May 12, 2016Alex Revill No Comments

You Look Lovely Today: Alex Revill Final Submission

You Look Lovely Today

“The theatrical event always happens within a space, but only sometimes is space itself an event.”

– Arthur Sainer, the Radical Theatre Notebook (1975) (Wohl, 2014)

FRAMING STATEMENT

We chose our site – The Glory Hole – as historically it was used as a boat marketplace that sold goods such as fruit, meat and wool. Through time the market became less popular, until it ended up closing down for good. The Glory Hole then served no further purpose, except for being a pass-through for members of the public to get onto the High Street. The overriding intention for our performance was to transform a non-place back into a destination, as it has been in the past. We originally intended to host a celebration with elements of the boat market, for which invitations would be distributed across the city. We hoped that anyone that attended this celebration would then remember it every time they passed through the site in the future, giving The Glory Hole a personal historical context and making it a place again.

In order to provide our audience with a ‘tour’ like experience of our event/celebration/performance, and so that they experience the full effect of a busy, bustling market, we looked to Marcia Farquhar and her performances such as ‘A Live Art Tour’ to provide us with different ways of achieving this. We also looked to Marc Augé and his idea of ‘place vs non-place’, in our attempt to make a non-place into a place again. We researched into the idea of palimpsest, which is defined as:

‘Something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form’ (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016)

This was evident in our site and in our performance, because although our performance was not immediately the re-enactment of a marketplace, it still bore a trace of the different elements of a market. An example of this would be the dragging of our ‘goods’ through the water, making reference to the boats that pass through the site.

Our ideas altered over time and through different experiments we were able to see what worked and what didn’t. For our final piece we decided that our original idea of having elements of the boat market was keeping our performance in the past, and we wanted to bring it ‘forward’ to life, instead of going backwards. We maintained that we wanted our performance to be a celebration, but instead we decided to celebrate the people that passed through the site, and celebrate the site itself, by giving out ‘compliments’ written on card. These cards were triangular, so that once we had given them to the ‘audience’, we gave them the choice of whether they would like to take it away or hang it up as bunting across the canal. We had no set audience, we simply targeted passers-by, as we wanted the piece to be spontaneous and this meant that the members of the public could not predict that they would be targeted, making the compliments more pleasantly received. We also took inspiration for this idea from Mike Pearson, who states that ‘audience need not to be categorized, or even consider themselves as ‘audience’’ (Pearson, 2010, 175). The piece lasted thirty minutes, and we accumulated over twenty-five compliments hanging on our bunting.

THE FOUNDATIONS

Before addressing our performance and starting our rehearsal process, it was important to have an understanding of the history and influences on site specific art. One of the may influences that shaped the beginnings of site specific art include Fluxus, which was considered as a shared attitude amongst artists rather than a movement. Fluxus is described as creating minimal performances, sometimes presented in events, much like our performance. The image below shows the Fluxus manifesto, which claims that their intention is to ‘purge the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art…’ (George Maciunas, 1963), proving that the artists that shared the Fluxus attitude sought to change the world of art and the history of the world. Site specific artists took influence from this attitude, which is reflected in their use of non-traditional performance spaces.

Fluxus Manifesto, 1963, by George Maciunas (Wikipedia)

The Situationist International movement that began in the late 1950’s also had great influence on site specific art, and on our performance. The Situationist movement explored the idea of ‘psychogeography’ – emotions and behaviours caused by the surrounding geographical environment – and to do so they would move through, and work in cityscapes. We used this idea of ‘psychogeography’ during our initial ideas process, for which we moved through the city noting down any particular emotions that we felt towards different sites. I felt an intense negative feeling when in the Glory Hole, a feeling that was shared amongst the group, and this became one of the inspirations for bringing positivity back into the site.

BRINGING IT FORWARD TO LIFE

After conducting research into our chosen site, we discovered that it used to be a marketplace in which boats would pass through and buy goods such as wool, fruit and meat. We were engaged by the stark contrast of how busy the Glory Hole would have been then, compared to how abandoned and depressing it is now – locals even refer to it as ‘the Murder Hole’ – and there have been many sexual assaults in this site. We became fixated on the idea of reversing the negative connotations that surrounded the Glory Hole and, essentially, bringing it ‘back’ to life.

The Glory Hole used to be a place, a destination, and it is now essentially a non-place/non-destination, it’s just a pass-through, and so we looked to Marc Augé for inspiration. Augé states that ‘a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place’ (Augé, 1995, 78), and despite the Glory Hole’s historical past as a marketplace, it is no longer common knowledge in this century; therefore we identified our site as a non-place. Like research-artists Wrights and Sites, we too had an interest in ‘sites that would not usually be engaged with in terms of public art’ (Situations, 2013). We became interested in the idea of making the Glory Hole a destination again, and decided that we could achieve this by making an event or celebration for audience members and passers-by to attend.

We also became very interested in the idea of social transactions and exchanges, as this is a common theme in relation to markets and stalls. When discussing Cityscapes in his book Site-Specific Performance, Mike Pearson asks the question ‘can we try to sell food in a way that is other than simply holding it in the hand?’ (Pearson, 2010, 98). To answer this, we began to experiment with attaching wool from one side of the canal to the other, to create a way of exchanging goods through the use of a ‘pulley’ system. This also created a bond between the two sides of the canal, rather than a separation. Visually, when thinking of the marketplace, we gravitated towards oranges as being one of the most popular items that were sold. We experimented with dragging the oranges through the water with a piece of wool, to represent how the goods were transported through the water, and to highlight how vital the water was to the market. We then pulled the oranges out of the canal, peeled them, and squeezed the juice out of them. We felt as though this showed the journey of the goods, and how important our site was for achieving the end result – the orange juice.

Peeling the Oranges (Alex Revill, 2016).

As the idea of a celebration or party began to arise, we started to split our performance into different sections, much like party activities. We carefully planned four different sections to our ‘bustling market’/celebration.

These included:

A transaction, using a line of wool, between performer and audience member. Items included fruit and pieces of meat. (See photograph below)

A Transaction by Using Wool (Alex Revill, 2016)

The retrieving of a sack of oranges from the Brayford by dragging them through the water in a net, and the peeling and juicing of these oranges. The juice would then be ‘sold’ on our own market stall.
Four hired performers stood on a platform holding cardboard signs stating things such as ‘will work for food’ and ‘can cook’. This makes reference to the people that would stand at the Glory Hole market and wait to be employed by passers-by on boats. (See photograph below)

"Hire me" (Alex Revill, 2016). — “Hire me” (Alex Revill, 2016).

The picking up and placing of wooden slats (to represent when slats were placed over the canal as a form of protest, so that a party could take place over it) and then proceeding to dance on these slats. A celebration.

THE UNREPEATABLE MOMENT

We intended for our participants to have a tour like experience of our performance. Each of the segments (above) would be performed at the same time, so the audience could move around as they wish and examine each piece individually, or as ‘a constellation of nodes that people can join up for themselves’ (Situations, 2013). We found inspiration from Marcia Farquhar and her Live Art Tour or ‘Onwards’ Tour (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Li90TEcsUw). Certain aspects of this performance were the main influences for our celebration/event; for example, how the participants were unable to tell which elements of the performance were staged, and which were just chance. Farquhar’s work is described as ‘precariously balanced between the prescribed and the unpredictable…socially open, broadly embracing of circumstance, and resolutely focused in the live and unrepeatable moment’ (The Collection, 2013), which is exactly what we strived to achieve from our performance. This provides reasoning for our decisions to not have a set audience and to leave things unpredictable and ‘socially open’.

From this, we looked to Wrights and Sites, a group of artists that have a ‘particular interest in site, landscape and journey’ (Situations, 2013), and a fascination with architecture. The architecture of our site – a large Tudor building as our backdrop which enabled us to string our wool from one side of the canal to the other – was one of the main features of our performance. Cathy Turner, a member of Wrights and Sites, is also known for her interest in the idea of ‘palimpsest’. This idea was prominent in our performance, as layers of the old marketplace shine through.

BOTTLES AS BOATS

After experimenting with these ideas in the site, we came to realise that we were trying too hard to re-enact the marketplace instead of creating something modern that would simply bear a trace of the past. We decided that the exchange of fruit and meat was not modern enough, and that we wanted to exchange something more relatable to a 21^st century audience. We experimented with the idea of exchanging compliments – something that would both brighten up the site itself, and brighten the day of those who passed through. We would not ask for anything in return for these compliments, other than the participant’s time. We chose to keep the lines of wool across the canal, but expand the quantity and create a ‘spider’s web’ of wool, representing the transactions that have been made between the two banks throughout time.

Brightening Up the Glory Hole (Ashley Walls, 2016)

I felt as though we should keep the movement of ‘dragging’ something through the water, and it shed light onto how important the water is for transporting goods. Our ‘goods’, in this case the ‘compliments’, were now being dragged through the water in clear glass bottles – the bottles acting as boats. They were then pulled up through the water with wool, taken out of the bottles and handed to an unsuspecting passer-by. The participant then had a choice as to whether they would like to take the compliment with them, or string it up on one of the lines of wool crossing the canal, creating a ‘compliment bunting’. We settled on this final idea as we felt as though it still resembled elements of the marketplace in a less obvious way, and the social transactions that we had between participants were bringing the Glory Hole forward to life.

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YOU LOOK LOVELY TODAY:

A Performance Analysis

Our final performance began at 11:30am on Friday 6^th May, and lasted approximately thirty minutes. We received excellent feedback from our ‘audience’, who were unsuspecting passers-by, however some decided to stay and watch after we had interacted with them. During the performance I was able to talk to the audience members and explain the reasoning for our performance, and I received some brilliant responses, such as ‘what a lovely idea’, and ‘this place has always looked miserable until now’. Many participants also thanked me for, 1) Giving them a compliment and ‘making their day’, and 2) Making the Glory Hole look so colourful and positive. Every single participant decided that they wanted to string their ‘compliments’ up on the bunting, as it was bright and colourful and made the site seem more cheerful. Some wanted to tie their compliments up themselves, whereas others wanted to stand back and watch us do it, and admire the outcome. Audience participation was vital for our performance, as ‘physical involvement is considered an essential precursor to social change’ (Bishop, 2006, 11), and as we desired to make a change to the way the public viewed the site, I felt that this participation helped immensely. I felt that the use of the glass bottles to transport the compliments through the water worked extremely well, as it was both poetic and interesting to watch, drawing in more of an audience. If I were to improve the performance, I would try not to over-think the process, as I believe that our ideas became too complicated and we struggled to simplify them. I believe that our engagement with site specific theory and practice, particularly Marcia Farquhar and her ‘Live Art’/‘Onwards’ Tour, advanced our understanding of working in the Cityscape by helping us to experiment with audience participation and ‘event’ like performances.

Documentation of the performance can be found on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rplo0k-oJOs

WORKS CITED:

Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso.

Bishop, C. (2006) Participation. London: The MIT Press.

Oxford University Press (2016) Oxford Dictionaries. [online] London: Oxford University Press. Available from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/palimpsest [Accessed on 12/05/16].

Pearson, M. (2010) Site-Specific Performance. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Situations (2013) Interview: Artists Wrights & Sites – Wonders of Weston (filmed 2010). [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_tjNWxQvgw [Accessed on 12/05/16].

The Collection (2016) Talk from Marcia Farquhar [online] Lincoln. Available from http://www.thecollectionmuseum.com/?/exhibitions-and-events/view/talk-from-marcia-farquhar [Accessed on 12/05/16].

Wohl, D. (2014) Site Specific Theatre. Southern Theatre. 28-35. Available from, file:///C:/Users/Alex1/Downloads/fulltext_stamped.pdf [Accessed on 11/05/2016].

May 12, 2016Jason Lodge No Comments

H20: Final Blog Submission Jason Lodge

Framing Statement:

Over the past semester, we have focused on Site Specific Performance. My group used the Lincoln City High Street as their performance space. On the 5^th of May 2016, our group performed our Site Specific piece H2O on the Lincoln High Bridge. This blog will examine the methodologies and processes, which were undertaken to configure our final performance. One of our major influences was Mark Augé’s theory of places and non-places. Augé defines a place as having a, “relational, historical and concerned with identity” (Auge, 1995, 77). He refers to non-places as areas used to get one’s destination (Auge, 1995). Our group used Augé’s theory of a non-place, to revitalise the area and make it a place again. Further inspiration came from Joanne Bob Whalley and Lee Miller’s art piece Partly Cloudy Chance of Rain (2002). The couple challenged non-places, by renewing their wedding vows in a M6 motorway service station, thus turning a non-place into a place with meaning. They claim the,

“… process of reclaiming the motorway, inscribing it with its hidden narratives. This was an attempt to bypass its super modern position as a non-place, and return it… to the position of an anthropological place” (Kershaw and Nicholson, 2011, 69).

This is reiterated by Patrice Pavis’ statement,

“The insertion of a classical or modern text in this found ‘space’ throws new light on it, gives it an unsuspected power… the place and the purpose for being there” (Pavis, 1998, 337-338).

Such is the goal for our High Bridge performance. In the 18^th century, the High Bridge incorporated a fountain, named The Obelisk. The History of water was influential in the decision to use water as our focus, thus the name H20.

Figure 1: Myself walking to fetch more water, for the filtering process. (Powell, 2016)

The aim of H2O was to explore how water is taken for granted today. Our approach was to objectify water, in order to engage the public to see water in a different way. Such inspiration was drawn from Michael Fried’s theory of ‘objecthood’, which changes the norms of how water can be presented. Further influence came from Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance Art, therefore our performance provided a service by recreating the functions of the Obelisk. Further, through our creation of the Obelisk, we presented a sense of teamwork and unity. Additionally, the appearance of a work-force could present interesting visuals for our passing audiences, causing members of the public to stop and engage with us. Thus, creating a sense of community within the High Street, and transforming the High Bridge a place again as defined by Mark Augé.

Process: The History of the Bridge

Firstly, our group began by researching the history of the High Bridge, as we wanted to relate our site to the space. David Ross wrote that the High Bridge, which sits over the River Witham, was constructed in 1160 AD. The Bridge, over its lengthy history, once held a church that was a memorial to Thomas Beckett, built in 1235 AD in remembrance of his assassination. This church stood for over six hundred years, until 1763 when the church was replaced by a fountain. This fountain became the main source of water for Lincoln High Street, named the Obelisk (Ross, 2016).

Figure 2: The Group investigating the Obelisk for the first time. (Lodge, 2016)

Process: Connections Started to Form

In relation to Augé’s work of non-places, the Obelisk seemed a good starting point in creation of our performance. The connection being, while the Obelisk had a presence on the High Bridge, people purposely travelled to the High Bridge using the Obelisk as a source of water. Augé states expanding places by explaining places are “promoted to the status of ‘places of memory, and assigned to a circumscribed and specific positions” (Augé, 1995, 78). This statement is relatable to the Obelisk, as whilst it was present on the High Bridge people had a purpose to travel for their source of water. However, since the Obelisks absence on the High Bridge people’s reasons for travelling there diminished.

Over the last hundred years, the High Bridge has transcended from being a ‘place’ with a purpose (where people collect their water from) to being a ‘non-place’. In present day, the Bridges only purpose is as a pass over to each side of the High Street. This brought us to one of our main influences, Joanne Bob Whalley and Lee Miller. The couple challenged what is considered a “place” and a “non-place” through Partly Cloudy Chance of Rain (2002). This piece challenged what the service station would be categorised as by Augé. This inspired our performance, as we wanted to follow Joanne Bob Whalley and Lee Miller’s ideas and alter the High Bridges spatial status.

Our Early Beginnings

Now we had desired purpose for our piece, we began to question how the space could be actively used. As a starting point, we looked into Carl Lavery’s (2005) 25 instructions for performance in cities, to see if the rules could give a different interpretation for our site. Our group was interested in rule 21, which Lavery states as “situations designed for a mass audience of ‘spect-actors” (Lavery, 2005, 336). To experiment with this rule and individuals engagement on the bridge, we decided to adopt Lavery’s instructions. We used signs such as “Free Hugs” And “If Aliens were to land in Lincoln where would they land?”

Figure 3: During our experimental period revolving signs, Kieran Spiers (Left) (Lodge,2016)

From this experimentation we realised it engaged the public’s interest, gathering an audience. People were incredibly responsive, answering the questions and highlighting their creativity. Over a series of different signs, it was clear audiences had become drawn into our breaking of the norm. From this, we knew we could engage the public, however, our group wanted to make sure that our performance had significant meaning to the High Bridge.

We started to draw meaning to our performance, engaging people and giving meaning to our site (the High Bridge), to make it a place once more. Our group was intrigued by Lavery’s fifth rule, “Create an installation of the city out of lost objects and the recorded testimonies of local people” (Lavery, 2005, 335). We instantly noticed a correlation between this rule and our site, more directly a link to the Obelisk. Lavery speaks about lost “objects” which instantly relates to the Obelisk being a crucial, and lost, part of Lincoln’s history. After the Obelisk was dismantled, indoor plumbing became more common, and the public began to take water for granted. Thus, we created the link ‘what people need to live’ and how water is a main factor. Within Michael Fried’s Art and Objecthood, he believes that taking an “Object” and stripping it down to its barest form unlocks a higher meaning, creating no meanings to various objects (Fried, 1998).

Our group wanted to explore water as an object, instead of just water we used bottled water for this investigation, as it was more practical. This exploration began by asking people to write down, “In one word what do you value the most in life?”

Figure 4: Our groups first display of our water bottle exhibition. (Cummings, 2016)

Lavery rule states, “create an installation piece”, this was done by writing peoples answers on the water bottles and placing them on the streets. This presented our underlying message that individuals take water for granted over other modern day necessities, as none of the answers involved water being a necessity to live. Thus, we took away the labels, and allowed people to write their own idea of a ‘necessity’, as of such when people stepped back they could see the bigger picture of what people need to live, presented on a genuine life source. Furthermore, this would achieve our goal of creating meaning in reference to the Obelisk, while also encouraging the community to openly speak about water.

Process: Our Turning Point

We believed our final idea had been finalised. However, we received feedback from our tutors and although they enjoyed the concept of our performance, there were issues. They believed the concept would not be cleared by the local council due to the water bottles being a trip hazard, and that we were not physically present enough in the performance. This led us to step back and rethink our idea of water.

Process: The beginning of H2O

Our group all agreed the Obelisk and the importance of the water still heavily informed our piece. However, from feedback we had to present this in a more physical way. We began rethinking how we can represent water and the Obelisk, and continue the idea of ‘objecthood’ proposed by Michael Fried. We started thinking instead of the water bottles, we could think of the Obelisk as an object. We considered the physical representation of the Obelisk, in which we could recreate its functions. In relation, we started to research into practitioners who could aid formation of the psychical representation of the Obelisk. Thus, we researched into the works of Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance Art, as discussed in Kelly Rafferty’s article Regeneration: Tissue Engineering, Maintenance, and the Time of Performance. Maintenance Art. Maintenance art takes labour and public services and applies them to an Art form, which shows how work like roles in society are used in a theatrical process (Rafferty 2012). Rafferty states, “Instead of naturalizing or essentializing certain kinds of labour… that goes in to assigning certain jobs to certain people, valuing some kinds of work over others, making some work visible and other work invisible” (Rafferty, 2012, 91). This information helped our group to begin to apply the idea of creating a service to the High Street, taking influence from the theories behind Maintenance Art.

We began to look further into this style of art and discovered an art piece entitled The Berlin Puddle as wrote about by the art blog Artterritory. Pieroth’s work in 2001 consisted of taking a puddle from Isartorplatz Park, which she wanted to place in a different setting, thus changing the purpose of the puddle. To do this, she transported the puddle to a Berlin Art Gallery by plastic jugs; this changed the way the puddle was seen and its overall purpose (Iltnere, 2013). Both Pieroth and Ukele inspired our group’s progress, we wanted to draw attention to our performance base (the High Bridge) through openly working with water in re-creating the Obelisk.

Our group was able to make a correlation behind the Obelisk, by making a process, which followed the same principle of how the Obelisk produced water. As a group, we started spending time with water, experimenting with it in different ways; pouring, giving it out and taking water out of the Brayford pool. After performing such experiments, the idea of becoming a water filter progressed, giving our group a new idea on how to present the Obelisk in a new light.

Figure 5: Myself (left) discussing the process with others. Tom May (Middle) Kieran Spiers (Right) Continuing the Process. (Valentine, 2016)

Finally, we decided to create a five step purifying system, which our group would form as a team. Each member of the group worked at a station, be it; Bucketing water out the Brayford, guarding the water storage, transporting the water back into the Brayford, filtering the water through three separate jugs and finally cleaning the high bridge and pouring the water back into the Brayford. These actions made our group focus as a unitary system, making a service once again to the Brayford. We would create a component interacting with the water, and further engage with passing audiences in different ways. Our main objective was to make the public think about water through our actions, and openly discuss water with us during the process. Although, hopefully without discussing the obelisk, allowing the audience to think more deeply about the water. Thus, creating a meaning within the space and making the High Bridge a place again.

Figure 6: H2o Performance. (Peck, 2016).

Reflection: H2O

On the 5^th May 2016, we performed our Site Specific Performance H20, the aim of the performance was to achieve audience interaction which would engage the public to openly think about water and their personal relationships with water. On personal reflection of the day, we were able to achieve a reaction and interaction in three different ways visually, practically and non-practically. Our group noticed our peak time was three o’clock, large groups gathered to watch our performance, and began asking us questions about the performance. Furthermore, people were coming together in unity discussing openly what we were presenting. The public embraced speaking openly, and the majority of conversations each group member had with the public ended with the public understanding the reasons behind the performance, thus showing how audiences engaged with us practically.

Figure 7: Jack Briggs (Left) Will Comings (Middle) Kieran Spiers (Right) Continuing the filtering process (Walls, 2016)

Furthermore, the public interacted with other members of the public throughout the performance, creating a sense of community. After we spoke to an individual, they would begin explaining the process to other members of the audience who were watching the performance; such shows how our site performance engaged people non-practically.

The public interacted by touching, examining and listening. We were able to gain attention of people passing by, who did not stop, but instead became drawn to us as they passed, and these were our visual audience. However, I believe this was achieved due to our group’s dynamics during the performance. Although, such deep interaction of the public also presented problems. People began being so involved in the performance they began being unsafe, we had to stop people from touching or drinking the water. Thus, we had to intervene on many different occasions. Although, we were prepared enough to stop these incidents, it could have been resolved with more water guards in place.

Throughout the performance, we used the correct level of energy, this aided us in being visually interesting and holding the audience’s attention. However, the energy was difficult to maintain over the performance period. Personally, it was apparent each member of the group had begun showing fatigue as the day went on. This effected our hold of the audience, as we did not have the same eye-catching energy.

Another weakness of our performance is the backlog of water created at different stations causing us to slow, and eventually stop. In future, to keep the momentum going throughout we would need to make sure that we had more filter jugs and spray bottles. By doing this, we would be able to keep the process going for a longer period.

In reflection, it is clear to see many different attributes affected our performance. Nevertheless, our group set out with the goal of trying to make a site specific performance that grabbed the audience’s attention, as well as gave meaning to our site. We believed that throughout our process we achieved this goal, by gathering people back to the High Bridge similar to when the Obelisk still stood. Therefore, in our site specific performance we were able to an achieve turning a ‘non-place’ back into a ‘place’ for one day.

Works Cited

Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London: Verso.

Cummings, W. (2016) Site Specific Gang Page [Facebook]. 16 March. Available from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207559524963870&set=pcb.914679068639847&type=3&theater [accessed 10 May 2016].

David, R. (2013) High Bridge And The Glory Hole, Lincoln. London: Britain Express. Available from http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/lincs/properties/Glory-Hole.htm [accessed 3 May 2016].

Fried, M. (1998) Art and Objecthood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Iltnere, A. (2013) What Elmgreen & Dragset Did With Munich, Or, The Max And Moritz Of Contemporary Art. Arterritory.com. Available from http://www.arterritory.com/en/texts/interviews/2439-what_elmgreen_dragset_did_with_munich,_or,_the_max_and_moritz_of_contemporary_art/. [Accessed on 9 May 2016].

Kershaw, B. and Nicholson, H. (2011) Research Methods In Theatre And Performance. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Lodge, J. (2016) H20 Event Page [Facebook]. 11 May. Available from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208225449226264&set=pcb.815141141924856&type=3&theater [accessed 11 May 2016].

Lodge, J. (2016) Site Specific Gang Page [Facebook]. 21 February. Available from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207530515093345&set=pcb.901307489977005&type=3&theater [accessed 10 May 2016].

Lavery, C. (2005): Teaching Performance Studies: Instructions For Performance In Cities. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 25 (3) 229-238.

Pavis, P. (1998) Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis Toronto: University of Toronto Press

Pearson, M. (2010) Site-Specific performance. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Peck, B. (2016) H20. [Online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ejgHF15Mpl8. [Accessed 11 May 2016]

Powell, S, J. (2016) H20 Event Page [Facebook]. 11 May. Available from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208225449386268&set=pcb.815141141924856&type=3&theater [accessed 11 May 2016].

Rafferty, K. (2012) Regeneration: Tissue Engineering, Maintenance, and the Time of Performance. TDR: The Drama Review, 3 (56) 82-99.

Valentine, K. (2016) H20 Event Page [Facebook]. 5 May. Available from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206422177177753&set=pcb.812336468871990&type=3&theater [accessed 10 May 2016].

Walls, A. (2016) H20 Event Page [Facebook]. 5 May. Available from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1624060364584896&set=pcb.812328255539478&type=3&theater [accessed 10 May 2016].

May 12, 2016Kieran Spiers No Comments

H20. Final Submission: Kieran Spiers

Framing Statement

Site Specific Art

Site specific art and the performances within this discipline explore the boundaries of how the relationship between performance, object, place and performer might be understood. Nick Kaye in Site Specific Art describes this style of performance as being very articulate. It “define[‘s] itself through properties, qualities or meaning produced in specific relationships between an ‘object’ or ‘event’ and a position it occupies” (Kaye, 2000, 1). Site specific art in Kaye’s terms is about relation, and how a relationship to an object or an event combined with the history of said object or event might help to establish meaning which transcends itself into performance. Miwon Kwon provides the view that site specific art takes the site as an actual location, “a tangible reality, its identity composed of a unique combination of constitutive physical elements: length, depth, height, texture” (Kwon, 2002, 2). Whilst these readings of this discipline are broad, it gives us an insight into how site specificity might be understood. Both Kaye and Kwon refer to how the physical properties of the site, determines how the performance is to be constructed. These viewpoints informed our process and our overall theoretical understanding in creating our work.

Our performance was a durational site specific performance situated on the High Bridge, which engaged with the historical significance of the site and audience interaction. Furthermore, we practically explored the materiality of water, through repetition, physical action and meaning.

Our methodology is the value of experimentation through audience engagement inspired by initial research into Forced Entertainment and Carl Lavery to a practical homage based on the works of Kirsten Pieroth and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. We have also engaged with theorists such as Mike Pearson, Nicholas Bourriard and Marc Auge.

Process

Square one

At the start of our process we explored the High Street, examining areas that we have never seen before such as alleyways and places of interest which could be used for performance. Kaye suggests that the city as an urban landscape “offers a profusion and complexity of signs and spaces where the condition of reception… might be countered by an excess of information” (Kaye, 2000, 33). From here we can understand that the city as a space exhibits a traffic of information which overwhelms our reception, therefore the “profusion” of signs, spaces and information blurs into site specific performance and would certainly do so for a performance on the High Street. This led us to look at Marcia Farquhar’s Live Art Tour (2012). In this performance, she explores the use of psycho-geography and layering of history. Farquhar talks about her interest in boredom and how leading an audience through intentional and unintentional objects and events can enhance the performance. From our explorations we found that the most interesting place was the High Bridge. The location attracts buskers, stalls and connects the city therefore providing the most human traffic.

Relations, Signs and Audience

When we were researching into site-specificity we came across Bourriard’s Relational Aesthetics. He argues that the function of artworks being developed in city spaces “attest to a growing urbanisation” (Bourriard, 1998, 15). Although Bourriard is examining city spaces from a socio-economic perspective, it was interesting to engage with this when thinking about performance. He explained that “it will not be possible to maintain relationships between people outside these trading areas” (Bourriard, 1998, 9), such as consumerist brands and shops. By applying this to our space we realised that our performance needed to fit around the fact that the city is a hustling environment, which could hamper lasting encounters. Therefore, we would need to devise something visually compelling, to be able to draw attention from passers-by.

Our initial experiments were inspired by Carl Lavery’s 25 Instructions for performance in cities and Forced Entertainment’s Nights in the city. Carl Lavery created a list of exercises to use when creating performance within a city such as to “Sit in a park, café or bar and listen to the stories spoken around you.” or “Create a forest” (Lavery, 2005, 236). This inspired us to devise our own instruction which was to ‘create a sign, write whatever you want and see how people respond.’ The signs we designed had phrases such as “free hugs” and “hi fives” then we stood on the street to see what happened. People responded well, they hi-fived and hugged us whilst engaging with a sign saying “talk to me”. This led us to Forced Entertainment’s Nights in the city, which was a tour of various locations in Sheffield which weaved fact and fiction within their text, for example, “all the streets round here got named after famous football hooligans from history” (Forced Entertainment, 1995). They began to write over the city through palimpsest, treating the space as layers and the performance “define[d] itself in the very sites it is caught in the process of erasing” (Kaye, 2000, 11), which I thought was interesting as a concept of performance.

This gave us the inspiration to combine the bizarre with our signs. Beforehand we were provoking a reactional response from people and to rectify this I decided to write on a sign, “If Aliens attacked Lincoln, where would they land?”

Figure 1: Myself holding up the sign; “If Aliens attacked Lincoln, where would they land?” — Figure 1: Myself holding a sign. (Jason Lodge, 2016)

Although not primarily engaged with site-specificity, people became involved by offering answers such as “the cathedral” or “Tesco’s big car park.” One woman even thought I was part of a cult, which was an interesting response. These experiments, albeit random, contributed to our methodology which was to immerse the audience through their own personal contributions. Tim Etchells suggests that the city as a space “is both a map of space and a map of states of mind” (Etchells, 1999, 77). We were not just committed to exploring the space but the opinions and thoughts of its inhabitants. Consequently, we wanted to examine the reactions in order to explore the space and analyse what High Bridge means through the community.

High Bridge History

Moving on from these experiments we conducted in-depth research into The High Bridge to see if there was any historical significance. We discovered that there was a chapel dedicated to St Thomas Beckett but was destroyed during the reformation in 1762/3. Incidentally an obelisk was built in homage to the chapel which also acted as a fountain.

Figure 2: Photograph of an image showing the original placement of the obelisk. Credit: Kieran Spiers — Figure 2: Photograph of an image showing the original placement of the obelisk. (Kieran Spiers, 2016)

This was subsequently removed in 1939 due to fears that it was straining the bridge’s architecture because of the weight. It was reconstructed in 1996 in St Marks Square and 2016 is the 20^th anniversary of its reconstruction. By examining the history of our site, it enabled us to start thinking about how we could use it as stimulus for performance.

Figure 3: Photograph of the Obelisk taken in February 2016 in St Marks Square. Credit: Jason Lodge — Figure 3: Photograph of the Obelisk taken in February 2016 in St Marks Square. (Jason Lodge, 2016)

Bottles and Water

To start with, we explored the High Street, engaged with the public through practical exercises and researched into the history of our site. By March we were set in creating performance. We began to theorise that the High Street could be a non-place. Marc Auge argues non-place designates “spaces formed in relation to certain ends such as transport and commerce, and the relations that individuals have with these spaces” (Auge, 1995, 78). The High Street is primarily a place of travel and so “the traveller’s space may thus be the archetype of non-place” (Auge, 1995, 86). From this, we examined the tacit agreements of the High Street, in which people travelled up and down and entered the stores that they wished to purchase from. From here, we knew we wanted our performance to disrupt the fluid human traffic of the High Street.

We were inspired by the obelisk because of its relation to water and the significance of its history on the High Street. Pearson and Shanks in Theatre/Archaeology suggested “Do not begin with the question ‘What is it?’ Instead ask ‘What does it do?’” (Pearson and Shanks, 2001, 53). Using this as a framework, the obelisk was a fountain and therefore contained water, whereas now it is simply just a commemorative statue. This started our explorations into the connotations of water and of the obelisk.

We narrowed our exploration to three themes: Life, Reconstruction and Memorial. Initially we wanted to create a visual representation of the obelisk out of water bottles but figured that it wasn’t feasible and wouldn’t be an interesting performance. Narrowing our text and explorations further we devised a question to say to the audience. This question was ‘In one word, what do you value most in life?’ However, we still needed to establish an effective way of engaging with our audience. Bim Mason on audience explains that there are two main approaches to attracting an audience “one is to be loud, large and colourful, the other is to be subtle.” (Mason, 1992, 93). We did not intend to create a loud spectacle but rather a subtle interaction with our audience, similar to what we had been accomplishing with our prior experiments.

We wrote the question on a white board and interacted with the public audibly by asking the question. The way this idea entailed was that upon receiving a response we would write it on a label that was stuck to a water bottle, or if the audience member wanted to they would write down the response and place it down. As you can see from figures 4 and 5 the bottles began in a grid formation, jutting out from the raised area to the centre of the High Bridge.

Figure 5. Credit: Jason Lodge — Figure 5. (Jason Lodge, 2016)

Figure 4: Water Bottles place in formation on the High Bridge. Credit: Jason Lodge — Figure 4: Water Bottles place in formation on the High Bridge. (Jason Lodge, 2016)

The use of this allowed people to move in-between the bottles, to view the responses provided by participants. Typically the responses were ‘family, money, education, health’ others were unconventional such as: ‘fifa, eyesight, sex, home.’ This was interesting to view as a lot of the responses juxtaposed those that they were positioned next too, and the formation of the bottles somewhat became an installation. We moved away from this idea due to too many complications. The bottles provided an obstruction on the street and we relied too much on the audience activating our piece. Furthermore, from feedback it was not visually interesting enough, and so we wanted to create something even more visually engaging. Despite this, this idea still impacted on our final idea because of the initial engagement with the materiality of water.

H20 – A final reconstruction

Following our previous concept, we struggled to move on due extensive enthusiasm and passion. I provided the idea that we should hang bottles off the High Bridge with pure water inside mixed with red, green and yellow food colouring – the prime colours. I wanted to explore the idea of purity, however on reflection we would only be un-purifying the water. This led us to the action which formed the basis of our final performance. Bucketing water out of the Brayford. We decided that rather engage with bottled water, we would examine how we could interact with the water under the High Bridge and use that as the basis for performance.

We bought buckets, rope, containers and DIY suits and started work on our final idea. The DIY suits was a choice made by Jace and Tom, as they figured it would be visually compelling if we were to be costumed whilst transporting water to the containers. Our experiments included bucketing water out of the canal, transporting it to a large container on the High Bridge and filtering/purifying it through jugs and smaller containers. The motion of walking with a full bucket was interesting as initially we did not feel that this would be visually interesting however, through bucketing, travelling and pouring the water back and forth, we gathered significant attention. This idea was not just inspired by our previous idea, but was informed by Kirsten Pieroth’s Berlin Puddle (2001) and Mierle Laderman Ukeles and her Maintainence Art.’ Maintainance Art is:

“Avant-garde art, which claims utter development, is infected by strains of maintenance ideas, maintenance activities, and maintenance materials. Conceptual & Process art, especially, claim pure development and change, yet employ almost purely maintenance processes.”

(Ukeles, 1969, 2).

Her work highlighted overlooked aspects of social production and questions the hierarchies of different forms of work, especially housework and low-wage labour. In Hartford Wash: Washing, Tracks, Maintenance: Outside (1973) Ukeles cleaned the stairs and plaza of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. This was one of four works in the series Maintenance Art Performances staged by Ukeles which drew attention to the comparative status and value of artistic and manual labour. We were inspired by this because we used the purified water in sprays to clean the area where the obelisk used to be. This enabled our performance to be not just a piece of art but more of a metaphorical community service. Pieroth’s Berlin Puddle (2001) explored the materiality of water by physically moving a puddle from one location to another through transferable containers. I was particularly interested in the piece, due to the simplicity. She simply took a puddle from somewhere in Berlin and transferred it to Isartorplatz park via plastic jugs. The use of labour, movement and simplicity heavily informed our final performance, because the act of continuously repeating an action/movement was something that transpired to be at the heart of the final stages of our process.

Reflections

We performed our piece on the 5^th May 2016 from 2pm till 6pm, and on reflection I feel that overall the performance went considerably well.

Figure 6: Myself (Left) Jack (Centre) Will (Right) stood filtering and purifying the water and using it to clean the raised platform. Credit: Ashley Walls — Figure 6: Myself (Left) Jack (Centre) Will (Right) stood filtering and purifying the water and using it to clean the raised platform. (Ashley Walls, 2016)

Figure 7: H2O – Complete process of Performance – with added sound. (Ben Peck, 2016)

Mike Pearson says that Site-Specific performance needs to “invoke a collective identity for its audience” (Pearson, 2010, 177). The audience we gathered from our performance was a constant stream of the general public, and the attention we received came in two forms: visual engagement and practical engagement. Visual engagement: passers-by often looked at what we were doing and even stopping to form a group. Practical engagement, some audience members involved themselves in our piece by asking us what we were doing. When approached, we told them exactly what we were doing in that we were bucketing water from the canal, transporting it to be filtered and spraying it back into the canal. We then proceeded to enquire as to whether this engaged audience had any interesting memories or experiences with water which generated interesting responses. One response we received had an affiliation to water through living on a canal boat for three years. Another response was that an old couple gave their son a sea burial, a sad but interesting response, in how we have often referred to water being a source of life not really associated with death. Additionally, I felt that the weather aided our performance somewhat, as when we were engaging in practical experiments in the space, it was often too cold or miserable; so by performing on a day with excellent weather certainly helped us gather and engage with a larger audience.

Figure 7: Will and Jack stood by the full container waiting for it to be filtered. Credit: Rebecca Fallon — Figure 8: Will and Jack stood by the full container waiting for it to be filtered. (Rebecca Fallon, 2016)

Finally, we could have orchestrated some better ground rules for our final performance, such as breaks for a rest as due to the nature of the 18 degree heat combined with constant physical exertion it had certainly taken its toll on us half way through the performance. Furthermore, by having break slots in the performance it might have enabled us to perform for a longer duration which could have been effective visually, as audiences viewing the performances in the morning might view the performance and our physical tiredness and therefore respond differently if they were to return. We could have engaged with more scripted material because we were not prepared for some of the conversations we had and I felt that the dialogue between our audiences was too casual. Which isn’t to say that I wished it to be robotic but I felt that we could have developed this further.

This process has challenged me intellectually and practically as a performer, however I feel that I have learned a considerable amount know that I have been able to grow as an artist. Site Specific is an ever-changing discourse which I would love to explore in more depth.

Word Count: 2644

Works Cited:

Auge, M. (1995) Non Places, Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London: Verso.

Bourriaurd, N. (1998) Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les Presse Du Reel

Etchells, T. (1999) Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment. London: Routledge.

Forced Entertainment. (1995) Nights in the city. [performance] Tim Etchells (dir.) Sheffield: Sheffield, 9 April.

Kaye, N. (2000) site-specific art performance,place and documentation. Oxon: Routledge.

Kwon, M. (2004) One Place After Another Site-Specific art and Locational Identity. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Pearson, M. (2000) ‘Bubbling Tom’ in Adrian Heathfield (ed.), Small Acts: Performance, the Millennium and the Making of Time, London: Black Dog, pp. 174- 85.

Lavery, C. (2005) Teaching Performance Studies: 25 instructions for performance in cities. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 35/3/229-238.

Mason, B. (1992) Street Theatre and other outdoor performance. London: Routledge.

Pearson, M., Shanks, M. (2001) Theatre Archaeology. London: Routledge.

Pearson, M. (2010) Site Specific Performance. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Peck, B. (2016) H2O. [online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ejgHF15Mpl8. [Accessed 11 May 2016]

Pieroth, K. (2001) Berlin Puddle. [performance art] Berlin: Isartorplatz park.

REcreativeUK. (2012) Marcia Farquhar – A live art tour [online video] Availiable from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Li90TEcsUw [Accessed 7 February 2016].

Ukeles, M. (1973) Hartford Wash: Washing, Tracks, Maintenance: Outside. [performance art] Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum.

Ukeles, M. (1969) Manifesto For Maintainance Art. Arnolfi: New York.

May 12, 2016Jack Briggs No Comments

Final Blog Submission: H20 – Jack Briggs

Framing Statement:

Site Specific Art is a genre of performance which occurs outside of a traditional theatre within a location that could be considered unorthodox, with the performance designed with the location in mind. Mike Pearson in Site Specific Performance says that, “A large part of the work has to do with researching a place, often an unusual one that is imbued with history or permeated with atmosphere” (2010, 7). Our performance took place on Lincoln High Bridge, in the High Street, on the 5^th of May 2016 between 2pm and 6pm, and centred around us taking water out of the Brayford and cleaning it. Our goal was to explore the materiality and value of water by bucketing water from the Brayford and taking it onto the High Bridge where it would be filtered (see Fig 1), purified, and used in the cleaning of a podium where the Obelisk (see Fig 2) used to be, before we put any remaining water back in the Brayford (see Fig 3). Our audience consisted of the general public on the High Street and in the alley beside the Brayford, and the customers of Stokes Cafe. The audience were free to interact with us, however we would avoid informing them of the performance itself – sticking to a script that explained what we were physically doing and then talking to the audience about water. One of our influences was the controversy surrounding Richard Serra and The Tilted Arc (1981), which inspired us based on the story of the Obelisks history.

Jason Lodge at the purification station. Credited: Ashley Walls (2016) — Figure 1: Jason Lodge at the purification station. (Ashley Walls, 2016)

The Obelisk. Credit: Jason Lodge (2016) — Figure 2: The Obelisk. (Jason Lodge, 2016)

Tom May spraying "clean" water back into the Brayford. Credit: Ashley Walls (2016) — Figure 3: Tom May spraying “clean” water back into the Brayford. (Ashley Walls, 2016)

The Obelisk was built as a memorial to a chapel dedicated to Thomas Beckett. The Obelisk was eventually taken down in 1939 due to fears that it was too heavy for the bridge, before being rebuilt in 1996 in its new location of St Marks Shopping Centre. This moving of the Obelisk to a new location reminded us of Tilted Arc and it’s moving from its intended location. Other influences included Kirsten Pieroth and Berlin Puddle (2001), and Mierle Laderman Ukeles; Hartford Wash: Washing, Tracks, Maintenance: Outside (1973), which inspired us to use the filtered water to clean the podium where the Obelisk was formerly located, whilst Michael Fried Art and Objecthood served as inspiration for our performance being largely audience based. Carl Lavery and Forced Entertainment’s Nights in this City (1995) served as influences in our early stages as we were developing our process, and aided in our research and exploration into the area. Our exploration of water was intended to show the value of it, the processes it takes before use, and a cycle that never ends; with the water coming from the Brayford before returning to the Brayford changed. To me, this was somewhat representative of the history of our location, which is ever changing.

Analysis of Process:

Our process began during our second seminar when we explored Carl Lavery’s 25 instructions for performance in cities. He designed these “instructions” in the hopes of getting students to devise, using his instructions as; “a stimulus, not a strait-jacket” (Lavery, 2005, 230). We were sent out with our own variations of Lavery’s instructions to engage with the High Street. Upon reflection of my observations of our activity, I noticed that there is a tacit agreement that comes with the High Street, where people don’t notice the people around them because they are performing the same actions as everyone else: shopping, travelling, or meeting people. This led to us identifying the High Street as a non-place; defined by Marc Augé in Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity as, “a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place” (1995, 77-78). For Augé, a non-place is a location where people gather en-masse but lack an individual identity, which can include hotels or transport links, and shopping centres. The High Bridge itself is something of a nexus within the High Street; being at the centre with several routes branching from it. Because the High Bridge had this higher footfall, we began researching the history of the High Bridge, which led to the history of the Obelisk. Following the initial practice, our group began using Lavery’s work in conjunction with works by Forced Entertainment such as Nights in this City to form “questions” that we would ask the audience in the High Street.

Our purpose was to further explore the possibilities the space presented to us as performers; such as the perspective on the location, possible approaches to audience, etc. The questions began with “free high-fives” and “would you like a conversation?”, before becoming focused on the city and included the likes of “what will Lincoln be like in the future?”, and, “if aliens attacked Lincoln, where would they land?”, to further provoke a response in the audience (see Fig 4). The purpose behind this was to build a narrative of Lincoln, as the Obelisk and the High Bridge were a part of Lincoln’s history. These questions, no matter how bizarre, were about Lincoln and seemed to reflect the changes of Lincoln over time, whilst also encouraging people to think and reflect about the town and even notice their surroundings. Tim Etchells, in Certain Fragments, describes a fascination with ruins and new buildings, “We always loved the incomplete – from the building site to the demolition site, from the building that was used once and is no longer to the building that will be used” (1999, 78). Etchells description resonates with the Obelisk’s history and with the High Street, which one of our respondents identified as a mesh between modern and historic architecture. This concept of history and perspective was used in the formulation of our first idea.

Kieran Spiers asking questions. Credit: Jason Lodge (2016) — Figure 4: Kieran Spiers asking questions. (Jason Lodge, 2016)

Our initial plan for the performance involved the usage of water bottles to create a memorial to the Obelisk (see Fig 5). Using labels, we would ask members of the general public a question, before writing the answer on the label and placing the bottle in the memorial formation. We used the question “what do you value most in life?”, based on the reception we received from the Forced Entertainment inspired questions (see Fig 6). “What do you value most in life?” was chosen due to its simplicity and broader audience response, whilst also being reflective of a lot of the values and views we had uncovered in our previous experiments. It also had a representative meaning, as water is an important part of life that is quite often – particularly in today’s society – taken for granted and undervalued. After all of the bottles had an answer written on them and were placed, we would leave them as an exhibit before giving them out for free to members of the public. The idea behind this was to bring back the purpose of the Obelisk as a fountain, with our memorial “giving out water” to the community, at the same time as restoring a sense of community and turning the High Street into a place rather than a non-place. The initial plan was practiced and received a good response from the audience, but was less visually stimulating and performative than we had previously expected. This led to revisions in our idea that kept focus on the Obelisk and water, the two elements that sparked the most interest.

Water Bottle Memorial. Credit: Will Cummings (2016) — Figure 5: Water Bottle Memorial. (Will Cummings, 2016)

Figure 7: Kieran Spiers (left) and Tom May (right) holding the sign with the question. Credit: Will Cummings (2016) — Figure 6: Kieran Spiers (left) and Tom May (right) holding the sign with the question. (Will Cummings, 2016)

Our second idea became focused on the transformation, transportation, and use of water. Because the Obelisk served as a communal source of water, we began exploring what processes the water had to go through before it could be used by the public. We also explored what water could then be used for (e.g., washing, drinking, cleaning, cooking, etc.), which led us to a further understanding of the value of water in everyday life. This linked with the ideas presented by Pearson and Shanks in Theatre Archaeology, “So consider an archaeological artefact. Do not begin with the question ‘What is it?’ Instead ask ‘What does it do?’” (2001, 53). Our plan involved a series of stages to collect, store, clean, and use the water. The first stage involved bucketing out the water from behind Stoke’s Café, then transporting it to a container before Stoke’s for storage. The moving of the water was inspired in part by Kirsten Pieroth and Berlin Puddle, with our use of the storage container allowing the audience to see the Brayford water clearly, which offered a before-and-after look at the water once we had cleaned it. The water from the container would then be taken to a three stage filtration and purification system, where we would use filter-jugs to remove the debris and dirt, and purification tablets to eliminate bacteria. This process didn’t clean the water entirely, but it did make the water look clearer, making this process representative in nature. Once this stage was completed, the water would be used to clean the podium where the Obelisk used to be in full view of the public (see Fig 7), which was inspired by Ukeles work in maintenance art, “Ukeles scrubbed the inside and outside of the museum during visiting hours” (Kelly Rafferty, 2012, 91). During the course of the piece we would be dressed in overalls (see Fig 8), which made us stand out further from the public and invited the public to engage us, which linked to the work of Lone Twin; particularly Totem where the performers were dressed as cowboys, “The performers’ costume and activity signaled their place as strangers yet also acted as a catalyst for the public to interact with them” (Emma Govan, 2007, 125). Our “costumes” also added to the image we were creating as cleaners, adding a professionalism and uniformity to our group. We worked in shifts to allow each member a chance to engage in a different role, whilst also balancing the distribution of labour; we would roles after twenty minute intervals using a cycle which included one person bucketing out water, a guard stationed by the container to prevent people interacting with the water, someone moving water from the container to the filtration station, someone filtering and purifying the water, and finally someone using the water to clean the podium.

Figure 7: Will Cummings cleaning the podium. Credit: Ashley Walls (2016) — Figure 7: Will Cummings cleaning the podium. (Ashley Walls, 2016)

Figure 9: Kieran Spiers (left), Jack Briggs (middle), and Will Cummings (right) in the "costumes". Credit: Ashley Walls (2016) — Figure 8: Kieran Spiers (left), Jack Briggs (middle), and Will Cummings (right) in the “costumes”. (Ashley Walls, 2016)

As with the first idea we experimented and practiced with this to identify any problems and to experience different approaches to the performance. One of the problems we discovered was our interaction with the audience, which had no structure and amongst the group each individual had a different response. The performer/spectator audience was important to us, as it had been a strong part of our earlier experiments and ideas, and during the practice runs of the performance they would approach us and ask what we were doing. The audience had no idea what they were seeing was a performance until they were told, and they explained to us what their perceptions of us had been. During the practice runs, before we had a scripted idea, we would experiment by either; engaging in our roles as performers and playing along with the audience perceptions, ignoring them, or exposing the truth of what was taking place. Eventually we settled upon the simple statement of what we were physically doing and a brief explanation of why that involved exploring the nature of water and its value, rather than extending the conversation to our nature as performers and our reasoning for our work. This links to Pearson and Shanks; who discussed the notion of audience having a different experience of the performance to the performer, “the performance event exists as a locus of experiences – spatial, physical, and emotional – preserved in the bodies and memories of the varying orders of participants” (2001, 54). Whilst having a scripted idea provided a consistency of response from our group and kept the piece running, we found that it also helped us to prepare for any eventualities that may have caused issue. This included officials potentially stopping us, buskers and street performers intruding on our space, and general troublemakers who might have interrupted our performance for their own amusement or whilst in a state of intoxication. As our site was located in a public area, we felt a need to account for any number of people who could turn up for the purposes of health and safety; something we had a high regard for because of our usage of dirty water. This involved preventing people from slipping on spillages, tripping on equipment, and touching or consuming the water even in its purified state, which as previously mentioned was not completely cleaned despite its appearance.

Reflection:

On the day of the performance the weather was brighter and hotter than the conditions we had previously worked in, the result of which was an increase in audience on the High Street, which led to an increased response. The reception we received was better than that of the experiments, which included the audience interacting with each other – something we had previously not witnessed. This created the communal sense we had desired during our first idea, and turned our work into an event of sorts for the audience to witness. The problem, however, was our inability to provide collective responses to the questions that were suddenly being asked. The reason for this, I believe, was the climate of the day; which meant people were more likely to stick around because they were enjoying the weather. Whilst we did attempt to improvise and provide responses, unfortunately the interactions became overly conversational in nature; something we hadn’t prepared for in advance. This wasn’t entirely problematic as it did further add to the communal sense of our piece and increased the appreciation of our work, and these conversations happened to be directed at those in the group standing guard at the container, therefore not impeding the other members of the group who were taking on a more active role during that rotation. It also had an interesting result in the form of certain pieces of information people were giving that would not normally occur in most forms of conversation; for example a man discussed his experience of saving someone from the Brayford. Plans made for any problems that might have occurred during the performance were used and were handled appropriately and successfully on the part of the performers as rehearsed. This demonstrated the need we had for planned interaction and our success in planning for potential problems; even though we were unable to account for everything we ensured significant problems wouldn’t be obstructive or dangerous, therefore ensuring our safety and that of the public.

Overall the interactions with the audience were beneficial and better than previously expected – with a majority taking interest in our work and watching with interest. Some members would even interact with new arrivals and explained what we were doing to the same degree we had explained our work to them; demonstrating the interest further. Whilst the weather had its impediments including health (e.g. dehydration, overheating), it added to our audience and to the visuals we created as the water was returned to the Brayford. Aside from this, we had a few minor problems involving filters becoming blocked – though these were only temporary issues that were resolved immediately. Otherwise, I would say our performance was a success with a natural flow and no significant problems that would have slowed or halted the performance entirely. We did what we set out to do, and I feel we accomplished that (see Fig 9).

Figure 9: H20 – the final performance. (Ben Peck, 2016)

Word Count: 2565

Works Citied:

Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London: Versco.

Etchells, T. (1999) Certain Fragments. London: Routledge.

Govan, E., Nicholson, H., Normington, K. (2007) Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lavery, C. (2005) Teaching Performance Studies: 25 instructions for performance in cities. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 25 (3) 229-238.

Pearson, M. (2010) Site Specific Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pearson, M., Shanks, M. (2001) Theatre Archaeology. London: Routledge.

Peck, B. (2016) H20. [online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejgHF15Mpl8&feature=youtu.be. [Accessed 12 May 2016]

Rafferty, K. (2012) Regeneration: Tissue Engineering, Maintenance, and the Time of Performance. TDR: The Drama Review. 56 (3) 82-99.