James Barker – Page 2 – The Collection Of…

A Micro Day

Tabitha Hilton-Berry / March 5, 2013May 6, 2013 / Development, Experimentation, Possessed Time, Video Research

We have decided to condense a 24-hour working day into a 6-hour performance that incorporates a typical everyday routine. We aim to highlight how time can be both an abstract and physical concept by which we are controlled. On the other hand, we cannot help but manipulate time in this piece as measurements of time are a human invention (e.g. seconds, minutes.)

The performance begins with us inert in a sleeping position for the duration of the first hour; we then are individually awoken by a series of alarms to perform our morning routines in a mechanical manner and in time to the sound of a ticking clock. Each member of the group stands in front of a section of the glass cabinets to perform their own daily routine as if the glass is a mirror. In three pairs, we reflect actions of each other brushing our teeth, washing our face and eating breakfast for 15 minutes per action, each pair performs the actions in various tempo’s but making sure to keep in time with the clock ticking sound still. We have included three videos displaying an example of the various tempos that each pair will use.

The first, shows the slowest speed whilst keeping to the ticking of the clock and the last video displays the fastest speed which still keeping to the beat.

Through the manner of miming, we display how a lot of our daily actions are mechanical and we perform them without thinking about the amount of time it consumes. By the end of the second hour, we will portray the walk to work by using an exercise we previously created as a warm-up. It incorporates using the space in Gallery 3 and moving in a mechanised style.

In the third and fourth hours, we will be aiming to represent a working day through the medium of constructing the puzzle of a clock made from carpet tiles. This serves to act as a reminder of the works of James Usher and how clocks were a key feature of both his public and private life. Between these hours, we will be including a 15 minute lunch break eating pineapple related foods, which is part of the performance, reflecting the exhibition of the ‘Pineapple Dish’ currently housed in the gallery. At the end of the fourth hour we will perform the walk through the space exercise previously used as the ‘walk to work’ but changing it to represent the walk home.

For the final hour, we will represent the evening period of a typical day which will display dinner time, relaxation or recreation time (working as a group to incorporate a game into the performance e.g. a passing ball game) and finally finishing the performance in the position by which we began, sleeping. This position will not be held as long as it was at the beginning of the performance as it is just a brief representation of the end of a typical day.

Stop the Clocks!

Stephanie Jackson / March 5, 2013May 12, 2013 / Development, Possessed Time, Research

‘Clocks slay time; only when the clock stops does time come to life.’ ~William Faulkner

Time. It’s all around us. We can’t escape it. We can’t ignore it. It constricts, dictates and ages us as humans, but time is just a concept.

This is at the root of our performance, as we develop our piece in a gallery which is surrounded by instruments of time. We are presenting a whole working day in 6 hours, and our development has led us into ideas of routine and the repetition which time brings. The routine of our daily lives; sleeping, waking up, eating, going to work, going out, all in a cycle which continues as the clocks progress into each hour.

What do you expect to see when you walk into any Gallery? Paintings, artefacts and displays. Certainly not a group of people asleep on the floor, or doing their daily routine! Our work is going to be pushing the boundaries of expectation and the abstract element of time.

Our chosen space is Gallery 3, within our given site of the Usher Gallery. We were drawn to this as artists because of the aesthetics of the room which contrast those of the spaces around the building. The building’s stunning architecture reflects that of a Manor House, both exterior and interior, with the winding staircase and stone floors. However, this totally changes when the public enter Gallery 3. Carpeted floors and walls and a dramatic change to a colour midnight blue, makes you question whether you have wandered into a completely different building. As we develop and explore our work, it is clear that subtle things become enlarged and exaggerated because of this confined environment.

This leads me onto discussing what the terms of ‘site’, ‘space’ and ‘place’ really mean- concepts which have been scrutinised by the many practitioners of site specific studies. Joanne Tompkins and Anna Birch, state ‘place’ under 3 critical concepts:

‘place as geographical site, place which situates social or historical position and the place or location of performance’.

(Joanne Tompkins, Anna Birch, Performing Site-Specific Theatre: Politics, Place, Practise. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

A space can be described in terms of being a ‘practised place’, as Jayne Rendell describes in her work Art and Architecture: A Place Between. Rendell uses the work of Michael Landy as an example of performance and its relationship between place and space. Landy performed a bold piece of performative work in 2001, with ‘Breakdown’, which took place in a vacant shop along Oxford Street in London, where he divested himself of all his possessions. A conveyor belt was installed on a circuit, overseen by men and women in blue overalls, including Landy himself. Over a durational period, every possession was circulated on this belt under categorized headings such as ‘clothing’ ‘electrical’ etc. This undoubtedly was a statement on capitalism due to the position of Oxford Street as being one of the busiest shopping locations in the country. But most importantly, Landy transformed a place using art intervention;

‘his work provided a ‘space’ of critical engagement in the ‘place’ of commodity consumption.’

(Jane Rendell, Art and Architecture: A Place Between, IB Tauris & Co, 2006)

With work such as this to inspire us, we too will be using art intervention to transform our place into a space; using Gallery 3 as a spatial practise to explore the concepts of time. Our work is also exploring the historical and cultural context of the artefacts that the room holds. The clocks are integral to the site as a whole, as they are to our piece. In its early origins, clock making was the most technically advanced job around, and during the 1800s and 1900s, was a means of flaunting wealth and status. Clockmakers would usually also be involved in making scientific instruments, due to their technical skills and knowledge. Focus, concentration and perseverance were needed in the art of clock making and these are traits which we will have to bring to our piece as performers, as our piece is durational and will be both mentally and physically exhausting.

The work we have been developing in workshops has led me to research further into other site specific performances by other companies. One that specifically interested me was a work entitled ‘Stop the Clocks’ by Tin Box theatre.

Tin Box theatre is a relatively newly established company, who performed a site specific work called ‘Stop the Clocks’ in 2011. Their piece took place in a disused coffin fitting factory in the centre of Birmingham, and presented the story of a fictional woman called Mary, at different stages of her life until her death. The work was inspired by the history of the factory and the testimonies of ex-employees. I think their chosen site is similar to the Collection and Usher Gallery due to its rich history.

Works Cited

Joanne Tompkins, Anna Birch, Performing Site-Specific Theatre: Politics, Place, Practise. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Jane Rendell, Art and Architecture: A Place Between, IB Tauris & Co, 2006

The Effects of Time

Stephanie Jackson / February 26, 2013 / Possessed Time, Research, Video Research

Museums are all about preserving artefacts, and within Gallery 3 we noticed the two plastic pineapples amongst the crockery on display. This led us to explore the idea of decomposition and how time affects living organisms, as our piece focuses on the concept of time in many forms.

Whilst researching we discovered a video of a rabbit decomposing, and we found the concept of the video interesting due to the time lapse.

From this we researched fruit decomposition and how we could incorporate it into our piece and our space. It links well because of the pineapple on display and the notion of time in the room. We found a video of a strawberry decomposing which also involved a clock in the process, reinforcing the concept of the effect of time.

Our research has inspired us to create our own video of a pineapple decomposing and then projecting it onto the gallery wall. We think that this will be effective as it reminds the audience of the effects of time in a visual way adding an interesting dimension to our piece on time.

Authors: Stephanie Jackson, Chloe Doherty, Tabitha Hilton-Berry, George Creighton, James Barker, Shane Humberstone

Like Clockwork

George Creighton / February 14, 2013February 26, 2013 / Possessed Time, Public Responses, Research, Space, Video Research

“In order to help us focus our copious amounts of ideas, we needed to find a way to get the project on its feet. Correlating with our fascination with the clock in gallery 3, it had to be an exercise that would involve everyone constantly, and producing a mechanical like performance. I decided that although it was a small space and we had spent several hours in it, we needed to look at it in a more performance base way. This was the reasoning behind each person walking around freely, although with the intention of covering as much ground as possible. As well as this we passed a ball around linking our separate entities together. Furthermore reflecting back to the mechanism of a clock, bringing seperate things together and making them work effortlessly, which we intended each transfer to be.

Each time we did the exercise we added a different discpline, whether it be the way we move or the way we passed the ball.

The exercise took 6 minutes to do. Our performance is intending to be six hours long so in theory it could be a microcosm of the final performance.

Can you keep up with the ball?”

Author: Shane Humberstone

For our first attempt, this was a more natural movement, exploring the space with the only artificial element being passing the ball between us. This was used to help us engage with the space and interact with each other. We felt that this was useful as it showed us what it was like to work as part of a unit whilst still moving naturally, much like the mechanics of a clocks interior.

We then experimented with the concept of bio-mechanics whic included moving our bodies in time with the monotonous rhythm of a ticking clock. This made us consider the possibility of a more regulated piece, dominated by time and having time dictate our movements to us. The videos also show the reactions of an audience surprised by an experience they were not expecting. Several individuals were hesitant in entering the room, whilst others did not do so at all.

The final endeavour was one which was completely at odds with the first, in so far that it was mechanical, utterly devoid of natural movement and totally regulated. We found this to be useful as it challenged our previous conceptions of the space, forcing us to move differently and observe aspects of the room and displays we had hitherto ignored.

After our excercise, we interviewed members of the public who had briefly observed our performance. It was intriguing to hear their response to how the use of sound in the room did not distract from our visual display but was still recognised. They also said how the darkness of the room helped to channel their attention on to the performance. One individual compared our use of the concept of time with their own performance of an Ibsen text, also correlating with time. He explained how his exploration of the text included a coordination between human movement and the ticking of a clock.

Authors: Chloe Doherty, George Creighton, James Barker, Tabitha Hilton-Berry, Stephanie Jackson

Gallery 3

Tabitha Hilton-Berry / February 12, 2013May 6, 2013 / Possessed Time, Public Responses, Research, Space

On first visit to The Usher Gallery, we felt gallery 3 had the most potential as a performance space due to its contrast to the other rooms in the building. All the other rooms in The Usher are light, airy and traditionally decorated, whereas gallery 3 is dark, enclosed and contemporary.

We found that there are many fascinating aspects about this particular room, one of which being that the items on display are withheld from their intended purpose because they are in glass cases. The items here are practical but with artistic value, as opposed to other features in the gallery such as the oil paintings and sculptures.

Left: Tea set collection in Gallery 3

The Usher Gallery as a whole displays many items from James Usher’s personal clock collection, most of which appear in gallery 3. As you enter the room, the first thing you see is the Grandfather clock and the pocket watch collection, this is such a dominant feature in the room that it influenced our ideas for a performance focusing on time, in this space.

IMG-20130212-WA0004 Left: Grandfather clock Left: Pocket watch collection

The lack of natural light means the only perception of time in the room is from the clocks, this makes it ideal for a performance on time as we can manipulate how time is perceived.

The room is midnight blue colour and has a very low ceiling creating an enclosed and compact space to work in. The fact it is a room built within a room makes it feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable, which is an aspect we would like the audience to experience whilst watching our piece. The contemporary style of the room is unusual to be in a Georgian building, this intrigued us and was our inspiration to perform here.