Last week our group content with our idea though it was crucial for to experiment with our latest plan. instead of returning to the concept of gathering thoughts of the public. But instead use water bottles to make our structure which is our major plan, to show the history or more clearly a anniversary of the obelisk and its life and use on the Lincoln high street. through this we wish to present this structure through water bottles, however this task appeared harder then our group originally though building this structure seemed impossible do to the surrounding conditions of the high street for example the uneven surface of the high bridge as well as peoples interaction with our work (mostly negative) as people took bottles without asking jeopardising our testing. also the whole principle is challenged due to the actually ability to stack the bottles. the shape of the bottles makes it difficult to stack the bottles in our desired shape as well as the sheer amount of bottles that would be required unpractical , thus questioning our ability to make our reinterpretation of the obelisk. however after our mid session meeting with Steve, helped us find a way around these problems, instead of making a statue of the obelisk which seems to be unpractical what if we made a grave out of the water bottles presenting a memorial instead of a statue however until further research we can not see how this can be approached this will be next weeks mission.
Experiments And Beginnings
For the past few weeks our group has gone into the High Street and we have been performing “social experiments” for lack of a better term. The aim of these “experiments” have primarily been to gauge audience response around the spot we will be performing in come the final performance.
To add context to what we have been doing, we have done research into a spot on the High Street; a bridge with a raised platform, across from Stokes, known as the High Bridge. From research it was discovered that an obelisk currently residing in St. Marks at the end of the High Street used to be on the High Bridge. It was demolished in 1939, and rebuilt in 1996 in its new location. Our intention is to make a model of this obelisk in the spot where it originally was positioned.
“So consider an archaeological artefact. Do not begin with the question ‘What is it?’ Instead ask ‘What does it do?'” (Pearson & Shanks, 2001, 53)
Our “artefact”, the obelisk, was formerly used as a public water conduit. Our intention is to create a model of this obelisk out of water bottles in its original location (the High Bridge), before dismantling the model and providing the bottles to the public. Part of our aim is to bring the audience into the performance by having them stick labels on the bottles using a variety of questions centred on the High Street. As mentioned, at the end we will hand this bottles out; thus recreating the obelisks original purpose. This has somewhat been inspired by the Tilted Arc sculpture designed by Richard Serra and the controversy of it’s moving.
In preparation for this we have been experimenting with questions with themes from Forced Entertainment. Such questions have included, “What is the best place on the High Street?”, “Tell me a story about the High Street”, and “If Aliens were to visit Lincoln, where would they land?”. The intention behind these questions was to see what kind of response we would get.
Works Cited:
Pearson, M., Shanks, M. (2001) Theatre Archaeology. London: Routledge.