Tag Archives: Lincoln

Now you see me, now you don’t!

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The first lesson of Site Specific Performance was pretty daunting to me, especially with the given tasks of understanding such a broad subject. A subtle flash mob was first on the agenda, and the last thing I expected, during which I became less conscious of myself and more aware of what, where, how and who was in my surroundings.

A particular quest took my attention during my time, in what I thought was a familiar space. ‘An escape to the roof’. I began looking for ways in which I thought my small body could clamber up to what I first envisaged as safety. I looked for a stepping stone pattern, a secret stair case (in case I hadn’t noticed one before!) and objects that I could move towards the walls to make me tall enough. I drew a blank. I gave up and went on to take a picture of ‘an endless horizon’ which made me look at edges and lines of buildings where the sky met them. Suddenly through the camera lens everything changed, the Library that seemed so tall and void to my project became a miniature playground for my NEW legs… my fingers! The escape to the roof was no longer about being safe, it was about having fun. Without my camera perspective, who would have known?

escape to the roof

The outcome I was so busy looking for was right under my nose, and arrived through divine intervention. In The Place of the Artist Govan explains that ‘Within contemporary performance, site-related work has become an established practice where an artist’s intervention offers spectators new perspectives upon a particular site or set of sites.’ (Govan, 2007, p.121) which was thought provoking; an artist’s intervention doesn’t simply have to be showing someone a new way of looking at something, it can be made through suggestion, timing and a sort of planned, hopeful coincidence of recognition.

A new found perspective can be continued through art. A new found favourite, and relevant, artist in mind is Slinkachu. Slinkachu is an artist that creates everyday tableaus of life size backgrounds with miniature people, here’s a few examples to enjoy!

lochness-slinkachu

slinkachu-damn-kids-01

http://slinkachu.com/little-people

Govan, E. Et al (2007) Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices London and New York: Routledge

 

 

 

 

Geographical locations are exciting!

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This module wasn’t one that I was completely looking forward to I will admit. As I didn’t have a full understanding of what ‘site specific performance’ was, but after the Mike Pearson reading and the introduction to Site from Rachel; who is obviously passionate and experienced in the topic gave me confidence it would not be as bad as I had first anticipated.

In the introduction of Mike Pearson’s book Site Specific Performance, he describes and outlies what Site Specific Performance is and how many practitioners have different approaches and methods of practicing Site Specify Performance. Pearson uses Fiona Wilkes’ words here to show how non-theatre venues provide “an enquiry into what theatre is and might be” It also incorporates ‘a set of productive special metaphors, whereby practitioners use their focus on geographical space to explore a range of theoretical conceptual, political and virtual spaces” (Pearson, 2010, pg. 9)

I thought that this quote was relevant to the task we were given in the workshop, which was to create a subtle mob which we as a group were to perform but were also given individual tasks to follow. I found that the task reflected the idea of geographical space in relation to a theatrical space, which is interesting as at the top of the sheet we were given was the geographical location in full alongside the co-ordinates of the space outside the LPAC, Library and The Engine Shed. We then used this specific location to create our subtle mob. The idea of having a very specific location down to the geographical co-ordinates of say a five by five meter space is interesting to me, as it is so exact and confined yet it could be out in a large open space. So the idea of playing around with an extremely specific space is appealing to me and I am now really looking forward to our next workshop up at Castle Square.

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

First ever site blog

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Firstly hello everyone!!

This is my first ever time writing a blog, guess I better get started. I experienced my first Site Specific seminar on Monday, and I’m not going to lie I wasn’t really looking forward to it. However after reading the introduction of Site Specific performance by Mike Pearson got me thinking that any place in the world could be a performance.

A quote that I liked from the reading was ‘the play-as-event belongs to the space, and makes the space perform as much as it makes actors perform’ (Wiles, 2003, p.1).

Within the seminar we as a group were set a task outside the lincoln performing arts centre, to see how we as performers would react with set rules. The start of site specific module had really begun. From people watching to trying remain invisible. Yes I did say invisible? When I first read that on the piece of paper Rachel (our tutor) had given us I had no clue how to become invisible. Having bright pink hair is a dead give away of where I was, so my only chance of hiding went out of the window.

But towards the end of this task as a group we naturally all ended up being tall and staring at the LPAC sign, while doing this other students were starting to look to see what we were looking at. Then I realised we had done the start of a performance!! It was that easy.

Well I think I’m going to enjoy this module. Ideas have already started rolling around in my head. For now I’m looking forward to exploring more of lincoln on Monday.

Bye x

Wiles, D. (2003) A Short History of Western Performance Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Perspectives, The Abyss and Uncertainty

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Perspectives change the way people view things. Each person has their own perspective which can be moulded by nature, nurture, situation and maybe just how they were feeling in that moment. A perspective could differ from one person to the other, but on the other hand they could overlap and have interlocking themes but without being the same. For example, someone could look at a tree and see a home for birds and another person could see a place to shade themselves from the sun. Two opposite perspectives are linked through the tree being used as protection.

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Using this thought and the instructions I was given, ‘A place where you can stare at an endless horizon’ and ‘An abyss to fall in’, I took this picture. The picture shows a seemingly endless overcast sky. The horizon stretches across buildings and beyond, and once I took this picture I could see an abyss, a vast open space where anyone could easily fall into. I tied in perspectives by taking the photo at an angle, this makes it seem like the buildings were further away than they actually were. By flipping the image,

IMG_0986[1]

the idea of an abyss is more prominent than in the original. The black ledge, now at the bottom of the photo, could be viewed as a platform to jump from into the unknown mass of cloud; again it is down to how a person chooses to view the image.

Coming from a ‘straight acting’ background, the idea of site specific performance is daunting and challenging. Overcoming the fear and unease of the unfamiliar will be the major obstacle for myself over the coming months, but by opening my mind to view my surroundings and course with different perspectives will allow me to become more open minded as an actress.

Space as a whole has more meaning to it.

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As this module starts to unravel  itself it has be shown that  a Site Specific  such as the city centre or just the university campus has shown to be more than just a space of work,  but a place of discovery and experimenting to make the site more interesting than a site of education. When I mean ‘a place of discovery’ I mean it is a habitation of testing boundaries with the community as said by Mike Pearson author of Site Specific Performance. For me from what Mike Pearson has written and my understanding of the introduction of Site Specific it “engages intensively with the history and politics of that place, and with the resonance of these in the present” (Pearson, 2010, 10) so to bring the vitality of rediscovering the place and why it’s there and how it came to be. From doing a practice of ‘subtle mob’ as a little experience of site specific, where we as a group was given some instructions, it was a bit scary at first, but it was a great way of bringing us into the world of Site Specific and it was fun to watch a the public reactions with what we were doing and how they were triggered by our actions such as “find a raised point to stand and wait for others to join you.” So when I started that task I stepped on to some sort of cement block and looked at the LPAC sign (on university campus) and people gathered which caused some curiosity. Site Specific seems for me right now,  is based on community involvement and a joining people together with a fresh look of a particular site which triggered the imagination to rediscover the site in a new way and all this based on people’s curiosity.

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Rachel Baynton Group  (2015) Subtle Mob [performance] Lincoln: Lincoln Campus, 28th January.