Pervasive Media

Pervasive media is “any experience that uses sensors and/or mobile/wireless networks to bring you content (film, music, images, a game…) that’s sensitive to your situation” (Pervasive Media Studio, 2015) The Pervasive Media Studio is a community of artists and creative companies who explore using technology and art to create an experience.

‘Shadowing’ by Jonathon Chomko and Matthew Rosier is a piece that I found particularly relevant to our performance ideas. Although we may not have the same access or experience of the technology used the piece seems to be communicating an important and similar message to our own…

http://www.watershed.co.uk/pmstudio/project/shadowing

compressing time into a single space”

technology is often used to drive us in different directions and onto different paths. [Shadowing] stops people for a moment to think about the same old street but in a different way

Nothing Happens Here Apart From Us?

“Nothing happens here apart from us” an interesting quote that a group member overheard in Castle Square during our second week of Site Specific; this was something that had stuck in our minds from the beginning.

Developing the quote further we started to think of ideas about how we could present the space back to the audience. We wanted to show the audience how much the space is used by us all and to make them think- what would the space be without us?

The first thing to enable us to emerge further with this idea was to pick a space. After a lot of thought and consideration we believed that choosing a prime location was key. Studying and analysing the areas of Steep Hill enabled us to recognise its busiest locations. Choosing a busy location would allow us to present the space back to a bigger audience.

Castle Square appeared to be the most populated area, as it is central to some of Lincoln’s main attractions. Presenting our piece here will capture a larger audience.

Nothing Happens Here Apart From Us

After taking inspiration from the comment Charlie overheard during a workshop a few weeks ago- ‘nothing happens here apart from us’- and using ideas of documentation and pervasive media, my group and I have had a very positive week beginning to put together and experiment with our ideas and have decided to rather than create a performance in our chosen site, use our site as the performance. We are going to be heavily reliant on technology and gathering evidence over the next few weeks is crucial as ‘sometimes the performance will only exist through its documentation’[i].

As well as looking into companies who have used time, ‘layers’ of performance and accidental participants in their work, such as; ‘Uninvited Guests’ I have also looked into some photographers to see if any work generated new ideas for us as to how we can use photography to help communicate our message.

Attached are a few images that I think my group and I could look into further and experiment with creating our own versions of…

Blog Post 4 2 Blog Post 4Blog Post 4 3

[i] Lavery, C 2005, Teaching Performance Studies: 25 instructions for performance in citie.‘ Studies in Theatre and Performance, Vol. 25, No. 3, p 233.

Most watched nation

As we get on with our lives we forget about the fact that we are being watched via CCTV cameras dotted around our own towns. Do people realise that there are cameras? If they do would they act differently in the space? What would be the factors that would change the way people acted in a space; Weather? Time of day? A more obvious act of filming?

To enhance our knowledge of space and behaviour it would mean undertaking a lengthy proccess studying the space and people. It would also only be fair to study expected variables that might change the results. Spaces can be transformed from empty connections for destinations, to a lively bustling loaction that has become a destination. A space can coax families or couples as a resting place, or be a loaction for workmen to carry out their duties. People that pass through the space might have a life long connection to it, having lived there most of their lives, but will not pay attention to their surroundings on a daily basis. On the other hand it can be a site for tourists that will see everything in great detail, as they might not ecounter it again. What behaviour will set these people apart?

From walking around Lincoln, apperaing as tourists, a group member overheard a local man say “Nothing happens here apart from us.” as if to imply it’s a waste of time looking around this patch. It’s easy for local people to become used to their surroundings and see the ‘attractions’ as more of a practical thing or nothing that special. By saying that nothing happens there apart from them, he is suggesting that all the community do is simply live, when in fact it is because of them living that the place thrives. They are a crucial, relevant component in making the space what it is, without them the space becomes nothing.

Maybe if we linked both notions of CCTV and ‘nothing happening’ in the space we can inflict a healthy reflection on the people that they are important.

Our group intend to study and relfect a site using modern technologies, over the next few weeks we will mimick the CCTV camera located in a prime area of Lincoln using timelapses.

 

 

First Initial Ideas

After we decided our groups, we got working on ideas.  The idea that all our group decided on was an audio walk on the mythology that surrounds the Cathedral.  For example we had an idea of calling it Creepy face and Cobwebs, as they were the main factors of the cathedral that we were exploring, as we were interested in uncovering the dark side of the Cathedrals history.  However we fount out that an outside company already includes our story in a Ghost Walk around the Cathedral three times, a week therefore we decided not to compete with an established product.

We changed our idea a couple of weeks later, as we are interested in looking at the space of Castle Square and how the public use it as its a very central spot.  Finally in these weeks we’ve been collecting and taking time lapse footage and photos of castle square that shows how people use it.  We plan to show Conan and the class this footage when we have to present our idea in a couple of weeks time.