A library is only as useful as the books it houses, and we intend to use those books to our best advantage (though perhaps not in the way most people would expect).
Our four hours in the library involve examining the shelves with a level of detail none of us had previously undertook, the collection, arrangement and return of some one hundred and forty books, and all the strange looks we received along the way (these are par for the course now, and actually quite helpful in terms of gauging audience engagement).
Collecting the books required multiple trips and due to the regularity of our trips to search for and collect armfuls of books, the task began to take on a ritualistic quality. We are eager to retain the performativity of our actions as our exploration of the possibilities for the performance continues. This is not only for our own creative process, but also for the visual elements seen by the audience: the repeating of actions is often something that can be used to peak an audience’s interest or gain their attention, particularly if it is an action that is somewhat unusual. We did not want to be too outlandish and disruptive, but we hoped that the simple action of a group of people collecting a large amount of books on a seemingly eclectic range of subjects and taking them to a specific area would be an interesting enough event to notify an audience to the performance we are creating in our space.
The books we collect all encompass the themes of Time, Space, Place and Knowledge to varying degrees – this essentially gives us a focus for our search and enabled productivity so we did not aimlessly wander the library for hours. It is entirely possible the subjects of the books we choose may change as the piece adapts, depending on what we finally decide the books are going to symbolise, or if there will be a definite symbolism to them at all.
We used the books we collected to cover parts of the window space underneath the stairs in order to make a type of ‘porthole’. This was a process of arranging and re-arranging the books so that they fit in the window in a way that would both aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound. Some of the book covers face outwards so the covers and titlesare visible to people from outside the library. This allowed onlookers to also become involved in the performance visually: whether this means they simply see the books as they pass the library or decide to further examine the titles, or they may choose to look inside our constructed window through the gap in the books to discover that we are performing under the stairs. This may facilitate further participation if audiences wish to come into the library to ask us what we are doing or look at the book titles which face inward into the space, which is another layer of the performance we aim to explore as we progress.
Removing the books from our first makeshift attempts at a porthole and returning them to the library trolleys has an similar feeling of ritualism and performativity as collecting them, however it is not as potent. This may be due to the lack of a search in the return of the books, so this is something we will have to work upon to ensure we as artists feel creatively stimulated by de-constructing our space as well as constructing it.
We entered the library and we left it, and for the first time this happened with the confidence that not only do we have a space, but the possibility of a performance to craft within it. Our space has spoken to us, and now we fully intend to answer.