Tag: Lauren Hughes

Teaser Trailer

Lauren Hughes / / CCTV, Documentation

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During one of our recent sessions we produced a teaser trailer for our piece involving placards, similar to the Surveillance Camera Players and shots revealing each room in the house within thirty seconds. We have decided to produce the snippets regularly to slowly reveal more information for our possible audience, for example the location.

 

((Surveillance Camera Players (2001) online: http://www.notbored.org/generic.jpg (accessed 20/02/2013)))

“The door is a crossing, a junction marking the divide between the realm of the public and the private” ((Heathcote, Edwin (2012) The Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln p.25)) We have 18 different perspectives of home within our group, most of them will be similar with personal differences. For these short trailers as we don’t have a concrete idea of what each room in the houses final performances will entail we thought about exposing all types of home for different people, what the divide between the public and private is for them. Home for a lot of people is a safe zone, where you feel most comfort and at ease, however this isn’t the case for everyone.

After brainstorming between us one of the performance ideas we had was to show the idea of entrapment, with maybe a couple of performers sitting watching the television and when getting up to go get a drink their hands are tied behind them.

In our last session session we watched some clips of performances. One that stood out to me was Oreet Ashery’s Say Cheese. Seeing this clip shocked me as to how comfortable the ‘audience member’ felt in this situation. When watching at first I assumed they were lifelong friends confiding in each other. While watching this clip it occurred to me we have been devising ideas on making our audience feel vulnerable or uncomfortable rather than at home and safe which is what a home is supposed to feel like. In one of our trailers or for a pre-recording for the piece it would be nice if we could bring a couple people to the house and sit them in the different rooms and ask them what they think of as home and how it makes them feel. There was something special about seeing two strangers really enjoying each other’s company within such a small amount of time, it would be an idea to try to make one of our audience members feel this.

Image: Online: http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html (accessed 10th Feburary 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.