________-Safe House-__________ – Page 13 – Where living becomes a performance.

The Impossible Tasks

Elizabeth Soper / March 9, 2013May 13, 2013 / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Research

“They are ‘outsiders’, but oddly appealing.” ((Williams, David and Carl Lavery (2011) Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin: Journeys, Performances, Conversations, Wales: Cambrian Printers)).

Photo taken: 21/03/2013 – ‘Library Student Card’

Lone Twin’s performances are durational and throughout the performance process ideas are formed, either from audience members or situations, and these are added into their work. One piece of work, called ‘Sledge Hammer Songs’, was one which consisted of them in the street in green plastic capes and hunting horns. They directly addressed the audience and started having conversations with them. Good Luck Everybody discusses this idea of them being outsiders and displaced which I find particularly evident in my ideas for performance. “..their outdoor outfits do not belong in any urban context, and their behaviour sets them apart from anyone else around.” ((Williams, David and Carl Lavery (2011) Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin: Journeys, Performances, Conversations, Wales: Cambrian Printers)). They asked the audience to sit in a circle. Gary consistently danced around this circle while they told stories they had heard as they travelled and toured with the piece.

Thinking about their work I have decided to take on the task of writing as many things that would be impossible to achieve in a rabbit costume. I will trial them and make a film of them to document my progress and to see whether they are in fact impossible. These impossible tasks are in and out of the home, and range from everyday normal activities to random ideas. For example; opening a bag of crisps to getting into a nightclub while being dressed as a rabbit. Like Gregg and Gary I can use these stories I have collected on my travels as the white rabbit and tell them to my audience over a cup of tea in the kitchen. The idea of telling them stories, asking for their feedback and using their reactions will create another story for later audience members.

I have decided to decorate the kitchen with things that I own to make it more homely, creating a friendly atmosphere. During my adventures as a rabbit I have managed to get a student/library card made in which I have used in some of the videos. This will be hung up on the wall to help decorate the space, showing something I have collected along the way. There’s also something nice about having a student card reading ‘Libby the White Rabbit’ and giving this sense of identity to the role and sharing this with my audience.

This makes me again reflect on Bobby Baker’s piece; The Kitchen Show. I like this idea of the absurdity mixed with the norm and the humorous contrast that it portrays. It is something I very much hope to achieve in my performance – holding a normal conversation and doing everyday things in the kitchen, yet they will be somewhat impossible to accomplish in a rabbit costume.

When does a performance become an experience?

Andrew Tinley / March 7, 2013April 13, 2013 / Documentation, Music / Sound, Rooms

“Art does not provide answers or solutions, but is rather a questioning, which should be as clear as possible so that the listeners can look for answers themselves” ((Weiner, Lawerence et al (1998) other rooms other voices Switzerland: Memory cage editions))

I feel like constant questioning and engagement not only makes the audience feel a part of the performance but also provides them with an individual, potential performative experience which only they can be involved in. This experience can then be discussed and shared through dialogue or kept private depending on their approval during or after the performance. What would happen if the audience physically got involved in the communication of language through playing and experimenting with the sounds of a kitchen?

(Weileder, Wolfgang House Projects (2005), http://www.house-projects.com/ (accessed 13th April)

“The interface between space and time defines Wolfgang Weileder’s central field of artistic activity” ((Weileder , Wolfgang (2005) House-Projects Manchester: Cornerhouse publications)) Weileder worked with a range of architectural structures and sites to form a relationship and response to the art he provokes, starts or aids. In House he converses how he provokes discussion and interaction during the performance. In traditional theatre performances audience follow the conventional rule of not talking, this is so the actors do not get distracted and therefore change their actions and words to make the performance different to how it should be, and so, change its overall intention. Intentions of performances are quite limiting and I think the broader you are the more flexible and exciting the art can be to create and to experience. Making a piece different every night moves it from a performance to an experience.

What happens when audiences talk to each other?

The power of discussion will surely enhance the creation and therefore change the initial intention of the piece. The idea of an ephemeral, tangible piece of art is something which excites me as a performer – to know that your idea can change and be interpreted differently depending on the receiver makes the performance have more personalisation and potentially makes it more of an experience for each audience member. Using senses to trigger peoples’ emotions, especially in such a accustomed site would be quite an easy task to do, but putting an audience member in a familiar room with unfamiliar settings and control – this is where their memories may not link so logically. Which would make the experience much more individual, unique and different.

To use a pre-performance audience (due to our limited performance run) as a base to then work with, those memories and connotations could potentially be a path in which would locate and humanise what I am creating. This link to peoples’ lives and own experiences, whether they be domestic or not, will hopefully aid me in my creations but more importantly understand what type of material is surfacing so I can have some creative control in the final performance.

(Mobile Art Production (2011) The role of the audience inside contemporary art and theatre online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v7bLdISHvE (accessed 1^st March 2013)
The video above states the idea of “being inside an artwork”, she discusses an audio experience in which she felt included by someone talking to her through her headphones. The feeling of someone being that close to you in one way, depending on what they are saying, is quite unnerving but I do believe that you, as an audience member, will very rarely challenge their words if it’s an unknown voice, so whether it is realistic or not I strongly believe the element of control is with the sound inside the headphones. This excites me as a creator and potential performer because I feel as if I can pre-determine the outcome and experiment with fiction. Rational and logical thinking disappears when you can’t visually see who you are talking to meaning that the normal conventional conversation rules wouldn’t apply. To provoke an unnatural experience is quite exciting and so by doing this audience members will automatically, due to the context and surroundings be placed temporarily in to an unfamiliar state of mind.

I think it’s the responses which give the audience a chance to delve in to their own individual experience and not the literal performance itself.

Things that go bump in the dark.

Lizzy Hayes / March 6, 2013May 13, 2013 / CCTV, Documentation, Performance process, Research, Rooms

For our final piece the CCTV group decided to create a piece of installation art using the fascinating piece of equipment at our disposal. Marita Sturken states that “An installation both defines and contains space, situating, if not controlling the viewer within it.” (( Erika Suderburg (2000) Space, Site, Intervention: situating installation art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. P. 287 )) The idea for our piece was that while in the CCTV room the audience would be able to experience every other room in the house, placing them in a position where they could understand the format and use of the space in a way that they had not experienced it in the rest of the performance. Seeing as all of the rooms were occupied during the performance we decided to see what it would be like for the rooms to be captured with very few signs of life, and once we realised the potential that this emptiness created we decided to stick with it.

Full screen night filming by Lizzy Hayes, Lauren Hughes, Faye Mcdool
Seeing the rooms from a different perspective reminded me of Bollnows Human Spaces (2011) and how different each of our safe house rooms were from the definitions and purposes he proposed. Bollnow states that the furnishings and furniture play a part in the aura of a room and that “bare, empty rooms have a chilling effect” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press, p. 144)) and that “disorder and neglect have a quieting effect” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press, p. 144)) and due to the empty and neglected state the house was in it was easy to agree with him.
The emptiness and neglected state of the house became emphasised in the dark state that we filmed in.

Image by Jozey Wade 2013

The cot room (above) had a chilling, spooky quality to it that does not represent home, even in the day light. As many of the ‘residents’ have mentioned, we doubt that the room would feel that bad if it wasn’t for the presence of the cot itself. But I think it was key for us to remember when filming was that the room was made to feel so unsettling on purpose. The true nurturing purpose of a child’s nursery is lost in a sort of dark translation in the house due its requirements for training and we were able to use that to our advantage when filming, making the images we captured as uncomfortable as the actor being filmed felt.

Installation piece- Cot Room By Lizzy Hayes, Lauren Hughs, Faye Mcdool

Other spaces that in the day time might not be pleasant, but had never been scary, transformed beyond what I imagined they would. The kitchen became colder and harsher and the introduction of a spot light to the living room gave the opposite effect to the warmth that we expected.
Instead of just filming the bare rooms we had one of us walk through or occupy the space in a minimalistic manner. Bollnow suggested that “the dwelling becomes an impression of the individual who dwells in it” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) “Human Space” London: Hyphen Press, p. 145)) and I think that in capturing snippets of life in each room we were in effect stating that the people who were seen are not permanent residents, but are instead shadows passing through. These hints of movement acted as suggestions of life in an otherwise still setting. Without realising it I think we created something very much like Gary Hills installation piece, The Viewer, which I talked about in a previous post, in that the person seen in each image was not there to be interacted with or to portray a character, but were there to prove their existence.
The final result of this nights filming was nine separate one minute clips of footage, each representing one room and containing a different movement at a different time.

The Void.

Tiffany Abatilda Thompson / March 6, 2013May 12, 2013 / Performance process, Uncategorized

The TV now plays a big part in our homes; it’s what centers our lives as well as social media. If we’re not catching the latest episode of ‘Embarrassing Bodies’ or watching the new Nicki Minaj music video then we’re not cool. TV has ruined our world, we all become hypnotized by the box and not engaging or socializing with family and/or friend’s we live with. This is making the living room feel like there’s no life as everyone is just in a trance, making it go back to what the living room originally was used for and being “The living dead room” (( Heathcote, E (2012) The Meaning of Home London:Frances Lincoln.)).

photo 734031_439763769427834_1507547987_n.jpg

Photo Taken: 05/03/2013 credit to: Libby Soper.

With the living room normally been left for best and for when visitors came, now we take the space for granted. These spaces used to have laughter music and life, now all we have is lifeless people staring into a void of nothingness.

With being in the living room we expanded our idea of us doing what we normally do in the living room and take it to the extreme so it points out to the audience just how much we sit stare and do nothing. What happens if we take the norm to an extreme? In today’s session we played around with the idea myself, Lauren and Sam all took different positions in the living room facing the TV which had a paused image on the screen. Adding to this we all had a still position that we would keep for an hour to get the Spectator’s reaction, fellow peers came in and sat down and after they experienced this we approached them to see what they felt and they said they felt uneasy and that the living room had a different atmosphere.

To develop the idea of making the norm into the only thing we do with the world living around us with the pizza boxes and the booze bottles on the floor to show that the room has been lived in and that the room had life.

Installing…
Please wait…

Lauren Bethany Elouise Watson / March 6, 2013May 8, 2013 / Performance process, Research, Rooms

“Installation art actively engaged with the experience of the human perception, which tested its limits and expanded its possibilities” ((Oliveira, Nicolas de, Nicola Oxley and Micheal Petry (2003) Installation Art in the New Millennium, London:Thames & Hudson, Ltd., p. 6.)).

Mixing Installation Art and a live performance. Can they be argued to be intertwined?


Borofoky, Jonathan (2000), ‘Dream Drawings (1971-87)’ in Susan Hiller Dream Machines, London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, p. not paginated.		Shankie, John (2000), ‘Go To Sleep (1995)’ in Susan Hiller Dream Machines, London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, p. N.P.

Robert Storr states that “the experience they provide is much like wandering onstage and picking up loose pages from a script, overhearing bits of recorded dialogue and trying to figure out what the setting is…and what actions might still be taken” ((Oliveira, Nicolas de, Nicola Oxley and Micheal Petry (2003) Installation Art in the New Millennium, London:Thames & Hudson, Ltd., pp. 17-18.)). If we create an installation performance, rather than a simple piece of tangible art, we are hoping it will have the same effect; two separate, yet intricately combined performances happening simultaneously, yet only one audience member is directly engaged with one of two performances, creating a sense of anticipation, wondering what will happen next, and with who the performance will engage with.

If our bodies become a piece of installation art work, this would change the dynamic of the performance – rather than simply having the audience members as passive onlookers, we turn them into active voyeurs who have the option to give a ‘physical’ addition to the performance. To frame this within the work of an existing performance artist, Marina Abramović has created this audience-performer interaction, but rather than choosing to limit the audiences’ involvement, and therefore their effect on her, she gave them free reign, something which we are keen to limit. Abramović stated after her performance of Rhythm 0 (1974) she realised that “…the public can kill you. If you give them total freedom, they will become frenzied enough to kill you” ((Abramović in Sean O’Hagan (2010) ‘Interview: Marina Abramovic’, The Guardian/The Observer, Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/03/interview-marina-abramovic-performance-artist (accessed 01st March 2013).)).

“Rather than only “touching with the eyes” [we] arrive at seeing through a sense of touch” ((Hiller, Susan (2006) Susan Hiller: Recall. Selected Works 1969-2004, ed. James Lingwood, Gateshead: Baltic, p. 17)) implies that physical contact is essential is really ‘seeing’ the performance, rather than simply observing. To leave your mark on the performance as an audience member whilst also taking something personal away for the experience. Allowing the audience to touch you as a performer is a very intimate act, especially with all the connotations of the bedroom, but for the performance to be ‘seen’ rather than simply viewed, I think that is it essential that the audience must leave their trace in the space, while also taking some of the performance away with them.

“The immersive space remains fundamentally an experimental and sentient place, though it is also a means of escaping our everyday conditions” ((Oliveira, Nicolas de, Nicola Oxley and Micheal Petry (2003) Installation Art in the New Millennium, London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., p. 53.)).

While exposing the audience to something which is usually witnessed behind closed doors, we are creating a fully immersive space; a space which holds its own realities, rules and atmosphere. By surrounding the audience in a fully fledged experience, this will allow them to temporarily escape from their everyday conditions, but hopefully allow them to leave our created world in a changed state, with an experience which they will hopefully remember. Be it either through some traumatic experience, or one of pure safety and comfort.

When you were younger your cupboard was home to a monster or two. Under your bed held the Boogie Man. And your bed protected you, kept you safe. Your night light or landing light also made you feel safe.

Yes?

What happens if we expose those ‘monsters’ hiding in cupboard and the inherent fears that something is lurking under the bed and bring them to light in such a way that you are unable to escape them? Susan Hiller argues that “I think we have enough mysterious darkness within ourselves and our own culture to be getting on with” ((Hiller, Susan (2000) Dream Machines, London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, p. N.P.)), implying that we don’t need to show the darkness which dwells within; to leave the grotesque at home and not to solidify it in art. However, I think this give us more justification to stage the grotesque and hidden secrets. For people to face their “mysterious darkness”, we must show the subconscious and the usually hidden fantasies unashamedly in order to evoke a reaction from the audience. Whether it be fear, disgust, admiration or even arousal.