Framing Statement
“A place owes its character to the experiences it affords to those who spend time there” (Pearson, 2010).
With a unique space like the library, we wanted to create a piece that immersed itself in the history of the building and its current use. Through trial and error we created a performance that used the current occupants as audience members and gave them an insight on the buildings life before it became a student library. We looked at a range of practitioners and artists such as Marina Abramovic, DreamThinkSpeak, Lone Twin and Forced Entertainment and took at least one aspect from them that together helped influence our final piece. We discovered that before the building became a student library for the University of Lincoln it had been a Goods and Grain factory. This contrast between a loud, heavy machinery based site to one with the expectation of silence and lightweight paper books interested us. We decided to take these two worlds and merge them together
My Performance
For our performance we created a 12 hour long installation piece which started at 9am on Thursday 5th May 2016 until 9pm the same day. We wanted to reflect a typical workers shift that you’d find in industry and factory jobs. We used grain as the main focus of our piece and asked audience members to draw around their hand, which we would then collect before sticking pieces of grain to it individually with liquid glue. We wanted to represent the union of people in a place. The past being the workers in the factory and the present being the students in the library. With every person’s hand print being unique, we wanted to unify the student’s hands with grain before displaying it for the public.
Our piece would rely on audience participation which is why we chose to base our site in the refuge area on the first floor by the main staircase of the library. With students passing by they could see the area we set up on the ground floor, where an instructional video with pencils and pens were placed. It would be up to them whether they take a minute out of their day to draw around their hand. For participants who were actually coming to our performance, we made a hand out of papier-mâché and glued grain to it which we placed on the turnstiles in the entrance to the library. They would find maps underneath this hand which would direct them to the main staircase where they would see ‘station 1’ where they draw around their hand. If they follow the map and the arrows leading up the stairs they would find us positioned in the small space of the refuge area. We decorated this area with hessian which is what grain is transported in and decorated the wall and table with old photos of the library. Here they can observe our piece or if they wish to then they can also join in.
With past meeting present we wanted our audience to question what we were doing. Using the main stairwell allowed us to be witnessed by many, even if they didn’t participate. We will still have made an impact on their day and hopefully left an imprint on the space.
Analysis of Process
Research
During the first few weeks we began to explore the space properly. I myself have been in the library many times like most students, to check out books or write essays, but I’d never been there without a purpose to get something done. It was a different experience to step out and away from my usual comfort zone and interpretation of the space and to see a place I associated with rushing around and deadlines for what it was. By taking this step back I believe my perception was altered and my exploration of the space could begin.
When researching the history of the library I learnt that in 1907 it had opened as a Goods and Grain warehouse and upon further exploration I was able to see the old pieces of structure that still remained. Particularly on the third floor where the high beams are exposed and decorated with pieces of machinery, as well as the old brick work and arched windows. It interested me how the third floor was the only part of the library with the least technology. The majority of resources were big old books or paper journal articles. This contrast to the other two floors, that were filled with the latest academic books and Apple computers while being under the same roof, inspired me of how the past and present were merged together.
Experimentation with Audience and the Space
As a class we began to view the space in a different light. We walked around the space and observed the other library users as well as overlooked spaces within the library. For me it was most interesting to see the reactions we received. When in the space of the library you are expected to work, find books or small group work. It is very educational based. To see someone or a group of people going against those expectations caused it to gain attention. For example, we walked around the library in single file. We snaked through the book shelves and up onto the different floors. With social media being prominent in this day and age, we were quickly documented onto websites such as Facebook, Snapchat and Yik Yak. I found this very fascinating, how a few minutes of change to the expected environment can be shared throughout Lincoln and the world.
Checked Out
With our initial idea we wanted to incorporate our performance into the entire space of the library. We liked the idea of using all three floors and having participants ‘escape the library’ while completing tasks/challenges about the history of the library. The tasks will have clues on to help the participants navigate through the three floors of the library and if they complete the 10 tasks they get to ‘escape’ the library. We were influenced by Gobsquad in their production of Super Night Shot (Gobsquad.com, 2016). Like in their production we’d be using audience participation and videoing them to have a live feed of their quest. Another idea was to have a hidden camera that when they come into the last room at the end of the task, they realise and react to finding out they were filmed.
As a group we revaluated our idea and tried to find out what really made it site specific. When we were only able to find tenuous links to the library such as it being the space where this activity was set and the questions would be linked to it. We decided that we wanted to focus more specifically on one area of the library because we were being too ambitious.
Time for a Tea Party
We spent some time in the library and explored areas more specifically. We took inspiration from Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present (Marina Abramovic Institute, 2014). A group member and I did one experiment while the other three members went to the second floor to carry out a similar experiment. We sat in the far corners of one of the elevators and did nothing but stare at each other. We were mimicking Marina Abramovic’s experiment to see what reactions we would gain from the public. It was interesting to watch people’s reactions because at one point five people got into the lift but refused to come anywhere near us. Others were curious and took photos which they then uploaded to social media while the majority were unnerved by the change.
Through this we decided we wanted to be somewhere where there would be a flow of people. With the lifts being constantly used for access to the upper floors, we wanted to have our performance where we would have an audience, even if they didn’t get involved. We liked the idea of transforming the elevator space into a tea party. The closed environment would make the performance personal and we wanted to use the tea party idea because we felt it would give a welcoming impression to participants. We linked this to the library by replacing water in the tea pot with grain. We would decorate the space with newspapers and pictures of the old library and discuss the history with participants.
We proposed this idea to our lectures who gave us useful questions to think about. Why a tea party? How can we make this more site specific to the library? How might you use the grain? After some rethinking we decided to keep grain as our main focus and move on from there.
Lend A Hand
While sat in the refuge area on the first floor we began to experiment with the grain. We had the idea of passing a single grain at a time from one person to the next with the last person tallying how many grains we had collected. It took us ten minutes to collect 80 individual pieces. We experimented with the speed and in sync movement before counting out grain from a pile. We then began to experiment with the idea of filling something in with grain.We drew around our hands on a blank sheet of paper and began to fill the outline in with grain one piece at a time. The activity took us 1 hour 7 minutes to complete and we had four different sized hands filled with grain. We felt that by placing the grain down individually reflected the hard labour and long hours the factory workers would have experienced. This then became our final performance.
Sample of Final Performance:
I created a soundscape on audacity of ambient factory sounds. With our performance lasting twelve hours we wanted to have small breaks at the end of every hour and two half an hour breaks for each performer. I inserted five minute breaks at the 55 minute point of every hour which would be signalled by two klaxon sounds. When the five minutes were up and the clock was on the hour the klaxon would sound again, once. I looped this over for the twelve hour period and downloaded the track to my phone. I then played this with my Bluetooth speaker which was small and compact meaning it could be discreetly hidden in the banisters of the staircase. I felt the music set the tone yet didn’t become a distraction from what we were doing as a group.
Sample of Soundscape:
Influences for our Performance
For our performance we were influenced by many different artists in the site specific world. Marina Abramovic in the video Have you got what it takes to follow the Abramović method? (Ryan, 2014) was a key inspiration when we were experimenting with how to use the grain. The way in which she counted out every single piece of rice with thought and care inspired us to stick the grain to the hand print silhouette individually. We could link this to the lengthy hours and challenging work the workers would have done in the factory.
Another inspiration was Forced Entertainment who state “there is little attempt to pretend to be anything other than ourselves” (Lowdon, 2013). This majorly influenced who we were as performers in our piece. We debated numerous ideas as to whether we should be dressed like the workers or do we have characters. In the end we decided that we would be ourselves which were students. It would bring the past and present together by students carrying out this manual labour that factory workers would have done.
DreamThinkSpeak were another influence to our peace and they made us question the link between past and present. In their video ONE DAY, MAYBE (Dreamthinkspeak, 2013) they ask “what would it be like if they stepped into the shoes of the people on these streets now and if they were looking through the eyes of 1980 at the world of 2013?” We considered flipping this idea and questioning what it’d be like for us as students performing a task similar to those of the factory workers. We dressed as ourselves in the library but brought elements of the past and incorporated them into our performance to merge past and present.
Lone Twin were our final influence for our piece. In their performance entitled Totem they relied on audience participation in order to complete their performance. This was a vital part to our piece as we needed each individual handprint to help build of final display. In their piece the artists personalised the object of focus by “carving into the pole the initials of those who helped complete the journey”. We took an element of this by asking people to sign their handprint with either their name or initials.
Performance Evaluation
Overall I think we created a strong performance that gained a positive response. We collected 54 hands after the twelve hours which was more than our predicted amount. Although we had at least a hundred people pass our performance as they navigated around the library. I feel as though we caught their attention even if it had only been for a few seconds.
The audience involvement was interesting as we had people who were interested and questioning what we were doing as well as people who would stop and watch us for a few minutes. We had one member of the audience who joined us for an hour and created their own hand of grain. It was interesting to see this involvement as we hadn’t considered it in our preparation. We made the change of leaving an empty chair and opening our circle up a little further to give a visual invitation to the audience. We had some childish responses to our proposal of drawing around your hand but this didn’t have any effect on our performance and it was interesting to see a response we hadn’t prepared for.
There were both strengths and weaknesses in our performance. I felt as though we could have been a little more focused which would have had a greater impact on the atmosphere we were creating. I think that when questioned we could have encouraged the audience more to get involved and have a bigger space so that more participants could have been included. I also decided that the way in which we presented the finished hand prints needed to be more unified so I rearranged them to start from the middle and spread out instead of them being neatly presented on the wall. I believe this gave it more of a 3D effect and made it one display instead of individuals placed together. However, I believe the way in which we dressed the space and ourselves was simple yet effective. It created the atmosphere we needed with elements from the past and present such as the hessian and the library book cart. The music allowed us to focus on the task rather than become conscious of the time, which would have become a distraction.
If I were to perform this again I would ensure that the space was a little larger to enable more participants to join in the actual grain on hand process. With it being a warm day as well I would ensure the space was well ventilated as the glue fumes became a little intense at points.
The performance gave me a new perspective on the library and its history. “The use of non-theatre venues contribute to an enquiry into what theatre is and might be’” (Pearson, 2010). I believe the module Site Specific Performance has been a true eye opener into the world of unconventional performance. With the lack of boundaries and scripts it has allowed me to progress as an actor and see every day spaces as a possible place for performance.
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Bibliography
Dreamthinkspeak (2013) ONE DAY, MAYBE by dreamthinkspeak. [online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLUeQ90hu-Q [Accessed on 12 May].
Gobsquad.com. (2016). Gob Squad. [online] Available at: http://www.gobsquad.com/projects/super-night-shot [Accessed 12 May 2016].
Lowdon, R. (2013) Q&A with Forced Entertainment. [interview] Interviewed by Paul Clarke, 24 October.
Lucas (2006) Bilateral. Available at: http://www.lucazoid.com/bilateral/lone-twin-interviewed-by-christopher-hewitt/ (Accessed: 11 May 2016).
Ryan, M. (2014) Have you got what it takes to follow the Abramović method? – video. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2014/may/12/marina-abramovic-method-video (Accessed: 12 May 2016).
Marina Abramovic Institute (2014) Marina Abramovic on The Artist Is Present (2010). [online video] Available from: https://vimeo.com/72711715 [Accessed on 12 May].
Pearson, M (2010) Site-Specific Performance. London: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN