In the initial weeks we spent time exploring spaces on site. Looking round we liked the exhibitions on Time and the four seasons seemed to be a popular topic in the Usher Gallery. We later learned this was because James Ward Usher born in 1845 was a jewellery and pocket watch collector who owned shop which he displayed these goods in, in Lincoln where he took over from his father in 1874. When he died he bequeathed his collection to Lincoln City which is why it is in the gallery today. As for the four seasons, we noticed a large ring on a tree outside, a staff member told us an artist installed it there to show the bond between love and nature. In full bloom the ring was hidden but in winter when it was at its barest it would apparent. This sparked the revelation and concealment idea.
We were also keen to learn about the architecture of the building. Research showed it was founded in 1906. It was very interesting to learn that the building sits on an ancient monument. Where the gallery is situated was once sat the roman and medieval city. Excavations showed that in this area Roman, Anglo-Scandinavian and medieval archaeology would be prominent and that Victorian buildings would previously have occupied the site.
The buildings on site had so much history beneath it! Many a time there must have been the excavating of walls and the demolishing of others, I really liked the idea of our concept being like history repeating itself. Pearson and Shanks talk about the archaeology of theatre related to a space, ‘the stage becomes a place of absolute scrutiny, although it may change in nature, constantly alluding to other times, other places: it might play with notions of hiding and revealing, screening and disclosing, see or half seeing. (2001, p.23) This to me exemplified the idea that site specific performances were conditioned by their very space and should reflect its history.
4/3/13
This week we brought materials that could be used on site to help us achieve our aim of revealing space to the audience. Initially we wanted to use five spaces around The Collection Gallery and have subtle movements going on in each site. We started with the window alcove in the exhibition gallery. We liked this space because of the questions it provoked, such as why were people drawn to this space?
Our materials ranged from army figures, stacking cups and plastic ducks to marbles and balloons. We started playing around with the idea of covering up the space to be able to reveal something behind it. We tried building a wall out of the cups. From our results it proved to be a success as we found the higher we got the more interesting the piece became. However we did find they were far to light-weight and small.
We then decided we wanted to build the wall over a long period of time and in silence to create intrigue and suspense for our audience.
I was inspired by Station House Operas work which, specialize in the building and demolishing of architecture and explore the intimate relationship between people and the environment they inhibit. One of their projects, Dominoes, explores having breeze blocks standing in a line and journeying through a whole entire landscape of the country.
Although on a much bigger scale, the principles were still the same about the construction of something in a public space. I liked the way the audience followed as if on a journey with the piece.
When looking in the main gallery we found inspiration in the Roman centurion’s reconstruction. What interested us was that centuries ago this building used to inhabit the Romans. We had the idea of merging the stacking of cups and figures together to create a battle field scene. This was because we wanted to highlight the relationship between the objects and the space. It became a very intense piece which we responded to by asking questions to each other so we could get a feel for our collective experience.
We also wanted to incorporate words into our piece and in doing so develop the idea of layering and building something up and then bringing it down. This was metaphorical as words overlapping the building of the tower and the construction of the army reflected the building and deconstruction of the wall.
Spending time in the window alcove led to acknowledging the intricacies of things such as the recording on loop. We liked the idea of repetition, using singular words and phrases to create a fragmented atmosphere in the space. This fragmentation is derived from our own interpretations of the recording, writing down our responses in a stream of consciousness form and thus recording what the art provoked from us. This was most interesting for us and something we would later develop in next week’s session.
We wanted to use balloons as a way of revealing something to the audience. Our idea for this was contrived by the concept of posting secrets in balloons and leaving them in a space in the gallery for the audience to pop and hence reveal the secret. We did however decide it didn’t correlate with our theme of space all that well.
A space not often noticed by the public is below the galleries. This space was interesting as it was ultimately ‘dead space’, deserted and unknown. One thing we observed was the acoustics, they created an echoing effect, and the colour of the walls- a deep red added to the atmospherics. We decided to use the marbles and drop them down the stairs in a sequence that would build with pace. This showed how we we’re filling the space and also how we were adding to the space as one marble following another created a rush of sound which intensified rapidly.
We then repeated the action again and involved one of us acting as if running away from something. The sounds of the marbles helped create this illusion and atmosphere. We concluded this experimentation would not aid us in our development of revealing space, although it proved useful in helping us explore spaces and narrow down our focal points. Further exploration showed there was a parallel window space like the window alcove, in the opposing space which we wanted to use. Our ideas were starting to become more finalized now. We’d gone from many spaces to two where we felt we could concentrate on the idea of empty space and yet still be able to reveal something in it. Susan Bennett suggests Kirschenblatt-Gimblett argues today’s museum is a ‘theatre, memory place, a stage for the enactment of other times and places, a space of transport, fantasy, dreams’. (2013, p.4). This demonstrates the links that can be drawn between the Theatre and the Museum and that they’ve gone from two separate forms and now can interlink together in a very modernist way.
Our practical exploration proved very successful this week as we were not only able to narrow down our ideas but also develop an understanding of how we could create something in the space by the window. Our main focus would now be building a wall in the space. From our exploration we learnt that we would need something on a much larger scale, therefore our choice will now be cardboard boxes.
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Works cited:
Bennett, Susan (2013) Theatre and Museums, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Pearson Mike and Michael Shanks (2001) Theatre/ Archaeology, New York: Routledge.
Station House Opera (2009) Station House Opera’s Dominoes…(part 1), Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XlEKesUDAX8 (accessed: 1st May 2013).