and therefore , by extension, our cupboard) is “the most intimate, the most private and the most precious” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning Of Home, London: Frances Lincoln., p. 71)) room in the house, so what happens if we both heightened and paradoxed these notions? If we created the bedroom to be safe and welcoming, almost of that of a childs, and the cupboard to expose the adult side of the bedroom. To have two highly polarized notions in such close proximity would create a powerful and contrasting performance, giving both audience members a completely different, and unique, experience.

When dealing with the cupboard, the bedroom and what lies there cannot be ignored. To fuse the two performance areas would make a stronger and more fulfilling performance. For example, when dealing with children; their imaginations, emotions, expectations and understanding of reality, you are allowed to bend the rules and break the conventions and restraints of social normality, so what happens if we took this notion and transfered it to the bedroom?

In the bedroom we get read fairy tales. We can all name at least one fairy tale or bedtime story I’m sure. However, with retrospect and looking at them through ‘adult’ eyes, we find hidden meanings, basic moral lessons, and sometimes things we don’t deem all that appropriate now we have experienced and lived within the adult world. A perfect example of this is the notion of the ‘Animal Groom’. Bettelheim puts forward the notion that “for love [to occur], a radical change in previously held attitudes about sex is absolutely unnecessary” and that “a common feature to [the fairy tales] is the sexual partner first experienced as an animal” ((Bettelheim, Bruno (1978[1991]) The Uses of Enchantment, London: Penguin Books, p. 282.)) becomes transformed into a, usually, handsome being. However, when viewed from an adult’s perspective it becomes disturbing: a woman committing bestiality and embedding the notion of being submissive and compliant within relationships from an early age.

It has become increasingly apparent that mixing adult themes into children’s literature appears to be as old as fairy tales and folklore itself. What happens if we make the literature, or the space, overtly adult? Would it still fall within the classifications of a fairy tale if lessons were learned the frame work complied. Could we argue that we are just modernising the literature? If the undertones of lost virginity and the exploration of the notion that “there are no longer any sexual secrets which must remain unknown” ((Bettelheim 1978, p. 308)), Beauty and the Beast would no longer be read as an innocent children’s story. If we were to transfer the adult side of the bedroom into the cupboard, but still make it apparent and blatantly obvious, would our bedroom still be considered safe? To create a narrative, played in the bedroom, but not in the bed, with adult intentions would be the epitome of this.