Category: Evaluation

“The final curtain…performance reflection”

Kirsty Taylor / / Concealed Illusions, Evaluation, Public Responses

Finally, after months of hard work and development our finished piece was performed to the public and overall I am thrilled with the end result. As both director and performer it was a proud moment watching our project come to life in such a beautiful setting and succeed.

Before stepping out of the education room to start our performance I was quite daunted by the prospect of our performance.  As we are dealing with site specific work, not all our audience would be expecting us so we were weary as to how the visitors to the Usher Gallery would perceive our piece and if we would just be ignored.  Because of this and due to the fact our piece is specific to the gallery and indeed Lincoln, there will in turn be, “A different kind of audience performer interaction” (Pearson, 2010, p9). I wondered how different it would be and even if we would have any audience at all. To our delight however, we drew in quite a large audience over the duration of our piece, with a mixture of expected audience, students and those completely unaware of who we were and why we were there. Although many of the viewers were members of the general public and unaware of our purpose, many still stopped and took time to watch our piece, intrigued as to what we were doing and why. Despite some hanging around the entrance to the room and not entering, some did venture inside and walked around our performance, watching the actions of both us girls and Tom and noting the video on the wall and our scattered photographs.

Over the last few months, our performance has developed so much and has grown in the elements which make up our ending piece but finally we finalised each element, using only the ones which truly benefit our piece and are not too obvious to the audience. Because of this, some elements were taken away and replaced with more developed ideas. The main being the use of sticky labels and applying them to each other as the piece progressed. Although it fitted in with our theme, after trying it out and discussing it with each other and our tutor, we all agreed it was too obvious and didn’t leave much to the imagination. Instead, we experimented with the use of voice clips which would be repeated throughout our performance. We researched tips and guides on how to apply perfect makeup and each of the girls read out a few paragraphs stating different techniques which tell women how to look their best:

“Learning how to apply make up properly is a small investment in time that will help you look your best and boost your self-confidence…the ideal foundation must give you the coverage you need for your skin condition, must perfectly match your skin tone, must perfectly match your undertone.”

site voice complete (1)

We also recorded information and tips on painting techniques which we added to the makeup recordings to create a five minute long sound clip. The two different elements worked really well together and at some points it is uncertain as to whether the tips are aimed at painting or the makeup, backing up how similar the act of applying makeup is to the act of painting. The sound clips fitted in with our performance perfectly and added to the absurdity as the piece progressed.  As our audience would be hearing tips on how makeup and paintings should be done, we were performing the complete opposite; Tom hastily sketching our actions without even looking to his paper and us randomly applying makeup without mirrors and no effort in creating the perfect ‘mask’.

The physical part of our performance was also a success, partly due to us having a strict time schedule so we knew how long each part of the process would take. We agreed on spending twenty minutes for the first two times and for our applications to be clinical in the sense of how perfect our makeup would look. The next application we did without a mirror which proved quite difficult. We allowed ourselves fifteen minutes in which to try and get the application as close to perfect as we could but some aspects proved more difficult than others, particularly in getting a smooth application of foundation and trying not to smudge our eyeliner and mascara. After this application however, our process broke down with the application of makeup only lasting five minutes and the makeup becoming messy and unnatural. We also changed position, moving from facing the centre to facing outwards to our audience. It was at this point when more visitors came to watch as they became fascinated seeing us absurdly applying makeup whilst staring out into the space. On our fifth and final application we changed position again, this time becoming even stranger. I laid flat on the floor whilst Sam lay across the seats and Jess slumped against it. This final time we only used foundation and used it to cover our bodies not just our faces. I laid on the floor getting more and more foundation and covered by face, arms and t-shirt with layer upon layer of foundation.

IMG_1669 Image from rehearsal, 22/4/2013

This surreal image accompanied by the sound of how to apply the perfect makeup, make an impressive final image for our piece and worked well demonstrating our point of how masking isn’t necessarily a positive process. Initially, this was meant to last for five minutes and then the sound of an alarm clock placed in the centre of our podium would ring giving us the signal to leave. However, it turned out that the alarm clock had not been set, meaning this last section lasted for fifteen minutes instead until Sam decided to stand and sound the alarm herself. Although not what we had planned, it worked to our advantage and visually looked more impressive for this process to last longer than we intended. It meant our bodies could become more covered and our application could become more elaborate as we stretched our arms up to cover them in a ritualistic kind of way. To bring our performance to a close, we removed our makeup covered t-shirts and wiped our faces with them for the final time before discarded them on the floor and walked out of the room, leaving traces of our performance behind for people to look at.

Another element of our performance was the video of the Brayford painting we originally based our ideas on. Although no longer with us physically, projecting the image above the Venus de Milo pictures worked well. Using Toms edited image of the Brayford which he changed to look as if more realistic and without the idealised mask it has, the original and newly edited image merge over a twenty minute period to show the difference between the romanticised and ‘real’ image and again reinforce how often both art and society feels the need to fake perfection.

worse Tom’s edited image, intended to simulate reality rather than romantacising the truth.

Overall I am really happy with our end performance and how our rehearsal process developed. We successfully put across our intentions to our audience after feedback from those who watched which is particularly rewarding. Our performance is not a closed one; it is a piece which could be developed even further if given time. It has been a vast learning process and it has been interesting creating a piece which if moved from its initial location, would lose a lot of impact and importance. We hope we have changed the way people view art and people and that perfection can still be achieved without having to create a mask.

 

Works Cited

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

“Time for reflection part two: The future for the project…”

Tom Baines / / Concealed Illusions, Evaluation

 

Our project will not die. The openness of our project has allowed for major development of our piece.

From feedback, it was apparent that the link between the video and the live performance was not clear. This then poses the question – does it need to be?

 

Let us look at how this project could be taken further:

First the Video: (Here is a smaller version)

 

 

There are many connotations with this. Firstly the image is being digitally manipulated or if you like ‘hacked’. The video is hacking a Victorian painting. It is almost as if a Victorian painting is getting a computer virus.  With this in mind I will now mention an earlier post.

 

bob

 

What if this was to happen but instead of it being different pieces of art, what if it was part of the performance. And what looks like a mobile phone getting ‘hacked’ would show a video of idealisation or to avoid the general term art that is more honest. What if the video was to show loads of different images? For example if the project was done again over a series of days and taking a picture on each day and composting those into a video.

 

Now to the live art. What were people’s reactions? From what I could see there was a range of different reactions. Some entered and looked at the performance for a while and left. Others came in looked at the performance and did not enter as there was ‘something different’ on. Others came in and looked around the performance and the room as if we were part of the room.   These responses link back to our original idea of art watching and people watching art. As the site was open to the public it also gives us a power in the room, as we are forcing members of the public to watch.  We were also creating art. (Obviously the drawings and the application of make-up) but the make-up wipes as well. When they were discarded they were a piece of art themselves almost like a painting. As it was paint on paper (sort of).  What if we photographed them and hanged them up in a gallery as a permanent memento to what we did?

So? How did it go?

Holly Rudd / / Evaluation, People

I have mixed emotions about how well our final performance went. I feel that some areas of the work really shined and showed off what we wanted people to see, but then I also feel that we lost momentum half way through and therefore lost the drive that was needed to push the performance and keep it going strong.

I feel that performance day itself could have gone better. The group did not seem to have the enthusiasm that you would hope for on performance day. Setting up the exhibit took longer than I had planned due to afore mentioned lack of enthusiasm. Another issue that presented us the morning of our exhibit was the weather, as our piece was outside we hoped for clear skies and glorious sunshine, instead we got the usual British rainy weather, by the time we began running our exhibition at 12pm it had stopped raining and began to warm up a bit, this meant more audience members wandered outside to see what we were up to. I feel if the weather had been sunny initially we may have had a better audience turn out than we actually did. Once we got the piece up and running I started to feel more confident about the group as a whole and the weather.

When we were in place I could see it being a slow start but as we got going the group seemed to work together as a team. As part of the window pair I feel that our performance was well noticed by the audience and received a good response. We had families waving at us for no apparent reason, I took this as a good thing as it meant that people were acknowledging what we were doing and came to get a closer look and see what it was all about. Because of this I think that the window position was a good one to use as it enabled us to attract an audience to the rest of the exhibit.

Our piece lasted for 1½ hours. We were hoping to perform for 2 but unfortunately that was interrupted by unavoidable circumstances. But the hour and a half was plenty of time to gage audience responses.

The audience reacted mostly as I hoped they would, we wanted our audience to come and experience what we had to offer. They could come along view our exhibit and make their own observations about our piece. I feel that this worked successfully due to the way that people responded whilst moving around the exhibition.

‘Audience need not be categorized, or even consider themselves, as ‘audience’’ (Pearson, 2010, pg 175) I feel this quote from Pearson applies to our piece, because we presented a gallery and not so much of a performance; our exhibition was for people to wander around and experience which people did. Therefore our audience could be described as a number of things, spectators, observers, participants, or indeed members of an audience. But because our performance was based around the actions of the public our ‘audience’ could be classed as part of the performance itself presenting everyday pedestrian actions much like we were as a group.

We did however have one couple ask the table groups to stop talking or quieten down. I think this was an interesting response as it’s not a normal response when a performance is going on. But I feel that the idea of site specific encourages these responses. We are coming into a space that is frequented by the general public and we have to be aware that these responses may be likely to occur.

In conclusion I think that our group passed on the messages that we wanted to but the delivery could have been met with more enthusiasm and commitment. If we were to develop the piece, I think that we would extend the opening times to allow more people to view it and have more exhibits for people to view.

 

Pearson, Mike (2010) site-specific performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Considering Our Performance

Lacey Cole / / Cultural Terrorists, Evaluation

We have finally performed our site specific piece, after months of development and discussion. Naturally, there are some elements that we consider less successful, and if we were to perform this piece again, it is likely we would want to be able to alter these elements. I felt our performance fell into two sections essentially, the first half in which we smuggled the Big Ben sculpture into the Usher Gallery and the second half, which seemingly began as soon as we took our balaclavas off. The difference in these two sections in terms of pace gave a much more durational feel to the piece I think, despite the 25 minute run time. This was achieved by slowing down the performance once the instillation had been built. I think this was a very successful way to stage the performance as it gave the audience time to consider our actions of ‘terrorism’ in the first part, compared to the leisurely elements of jazz music and books introduced in the second section.

However, we found a few things that could have been improved. Due to the nature of the site, we were not allowed to eat or drink in our performance area, and thus our original idea of having a quintessentially British tea party once our sculpture had been completed became obsolete. Instead, we reapplied lipstick and read leather bound books. It seems a shame that our tea party idea had to be scrapped, as the variances between the first and second sections could have been much greater and more focused on the differences in class levels traditionally found.  The ladylike nature of our 1920’s costumes could also have been emphasised through this tea party, although after some discussion it was noted that our costumes had a significant impact, especially the dissimilarity between the dainty stockings and lipstick worn with black balaclavas.

It has also been discussed in depth if in fact Big Ben was an appropriate sculptural model to create; given the feminine styling we gave the performance, as it is clearly a phallic object. However, we maintain that our focus was not meant to be on the femininity versus masculinity of the Gallery or its creator, but rather on our own personal history relating to that object. Given that Big Ben is a widely recognised building, we found inspiration in the way Janet Cardiff’s 1999 ‘Missing Voice’ piece ‘seeks to alter viewing conventions more traditionally associated with tourist’ spots (Gorman 2003, p.168). Instead of our audience seeing Big Ben as London, we wanted them to look past that and see their own roots in whichever city or town they feel closest to. The feminist take is of course, another way of looking at our performance, and an interesting one at that, which we would very much like to explore should we have the opportunity to create anything similar to this piece again.

missing voice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Missing Voice, Audio Tour (1999)

 

References: Gorman, Sarah (2003) ‘Wandering and Wondering: Following Janet Cardiff’s Missing Voice’, Performance Research 8, no.1.

Author: Lacey Cole

“Time for reflection part one…”

Tom Baines / / Concealed Illusions, Evaluation

On the 4th May 2013, at 1pm, ‘The Collection of Concealed Illusions’ was unveiled to the public within the Usher gallery. So now that performance is over it is time for reflection, on how it went and tie up any lose ends and ideas.

 

The performance started with the projection of the ‘Brayford pool and cathedral’ painting, which transformed over the course of a 20 minute loop between this and the digitalised one that I created, which showed the same image only not as aesthetically pleasing. The reason for this was, when the original painting was on the wall in the gallery the small piece of text next to it had said that the painting was ‘idealised’. So as I have said before no swans, no fisherman and no artistic mist. This was the base for our performance. Therefore we intended to reveal to the public, that many paintings are idealised.

 

From this we looked at the modern equivalent of idealisation. ‘Instagram’ a modern iPhone ‘app’ has to ability to add a ‘filter’ to a picture which will leave it blemish free – if you like, a modern idealisation. We then decided to take a picture of the present day Brayford and apply every filter in instagram to it and use them as a link between the video and the rest of the performance, I shall return to this link later. Then of course, the painting of the Brayford was removed and replaced by a local artist’s depiction of the ‘Venus de Milo’ drawn on paper by pencil. At this point we were lost but made this negative into a positive.

 

To our amazement the artist was born around the same time as the painting of the Brayford was done and the ‘Venus de Milo’ drawings were pencil on paper – exactly what I was doing in the performance. To link this in further and without completely scrapping the video and the other instagram images we had printed we decided to instagram a picture of the Venus de Milo and apply every filter and interspersed them amongst the Brayford pictures that would be on the floor.

 

Now to the live aspect of the performance. The girls in the group were applying and removing layers of make up for the duration of our piece – a live representation of idealised paintings.; and of course the similarity between make up application and painting. Here I should return to the link stated earlier. With the video and the photos on the floor it is showing a visual representation of idealised images both modern and past and how idealisation or if you like masking or hiding a ‘true identity’ is still around. I would also seem ridiculous to leave out the fact that this is a gallery. So by having me draw the girls, it is exhibiting the live art similarly to the paintings being exhibited around the gallery.  I am making copies of beauty, just like the local Lincolnshire artist is making copies of the statue of Aphrodite the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty – the Venus de Milo.

 

Another small theme from our piece is society’s view on idealisation or rather men’s view. I am a male, drawing females. Here there is a sense of men’s view on women when they go out and of course the patriarchal society. But also, with no thought of better word, women exploiting their role to get men to do what they want. In our performance when the girls got up to take off their make-up in front of the projection and the Venus de Milo I turned and watch and continued to draw.

 

A late addition to the piece was the addition of sound which consisted of the girls speaking ‘make-up’ tips which would play on loop throughout and was interspersed with tips on painting. Again this was to reinforce the similarities between the application of paint and make-up.

 

Finally I believe our performance went well and reinforced our key theme of idealisation. Having spoken to some people after about it, it was clear some links they had figured out themselves and once told what the project was about was very clear to them and they understood more.  On reflection I think next time if this piece was to go on or just to develop it further I would like to think about ways in which the performance could reinforce our theme more clearly, however the element of uncertainty made the audience think about the performance more. Next time I would like to experiment the way we could have used the whole Usher gallery and maybe even the grounds.