Hitting point WHY? – Throughout the process of creating my Site Specific Performance; I discovered it’s all fine and well until you reach the point of ‘Why?’. Now, this isn’t just scratching the surface anymore this is where you really need to create thickness and depth in your performance. After my class proposal some questions were raised to help me further develop my idea and finally begin to explore the space within my chosen locations physically.
Location, Space and Sound– So questions were raised about my performance about why I only wanted to perform in one space instead of spreading them out across the library. By keeping my performance to one specific area it allows me to localize the library into one certain space. This allows a more intimate feel to be created within my space. With this in mind, this will increase the connection between the audience and space allowing a more immersed experience. Through my use of recorded sounds from the library, I aim to create an audio track that can synergise with my movement to create aspects of my performance. Once again this enables me to compress the entire sounds of the library into a more intimate experience as the public will have to use headphones (creating a surround confined experience) in order to listen and view my performance in its FULL form. Linking this back to my original reason behind starting this project; I now understand how through the use of sound and movement together I will be able to demonstrate the internal and external emotions fuelled by it location. My SSP will give spectators 3 different sensory experiences, visual, special and auditory. Compressing this all to one select area leaves room for a intimate personal link between an audiences link to myself and the space around them.
The Man in the MASK? – When beginning to think about costume and what I shall wear during the performance I think back to Willi Dorner. Now, the actors in ‘Bodies in Urban Spaces’ all remain in similar clothing – brightly coloured tracksuits with hoods that always remain up to mask their identity. I believe this is done to take away any aspects that could differ the attention from Dorner’s objectives from his work, which remained more about turning seemingly nothing into something. With this in mind, I decided to create an anonymous identity for myself by wearing a plain mask with the purpose of allowing an audience to project themselves onto me. In essence, as I create this anonymity this then creates a mirroring effect of how I’m acting as a representative of society. By taking away my identify this enables the audience to use me as a blank canvas that can be symbolic to them in which ever way they decide. With this being said I become a conduit between the audience and the space therefore meaning they become apart of the performance once again emphasizing the immersion effect. If my theory works and the audience to self reflect what they have seen and be immersed enough to understand what my performance was aiming to show or at least there own interpretation.
