CCTV- Dance like no one’s watching

Lizzy Hayes / / CCTV, Home, Performance process, Research

For me home is a place where you feel safe and comfortable, not only in your surroundings or company but also within yourself. It is a place where you can be yourself without fear of judgment, where you can do and say the things that others might not appreciate or understand…even if you are only saying them to yourself. I think this is why I am most drawn to the CCTV room on our site- because it breaches the contract of safety and privacy I associate with a home. As I mention in my ‘Meet the residents’ section, the CCTV room makes me feel slightly omniscient, and I’m not sure I like that. We have all heard stories or seen films where CCTV is used in a perverted manner to breach privacy or capture some horrific and disturbing ordeal. These influences make it very easy for us to see ourselves using the CCTV in our performance to create negative or disturbing scenes and use them to inject a sense of unease or fear into our audience.

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Image by Jozey Wade 2013

But what if we contradicted the norm? What if we used the CCTV to capture the normal, funny, peculiar little things we all do when we think no one is watching. Again, as I mentioned in my ‘meet the residents’ section, “I have always found human behaviour fascinating, so having the opportunity to see how others behave in an environment where people watching is normally prohibited is exciting: especially when the environment is as intriguing as its inhabitants”. Because you can deny it all you want, but we all talk to ourselves, we all dance like no one is watching, sing like no one can hear you and apologize to inanimate objects for bumping into them. We all do these things when we are alone (and I have only listed a few things) and our guard is down. We do them in a place that we associate with safety and ONLY when we are sure no one is watching, because for others to see us act like that would make us vulnerable.

I believe that scene’s like this could be used very effectively used to create a mood or atmosphere in our performance. They are comic because every one can associate with them: but is it not also disturbing knowing that someone has seen you do those things that no one else is meant to see? Could it instil a sense of panic in the audience who hope no one has seen them like that? Could we watch and see how many people admit to having done the same thing once they know another person has? And would it not contrast nicely with a live performance of a completely different topic or nature?

I know I earlier spoke against using the CCTV for darker scenes but could it be shocking to see one innocent scene turn into one of domestic violence? What if the person on camera wasn’t just talking to themselves in a seemingly empty room?

 

Take me home, to the place where I belong

Samuel Davis / / Documentation

My first impressions of the house on West Parade from outside was that it looked like any other house on the street. Upon entering the living room I noted the shabby wallpaper, odd coloured sofa’s and admittedly what seemed like an out of place modern TV. I say ‘out of place’, because everything in the room surrounding it looked so old and worn.

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The Living Room in the house on West Parade. Photograph by Jozey Wade.

The kitchen was indescribably homely, maybe because the set up was that of an ordinary kitchen, in an ordinary house. The architecture of the shed/outhouse possesses a possibility of making an interesting performance space. It is ideally located close to the kitchen and garden and contains a window viewable from the back door. I believe that transforming this space into something else could be intriguing. The aim being to highlight the contrast between the dust -filled shed against the comfort and security of home.
The large garden allows enough space for the audience to look into the house to watch the performance (looking into the action) or vice versa. The idea of the audience peering into the house creates a thrilling voyeuristic experience, it’s almost perversive.

Moving upstairs, I immediately headed for the CCTV room, it was so interesting to look at each room on the screen and watch everyone moving around the house. The CCTV room is by far an excellent performance quality that can be utilised. In the performance, I thought it might be an interesting idea to not tell the audience that there are CCTV cameras recording. Then at the end of the performance, revealing that they have been watched the whole time making them feel extremely uncomfortable. Also, I think broadcasting or streaming the CCTV to laptops, TV’s, phones to audiences in their home would also make an interesting performance quality. That notion of being watched or watching someone else would add to the performance.

The landing of the house is appealing because every room can be seen, this has the potential as an area for the audience to sit or stand and see performances occurring in each of the rooms. The last room held nothing more than a cot, surrounded by mouldy walls with peeling wallpaper. Upon entering you were engulfed by an unsettling eeriness. The cot in the room felt symbolic of childhood innocence and vulnerability.

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The cot room in the house on West Parade. Photograph by Sam Davis.

My first impressions of the house were ones of curiosity and excitement. Now that I have seen the house, I have so many ideas for the performance and can’t wait to try them out. From discussions when we first saw the house, I found it interesting too note that we as a group are forming the fabric of the house and becoming part of the archive just by being in the space and performing in it:

“A place owes its character to the experiences it affords to those who spend time there”. ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p.16))

I think this is true of the house on West Parade because we become as contingent as the space is. The house creates it’s own parameters of performance due to its history and characteristics. I think this is why it is important to find out as much historical context as possible about the site to properly understand the environment we are in.

A place that was mine

Kayleigh Anne Brewster / / Home

When we were told, during our first visit to the house, to go to the place that drew us to it the most I considered going to the ‘cot room’ as I felt quite disturbed when I entered the room. However, I instead found myself walking into the master bedroom, with the intention of sitting in the cupboard, and found Lauren with the intention of doing the same thing. Fortunately, the cupboard was just big enough to fit the two of us. Pearson states that “A place owes its character to the experiences it affords to those who spend time there – to the sights, sounds and indeed smells that constitute ambience” (2010) and, whilst I may not have spent any time in the cupboard in that house before that moment it instantly reminded me of a cupboard in different house, in a different country, that I spent time in as a little girl. The time that I spent in my cupboard and the memories I created there is what connected me to this space.

The house

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Photo belongs to Jozey Wade

I’ve read that “The wardrobe and the cupboard are the house within the house, their doors open onto an ever more private real of intimate things” (Heathcote, 2012) which I think is particularly relevant to the experiences I had with my cupboard. The house that my cupboard belonged to was in my room, only it wasn’t just my room it was my brothers room as well. He didn’t like his bedroom, the wind would blow against the window and he said it sounded like a ghost, he wouldn’t sleep there. So we decided to share a room, we could have swapped but I think I was scared too, I just wouldn’t admit it. I didn’t mind sharing with my brother but even as a small child I had always felt the need for my own space. A place where I could go when something had upset me or when I simply felt the need to be alone, a place in which I could sort through my emotions, a place to call mine. I found that in the cupboard in my bedroom, my brother wasn’t tall enough to reach it, and I could just manage to pull myself into it and pull the door shut. It was my space, in a space that was no longer just mine. This is what the cupboard in the house on west parade reminded me of, and due to the feel of the house I can imagine another small child using it to hide away. A place they could go to cry, to think, to hide, to be angry; just like mine was to me.

Works Cited:

Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstokw Palgrave Macmillan

Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning of Home, London: Francis Lincoln

Shed

Samuel Mant / / 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.

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(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 / / 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.