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Finding the Path

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On Wednesday, 2 of us from our group started to put the basic ideas together for our piece however, we found it difficult to formulate our ideas for our sites especially Pottersgate, even though we were passionate to have it in our piece. I discounted the idea of people marking their names in Pottersgate and came up with the proposal whereby the audience use chalk to mark the pavement with a feeling or a memory and then scrub it away as though wiping it from their memory; that way, they start the walk with a fresh mind and a new beginning. This idea was enhanced by an inspired thought from my lecturer who suggested we do something similar to Sand Mandala sculptures.

My notes on Sand Mandala sculptures:

  • Kalachakra Mandala made out of coloured sand
  • Created in 3 weeks
  • This is a lesson about the impermanence of life
  • Practitioners use mandala to visualise in meditation the steps along the path of enlightenment.
  • Kalachakra means ‘wheels of time’.

Source: http://www.buddhanet.net/kalimage.htm

* The key things I picked out are in bold.

We have designed our performance so that we progress around 3 areas in the vicinity of the Cathedral which are Pottersgate, St Anne’s Well and the Cathedral garden. The idea of a pilgrimage came to mind however, we did not want our piece to be regarded as religious although this would be understandable with Lincoln Cathedral looming around us! so, I decided to ascertain the definition of the word ‘pilgrim’.

Oxford Dictionary definitions:

  • A person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.
  • A person travelling to a place of particular personal interest.
  • Chiefly literary a person regarded as journeying through life.

Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/pilgrim

 

* In bold are the key things I picked out.

 

Having looked at the definitions of the word pilgrim, I liked the idea of our piece being an adventure of personal interest whereby the performance is unfolding a story and that the meaning of the walk will be told at the end of it; it will be very similar to a learning walk.

 

Psychological Connectedness

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It’s interesting to look at the perception of each and every person and how one can change their perception, as well as how perceptions can change from one person to another. However do we truly think about how this may affect someone else? It is shown that people are more likely to care when the decisions that they make influence others, they feel connected as well as having a sense of empowerment.

In day to day life it is interesting to take a step back and look around at what others do, do they follow their friends? Or make their own decisions? Do they follow their parents? Or make up their own minds? Are they allowed to explore their own fields in which they are interested? Or are their paths laid out to them as a guide but they follow strictly afraid to take a chance?

Psychological connectedness is a form built between different people, it could be between similarity’s in their beliefs, minds, memories, experiences, likes, dislikes, anything in which is found similar to each person where they can ‘connect’ on the matter. Psychological connectedness is especially important when thinking about the times where people felt alone, where they had the belied their was no one their for them. However with this connection the small experiences shared gather a group or even just two people and allow them to share this time, this sequence or this moment together and therefore allow them to have this shared moment as a memory forever. (Li and Zhang, 2014)

Taking this into account, I would like our audio game to empower people, to make those who feel alone feel connected in some way. Therefore the connection will be in the moments where groups of people gather together or join to do the same task, such as looking up, or joining in the same area, running across the same paths etc. The idea of strangers creating a memory together and maybe forming a relationship through this short connection shows how easy it for us all to talk to each other, to interact, however we should question why we don’t!

Li, X. and Zhang, M. (2014) The Effects of Heightened Physiological Needs on Perception of Psychological Connectedness. Journal of Consumer Research, 41 (4) 1078-1079.

First Initial Ideas

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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.

Potter’s mystery and Queen Anne’s legend

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After some discussion, my group and I decided to organise a walk from Pottergate to the garden in Lincoln Cathedral which involved completing some tasks on route. One such task would involve a stop at Queen Anne’s Well (https://flic.kr/p/qQ4o7N), to perform the ritual which, according to legend, entails having to walk round it 7 times and then stick a finger in one of 6 holes in the door; a good person will feel the devil’s breath on their finger whereas a bad person will have their finger bitten off. When I tried this out today, I didn’t have a finger bitten off, so I rank myself as a good person. (Paranormal Database, 2014).
We were all of the opinion that it would spice up our walk if we were to pay homage to the numerous legends and folklore associated with the area between Pottergate and the Cathedral garden and that performing this physical ritual would add more interest to it. This was only one of many ideas we had but it led us to look more closely into the history of Pottergate only to find there is very little published about it. I delved into Nickolas Pevsner and John Harris’ book The Buildings of England; Lincolnshire, to discover that Potter’s gate stretched from the south east to the north east corners of uphill Lincoln near the cathedral and that the “stairway in the SW corner, now represented by the polygonal torrent,… allowed communications between the upper chamber and the gate hall” (Nicholas Antram, 1995, 484). This photo (https://flic.kr/p/r9UG9e) shows the tunnel which was used by those inside the city walls to shout down to those waiting at the gate.

Our discussions then led us to the idea that of course it was all about communication as it was one of the entrances into the city and people would have been obliged to state their business before being allowed in. On closer inspection, there has clearly been some vandalism over the years inside the arch of Potter’s gate such as this (https://flic.kr/p/r9LZrL) which was marked 1895. There are markings dating from 1895 to 2010 which just goes to show how our desire to make our ‘mark’ in history continues to fascinate us and that ‘old habits die hard’. Beth and I collected the markings so we can read and show how diverse they are (https://flic.kr/p/rrn5up). Doing this prompted us to come up with the idea of starting our walk at Potters gate and inviting people to add their ‘mark’ to it by sticking a post it onto the archway; we linked this to the manhole covers we saw inscribed with “post office” and “telegraph” which are also another form of communication. Rather than sticking notes on to the arch’s walls, our tutor came up with the idea of having a big piece of wood which people could sign before they started their walk; we decided this was a much preferred idea that allowed people to make their ‘mark’ without causing any damage to the building.

Work Cited:

Paranormal Database (2014) Lincoln. [online] UK: Paranormal Database. Available from: http://www.paranormaldatabase.com/hotspots/lincoln.php?pageNum_paradata=0&totalRows_paradata=30 [Accessed 2 March 2015].

Antram, N. (eds) (1995)The Buildings of England. Lincolnshire. London: Penguin.

Don’t worry be happy :)

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SAM_1327

 

 

 

 

Hi everyone!

Haven’t blogged in a while and I think it’s about time I did. So since the Blog I posted last, I’ve been a busy bee with my group (Georgia, Beth & Luke). We have started to explore some of our new ideas and theories as well as learning more about local folk tales and legends associated with uphill lincoln especially with Pottergate as well as the secret garden.

Some of the sessions we have explored uphill have developed our readings further by physically doing some of the tasks, tours & movements that have come from many of the weekly set readings. One I enjoyed was a set list of tasks that was given to everyone as a group by Rachel to do three things that would affect the space without physically damaging private & public property. Finally I can say i’ve performed as a tree in Lincoln, something that people think drama students do in their degree for three years.
The picture I’ve attached on to this post was taken a couple of weeks ago as part of the set tasks given to us by Rachel. With this quote I feel it was the right thing to put up as the day we wrote the quotes it was pouring down with rain. In all fairness our quote paper wasn’t respected or appreciated as much as we would like. An elderly lady thought we were littering the bushes and trees with paper, I think if she had asked why were we doing this project  I feel we could of brighten her day saying we were creating performance art for all to enjoy.
For now i’m going to look up who owns Pottersgate to see if we can explore the room/s inside the archway gate.
Thanks