Monday 4th April
After a period of two weeks off for Easter in which we were unable to do much in the space because the risks hadn’t been assessed etc. I was eager to return to work on our piece. During that period Steve spoke with module leader Conan so that he could give a second pair of eyes and ears. Fortunately there wasn’t much which needed to be changed, instead Conan made us aware of potential downfalls in our piece and asked if we had considered practical elements such as weather, speakers etc.
When listening through the audio track with Steve (the one Lucy had made over the Easter break) we soon realized that, whilst the track was good, the piece lacked visual stimulation and that the invited audience’s attention could easily waver. To combat this we used the rest of the session to create a more visually entertaining piece. We started by laying out chairs in studio X to recreate the layout of the site to help us visualize the space. After a few moments of discussing I suggested we look at logical actions for the sound effects in the track (for example doing the action of feeding the birds to the sound effect of birds tweeting/cooing), this created a surge of interest amongst our group with suggestions flying in for the other sound effects including engaging with the audience by handing them written text messages and doodling on the pavement for the child noises.
The next thing we discussed and ironed out in our minds was the difference between acting and performing. We eventually agreed that acting was being a character that is different from you and performing is yourself doing an action in a performative, over exaggerated way. In our piece we are not portraying fictional characters but merely portraying everyday life in a performative manner.
We have been unsure over the last few weeks about whether to speak with the track or mime alongside it. Today we made a final decision to speak with the track. We are going to divide the script into section and allocate a section of script and a movement section to each performer so that Steve is able to distinguish individual performances as well our performances as an ensemble.
Theorists have been constantly underlying our rehearsal and research process. This week the two that were of specific significance were Mark Auge’s concept of space and non space and Sue Palmer’s statement that people are needed to activate a space. Whilst the city high street has much potential to be a significant space, it is only when the people walking down the street engage with it that it becomes activated. On a practical level we are going to portray this concept by leaving the space empty for a minute or two at the start of the piece. We are then going to enter the space and literally ‘activate’ it by starting the track and, in turn, activate the piece. At the end of the piece we are going to exit the space, leaving remnants of us behind (breadcrumbs, dirt, colourings etc.) The theory behind this is that the piece shows evidence of people coming into a space, activating it and leaving remnants that space was significant for a period of time. That specific moment in time is gone and only glimpses of what went on can be seen.
We are contemplating the idea of creating moving sound throughout the piece. We intend to achieve this by having the tracks playing on mobile devices in people’s pockets so that when they move around the space the sound moves with them creating even more layers to the piece. We are not sure about the practicality of this idea as of yet but we are going to experiment with this over the next week or two.
On the Tuesday Emma went to Tesco to research and buy speakers. The woman in the store assured her that one speaker would be enough for the space. We then met up in the space and tested the speaker with our audio track. We were all surprised at the volume of the speaker and the ‘audience’ who were nearby all turned the heads to see where the source of this noise was. This bodes well for our performance because it will hold the audience’s attention and, when combined with visual stimulation, create a stimulating piece of performance art.
We also finished recording our script which means that by next week we can rehearse the speaking and physicality of the piece with the actual track that will be used for the performance.
Joe Turner