Site and the City

• We discussed today the introduction to site specific performance written by Mike Pearson.
• This article spoke of how site specific style performance can also be presented as an Art form. (Which got me thinking again about my painting and creating idea.)
• This article also included Nick Kaye’s “Place of Documetation”
• Kaye’s article mentions MICHEAL FRIED.
• Michael Fried – 1968 Article – Art and Object Hood – Art critic/ Minimalistic Structure – How cities and buildings marry themselves to other places and buildings – ‘Following the book.
• Miwon Kwon – South Korean born – trained in architecture – MA in Photography – collections of work in the American Art Museum since 1990’s – Wrote articles on practitioners who work within her preferred styles of art, such as Richard Serra – Identity – Visual performance rather than body movement.
• Specifies in specific styles of art: Contemporary. Agricultural. Public Art. Urban Studies.
• Discussions on the differences between Live Art and Traditional Theatre
• LIVE THEATRE – More use of Audience Participation – No Boundaries/ Removal of the 4^th wall – Audience have more control over their individual experience, when they stop watching, how long they watch for, etc.
• TRADITIONAL THEATRE – Audience members have already consented to entering the theatre – Tacitly agreed to the expectation of the theatre and the stage – If it’s not enjoyable the audience member isn’t as free to walk out, at least until the interval – Not wanting to come across as being rude and becoming disrespectful of the social expectations as well as the theatres.
• EXPECTATIONS – Margret Thatcher’s Funeral – Expected behaviour/ respectful – Due to her previous contributes to the British populations, creating the divide of classes cause different distinctive emotions about Thatcher – Resulting in the expectation of emotion was divided by respectful and disrespectful.
• AUDIENCE TYPES – 1. REAL PEOPLE – People who were at the site of performance by chance – 2. INVITED AUDIENCE – People who have been invited to the site and performance – 3. TECHNOLOGICAL AUDIENCE – Audience members who have viewed the recorded evidence or live streams via technology: Blogs/ Vlogs etc.
• PLACES AND NON-PLACES – As a group we discussed what makes a place a place and vice versa and the boundaries that we thought were applied by MARK AUGE – We specifically discussed the high street due to that being our specific site – We came to conclusion that the view as a group that any non-place can be or become a place depending on each individual and their experiences. . EXAMPLE. – The Bollard – Who made that bollard, who designed the bollard, who put the bollard there?
• THERE IS A STORY FOR EVERYTHING, AND EVERYTHING HAS A PERPOSE
• DANIEL OLIVERS – performance based on audience participation using audience participation – WAVING STICKS – Where do the audience put themselves removing them completely from their comfort zones and allowing them to use their free imagination.
• ERVING GOFFMAN – Teams – Following a script for everyday life – not to upset any of the balances set in place – example of his theories – IF SOMEONE FALLS DON’T LAUGH JUST CONTINUNE WALKING. – Follows the convections of theatre, to follow the book.
• JOHN SMITH – 1976 – THE GIRL CHEWING GUM – People going about their everyday life whilst he voiced over them as if he was directing them – Stage directions – Following the script again – Making a performance from nothing.
• DEODRY HEDDON – Autobiographical – Based on personal or strangers anecdotes or experiences.
• MARCIA FARQUAR – Live Art Tour – 2012 – LONDON – MEMORIES – LAYERING – LEMONADE – INTENTIONAL AND NON-INTENTIONAL – DIFFERENT YEARS – Art Movement 1960’s – DOES NOT STICK TO A SCRIPT – Every performance in unique from the last despite the identical route.
• PRACTIONERS DISCUSSED IN THIS SESSION
• JEN HARVEY / DEODRY HEDDON / GAY MCAULEY / MISHA MYERS / HEIKE ROMS / CATHY TURNER / FIONA WILKIE / MIWON KWON / DANIEL OLIVER / ERVING GOFFMAN / JOHN SMITH.
• KEY WORDS FROM THIS SESSION
• SCIPTO THERAPY – Word association and anecdotes used to heal in a positive way.
• COLABERATIONS – An ensemble of people who create a piece of action.
• PARTICIPATION – Person who responds to a situation (Audience)
• SIMULATED – An action created using alternate material.
• SPECIFICITIE – Word used when speaking of a subject that relates to site specific.
• CRINGE – An emotion felt by someone when a situation becomes uncomfortable.
• CONTEXT – Allowing an audience or a person to broaden their minds on a specific topic.

• MY IDEAS AFTER THIS SESSION
• We were all divided off into groups based on how similar our individual ideas were.
• My final idea that I decided to stick by was the visual creation of something solid for performance.
• The group I am working with all enjoyed the idea of creating something physical as a result of our performance.
• With this in mind we were allowed to leave the classroom and brain storm our ideas and see what we could mesh together.
• As a group we mentioned also using word play within our work.
• My group is:
• MARY-JAME PHILLIPS
• DEQUAINE BROWNE
• LAURA WRIGHT
• CHRIS CHAMPION

• In this weeks session we discussed Carl Lavery’s theory he has for Site Specific Performance.
• Talked in to detail about the ’25 instructions’ technique that he spoke of in his book.
• The instructions gave students learning or educators teaching site specific performance the structure or stimulus to create their pieces of art/ performance.
• After reviewing Lavery’s instructions, we were asked to split of into groups of three and create our own set of instructions that we thought would be appropriate to create the same style of effect that Lavery did.
• We were given 30 minutes for this task, once we had done we returned to the studio and we were then asked to exchange our instructions with another groups.
• We had to take the new found instructions and execute them within the city centre.
• Documenting and collecting physical and visual evidence to defend our work. We collected object from the path side when we were instructed to do so. For example I had collected a stone from near a bridge that was under construction and a collection of moss. (Pictured below)
• We also individually recorded the sounds of the street for 60 seconds.
• One instruction we followed was to find the first brunette man we could see and follow him for exactly 100 steps.
• This instruction made me feel uncomfortable completing this task. The way we were behaving, being aware of what we were doing at the other participant had no knowledge. This made me aware of the tacit agreements created to maintain a controlled and safe society. We were purposely breaking these set of ‘rules’. This added to the already tense atmosphere that my group and I had created, because we all knew we were not sticking to the expectation.
• “Stop dead for 3 minutes” This instruction doesn’t sound like a very hard or a pressuring thing to do. Due to the previous instruction being to set a stopwatch for 60 seconds and power walk in any direction, we ended up in front of the train line barriers just before they were due to come up and let the pedestrians cross again. This created yet another socially testing technique because we were stood in the walking space of everyone wanting to pass through to the other side. This instruction also heightened the factor of time because in the city everyday life seems sped up this caused by the hustle and bustle of the career men and women. It didn’t help that we were doing this experimental technique during dinner hours.
• Although we didn’t create these set of instructions we all discussed afterwards that we couldn’t help but feel responsible for the discomfort we had made the participants experience.
• Reactions we recorded from the members of the public were varied but not largely. Many people were aggravated by our actions and we continuously received many disappointed and angered facial expressions.

. IDEAS AFTER THIS SESSION:

. Speakers Corner – Create awkward list of instructions to perform within that space to obstruct people continue for 2 hours and record the actions of every passing member.

. Old Market Place – Nostalgia – Replay old sayings and callings that would have been spoken out whilst stood on heightened levels – costume and décor surrounding is going to be associated with the era that the market first opened – INFLATION – How things have changed from that era to now – The heightened prices and heightened expectations of generations – compare.

. Removed the Brayford River Idea – To much pressure on the participating audience for them to actually acknowledge me being there – not a guarantee.

. NEW IDEA – Lincoln in time / Lincoln city one moment – staring at the detail on a building opposite the train station waiting to go home – Paint large ply board pieces of wood with patterns of the city that would have been accommodated during the era that the cathedral was first built –

• 1141 – Cathedral suffered a fire that destroyed most of its structure.
• 15^th April, 1185 – Cathedral suffered an earthquake the biggest ever recorded to ever hit England.

. Whilst painting these patterns play recording of ‘Great Tom’ the biggest bell that ever rung in the cathedral towers. “It may no longer be the biggest, but in the hearts of many it certainly remains the best”

 

KEY WORDS

. SUPERMODERNINITY – Bombarded by imaging/ Modern Life

. NON-PLACES – Short period resting positions – Airports/ Carparks/ Train stations/ etc.

. PLACES – Has a cultural meaning to the community and society alike.

 

KEY PRACTIONTIONERS

. CARL LAVERY

– Reviewed as a group the context of the modal handbook for this modal.

– Discussed a detailed outline of what Site Specific Performance is. That it’s seen more as a piece of art rather than a performance.

– We walked into the city centre and verbally established the perimeter that we were to stick to when defining our performance spaces. Using the knowledge and information I was able to apply a widened view on spaces in the city that could become performances spaces.

IDEAS AFTER THIS SESSION:

. The Old Church – Centre of high street – Memorial for the lost soldiers – Empathy

. Cark Park – Levels – Hierarchy – Class – Three separate levels – Each decorated to represent a different class – Nostalgia/ Thinking point

. Old Council Building – Levels – More relevant to the hierarchy idea – Council – Implying control

. Old Market Place – Old story replays – Based on the factual research of that specific market place from years ago

. Brayford River – Being seen – Societies longing to be seen but also wanting privacy – audience to make their own perceptions

. Jack Wills Building – Old Wool Factory – The stories from within that building replayed?

. Speakers Corner – Old Memories for the older population – nostalgia – mesh with new generations

. Train Station – Forever changing audience – something repetitive, quick and easy to reflect

. Station Street – Old streets with character – fun to perform on

. St Marys Street – Old street with character – fun to perform on – word play using floor space.

. St Marys Conduit – Lincoln population’s water collection – The travels to the water – The giving of water – play with the idea of giving and receiving in modern day and age compared to then.

KEY WORDS

DIREVE – Drifting from one place to another – transition

KEY PRACTITIONERS

. BOB WOLLY and LEE MILLER

. GEORGE PERIKK

. JEREMY WOOD

. CHRISTIAN NOLD

. VITTO ACCONCINI

. SOPHIE CALLE

. JANET CARDIFF

. CARLOS CELDRAN

. MARCIA FARQUAR

. MIKE PEARSON

. GUY DEBORD

. RICHARD SERRA

. DANIEL BELASCO RODGERS

. NICK KAYE

. STEVE FOSSEY

Sophie Calle – Following public person to reconnect with Paris, seeing the city through that person.

Janet Cardiff – Overlaying someones connection with a place with her own narration.

Marcia Farqhar – Tours of cities (A Live Art Tour), in the moment performance, never the same twice, interaction and immersion.

Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain by Bob Whalley and Lee Miller – Replacing bottles of urine on motorway with items, renewed wedding vows in service station (relates to non-spaces).

Nights in this City by Forced Entertainment – “the worst” bus tour of Sheffield, explored histories in the urban space, political.

Saturday night and Sunday Morning by John Newling – Using lights and heaters to make an outside space feel safer and become more communal.

Marc Auge – Theorist, discusses places and non-places in his book Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. He says a non-place is a place of transit and not social, and a place is where organic social life is generated.

An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris by George Parec – Wrote down everyday conversations to exhaust the place.

The Girl Chewing Gum by George Smith (1976) – performative acting, narrating over a video and taking on the role of director.

Site Specific Performance by Mike Pearson – (Bubbling Tongue)

Site Specific Art: Performance. Place and Documentation by Nick Kaye –  (mentioned in Mike Pearson book)

Art and Objecthood by Michael Fried (1968) – (mentioned in Nick Kaye book) minimalist sculpture, simple object that becomes theatrical through audience observing it and participating with it.

Richard Serra said “to move the work is to destroy the work”

One Place After Another by Miron Kwon – She looks at local identity and challenges/goes against peoples attempts at representing community.

Dee Heddon – she often recreates performances (recreated Bubbling Tongue), scriptotherapy: the act of writing down personal stories as a therapy, catharsis.

Cathy Turner – Palimpsest: the act of layering over already historic narratives with your own, presenting the new layer/s as well as its earlier self, showing how it has been altered.

Salon Adrienne by Adrian Howells – Gives salon treatments to public/audience, interested in the confessional exchange with audience member, his persona is female (making audience more willing to confess), the clensing of the hair mirrors the cleansing of the soul, staring in mirror.

A Machine to see with by Blast Theory – A series of phone calls which give instructions, leads the listener to believe they will rob a bank, described as like being the centre role in a film.

Theatre and the City by Jen Harvey.

Dorine Massey – Looks at site being globally interactive as well as tiny.

Looking further into Marc Auge’s notion of place and non-place, the idea of them overlapping provoked ideas of how non-places in the city can be transferred into places through performance. The group discussed the idea of whether the High Street in Lincoln is a non-place, but I realised that the street was too long to define in such simple terms. Because of this, I began thinking of how small specific areas of the High Street could be non-places.

After a group discussion, we separated into what will be our final performance groups and discussed any similar ideas we had. Once we had identified these similarities, we cleared our minds and all gave input to build possible performance ideas. One idea that intrigued us was using the archway on the High Street to analyse the difference between a non-place and a place. This space is also popular for homeless people to sleep, making us think of what a home means to different people – a homeless person could consider this space a home, and could we display this through performance through changing it from a non-place to a place.

The following week we travelled to the archway to fully explore what was there. Seeing the historic architecture we decided it would be beneficial to organise to take a tour of the inside of the building. This will happen next week and then we can explore any new ideas with the information we gather from the tour. Following the idea of what makes a home, we created a survey that we can ask members of the public in order to gain substantial research for our performance. New ideas were spouted after visiting the site: as we invite audience into the mini home that we create in this place, a picture will be taken of them and added to a wall. This collage will grow as more audience members are added, and the end result will form a family from members of the community, with Lincoln becoming the family’s home.

Questions to think of for our performance processes were brought up in session. Such questions were how much do you perform being the actor? How much of the performance is set up and planned precisely, and how much is left to chance? How much of the performance content will be provided by the audience? These questions will have to be carefully considered during the development process in order to have a sustainable and effective performance.