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.

May 9, 2016Steve Fossey No Comments

Steve’s Instructions

When posting your final blog submission (Framing Statement, Analysis of Process and Performance Evaluation), be sure to tick the box next to your name in the Categories table in the bottom right hand side of the screen. This will allow your post to be accessible from your category.

May 7, 2016Emily Claire Bickerdike No Comments

‘Potted Protest’. Emily Bickerdike: Final Blog Submission

Framing Statement

Potted Protest was a piece of site-specific performance art, performed in Speakers’ Corner on the 8th May 2016. The performance was mainly a one-to-one experience lasting around two minutes for each audience-participant, however, around this we created an installation piece for non-participant audience members, lasting for two hours in the space.

Our performance took inspiration from many different artists and theorists. From Adrian Howells, we took the notion of non-verbal transactions and intimacy in one-to-one performances; from Suzanne Lacy we were inspired by the idea of confessional and testimonial installation as a form of catharsis. Dee Heddon informed us about the boundaries between performer and spectator in work such as ours, as well as Cathy Turner’s notion of palimpsest allowing us to delve deeper into the different layers of the space in our work. Situationists provided much of the political fire behind our work, referring to everyday life when discussing revolution, in order for it to become real.

Potted Protest was staged in the Cornhill, a public square adjacent to Lincoln High Street. The north-west corner of the Cornhill was named Speakers’ Corner in 2011, inspired by a Suffragette Rally that took place at the Cornhill in 1908 (Speakers Corner Trust, 2016). This space was not large enough to accommodate our performance, therefore we staged our piece in the large open square just behind this, which provided four different access routes for an audience, as well as sufficient space for a large amount of spectators. The Cornhill is a major public space, being the host of many popular high street chains and banks. As a result, the Cornhill sees a large amount of the footfall of the main Lincoln City Centre. This was very beneficial for us as performers when staging our piece, as we were confident that our performance would impact a great deal of people in the City Centre on that day.

Figure 1: In the space. (Bickerdike, 2016).

Our piece was inspired by the history of the Cornhill and the creation of Speakers’ Corner as a place for active freedom of speech. The piece examined the lack of use of Speakers’ Corner through provoking questions about the power of the individual, as well as emulating the layers of history of the site: using placards to symbolise the women who stood in the space over one hundred years previous. The answers to the question we asked each audience-participant were written on these placards and placed in the space, creating a live installation of thought over the two hour performance. We explored how ideas can become something more through action by incorporating natural metaphors into the piece such as the spreading of roots and the kneading/watering of soil, showing that if you nurture your ideas, they will grow.

The first development of my site specific performance took place in our early explorations of the Speakers’ Corner site. We were intrigued by the openness of the space, looking much like a stage, perfect for a performance or large-scale demonstration. We researched Speaker’s Corner and found that the creation of the space was “a joint project between the University of Lincoln’s Take Part Programme and the Speaker’s Corner Trust” (BBC, 2010), sited “close to where a suffragette demonstration took place nearly a century ago” (BBC, 2010). Speaker’s Corner was opened by former Labour politician Tony Benn, followed by students from the university “who were among the first people to debate at the site” (BBC, 2010). From this, we knew that the space had roots in the political, and had the potential to be even more politically charged through the right kind of performance. A quote about the opening of Speakers’ Corner said: “This will remind people that we have the right to speak.”

This was an initial eye-opener to us, as a stimulus for a performance. We considered ideas such as recreating a Suffragette Rally, but rather than using placards saying things such as ‘Votes for Women’ focusing on more contemporary issues that still oppress women today. Setting a contemporary demonstration in a place with such rich history of similar themes would echo the ghosts of those women there before us.

Works that inspired this idea included Tambellini’s BLACK ZERO (1965), which incorporated live performance, poetry and projection and had strong revolutionary and social change messages, commenting on the racial situation in America” (Beaven, 2012). Also, Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (1967), inspired by Situationist ideas, which inspired performative strikes from students across Paris. Graffiti appeared around Paris, including the line: ‘Le patron a besoin de toi, tu n’as pas besoin de lui’ (the boss needs you, you don’t need him). This in particular developed my idea around creating a contemporary Suffragette rally, and even allowed me to create an aesthetic for a possible performance:

The text on the banner would be painted on in red (connotations: blood, danger, lust, Communist red) and the balloons would be coated in newspaper clippings (adverts/tabloid headlines symbolising consumption and the public desires) – the balloons themselves, the dress and the stuffed teddy bear present the main figure in the picture to be childlike and innocent (a description of humanity under the Capitalist structure). Whilst still taking elements of a Suffragette rally such as women in the space with banners and placards, I believed a more contemporary, performative twist would bring the piece into the present day and keep it relevant with the women of Lincoln today, whilst still using palimpsest to layer histories on top of one-another.

After further research and experimentation in the space, we sat in Speakers’ Corner and discussed the layers of history, from the Suffragette rally to the present day. Many Suffragettes, after being arrested and imprisoned, went on hunger strikes as it was one of the only forms of protest available to them in a restricted environment. Hunger-striking Suffragettes were force-fed though tubes (either down the nose or throat). This idea of force-feeding and using force/restraint to make people conform reminded us of the idea Situationists discussed about consumer culture and how it is everywhere in modern day society – it is force fed to us, whether we like it or not. This link with the Suffragettes creates a powerful metaphor for people being overpowered and silenced by authority; “the boss” (like the political graffiti in the Parisian riots), in both senses of the word.

One way that we as a group observed this force-feeding of consumer culture in Speaker’s Corner is the use of neon lighting. We found neon lights on the signs for banks, euro exchange, and on the cash machines, all used as a form of advertising – you can’t look away as you can see them out of the corner of your eyes. We also discussed how neon lights are typically used on the outside of places like takeaways and even brothels/strip clubs; all of these things relate to the idea of immediate gratification. A simple transaction can give you what you want instantly, an idea that is promoted through Capitalism. We experimented with the idea of force-feeding by taping over our mouths and having another person in the group feed us, and the impact, both visually and mentally that had.

All of these places of immediate gratification, the corporate chains, and the dancing neon patterns that make up the buildings around Speaker’s Corner violently contrast with the sparse, un-kept square in the middle. From this, we decided to use exchange and transaction as a theme in our final piece. We looked into the work of Adrian Howells, and how he uses transaction in his pieces. In Salon Adrienne (2005), Howells uses dialogical transaction, giving people the opportunity to alleviate guilt, or as he says, “collective catharsis” (Howells, 2010). He allows his audience-participant to know something about him, in return for them telling him something about them.

Figure 4: Adrian Howells as Adrienne. (offwestend.com, 2013).

Howells refers to this type of performance as “confessional” (Howells, 2010), arguing this style of performance reflects the mass-mediated culture we live in. Dee Heddon discusses Howells’ work, and his transactional, one-to-one style, claiming:

“The prevalence of the One to One form and its particular dramaturgical-spectatorial structure prompts interrogation into what it means to be a literally performing spectator.” (Heddon, 2012)

This idea that through one-to-one, intimate transactions, a piece of performance art can rely just as much on the artist as it does on the audience-participant was a notion we were eager to test out. We wondered if in some way, we could blur the boundaries of performer/spectator and ease the audience-participant into a secure state of mind; we were well aware that participating in performance art in a public place would be daunting, so we wanted to be able to connect with whoever took part.

We returned to Speaker’s Corner and experimenting in the space. We did things such as eves-drop in the square and inside the shops, walk around the square picking out small details, and talk to each other from across the space; afterwards we sat and brainstormed ideas. We agreed that we still wanted to use the idea of transactions, given that the space we are in is so focused on money and exchange, yet we also agreed that rather than pinpointing our performance with the specific event of the Suffragette rally, we would look at how that event inspired the creation of Speaker’s Corner, and the intended purpose of it today; inspired by that same quote: “This will remind people that we have the right to speak” (Lincolnshire Echo, 2010).

We researched the work of Suzanne Lacy, a feminist performance artist whose work mainly revolves around women’s rights – in particular, destroying rape culture. Lacy’s Auto on the Edge of Time (1993-94) was: “A series of installations and projects that explored the effects of domestic violence as experienced by women, children and families throughout the United States. The centerpiece [sic] of the project was a collection of wrecked cars transformed by Lacy and her collaborators into sculptural testimonials on themes of escape, abuse, control, support, healing, memorializing and more.” (Lacy, 2015)

Lacy’s use of testimonials added an element of catharsis to her work, much like Howells’, giving an emotional outlet and escape to victims, whilst also displaying a powerful message to others. This form of installation really hit the nail on the head for us in our development process; we wanted to provide catharsis to people whilst also informing. We wanted to be intimate and approachable, giving them something back, whilst also reaching to a wider audience.

We experimented with using placards in the space, seeing how they looked and felt, and how people reacted to them. In terms of a reaction, most people who walked by reacted to the placard in some way. Most simply glanced at it, few stopped to read it. When people walked by us in groups, we realised we’d created a talking point; people were answering the question whether they knew it or not. They were talking about it to each other and giving answers. We wanted these ideas to be shared onto the placards during the performance, and to encourage people to delve into their emotions and share what they truly felt, emulating Howells’ style.

(Vickers, 2016) — Figure 6: Mixing shreddings with mud. (Bickerdike, 2016).

I had the idea of using the placards to also symbolize plants, as they are something that needs nurturing in order to flourish, just like people’s thoughts and emotions. We looked at Howells’ Foot Washing for the Sole (2010) where he bathes and moisturizes the audience-participant’s feet; Howells wanted people to take time out of their lives to be present, exposing their vulnerable feet and “be nurtured and to feel the emotion that brings” (Howells, 2010). In turn, we believed we should nurture the ideas given to us, as they are personal to each audience-participant. I suggested the idea of placing the placards in plant pots filled with soil, which would be watered and looked after, as the roots of that voice being shared would slowly embed into the site (we would do this by drawing chalk roots onto the floor).

Our development process was starting to come to an end, and what we were left with was the inner-workings of a performance. We just needed to perfect this idea of intimate transaction. We made the decision to make our performance a one-to-one experience, so that the audience-participant would feel more at ease and more nurtured and valued by us as artists. We had brought the piece closer to Howells, our main influence. One at a time, an audience-participant would come up to the table, sit, and make eye contact. At which point, the artist sat at the table would produce a piece of paper with the first set of instructions on it; the audience-participant reads it; they make eye contact; they are handed the question and paper/pen; they write; they are given the last set of instructions; they are given a card; they put their answer into one of the two boxes; they leave; the next person sits down, and so on.

This one-to-one experience gives the piece a much more personal feel, and delivers the idea we strove to achieve of making the audience feel connected to the piece in a deeper way, allowing them to give much more honest answers. The audience-participant feels valued and are given time away from their lives for a couple of minutes to engage in collective catharsis, just as Howells does. Mike Pearson says that those present as contributors possess “agency” (Pearson, 2010), supporting Heddon’s view that audience-participants “have the right to write and rewrite their location and, as such, to rewrite the script” (Heddon, 2007); this is the idea we wanted to create, to give the audience the freedom to shape the piece as artists themselves, blurring the boundaries, and creating an installation that could not be predicted by us. The idea of non-verbal conversations that Howells uses is also present in our piece through the use of eye contact – not only does our lack of speech and purely aural communication tell the audience we are taking a step back (this is not about us, but about them), but allows them to search deeper into themselves via an intimate experience, just like Howells’ strives to achieve in his piece The Pleasure of Being: Washing, Feeding, Holding (2011).

Performance Evaluation

Our final performance saw us set up two wooden chairs in Speakers’ Corner, facing each other. In between the tables was a wicker basket, on top of which was a jar, a hand-held shredder, paper, pens, and cards. I sat in one chair, the chair opposite remained empty for an audience-participant, with blackboards around it saying ‘please take a seat’. As an audience-participant sat down, I would hand them a piece of paper which read:

Once the audience-participant had let me know they had finished reading by making eye contact, I would then exchange that piece of paper for another that read:

They would write their answer to this question on a piece of paper and either put it in the jar to protest it, or shred it themselves. I would hand them a card with the link to a blog site on it: speakerscorner.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/about-speakers-corner. This blog site has information about Speakers’ Corner, our performance, and documentation of all the placards as a form of preservation. If an audience-participant put their answer in the jar, I would write their answer onto a placard in black ink and hand it to Chloe. Chloe’s role was to plant the placards and nurture them, watering them and slowly drawing roots coming from the plant pots onto the floor with chalk. This was an embodiment of the voices being rooted in the space. Emily’s job was using the shreds to create compost, mixing them with the mud around the planted placards, helping them to grow with the thoughts that never became words – all ideas are valuable.

I believe our performance was very successful, drawing in a large crowd of people, and gaining many audience-participants. Hearing people standing around watching our piece, many were discussing what they thought it meant; whilst some were along the right lines, others had much more elaborate ideas. We didn’t mind so much, as we knew everyone would take something different from this performance. However, if we were to repeat it, not only would we use more placards, but we’d find a way to make the message clearer to audience members not directly involved, as our goal to inspire people to use the space was not attained by all, as our piece perhaps didn’t visually convey enough information about the site it was in to a passer-by. The placards worked very well as an installation, causing people to stop and read them. The roots were visually appealing, particularly after the performance had been packed away, acting as a reminder to those who saw, and a question to those who didn’t. Here are some photos of the final performance:

(Fallon, 2016) — Figure 9: Emily close-up. Credit: Rebecca Fallon, 2016.

(Word Count: 2,641)

Works Cited

BritishCouncilArtsSg (2010) Adrian Howells . Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7btf8Tdg_s [accessed 28 March 2016].

BBC (2010) Tony Benn has officially opened Speakers’ Corner. Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/lincolnshire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8872000/8872171.stm [accessed 5 February 2016].

Beaven, K (2010) Performance Art 101: The Angry Space, politics and activism. London: Tate. Available from http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/blogs/performance-art-101-angry-space-politics-and-activism [accessed 5 February 2016].

Debord, G. (1967) Society of Spectacle. Paris: Buchet-Chastel.

Heddon, D. (2007) Autobiography and Performance: Performing Selves. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Heddon, D., Iball, H. and Zerihan, R. (2012) Come Closer: Confessions of Intimate Spectators in One to One Performance. Contemporary Theatre Review, 22(1) 120-33.

Lincolnshire Echo (2010) Speakers Corner given official new home in Lincoln’s High Street. Available from http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Freedom-speech-new-home-Lincoln-High-Street/story-11200935-detail/story.html [accessed 5 February 2016].

Offwestend.com (2013) Picture of Salon Adrienne [image]. Available from http://www.offwestend.com/index.php/plays/view/10335 [accessed 8 May 2016].

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

Speakers’ Corner Trust (2016) Identifying The Speakers’ Corner Site. Available from: http://www.speakerscornertrust.org/speakers-corner-projects/uk-projects/Lincoln/ [accessed 20 April 2016].

Tambellini, A. (1965) BLACK ZERO [performance]. New York, NY: The Bridge Theater, 15 December.