The Aesthetics of the Piece.

Lauren Hughes / / CCTV, Documentation, Performance process, Research

Discussing Fiona Templeton in my previous Blog post and how the performance Recognition influenced the idea of us being in the house through Multimedia on alternate performance evenings, we decided to do this through creating an installation piece with us videoed in and around the house. This meant we only needed one of us for each performance evening (solving the Health and Safety issues) to set up and man the equipment, which worked to our advantage as we still got to see the audiences reactions to our work.

The Invisible Man is a story based around a character and how he refers to himself as The Invisible Man as people refuse to acknowledge his presence due to the fact he is black. We chose to expand on this idea of feeling invisible and apply it to the house, however given the obvious fact we were a group of females we took the theme and alternated it to a feminism. Through this we decided to do filming after dark with torches lighting up each room in the house and see what affects this would create. We chose have a soundscape over this for example someone making a cup of tea in the kitchen, a news reel in the living room, brushing of teeth when a torch is shone from those rooms making them rooms come alive with the sounds. As well as this another layer of sound with our voices reading extracts from The Invisible Man narrating the piece.

When filming the rooms within the house at night, each room spoke its own aesthetic narrative. The footage had a layer of fuzz creating a grainy affect over it due to the resolution in the dark. With this totally new visual in the dark we decided the narrative idea could be taken so much further that the soundscape and torches idea wasn’t as necessary and focused on the aesthetics of the piece. In this we will give the audience a pair of headphones with our voices relaying a narrative to them while they absorb the imagery on the TV screen, some will be existing texts that complement the visuals and others will be our own pieces of writing. We decided to take 3 shots each and watch them repeatedly and simply write what we saw and felt.

“You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that your part of all the sound and anguish” ((Ellison, Ralph (1965) The Invisible Man, Great Britain: Penguin Books Ltd.)) This is taken from The Invisible Man, with so in depth descriptions of personal emotion we decided to still incorporate this as it sparked the idea as a whole and with most the imagery showing a shadow,

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Image by Lauren Hughes (2013)

silhouette

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Image by Lauren Hughes (2013)

or distorted face

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Image by Lauren Hughes (2013)

it linked in with that idea of having no identity, relating back to the title and also just giving that idea of feeling invisible and alone.

 

Safe house – definition; “a house in a secret location, used by spies or criminals in hiding” ((http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/safe%2Bhouse?q=safe+house Accessed; 25/03/13)), or “a house where someone can hide or shelter” ((http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/safe-house?q=safe+house, Accessed; 25/03.13)). The fact that when people are taken to a safe house they have their identity taken all links in with our contribution to the final performance. Also with the definition including shelter we did filming in other people’s homes to see what their definition of a home was, whether it’s the place or people etc. which we were going  to use within our piece before we came across The Invisible Man.

After recording the rooms at night we decided to have the CCTV room as the ‘room of screens’, with adding narratives to the videos, playing on a low volume when the audience enter filling the atmosphere with the ghostly whispers from the narratives. This project we decided to develop meant splitting the 1 minute clips of each room between us with 3 each sitting and watching these over and over…. And over again, we did this so the imagery could speak to us, even after watching one for 30 times unbelievably you would see something new or create a whole new narrative in your mind from these images. Giving that the three of us were female after reading the Invisible Man we chose to take the aspect of being invisible due to his ethnicity and use it through feminism and identity. Choosing to do so linked in really well with the Safe House which is all about identity.

Deciding to call the piece Safe House portrayed the essence of our piece as well as triggering ideas to enhance the feel of a Safe House, a safe homely feel, but also the authoritative aspects for example the agents, rules and regulations. “To start with, the dwelling space must give the impression of seclusion. If it is the task of the house to provide a refuge from the outside world, this must also find expression in the nature of the dwelling space” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press, p. 143)). A typical home for most of us is this way inclined and this is what the Safe House has… to a certain extent. The magic of our room being the last visited is for the audience to have explored the house knowing, but most likely forgetting for the majority of the piece that they are being watched, taking that idea of being secluded and keeping the private the private within a home is flipped on it’s head when they discover the CCTV screen.

When first hearing the term ‘Safe House’ I instantly envisaged films with characters being whisked away to a house in the country. However when researching into them it’s not all about the authorities keeping civilians safe, Safe Houses can be used to protect women who have been abused, foster children or hide illegal immigrants etc. When discovering the safe houses for women it linked in with our performance ideas, although our installation piece isn’t about being physically abused it still has that essence of oppression which is emphasised through the haunting atmosphere that fills the room when all the clips are playing in sync.

Watching you, watching me

Elizabeth Soper / / CCTV, Performance process, Rooms

“Lone Twin negotiate not only their relationship with each other but also, more importantly, their relation with other people.” ((Williams, David and Carl Lavery (2011) Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin: Journeys, Performances, Conversations, Wales: Cambrian Printers, p.69))

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www.lonetwin.com

 

The audience and the performer have very different roles. In theatre the audience come to watch a performance and to be entertained in a friendly and safe environment. In site specific performance, the roles are the same, yet the environment will be different depending on the chosen site. ‘Safe House’ is in an interesting site to perform in, and isn’t the most welcoming house to invite the audience into. They won’t know what to expect and they will be interacting with the performers which generally in theatre, wouldn’t happen. “Rather than simply occupying an ‘ususual setting’, site-specific performance is adjudged to hold ‘possibilities for responding to and interrogating a range of current spatial concerns..” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, p.8))

Although our audience is coming to watch a performance, the idea of them being watched will be present as they will notice and be aware that there are CCTV cameras in each room. This questions who is doing the watching and who is being watched; the audience or the performer.

“Here the term ‘house’ is to be understood in a general sense as any closed individual area beyond the body, in which man can remain and move with safety.” ((Bollnow, O.F. (2011) Human Space, London: Hyphen Press, p.267)) Thinking about this, I have decided to experiment with this whole concept in my performance in the kitchen. I would like the audiences experience in the kitchen to be different from any other room in the house, and to go away with different reactions to it. Perhaps trying various performances on my audience will create a whole new reaction, one performance idea being me watching my audience.

Having a television playing a film of the adventures I have had as a rabbit is quite humorous, and will draw the audience in. But perhaps instead of interacting with my audience, I could just ignore them. Standing quietly in the corner gives a different feel to the room completely, as it contrasts to the humour and makes them aware that they are the ones being watched. Me watching them watching me on the television is particularly interesting, and will be fascinating to see the reactions I then get from them.

“if you dress up funny…people will shout at you” ((Govan, Emma, Helen Nicholson and Katie Normington (2007) Making a Performance, Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices, London: Routledge, p.125))

Another performance technique I could experiment with is discussing with the audience the reactions I have received, using what people have said as verbatim to tell others: “Moreover, in some examples of verbatim theatre the performers also incorporate elements of their own lives into the production, employing a self-reflective mode.” ((Haedicke, Susan (2009) Political Performances: Theory and Practice, New York: Columbia University, p.115))

Having filmed in different places in the bunny costumes I have met different people with a variety of reactions to me. Whatever reaction I get will be written down or recorded, and this can be used as conversation in my performance. This will create a different reaction all together from the previous performance idea as I will be verbally interacting with my audience in the bunny costume, which again brings humour and absurdity to be having a civilized conversation in a kitchen with a giant rabbit.

Lone Twins, ‘To The Dogs’, is a good example of a piece of their work that gradually built and expanded as it was carried out. Gregg and Gary cycled two folding bicycles through Brussels, Belgium for 24 days and ended each day by putting on a short performance at the Kunsten Festival des Arts retelling the events of that day.  The experiences they had built up over this period of time and each performance expanded as they experienced more things, interacted with more people and witnessed various different places: “The interest is in how those small moments, each five minutes long, will change over time as they become situated in the growing, differing contexts of each other.” ((Williams, David and Carl Lavery (2011) Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin: Journeys, Performances, Conversations, Wales: Cambrian Printers, p.69))

It’s okay, this has been done before.
…this however, is our first time.

Lauren Bethany Elouise Watson / / Documentation, Research, Rooms

Hotel Medea (2011) CHAPTER II – DRYLANDS –. Online, http://vimeo.com/18224931 (accessed 24 February 2013).

Hotel Medea “allow for a participatory, immersive and interactive perspective of the theatrical event” ((Hotel Medea (2011) Hotel Medea Online: http://vimeo.com/hotelmedea (accessed 24 February 2013). )) within their work, and it is this immersive and interactive experience which we are trying to create, for both audience members, despite the fact the two audience members will never experience both performances. An example of Hotel Medea’s immersive theatre is their performance, Drylands.

In this durational evening performance, the audience became part of, and were offered an intimate part within the performance and it is this immersive, intimate and safe atmosphere which we are trying to inhabit in the bedroom. The experience will still be immersive for the cupboard…but not necessary safe.

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Lauren Watson. Date taken: 22 March 2013.

As well as immersing the audience in the piece with spoken narratives and bed-time rituals, the room itself has been decorated and transformed by children’s drawings and paintings. The child’s room is safe and secure, with all the usual sexual context of the bedroom removed. We needed this essence of innocent and safety to be in the bedroom, as the cupboard which is built into the main wall holds none of these values. It subverts them, showing the true and heightened nature of what we associate with the bedroom. There is no safety or comfort to be found in the cupboard. You will find no bedtime story or hot chocolate to send you off to sleep to “the place in which we are allowed to dream” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln Ltd., p. 76.)).  What you will find is a narrative made to confuse, question and attempt to control you. It will put you in a position you would rather not be in, try and escape from, a place in which you wouldn’t want to stay.

“The remnants of site-specific performance can be extensive. It generates documents relating both the creation of performance and to the engagement with site before, during and after the event” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 191.)).

To let these two simultaneous events go undocumented would be a loss on our part as performers. The documentation “made during…often assert themselves to be the true record of what really happened, or else we ascribe that capacity to them” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 191-192.)), to be able to look back on what it felt like, and how we made people feel would  ensure that we would not lose the performance entirely after the performance had finished. How many performances have you been to which take place in a house? And how many had you wished you’d been to? With documentation you would be given the chance to glimpse into the world we had created in our ‘safe house’.

“Site-specific performance as an unlikely and fleeting moment in history of a place, known only through the  traveller’s [or audiences’] tales of those present” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 194.)).

Could we, as performer, document the performance and reactions during the periods in the performance where there were no audience members or visitors in our room? To have a note-pad and pen hidden in our space, at hand to record emotions, feelings, reflections and reactions would be invaluable.

Writing by tainted light, struggling to hold the pen in our greasy hands, struggling to move and see due to restraints. This would make the documentation as much part of the performance as we are. A living, breathing, active part of the performance. Just a part which no audience members will witness.

Safe House.

Lauren Bethany Elouise Watson / / Uncategorized

 

  • A place where people may go to avoid prosecution of their activities by authorities.
  • A place where undercover operatives may conduct clandestine observations or meet other operatives surreptitiously.
  • A location where a trusted adult or family or charity organization provides a safe haven for victims of domestic abuse.
  • A home of a trusted person, family or organization where victims of war and/or persecution may take refuge, receive protection and/or live in secret.
  • Right of asylum. ((N/A (2013) Safe house, Online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_house (accessed 23 March 2013).))

Liminal, Compact and Ignored Spaces

Faye Rose Mcdool / / 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.

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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))

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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.