The Collection Of… – 'experiences of contemporary museums as theatre' (Bennett,S 2013)

What is art and is it us?

James Barker / May 13, 2013 / Possessed Time

Art is something that is subjective in so many ways and almost impossible to define. The formaldehyde preserved animals of Damien Hirst and the unmade bed of Tracy Emin are in some ways less complicated than a Caravaggio or Michelangelos David, but in others infinitely more so. Some pieces scream out their creators inner torment, others the creators peace with the world and appreciation of nature and beauty. The Usher gallery houses art of many schools, but the question I find myself asking is this. Can our performance be considered a piece of art in itself. On the level of personal reflections it may perhaps fail, certainly it is not an expose of the groups minds, no insight into tortured souls or placid contentness, yet on another level it was never intended to be. As an insight to the condition of humanity, the time driven, regulated nature of modern working life being the focus of the piece, it spoke not a truth about the individual creators but rather one about western society as a whole. It shows how as a society founded on the principles of freedom and democracy we are still slaves to one thing: ourselves.

Another objection that may be given about our piece is that its legacy could be considered to be short lived. Unlike the Greco-Roman sculptures situated on the floor above us after we performed, our piece will not be there generations after our deaths, it was not even there after the gallery closed that night. Yet I do believe that it would be unfair to argue the piece had no legacy. If one person who viewed it walked away with a changed thought process then the legacy of the piece is undoubted. In the words of Henry David Thoreau “It’s not what you look at, it’s what you see.” As a physical piece, what you see (or saw) will have changed depending on the timing of your visit to the gallery. Yet as a multi-faceted exhibit, I would be forced to argue with Thoreau partially and say that what you looked at will have been key to what you saw. To look at the decaying pineapple may have inspired feelings of the awareness of ones own mortality, to stare at the ravishing effects time has upon organic matter. The human clock on the other hand shows how time can preserve someone, how through the create of something simple, you can become more than just yourself, something that is separate from you, a legacy that time can’t take from you, something that is yours after you are gone. To observe us, the performers could envoke feelings of ennui, even despair as the pointless, repetitive, circular nature of the day is played out, perhaps even striking a realisation that the lives being portrayed are likely similar to their own. Or you could see none of these things. But the possibility of there being these reactions and indeed that there was negative and positive responses heard throughout the day shows that thoughts could undoubtedly be provoked.

Of course, following these arguments, you could say that any public displays are a form of art. A premiership football match can invoke strong feelings of passion, stirring people to emotional highs and lows that are disproportionate to an event they played no part in. Similarly, the novels of a great writer or the food of a great chef or the buildings of great architect can all stir emotion. Yet I believe that they cannot be considered art, whilst the collection of possessed time can be. The aforementioned events do not aim to provoke the thoughts of their observers and participants, whereas that was our aim from the start. Had we failed to excite the thoughts of our audience then our purpose would have failed, whereas all of the above could still consider themselves a success.

Another somewhat crude argument is that we were displayed in an art gallery, that alone making us considerable as a piece of art. Then again, it could be counter argued that the Vatican is almost as far removed from an art gallery as it is possible to be and yet the Cistine Chapel most be considered amongst the finest art work in the world. Many pieces of modern art are utilitarian items simply displayed in an unusual or unconventional context. By this measure, anything can be considered art so long as it is presented as such. The role of the public is also an important one, for should a thing widely be considered to be something, then generally it will be held up as such, regardless of it’s original context. Here, one is reminded of reader theory in literature which argues that a piece of writing is no longer the intellectual property of the author as soon as he or she has written and published it. Hopefully a fate that will escape this blog as one only wonders at the sort of individual who consider this trite exploration of artistic preferences suitable to intellectually commandeer!

Ultimately, as I said at the beginning, to define whether a thing is art in itself or not is a nigh on impossible task, ultimately it comes down to two people. The viewer and the attempted artist. I am personally unsure as to the exact nature of what we created, but I do think it had a beauty, a relevance and a grace that some art pieces I have seen lack. So perhaps I am an artist, or perhaps I am a pretentious fool with delusions of grandeur and a blog to write. Ultimately, the decision is out of my hands.

My version of events…

Tequila Gillespie / May 13, 2013May 13, 2013 / Nova Inventa

Monday 28^th January

Explorations and Revelations

Our intention for this week was to generate a range of ideas and to discuss how we could approach and make use of the gallery. Our very first task was to really consider what space is and how it is used. We were asked to experience the gallery as any member of the public would. We looked at the way we are encouraged to explore the gallery in a particular way despite feeling as though we are exploring the gallery uninfluenced and by our own means of interest.

We were looking at two galleries; The Collection and The Usher Gallery. As we had the option to choose which gallery we would like to perform in, we wanted to look at the one which we felt had the most potential and we could draw the most from. So we proceeded to spend this first week comparing the two and exploring which space we would like to utilize. With The Collection we noticed there was more of a social space as well as the architectural space. These different aspects added extra dimensions in comparison to The Usher Gallery, which I felt was more traditional and conformed, The Collection allowed for contemporary and more interpretational forms of questionable art. From this we began looking at the transformation between past and present, we wanted to look at how the two galleries ‘bounced’ off each other and while The Usher Gallery mainly had traditional, timeless pieces of art, The Collection was more modern.

One of the first things we wanted to look at was the public’s perception and attitude towards the space around them and whether they embraced it for its social, architectural or visual aspect. We decided to sit in the café gallery and observe and record conversations between the public. We did this so we were able to see what the focus of conversation is and how much influence the gallery has on being topic of conversation.

‘She just said if you need any more help yourself but she was too polite to help herself. She was always coughing her guts off.’

We merged down the surrounding conversations to make one long conversation, almost presented in stream of consciousness. The conversations were about food and people and nothing in relation to the gallery itself. This just emphasized to us the different values a gallery and its space can hold to different members of the public. Where some people have come to genuinely see the art work, others have used the gallery as a meeting point.

Word Count: 422

Thursday 31st January

The Man Who Married A Mountain

We quite quickly decided we wanted to look at this idea of revelations and as I said previously, drawing more focus to spaces in the gallery which aren’t necessarily the most popular or even exciting. We noticed something outside was a piece of art from The Usher Gallery; a giant gold ring on a tree. We asked the people who worked at the gallery, what the idea behind this was and found out that this was inspired by a story called ‘The Man Who Married A Mountain’ by Rosemary Bailey. This is about being in touch with nature and the artist who placed this ring on the tree was making a statement of how close he felt with nature and its surroundings. What we found relevant to our exploration of revelations was the fact that, it took us so long to notice this ring. We found the emphasis on the ring was drawn only depending on the season we were in. For example the ring would be most exposed in summer and quite concealed in winter. We found it interesting that something such as the seasons determined the revelation of the art work outside of the gallery. To the point where it’s as if the artist has handed over his art for nature to ‘control’.

Word Count: 215

Monday 4^th February

Sound Wall

In The Usher Gallery, there was a particular piece of art which we felt drawn to. It was a sculpture of a dead man on the floor who had been washed up among the shores. I really found this piece intriguing because in a sense, it was such a simple yet effective idea. This man had been so intricately sculpted that everyone’s reaction to it were that of unease or utter fascination. I experienced both, being quite apprehensive at first but then I really began to study it and get closer. From this experience this then helped us to move onto exploring ways of attaining the public’s attention and seeing how we can gain their attention.

We moved to ‘The Collection’ and proceeded to perform and experiment in response to the visual and audio elements of the gallery, there was a sound wall which we found quite mesmerising and two of us placed ourselves on the balcony which was overlooking the sound wall and the other two members of the group almost mimicked the model of the deceased guy from the Usher Gallery. The intention of this was to see what we thought we could get from the public and how easily manipulated they could be considering they had come to the gallery not to see us, but to see the art, which we were essentially trying to recreate. One other member of the group and I attempted to reciprocate the sounds which were coming from this sound wall which was a slightly fragmented humming echo, in the hope to make the public feel slightly uneasy as our presence wasn’t visibly noticeable but we ensured to be slightly louder than the sound wall itself. The repetition of this noise helped our understanding of how the public respond to their surroundings. There was a strong contrast between the two on the balcony and the two on the floor due to the fact the two members on the floor could be seen and not heard, whereas as the two on the balcony could be heard and not seen. This created a presence of the unknown, resulting in the public feeling uneasy towards the other member of the group and me on the balcony as they were unsure of what to think what was up behind the sound wall. One member of the group who was on the floor was sitting in the centre of the balcony and the sound wall with her head down and not moving, whilst the other member on the floor had her legs hanging out the bench and her arms and head were hanging over the top, also not moving. Although this was quite an eerie image to portray, it was important for us to experiment with this in order to start gaining an understanding of how we as a group, could utilise the space in the gallery.

Word Count: 480

Tuesday 12^th February

Practical exploration and Experimentation

As a follow up of us starting to delve into our exploration of space and our experimentation of what we can do with it, we started to carry out a range of activities or tasks which we felt would help us continue with this process. As a group we purchased things such as; cardboard cups, marbles, plastic soldiers, plastic ducks and balloons.

We had found a space in the collection where the architectural layout was quite unique. All that was in this space was an LCD screen with speakers and a video which was played on a loop. We liked the fact that this space wasn’t filled with lots of art and things which could draw the public’s attention away from what we were doing. However, at the same time, this space was partially concealed because of its contrast with the space around it which was filled with lots of contemporary art work. We began using these objects we had bought to see how we could fill this empty space and start concealing the large window. The cardboard cups were probably the most useful in this experimentation considering we were trying to build up a wall out of these objects and they were very sturdy. However we found the objects we were using were to small considering it was a fairly large space that we wanted to eventually conceal. We realised it would take a very long time to build this up and the chances of it falling down as we constructed it, were very high.

Conversely, this experimentation helped us to begin narrowing down the main concept we wanted to begin exploring and working with; the idea of reconstruction and deconstruction.

Word count: 282

Monday 18^th February

Filling the Space

We wanted to explore how other site specific performers approached performances in a gallery, to further our understanding of effectively filling the space. Kay suggests;

‘In mimicking the gallery’s claim to neutrality and denial of content, the plywood box defers the viewer’s attention toward the dynamic operating between herself, the object and the ‘empty space’ of the gallery, subverting rather than confirming the gallery’s late-modernist aesthetic and ideology.’(2000, p.27)

I found this quote very relevant to the space we had chosen because it was a very neutral space and there was only one piece of artwork in there so it was quite minimalist.

This week we wanted to go back to experimentation with space and the different ways we could fill spaces within the gallery, particularly The Collection as we had now decided this is definitely where we wanted out site specific performance to be. Our interests this week fell back to the use of architectural space rather than any art work itself. We felt as though the gallery itself, in some places, was a work of art. We found another concealed space which led to the toilets in the gallery. There were spotlights along the side of the stairs leading right to the bottom. This was quite thought-provoking purely because it seemed as if we were being led to something which we had to discover ourselves. We started to think there were a lot more things concealed within the gallery than were initially apparent. We really wanted to divert our attention solely to this; spaces that weren’t filled, spaces we could manipulate ourselves.

The stairs were quite long and curved round, two of the group members stood at the top of the stairs with the marbles whilst the other two stood at the very bottom catching and recording the process. This process involved dropping the marbles one at a time down the stairs, although this sounds like a simple experiment (which it was), we found the echo that was created as the marbles bounced of the stairs individually to the bottom of the staircase was a response to the surrounding space.

‘Place as ‘a portion of land/town/cityscape seen from the inside..entwined with personal memory, known or unknown histories, marks made in the land that provoke and evoke. (Lippard, 1997, p.7).

This is is a very significant quote in emphasizing this idea of personal memory and for us, the forgotten space. I really liked the idea of looking at the space not just as it stands with regards to the gallery but what it represents and this idea of the unknown and memories felt like something interesting to incorporate within our piece.

Word count:442

Tuesday 26^th February

Trial and Error

This week we moved back to the space which we had originally used for our main practical experimentation. As I had previously stated we needed to move onto a larger scale in order to successfully and effectively fill the space, as a result of this we had decided to use cardboard boxes to fill the space near the window. When we initially used the boxes there was no technique or consideration as to whether or not it was aesthetically pleasing to the eye, we quite literally built up the boxes in the space, forming a basic wall, which concealed the space behind it. At this point we had begun to really absorb the digital artwork from the LCD screen; this artwork was a really serious piece and it explored life, death and how in certain cultures dead babies were so carelessly disposed of. Personally I felt this was actually the most emotionally challenging piece of art that I had witnessed in the gallery, partly because this was something that was and is still happening in the world. What linked this piece of art to what we were experimenting with was the use of cardboard boxes; these babies were buried in the cheapest and most inhumane way possible. Even though the link between the artwork and what we were doing appeared to be a ‘happy’ coincidence, we realised that we could draw things from this art as means of inspiration to our site specific performance. The connotations of these boxes were the idea of conformity, refuse and this idea of recycling, not only in the literal sense but with regards to life and death.

As a result of this we decided that we wanted to experiment with writing on the cardboard cups to add an extra dimension to the visual aspect and understanding of our performance. What we had first written on the cardboard cups was solely inspired by the video, we had written things such as ‘baby no.1’ ‘why did this happen?’, ‘boy’ and ‘old man’. However, we quickly realised that what we wanted on the cardboard cups was actually something more relevant to what we were doing and for it to be more relevant to the space that we were occupying. The next step we needed to focus on would be exploring the concept of recycling, reusing and re-establishing.

Word count:387

Monday 11^th March

The Monotony of Life

Our concept has developed into linking the space within the gallery to the idea of forgotten memories and the monotony of life. The space is something which always stands in the gallery but what it represents is constantly changing. So rather than looking at the shell of the building as a gallery and how that could link to our performance we wanted to look more specifically at the interior as a space. When considering this, the monotony of life is very interesting to explore because it’s the idea of this space constantly being reused; what it is, what it was and what it could be. Of course we wanted to tie in our original concept of concealing and revealing space using cardboard boxes and this reflects how the space is ever changing and can be manipulated into something new. In addition to this, the way in which we handle the boxes (taking them from one room to another) will become a repetitive, lifeless and formal routine.

‘Cultural Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan observes that a fundamental human activity is to ‘attach meaning to and organise place and space’ (Tuan, 1977, p.5)

I found this quote very helpful because it links to the concept we had now begun exploring when drawing links to place and space. The place and the space are two very different things and as I have explained above our focus has been drawn to this.

The next stage of the experimentation was scripting a monologue;

Life reduced to refuse,
Isn’t there more than this?

The lost, forgotten, no names, no faces
Just a time, date and place

Life reduced to numbers

It started as one, then came more
Too many to count,

Nothing but a mass grave

One, two, three, four

Hair brushes,
Dollies,
Brand new frocks,

Dentist visits,
Tears,
Knee high socks.

Late night dinner,
Eavesdropping,
Being a great friend

Doing what you love,
Midnight calls,
Knowing whats around the bend.

Sight-seeing,
Grazed knees,
Crying tears of joys.

Cigarettes,
Make up sex,
The excitement of a girl or a boy.

Nameless faces,
Finding your lover,
Learning things a new.

Building foundations,
Learning from mistakes,
Being sad when it’s all through.

Office chairs,
Nail clippers,
Doing a job you hate.

Interlocking fingers,
Building blocks,
Loving someone when it’s too late.

This monologue related to ideas of the monotony and the general aspects of what most people experience in life, I read this monologue whilst the rest of the group were constructing the wall out of cardboard boxes. This process of building the cardboard boxes became more atmospheric because of the monologue being read during the construction of it. It was important to read the monologue at a very slow pace, again without reflecting any emotion using a monotone voice, because the mood we wanted to evoke from doing this was not something positive but more serious and possibly self-reflective. The group definitely found this to be quite successful particularly as we didn’t want to just have the visual aspect of us reconstructing and deconstructing the boxes, we wanted to add auditory aspect to the performance. Having multiple aspects was crucial for the performance because we wanted the audience to be in control of and have an option to choose what they wanted to take from the experience.

Word count: 478

Monday 18^th March

Constructive Criticism

This week we had been asked to showcase to our fellow peers and teacher, what we had produced so far. This was just so everybody was able to see what stage in our performance we were at and whether or not we were heading in the right direction. We received some constructive criticism from our fellow peers. We were made aware of what worked and what didn’t. Firstly, projection levels from me whilst reading the monologue were very low and so our intention of adding an extra dimension to the performance consequentially failed and they found that the music we had selected for the background dominated the performance. As a result of the audience only being on one side there were certain restrictions with regards to how much they could take in from our performance as a whole. Audience members were also confused as to what relevance the writing on the boxes held to it being a site specific performance, and some felt it was too obvious and that we should take a more subtle approach to engage the audience further. As well as receiving constructive criticism, we were praised on how our performance was minimalist but created the exact effect and this positive response gave us the confidence to rectify and improve on these aspects.

Word count: 216

Tuesday 26th March

Voiceover

The members of the group and I began experimenting with the monologue and we found that it could be interesting if we performed this monologue as a group, layering up the monologue by saying it at different times and different volume levels. This linked to our main concept which we had begun exploring; building something up and breaking it back down. One of us began the monologue whilst the other three members gradually started the same monologue at different intervals, eventually we were all saying the monologue at staggered stages and by the end the layering that had initially been built up had been reduced back to one voice. The group found this extremely effective in depicting how monotonous life can be. It became really significant for us to use this concept of monotony in multiple ways with regards to our site specific performance. Thus not only did we utilise the concept of the monotony of life through the monologue, but we used the boxes to fill the space; in the same way that the gallery is temporary whereas the space in which it inhabits is permanent. Thus the construction of the boxes are almost metaphorical; filling the space to create something new, and then taking it down to reveal what it initially was.

As a group we decided it was best to record the monologue as there were only four of us in the group and having one of us occupied with the monologue meant that it only left three members for the main aspect of the performance.

Word count: 259

Monday 8^th April

As the boxes were now the main part of our performance we really had to consider a lot of things regarding the way we wanted to use them and how we wanted them to look. We had had previous discussion on painting the boxes white, or having them wrapped in brown paper so they would all look in impeccable condition and so they would all look the same. We really wanted the boxes to be perfect because our performance was essentially us creating a piece of art and so the end result should be aesthetically pleasing to the eye of the public. However we had to reflect on our true intention and we decided that having the boxes in their natural state was more fitting in portraying this idea of monotony and life reduced to its natural state; stripped bare.

As we were looking at making the boxes aesthetically pleasing we considered other ways of ‘decorating’ the boxes. One of the boxes had black tape across it and we thought it actually looked quite good so we wanted to use that on all of the boxes because there was something quite stern about the way the black crosses were on each one. We had tried a range of materials out on the boxes such as chalk and paint, we found the chalk wasn’t effective at all; firstly because of how faint the colour was against the cardboard and secondly because it was a pastel colour it just wasn’t eye-catching enough. The materials we had confirmed that we would be using black tape on the boxes and paints.

As I had said earlier, what we had previously written on the boxes during our experimentation was too simple and not very relevant to what we were doing. So we had a discussion as to what would work. The theme of time was suggested as this links to the idea of the space in which the building inhabits being timeless as well as time linking to the nature and monotony of life itself. Again, as we were constantly considering how things would look to the audience we decided using roman numerals could be quite effective.

Word count: 362

Tuesday 23^rd April

I Can See The Finish Line!

We were now coming to a close with our experimentation and had taken the positive and effective things from this to use within our piece. We had noticed a parallel space in the gallery room across from the one we had been working in and we really wanted to make use of the connection we felt the two spaces had. In unification with the idea of monotony, we wanted our performance to really feel like it had a routine to it. Taking the boxes from one space to another at a slow pace and with no emotion. We decided to have a run through so we could see if there was anything that wasn’t working and so we could rectify it. We noticed that everything felt quite rushed; the construction, the painting and the transportation of the boxes. Our movement became more rhythmic and structured and when we took the boxes to the parallel space we entered the room from different entrances, this change in dynamics made the performance visually more effective.

The stages of our performance would be as follows; taking the boxes one by one to construct a wall, leaving gaps in between to let the light shine through. All paint roman numerals on each of the boxes, then slowly begin to take these to the parallel space entering the room from different entrances. Place these down in a less organised way as this is showing that we had organised the boxes in one space and showing the consequence of breaking it down and disregarding it in another. Walking back to the space we had originally started the performance in and waiting until the voiceover is finished playing before opening the final box which contains for balloons we release.

Word count: 291

Saturday 4^th May

Performance Day

Now our performance is over! Everything that we intended to happen in our performance happened however I think at times it was hard for the audience to keep up with us. This is because as we were constantly moving from one space to another, it is obvious that the audience didn’t know where we would end up at the end of the performance. However, I did like the attention we got from members of the public who hadn’t actually come to see our piece because it links back to one of our first experiments with regards to attaining the attention of by passers, people who had not come to see our performance but became intrigued by it.

Word count: 117

Tuan, Y. (1977) Space and Place; The Perspective of Experience, London; Edward Arnold.

Lippard, L. (1997) The Lure of The Local, New York; The New Press.

Kay, Nick. (2000) Site-specific Art: Performance Place and Documentation, New York; Routledge.

Nova Inventa.

Alicia Visram Cipolletta / May 13, 2013 / Nova Inventa, Uncategorized

Overall I think the performance went well and we appreciated the staff and audience bravely questioning our choices at the end. Our feedback was intriguing as the audiences main focus was our role in the performance, yet they loved the bringing in of our balloons for the escapism and hope feel to the end of our piece and found it refreshing. One element I would change, or work on, was the flimsiness and weakness of our boxes. We spent a lot of time practising out how the boxes should be stacked, as whenever we created our wall, each time a different box would not hold. After continuing to label and colour coordinate our boxes into sequences for steadiness and balance, in the end we concluded that once the first layer of stable, strong boxes were placed, our choices above could be random and unsystematic. We hoped for the best with this as having a certain structure created issues and we ended up over thinking our wall. Another thing I noticed was the audiences hesitation to enter our space whilst we were performing. Our tutor initially knew to freely enter our space yet the audience where unaware whether they were allowed to or not. However once people risked the capability to walk where they please and came in our performance space around us, I can assume the audience felt more comfortable being somewhere they can walk freely and watch us. (As if we were part of the gallery).

Our performance title; Nova Inventa sums up our performance. New Discoveries is about us taking a space and allowing it to be used to its maximum potential. To the audience, the space would be a discovery in itself, and we would transform it to bring something that would make the space actual artwork. I feel that we have come along way from devising a piece of movement that started off with army figurines and messages in balloons. We had originally looked at 5 different overlooked spaces and I am glad we narrowed it down to 2. Whilst we potentially lost out, we gained a better idea of our responses to the space and our intentions to the audience through the use of the parallel sides.

The Performance.

Alicia Visram Cipolletta / May 13, 2013May 13, 2013 / Nova Inventa, Uncategorized

The practitioner Mike Pearson, discuses the relationship between archaeology and performance. He states that for the performer it is a ‘series of physical, sensual and extra-daily experiences as alterations of perception and life strategies which may or may not be made explicit to the spectator, as sequences of tension, relaxation, and acceleration, changes of consequence and innovation.’. I feel like this quote resembles our attitude towards our performance, and how we are inviting the unprepared audience to our invasion of space and our concept of breaking the monotony of life.
During our performance we walk from our main side space in the contemporary gallery to its twin space on the other side, whilst the Collection itself is known for its quietness, stillness, and relaxing atmosphere, we immediately agreed on invading the rooms with us walking through with our boxes. Whilst we were robotic and cold to the spectators who did not know how to respond to us, our walking was peaceful and calm as we transferred the boxes between the spaces. To conclude our assessment concerning our twin performance spaces, we thought it was aesthetically pleasing to use the bringing down and revealing aspect to both sides.

In order to not deter the attention from the colourful balloons at the end, we dressed in black to create the allusion that we were not the centre attraction. The black tied in with the crosses on each box and the colourful paint we used contrasted well against the dark colours. Whilst the roman numerals played their own part, our sporadic and random place choices, for them allowed the audience to see our gradual breaking away from the conventional ‘routine’. We changed quite a bit over the last week, including the material used to write on the boxes. We went from scratchy black markers to colourful paints. Red and blue were the favourites, but due to there being 4 of us, we included other colours. These colours matched our balloon colours as an insignificant yet highly detailed link within our performance. The idea of the thin brush strokes and the effect it created on the cardboard immediately caught our attention and we stuck with the idea. We liked the contemporary feel and felt that our piece would coincide with the art surrounding our space.

We chose to not have our performance as a durational piece as we felt that if we performed over several hours, our walking through the gallery would become tiresome and not as intriguing. We also changed the idea of Tequila reading the poem, to all of us speaking. To prevent ourselves from messing up the words and ruining the effect of the piece, we recorded our poem with people coming in and speaking in a canon formation. This gave the impression of time never ending as when one person finished, others would still be speaking. We had it recorded so that it was playing in the background for dramatic effect. It was played 3 times, at the start, whilst we painted the roman numerals, and at the end, before we revealed our object. We felt that this created a cyclical feel to our performance and gave our piece depth. Doing our performance also within half an hour allowed our performance to appear blunt and something that shouldn’t be overlooked itself. Whilst the audience did not travel with us on all our transferring journeys, they all appeared at the end, wanting to see if we had a dramatic ending. In order to prolong the revealing of our balloons we replayed the voice-over poem in the back ground as we stood around the last box. This kept the audience anticipating our next move and whether we would even reveal our objects in the space. Once we had revealed our symbols of hope, we allowed the audience to view the space and reminisce over the importance and significance of our piece, especially in relation to the space.

Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Performance Analysis upon completion

James Barker / May 13, 2013 / Possessed Time

That’s it. It’s over. The Site Specific performance has been completed and it simply remains to thoroughly analyse it and its effectiveness as a performance and any changes that I personally would implement should its performance be required again. I felt one key feature on the performance day that we had not previously experienced was the quantity of visitors (having only rehearsed on the much quieter weekdays) and the observation of audience reaction gave a fascinating insight into our pieces effect on the general public. Interestingly it was children who were most engaged with several aspects of the performance, particularly the part I consider to be the most visually striking: the human clock projected on the closed door. One little boy in particular seemed fascinated, excitedly chiming “look Daddy, the clocks them!” That such a simple visual tool could bring excitement to those of all ages I think validated its use in the performance. The other projection, that of a pineapple decomposing before coming back to life, is perhaps up for more scrutiny. On a personal level, I believe it was a powerful display of how time is not only something which dictates the working lives of human, but its power as a natural force which will ultimately claim everything. The use of the pineapple I felt to be a nice homage to the pineapple bowl in the display case and the juxtaposition between the two (one preserved to highlight the function of the pineapple bowl as likely to decay as the china it is displayed alongside, the other ravaged by time to show its true short lived nature) helped to highlight our ideas about time being both natural and a human construct. However, it could also be argued that this is hard to see for one who has not been involved in the pieces meticulous planning but is rather just a casual observer. Also we must consider the location of its projection, with it having been projected onto the wall underneath a display case instead of the clearly superior door where the human clock went. This was due to technical issues as opposed to artistic preferences and in this respect; the limits of the space did impact on the performance. Sadly, I cannot see how this could be rectified, but I believe the pineapple still has a place in the performance, particularly as it is the only side which explores times effects on the non-human factors, if anything this side could and perhaps should have been explored more.

I feel that the pieces durational nature influenced the audience and their reactions to it. Due its length, nobody stayed to observe for the whole running time, but many came back several times throughout the day, showing we had captured their imagination and provoked thought. Again it was parents and children who seemed most drawn to us and I see this as proof of the piece working on multiple levels. For the children, it was visually striking, with six adults acting in a manner that they would not normally see, dressed (or in Shanes case undressed) in a variety of ways and with the two constant projections on, there was enough to strike up an immediate curiousity after a casual glance. They may also have emphasised with some of the activities that we carried out, the putting together of a jigsaw puzzle and the mimed actions will be features of their own lives that may have pleased them to see done by adults. The parents too seemed intrigued, perhaps empathising more with the portrayal of the tedious, almost mechanical repetition of the working day and the pointlessness of the task we had assigned ourselves for that part of the performance (when the clock puzzle was successfully constructed, we simply dismantled it and started again).

Of course, not all audience reaction could be deemed as positive, but this was something we had prepared for. Due to the relatively enclosed nature of the space we were working in, contact with visitors was going to be inevitable. From the earliest rehearsals, we had encountered members of the public who viewed our activities as a hindrance to their viewing of the exhibits with one gentleman being almost openly hostile muttering for us to “get out my bloody way”. On the day we fortunately didn’t experience anything quite like this, but it is fair to say we did not reach every visitor to the gallery that day. Some were undoubtedly surprised to see the room inhabited. Others were questioning the relevance of the piece, with one woman springing to mind who asked her husband “Is this even worth looking at?” I found reactions such as particularly intriguing, it was the manner in which people spoke in clearly audible tones about the piece, almost disregarding us as individuals and viewing us as an exhibit ourselves, albeit one they may not have cared for. I find it interesting that the comment I found memorable was a question rather than a criticism. Were we even worth looking at? This in my opinion can be viewed as a sign of the pieces success, that we provoked questioning, even though it was sometimes negative, shows that we actually caused audience members to think and have an opinion. All art should, if it is successful, do this. Even if it is hated or reviled, indeed I personally believe that should it fail to encourage thought or an opinion, it has failed in its purpose as a piece of art, a fate that we seemed to avoid.

Practically, the piece was not without its hitches, the most notable being the failure of our alarm clock to go off at the performances start. Inadvertently though, this showed the point the entire pieces point in one unplanned disastrous moment and revealed the truth of our performance: we are ruled by time and clocks and the failure of an expected alarm to go off threatened to throw the entire performance out of kilter. On the whole though, I feel we recovered well, our performance got across our key ideas as we intended it to and it grew as the day went on. As to improvements we may have made, perhaps we should have offered something that would have been more of a direct engagement to visitors, maybe encouraging them to assist us in the construction of the puzzle or join with the miming and rhythmic walking. However, this could be seen as a more childlike activity and as already mentioned; children appeared to be the demographic who most engaged with us. Overall I feel the collection of possessed time to have been the culmination of many interesting ideas and a pleasure to have been involved with.