Public Responses – The Collection Of…

“The final curtain…performance reflection”

Kirsty Taylor / May 10, 2013May 13, 2013 / 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.

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.

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

Our assessment.

Francesca Maria Izzo / May 7, 2013May 13, 2013 / Evaluation, People, Public Responses

Our final performance started with panic and worry as the weather in the morning leading up to our performance in the afternoon, was pouring with rain. As our performance was outside it would mean standing and sitting in the rain for two hours and potentially result in no audience members. Luckily however, when we began performing at 12pm, the rain stopped and the sun came out bringing audiences members with it. My role involved standing on a platform in the entrance of the outside seating area with a plinth and chalkboard informing the visitors of our outside cafe exhibition and inviting them to come and have a look:

My role involved speaking quotes I had recorded from the staff members in the cafe. As a majority of the quotes were questions, I decided to say the quotes when visitors walked past or stood and looked at me, to create an interaction with them and highlight the staff members interaction and communication with the customers. As I was asking rhetorical questions and not looking at the visitors when I spoke to them, the reactions I got varied from person to person. For instance, some people looked at me but chose to ignore me, some replied to my questions with their own answers and some avoided walking near me and looking at me to prevent interaction. These observations were similar to the observations my group and I had made of the customers in the cafe. Even though a lot of the passers by acknowledged me and showed an interest there were a few who didn’t want to associate themselves with something unordinary. Like an earlier prediction I made in an earlier blog post, I mentioned we would get interest from children. This happened with a little girl who saw me and when I spoke and repeated questions when they walked past she questioned her family, repeatedly asking them if i was real. This made me think, as I was not acting like a normal person and was just stood still, she thought I was a robot or a statue as I was acting in a conventional, normal way. Children were also interested in the other areas of our performance such as, the cake stand and tea set as they kept going over to the glass plinths and looking at them.

Whilst I was stood on the platform, I was thinking of ways the performance could have been improved. For example, I could have pushed my role further by maybe having some clear plastic boxes with coin slots on the top labelled ‘REACTED’, ‘IGNORED’ and ‘INTERACTION’ and every time a visitor did one I would put a coin into one of the slots and at the end tally up how many coins were in each box to compare people’s reactions to our performance. Having Shellie and Holly visible in the education room upstairs representing ‘THE MIMIC’ proved successful as a lot of passers by and visitors noticed them and interacted with them by waving and looking into the outside area to see what else was going on. Whilst on the platform I overheard some customers who were sat outside, notice and mention the ‘OBSERVATION’ sign which was on the window above where Gabriel and Jennie were sitting. As a result they then looked around and noticed the ‘MIMIC’ in the window behind them.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a massive audience and people didn’t use the space as I thought they would. I imagined the visitors to walk around the space like they would in a gallery, moving around and looking at all the artefacts but instead they walked through to get to the cafe and didn’t really stop to look. As Pearson states in Site- Specific Performance, ‘at site the audience may be incidental- those present in the same place at the same time – and obdurate’ (Pearson, 2010, p. 17). Therefore, the audience members were there because they were visiting the Collection Gallery and not specifically to see our performance like they would if the performance was set in an auditorium of a theatre as ‘in the auditorium, the audience is cast as audience: purposefully assembled, expectant, disposed, potentially appreciative.’(Pearson, 2010, p. 17)

I think if we were to do it again we would need to make the exhibition more obvious and create more exhibits for the audience to view and observe. I also think Jennie, Gabriel, me and the empty cafe window would need placards in front of us to demonstrate more what we were trying to do and make it clear we were artefacts in an exhibition. I think we would also need to make more exhibits and make our piece more obvious instead of subtle.

Our original plan was to perform for half an hour and make it a short piece, however, as we didn’t know how many audience members or visitors were going to attend we started our performance at 12pm and finished just after half 1 and therefore Gabriel and Jennie repeated their quotes and we would continue if the outside area was busy. However, by half 1 the cafe wasn’t as busy and we decided to stop.

Pearson, M (2010) Site- Specific Performance Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

A Reflection on Possessed Time

Shane Humberstone / May 7, 2013May 13, 2013 / Possessed Time, Public Responses

Possessed Time in Action

Beginning with an hour of ‘sleep’ our Site Specific Performance was underway. The daunting thought of doing a five and a half hour performance was quickly forgotten as we started the strenuous movements that represented getting ready for the compressed day ahead. When practising this had always been difficult for the group as our arms were not trained for the repetitive controlled movements. This was the first time we had done all three actions together for the full amount of time, and I thought that this would be difficult, having to keep up the precise controlled movement, yet each segment became increasingly easier.

Next was the walking routine where we walked alongside the ticking noise of the clock. We had played with and experimented a lot with this section but decided on a simple movement to show the routine of the act and the control time had over us. Despite this the track we used on the actual day was a lot shorter than the one we had practise with and because it had to repeat itself there was a break in the rhythm, potentially throwing the synchronization. It could have looked messy if we started to walk at our own pace but instead if anyone in the group lost confidence in the rhythm, they would stop for a beat and then join in again, which kept the section looking crisp.

As soon as we sat down to start the puzzle we all seemed to speed up and move as fast as we could. This shows the effect of being controlled by a mechanic rhythmic movement and then being able to break out of that strict discipline. Due to this we completed the puzzle, the first time, very quickly but as time went on, the puzzle became increasingly difficult. This may have been due to fatigue, but mainly to do with the pieces not sitting as true as they did at the beginning. This made it harder to put them together and to judge if pieces fitted where we were putting them. Luckily we finished the puzzle for the final time just before we changed discipline so we smartened it up for the proceeding audience members.

After the walk home came the watching of the human clock, which we had projected on the gallery’s door. In my opinion this proved the most difficult as we were sitting on the floor looking up at the projection in a set position, which quickly became uncomfortable. Furthermore because this part contained very little movement this section seemed to last longer than it actually did. After the four and a half hour mark we had our dinner eating representation, which we did to the rhythm of the clock again showing its control and also the robotic routine of this part of the day. Fatigue was definitely an issue here as the movement became a lot harder than the ones from earlier. In addition to this we were sat in a similar position to the clock watching, which made it even more uncomfortable.

When we entered our second stint of sleeping the museum had become busier and other performances had now finished. This meant that a lot more people were about. Feeling them walk about the room was a weird experience because when you are asleep you feel safe and in comfort, but when you feel people are around and watching you, it makes it a lot harder to relax and in turn you feel uncomfortable. In addition to this, a weird sense of blinking with my eyes closed came over me as the projection of the pineapple was directed straight at our faces. The flicking of the images made feel like I was blinking and this became really uncomfortable for me, so much so I had to cover my eyes from it.

The Effects of Possessed Time

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí, found on: http://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/why-do-sociopaths-waste-our-time/clock-melting-clocks/

Being on a Saturday the Usher was always going to be busier than most of the days we had practise but because we had experience a busy day before, it was not as daunting or distracting.

After we woke from our first section of sleeping it was encouraging to see so many people watching and several were sitting down which showed they were interested to stay for a good amount of time. As we then continued towards the glass cabinets I felt the audience then become uncomfortable and they started to usher themselves towards the door, although the fact they were still watching was good as it showed they were interested. The public still seemed intrigued and as we had experienced in rehearsal, after one member of the audience decides to get closer and have a better look, then the rest follow. Obviously for most this is not what they expected when they came to the museum but the fact they continued their day and embraced what we were doing was exciting.

When we started to walk around as expected the audience backed away into the corner by the gallery’s entrance. The audience seemed to be impressed and fascinated by this movement as there was a lot of people here at this point. During this section there was a group of ladies that had walked in. As I was just in my underwear they were shocked and had to turn away in embarrassment as my path led straight to them, this was interesting because the rest of the audience did not appear to see it as nothing else than a costume like the rest of my group. When we sat down to start the puzzle more people filtered in around us. In the past when we had done we had felt that people wanted to join in, or at least the engagement of the puzzle made them want to stay around until it had been finished.

As we sat down to watch the human clock observing the audience became a lot easier. We had now drawn attention solely towards it and because we were essentially staring at the entrance the audience reactions were clearer. Several people came and stood at the entrance and watched the clock for several minutes with us. This could have been down to their sense of intrigue towards the clock or maybe because our piece was so elongated they were wondering why we were watching it for so long. Furthermore during this section a lot of parents with their children became engulfed by what we were doing. It even became fairly interactive as parents were asking their children questions on what we were doing and what they thought of the different projections.

On top of this the puzzle was continuously acknowledged and seemed to impress. Now the distorted projection of the pineapple could be seen clearer as there was now little distraction. For a long time no one had dared stepped into the gallery, which was not disappointing but it would have given the piece another dynamic. This was until one man decided to walk straight through us to the other side of the gallery and acted totally vacant towards our existence. This was interesting because it felt like he was trying to make the point that we should not have been there.

Overall, I feel that the public enjoyed our piece and welcomed a different aspect in their museum experience. What I found the most interesting was the willingness of people to continuously come back over the period of the day, almost as if they were checking on our progress, which is what we intended as we never expected anyone to stay for the whole duration of the piece.

Authored by Shane Humberstone

Post-Performance Reflection

Chloe Doherty / May 5, 2013May 13, 2013 / Development, Possessed Time, Public Responses, Video Research

Having completed our durational piece of theatre at The Usher Gallery yesterday, it can be said that our project, for the most part, was successful. Here’s a snippet of our finished product:

The movements within the secion you see above are both relatable and inspired by dance practioner Yvonne Rainer. Rainer was known for the way in which she “threw herself into a kind of anti-dance which favoured banal movements, non-expression, randomness and disconnectedness”(Roy, 2010). She focussed on the mundane movements of everyday life, much like the concepts which we experimented with throughout our piece.

As we intended, each audience member had a different experience from one another depending on what time in the day they visited Gallery 3. Our performance ran for 6 hours, after every hour slot the mechanical movement which the actors ‘performed’ would change, whilst two projections ran consistently.

These were that of a pineapple on a constant cycle of decomposition and rebirth and the countdown of a 24 hour human clock:

Pineapple projection in Gallery 3

Initially we decided to project a pineapple due to the fact that our gallery of choice already had two very quaint, porcelain pineapple dishes on show. As we developed this idea it became apparent that the fast paced decomposition of the pineapple made a beautiful contrast to that of the slower paced human clock. Although the image of the pineapple appeared somewhat distorted projected onto the back wall of the gallery, it helped to represent how our piece shows how misconstrued the nature of time itself can be when presented as an abstract concept. Looking back how effective our use of decomposition, while we felt that the image worked effectively, we still could have made much more this. If we were to create a projection similar to this again, I would like to decompose the pineapple over a longer period of time to show a clearer definition between the decomposition and the rebirth. It would also be interesting to see how the projection would have been percieved with the use of a fade opposed to that of a flash between images.

Projection of Human Clock on the doors of Gallery 3

The Human Clock projection was set to countdown by one minute every 15 seconds. In order to fit 24 hours into a 6 hour day, the time period which it is set in must be warped. The white clothing used in the filming of the human clock showed up incredibly well in comparison to the midnight blue door that it was being projected onto, making the image all the more powerful. With both of our projections in mind, we effectively managed to create a multi media installation; some entered the room to look directly at the images, whilst some merely stood by the door watching from a far. (See previous blog posts ‘The Pineapple Experiment’ and ‘Human Clock’ for more details on our projection concepts).

Throughout our performance, I managed to capture snippets of audience members reactions and opinions:

“You see, that’s the thing about time, you can’t always see it” – Middle aged man, whilst showing his two daughters the projection of the human clock.

“It feels like another world, it’s alien, like a matrix” – Group of audience members regarding the atmospheric ticking of a clock had created as they debated whether to enter.

“Can you guess what they’re doing?” – A mother to her son, during the mechanic movements representing the ‘dinner’ section of our piece.

The fact that the mother tried getting her child to work out what we were doing shows us that we presented a clear enough image for her to have already worked out the message that we were trying to communicate with the audience through the use of our bodies. We adopted mechanical movements to represent everyday activities that may usually go unnoticed, the repetition of the action emphasises this. We decided to include ‘eating’ sections due to the vast amount of ceremonial crockery displayed in Gallery 3. All of the objects on show were designed to be of practical use, yet are locked away without the chance of fulfilling what they were created to do. We repeated the same gesture in hope that the audience would understand that we were presenting what the objects in the galleries casing should have been used for.

In terms of the atmosphere which we created, some people embraced it and some shied away. Once we had ‘woken up’ from the first sequence of our sleeping freeze frame, it was a real pleasure to see that some members of the audience had engaged with our piece so much that they were sitting down, waiting for the next sequence to begin. This also occurred when we started to create the clock puzzle at the climactic moment of our performance. People sat and watched, engaged by the fact that they did not know how long it would take us to complete. During a two hour period in rehearsals we would repeat the piecing together of the clock puzzle twice, but with the adrenaline of a performance and a live audience we repeated this three times, due to the speed in which we were working at. During the section where we walked across the room to the beat of the clock, audience members did enter the room, but stayed much closer to the door than we would have liked in fear of getting in the way or perhaps interrupting or concentration.

The puzzle clock fully formed

In retrospect, the clock puzzle was the most powerful part of our piece, because it was the most real. Rather than performing, we were doing. If we were to experiment further with the concept touched on in our performance I would like to develop this particluar section of our piece. This would enable us to experiment with durational theatre in the traditional sense of the word. If we were to spend the 6 hours putting together a much more complex puzzle, it may have been more engaging for the audience, which would perhaps encourage the audience to interact with our performance much more than they felt comfortable doing in our previous performance.

Overall, I am happy with the experimental product which we created. If we were to perform again, I would like to create a soundscape of alarm clocks, set to go off at particular moments throughout the day, as during our performance the physical alarm clock which we were using as a prop did not go off or work as effectively as we would have hoped. Looking back at it now, I would say that we created more of an installation piece rather than a traditional ‘show’. That being said, it does not make what we presented any less of a performance. After all, can you ever really define art?

Author: Chloe Doherty

Work Cited:
– Roy, S (2010) Step-by-step guide to dance: Yvonne Rainer (Online) Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/dec/24/step-by-step-yvonne-rainer (Accessed on May 13).

Audience Feedback

Daniela Scimeca / April 30, 2013May 13, 2013 / Evaluation, Nova Inventa, Public Responses

18/3/13

Today we performed our ideas to our peers in order to get some constructive feedback. The audience picked up on a few things that didn’t necessarily correspond so well these were as follows.

The black markers were far too squeaky when we went to write on the boxes, they felt it distracted from everything else going on.

We had decided to incorporate some quite solemn music in the background but when this was being played whilst we were performing the audience suggested this was too loud. In reflection we agreed and felt it should be quieter. We also felt the subtlety would be more effective as our overall statement suggests we want to evoke emotion which we feel the music contributes to this.

We decided that we wanted Tequila who was reading out the poem to be inside the alcove as the wall was being built but as the positioning of the audience was behind her, her voice was being lost in the window area and wasn’t being projected out. The audience was right and we’re pleased they picked up on this so we could amend her positioning.

The comments we were writing on the boxes such as #baby no.1 and why is this happening, someone pointed out these seemed too obvious. On reflection I understood what they meant and agreed the messages didn’t provoke any real thought to the audience. We were giving them the answers on a plate and that certainly wasn’t our intention.

There were some comments about whether a link between the video loop being played and our performance was needed. Our argument was it was in the space and we were acknowledging that. One concern we had was the volume that this installation was projected at, this was something we would have to ask The Collection about and whether we could turn it down.

At the end of the piece we decided to knock down the wall, this was to signify the destruction of space. However after we did this as a group even we felt it didn’t really work, again it was too obvious and our aim wasn’t to make clear obvious points to the audience. Much like a piece of art could have a thousand and one interpretations we wanted our performance to do the same. This is also where we realised we could incorporate the other window alcove space and perhaps the boxes could go there after.

It confirmed some positive responses!

Everyone seemed to like the minimalist approach to our piece.

The audience liked the words being said aloud, they felt the added dimension was a nice touch and that it was nice to have something to listen to.

The building of the wall they thought was a good concept and that it was effective in the space.

We were using our knowledge of the architecture and art around us and responding to the space. A statement that Clifford McLucas makes I feel elaborates on this point, ‘The real power of site-specific work is that it somehow activates, or engages with, the narratives of the site in some kind of way. That might be with its formal architecture, or it might be with the character of the building. It might be to do with the history of the building. (1995, p.47) After our feedback the discussion proved helpful, we do have a few points to adjust and rectify but none the less we are pleased with the progression we have made from this week!

Word count: 584

Works cited:

McLucas, C. and Pearson, M. (1995) Performance/ Place/Public (Brith Gof Archive, NLW), company document.