Purging.

Jozey Wade / / Performance process, Research, Rooms

Performance artist Andre Stitt here talks about how he uses certain substances in is performances as representation for feelings/ emotions etc. Some of the substances he uses are chosen based on personal memories of his, like the use of tar and feathers. At the end, as the narrator points out, he pushes the boat he has covered in certain substances out into the sea and it can be seen as a release or “letting go” of the dark memories he and/ or the audience possess. Straight away this struck me, in relation to what I have been working on in the bathroom.

In his book, At Home: A short history of private life, Bill Bryson talks extensively about plague and disease in history and how a great deal of it has related to being unclean and not washing. In his chapter about the bathroom, he discusses how people in the Middle Ages thought that to “plug the pores with dirt” ((Bryson, Bill (2010) At Home: A short history of private life, London: Black Swan))  was the best way to protect themselves from plague. “Most people didn’t wash, or even get wet, if they could help it – and in consequence… Infections became part of every day life… serious illness accepted with resignation” ((Bryson, Bill (2010) At Home: A short history of private life, London: Black Swan)). Nowadays, obviously, we are aware of the fact that quite the opposite of this is true. We wash daily, to clean – or purge – ourselves of dirt and grime gathered through the day, and to prevent ourselves from smelling and getting ill.

This idea of purging made me think of Andre Stitt’s work as a kind of purge also – like in his performance Where the Grass is Greener as seen in the video above. How the ritualistic aspects of his performances – with the feathers and pushing the boat out into the sea – help him let go or purge himself of unpleasant memories or feelings. How could I apply this to the bathroom?

forsite

After spending some time in there and sketching out some thoughts (as can be seen above), I tried to apply my previous ideas of how home life, or people within your home life can make you feel suffocated there. And how, more often than not, it is impossible for us to talk about these issues because we are just supposed to put up with them, or we think we are, if the people involved are family or people we love. Examples of this include overbearing/ strict parents (not necessarily physically abusive but perhaps), children with behavioural problems, loved ones with long term illnesses or even mental illnesses (like depression etc). I played with this idea of things we can’t say that grate on the inside of us, and how some sort of action or ritual within the bathroom could help us release this, or purge ourselves of it. (after all, as we have discussed, the bathroom is a place of purging anyway).

Everyone’s a Performer

Lauren Hughes / / CCTV, Performance process, Uncategorized

                                                                           DESAbigbrother

Image:Online-https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=big+brother&hl=en&rlz=1C1SKPL_enGB453GB494&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=LG5AUZ-DPfS00QXdoYG4Aw&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643(Accessed 20/02/2013).

“There is no single ‘Big Brother’ who is watching over us but lots of little brothers each with their own agendas.” ((Norris and Armstrong (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise Of CCTV, New York: Berg p.7)). We are always being watched,  when leaving our homes each day for work, college or university it is more than likely you will be filmed or photographed through CCTV.

“Studies by Honess and Charman (1992), Squires and Measor (1996) indicate that only between one third and two thirds of the population using streets with CCTV actually know they are being monitored.” ((Norris and Armstrong (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise Of CCTV, New York: Berg p.92)). With this gaze constantly over them, are they performing? When we trip over in the street a rush of embarrassment takes over where our minds are telling us we are hurt however we find ourselves laughing as were all this this performance together, everyone’s watching.  When walking down a street we are always aware eyes are on us not only cameras but people in windows, across the road and in cars. When our audience enter the house on West Parade will they become aware of the cameras straight away or will they spend the whole experience thinking they are aware of whom and when people are watching them?  We can use this to our advantage and show the audience they can be part of the performance as well. As the CCTV group we have discussed how we will be involved in the performance and how the audience could discover our room and then watch us as we roam the house performing as they have for us. Through this performance we can portray how people always know they’re being watched, with subtle glances at the cameras to eventually holding signs to signify our knowledge of the cameras, similar to The Surveillance Camera Players. Another way of incorporating this into the performance is interrupting the mini performances in each room and handing a sign/ placard to an audience member or performer and asking them to hold it to the camera.

“The real power of site-specific work is that it somehow activates, or engages with, the narratives of the site in some kind of way. That might be with its formal architecture, or it might be with the character of the building.” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, London:Macmillan p.35)). When entering the house other than there being a television in the front room, it’s very bear and uninviting, it’s not an ideological notion of a modern home. The architectural design of the house makes the CCTV room one of the last rooms you may see which changes your whole outlook on the house when discovering it and extends that feeling of it being unappealing even more. It crosses the boundary between the outside world and the privacy within a home with inhabitants being aware they’re always being watched which you shouldn’t feel within a home. This ‘Big Brother’ feel the house has is a great characteristic we can work with for our performance. The most eerie room for most of us in the house is the cot room mainly as it’s the coldest room and the fact it has a cot gives it a lot of potential to play on that creepiness for the performance and we have incorporated this room into both our trailers so far. The character of the house instantly triggers narratives for performance ideas as you explore all its rooms.

As the CCTV group we have decided to take our filming to other people’s homes and interview them on their thoughts of home. What is ‘home’ to them? Starting by asking them to take us to the room/ place in which they feel most comfortable and asking them why they feel so attached to that part of their home. And if they’re a student whether their ‘home from home’ feels homely or just a place to stay. Then we suggested the idea of making negative comments about aspects of their home to see if they would defend it or agree, filming their reaction to this. These recordings will either be used for a trailer or within the piece or just for our own research.

 

 

Beneath the Waters of Consciousness

Lauren Simpson / / Home, Performance process, Research, Rooms

alice in wonderland

http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Alice : accessed 04/03/12

The act of the bedtime story is an intimate experience, usually shared between parent and child. It is almost always a private occurrence. So, by creating a performance with it and making it public, it no longer has the element of privacy. It is often understood that the mothers are more likely to read to their child than fathers. “Not only do mothers still do the majority of shared reading, studies suggest that they do it more effectively than fathers.” ((Blake, J, & Maiese, N 2008, ‘No fairytale… the benefits of the bedtime story’, Psychologist, 21, 5, p. 386-388, EBSCOhost: accessed 27 February 2013. Page 387.)) Having a mixed gender group, this is a concept that can be challenged. Would an audience member respond differently if read a story by a male rather than a female?

“Storytelling is sometimes seen as an innocent activity best suited to young children” ((Killick, S, & Frude, N 2009, ‘The teller, the tale and the told’, Psychologist, 22, 10, p. 850-853, EBSCOhost: accessed 27 February 2013. Page 850.)) Therefore, combining the sexual content of a raunchy novel with the innocence of a fairy tale blurs this theory. The audience go from the safety of a bedtime story to the unnerving effects of the adult content. Because they won’t be expecting it, then it should come as a shock to them.

“Beware the stories you read or tell: subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.” ((Killick, S, & Frude, N 2009, ‘The teller, the tale and the told’, Psychologist, 22, 10, p. 850-853, EBSCOhost: accessed 27 February 2013. Page 850.))

If this quote is true, this story should stir a deeper reaction than just uncomfortable shifting or nervous laughter. Even though the audience are not going to sleep, the crossing over of child and adult content may have an effect on them after they leave the room. They may look at fairy tales in a different light and be able to pick out the Freudian elements in a lot of them. Alice in Wonderland itself is a very Freudian story.

Are we ever private?

Jake Robinson / / CCTV, Home, Rooms

Our homes are the most private place which we inhabit. At home we can act as we please without the fear of being watched or judged. But what happens if a house stops being a private space, and becomes a space in which you are watched more than any other. Does it stop being a home? This is what has happened in our house on West Parade. The whole house is fitted with CCTV cameras. From the moment you walk in until the moment you leave you are under surveillance. The house is not private. Is this wrong, are there some places which should not be intruded upon and is a house, a home, one of them?

Perhaps some rooms in a house such as the living room and kitchen are not as personal, not as private as other rooms; such as the bedroom and bathroom. Perhaps it is possible to be under surveillance in the more communal rooms of the house without feeling invaded. Whereas being watched while “you are most vulnerable, asleep and unaware” ((Heathcote, E (2012) The Meaning of Home,London:Frances Lincoln p.71 )) in the bedroom is simply a step too far. There are groups who feel that being under surveillance at all is wrong. The Surveillance Camera players are a group based in New York who believe that surveillance cameras of any kind “violate our constitutional protected right to privacy” ((Surveillance Camera Players (2001) Who We Are & Why We’re Here, online: http://www.notbored.org/generic.jpg (accessed 25/02/2013))). They express these views by carrying out silent performances in front of surveillance cameras. These performances are rehearsed but are not announced or advertised.

The right to privacy which the Surveillance Camera Players talk about is most definitely broken in our house. It is impossible to get away from the surveillance and have a private space. Or is it? There are places which the cameras do not cover. For example both the toilet and the bathroom are not covered by the CCTV cameras. These spaces are ones which you would expect to be completely private, to film these areas of a house would certainly bring up an ethical debate. However there are also other, less obvious, areas which the CCTV cameras do not cover. There are black spots which the cameras do not pick up. For example in the bedroom if you sit or stand directly underneath the camera in the corner of the room the camera does not pick you up.

These areas away from the gaze of the CCTV could be very interesting for us to use in our performance. We may be able to demonstrate to the audience just how much they are being watched, this could make them feel on edge. I do not expect the audience to be pleased about being observed throughout the performance. It may therefore be interesting to introduce them to these places where they are away from the cameras. Whether they would feel more comfortable in areas where they know for definite that they are not being watched by anyone outside of the room they are currently occupying.

We have decided in the bedroom to seat our Voyeur in one of these black spots. They sit directly underneath the CCTV camera – they are therefore seen by nobody. We think this increases the power which the Voyeur holds, they are observing three people in a vunerable situation, two in bed and one in a cupboard and there is no understanding of that shown outside of the room. They are watching but in no way being watched.

Through this process I think they, the audience, will gain a new sense of appreciation for the privacy which we have become accustomed to, and now expect, inside our own homes.

Our House, a Home?

Jake Robinson / / Home

A home, although a simple concept, has many different definitions and connotations. Some which our house on West Parade meets and others which it does not; “a dwelling place” ((Oxford Dictionary)) for example fits our house. A “fixed residence of a family” ((Oxford Dictionary)) however does not. In my opinion, a home is a place of safety, we as humans “feel at ease in this space” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) Human Space, London: Htyhen Press)), further a home is a place where the inhabitants feel completely safe, therefore our house is not a natural home. It is uninhabited, not a single individual returns to that house of an evening, no one calls it home.  This leaves us in an awkward position, do we want to approach the house simply as a building with no emotional ties or do we want to create a fake home? This choice will greatly affect how our audience feels once inside our house, at ease or on edge, which demonstrates the severity of the decision. Do we want to make our house a home?

The audience will, in the majority of rooms, become a key part of the performance and not just an observer in the style of a traditional audience member. This, I expect, will make the majority of our audience feel, to a greater of lesser extent, uncomfortable. We are here faced with a dilemma, do we want to encourage this feeling of discomfort? In the bedroom we have made decisions unconiously which we expect will encourage the discomfort. We have incorporated constant twists into our performance which ensure that the audience member never settles, never allowing them to feel at ease, causing their discomfort to stay or perhaps increase.

On the other hand, would an audience member who was completely comfortable be more willing to partake in the active, inclusive parts of the performance? This is a question that I doubt we will be able to answer until we have our first audience. It is though a question we can explore, depending on the extent we want the audience to participate. In this sense we can refer to Govern’s idea of who goes; do we, as the performers, choose to take our audience with us. To join us in the performance which we have created along with the house or do we leave them simply to view the piece as outsiders? What if we take half the audience with us and leave half behind?

This is an idea which we are toying with in the bedroom. If the audience enter in pairs we immediately separate them, sitting one in a chair in a corner of the room whilst the other is put to bed. These audience members are bound to have a different experience of the same events. Perhaps one will feel more uncomfortable than the other, but more interestingly perhaps the house will start to become a home for one but still exist only as a stage for the other.

Bollnow says that “it is the family that brings out the homeliness of a dwelling space” ((Bollnow, O.F (2011) Human Space, London: Htyhen Press)), in the case of our house, we as performers are the family. We have the task and/or the opportunity to bring out the homeliness of the house and with this comes the control over the audience’s feelings toward this house.

We may have control over the audience’s reacts toward the house however we do not have control over the house becoming a home. A home is deeply personal with a different meaning to everyone. It is impossible to consciously build a home; a home is created through time as people become increasing at ease in a space. Through this definition it is possible to see our house becoming a form of home. All of us performers are far more at ease in the house now than we were upon our first visit. The house, whether we like it or not, is becoming some form of home to us.

CCTV screen shotPhoto taken 15/03/2013

I wonder whether this is going to change our performance and if it does how, and to what extent. It will be almost impossible for us to have the same emotions towards the house as we did. The unsettling nature of the house has subsided for us, and will undoubtedly be stronger for the audience than us during performance. But do we want to bring back the unsettling feel? I doubt it. I think we can created a very interesting parallel inside the house. A house which is grotty and unpleasant to spend time in filled with people who are comfortable and enjoying their time there will be much more powerful than a grotty house filled with people who do not want to be there.

Our house is becoming a home, whether we like it or not. And I believe this is best to be embraced rather than fought.