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 5th 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.