Pervasive Media

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Brittany Hine

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

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Brittany Hine

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…

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

Week 3: Performance

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Brittany Hine

In ‘The Performativity of Performance Documentation’[i] Philip Auslander explores the various ways ‘performance’ and ‘performance documentation’ may be interpreted and classified. He begins by categorising performance documentation into either documentary or theatrical and then gives many examples of both.

Auslander deeply explores the possibilities and complexities of using ‘photographs’ and ‘performed photography’ as a method of performance documentation, with focus on Vito Acconci’s ‘Photo- Piece’ (1969) as it questions the ‘relationship between performance and documentation’(ibid. p.4). This piece gave me ideas of using time-lapse photographs and studying the possibilities of performing at particular times of the day.

This week I also listened to a few of the podcasts from Fuel Theatre Company’s ‘Everyday Moments’ Project as it combines elements of both site-specific and one-on-one theatre. A podcast was released once a month through the course of 2011, each by a different artist and designed to be listened to at a certain time and place, ranging from on top of a hill at sunrise to in an express supermarket at 5:30pm.

Adrian Howell’s podcast was intended to be listened to in the morning with a hot drink. The 9-minute long soundscape uses the sound effects of rain, clock chimes, breathing and background radio news and classical music to create a momentary setting with a feeling of peace and relaxation. Although this piece (like a few others in the series) does not include any kind of ‘narration’ I felt that no sense of the piece being ‘personal’ was lost as the sound effects and obvious presence of Howells was enough for the listener to be able to envision and appreciate themselves in a certain moment.

[i] Auslander, P (2006) ‘The Performativity of Performance Documentation’

Week 2

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Brittany Hine

Drifting, or ‘meandering’ is becoming ‘increasingly unfamiliar and regarded as aimless and wasting-time’[i] However, whilst strolling ‘one becomes aware of suburban details and social space.’ (Jones, 2010, p.87) During my own experience of ‘drifting’ this week I certainly became more aware of the architecture, history and atmosphere of our given site.

In Pearson’s chapter ‘Models and Approaches’[ii] he highlights the multiple ways in which one can experience and be inspired by a specific site, both as a performer and ‘audience’ member. The chapter made me think about the history of Lincoln, and the different perceptions and memories each individual will have towards the same site as ‘land itself is not regarded as separate from the lived experience’ (Pearson, 2010, p.19). I was interested by Claire Blundell Jones’ ‘Walking, the Western and the tumbleweed’ and the way she uses ‘drifting’ as a performance to ‘create a new playful space between themselves and the unsuspecting audience, who can potentially begin to imagine alternatives in their local environment’ (Jones, 2010, p.87)

The line ‘each surviving doorway was once entered, each window once looked through’ (Pearson, 2010, p.24) was my primary stimuli of inspiration whilst taking photographs around the top of the hill…

Whilst looking through my photographs I also spotted the Latin words ‘pereunt et imputantur’ on one of the sides of the Cathedral walls, which means “They (hours) pass away and are reckoned on (our) account”. This reminded me of Duncan Speakman’s audio walk ‘As If It Were The Last Time’ and again made me consider using audio or creating some sort of ‘spiritual journey’ (also similar to Robert Wilson’s ‘Walking) in our own performances around the Cathedral.

[i] Jones, Claire Blundell(2010) ‘Walking, the Western and the tumbleweed’, Visual Studies, 25: 1, p. 87-88

[ii] Pearson, M, Site Specific Performance (Basingtone: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)

Week 1

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Brittany Hine

Pearson[i] describes calling site specific performance ‘that undertaken in non-theatrical spaces’ as ‘barely adequate’ (Pearson, 2010, p.66) and after my first week studying this module I have already realised just how accurate this description is. This week’s introductory workshops have demonstrated to us the vast amount of possibilities and complexities the experimentation with ‘site’ provides.

After practising Duncan Speakman’s ‘subtle mob’ outside the LPAC and watching a clip on his sound-walk piece “As If It Were The Last Time” I did some further research into the development and planning of this moving piece and learnt about the possible positive effects site specific performance can have upon participants and passers-by – with one Londoner saying how it had made them feel like they were in ‘a movie’. This research has also made me consider the possibilities of using audio in our own performances.

Furthermore, I also looked into the reading ‘Theatre and Architecture’[ii] that highlights how the relationship between architecture and theatre is often overlooked but for French Theatre Director Jacques Copeau ‘architecture is the most fundamental aspect of theatre’ (Harvie and Rebellato, 2015, p.2). As most of our possible sites are located close to many grand pieces of architecture e.g. The Cathedral, The Castle, The Gates etc I felt that this is a relationship that should be considered as we have the opportunity to incorporate these architectural pieces into our own performances; perhaps being influenced by their historical context, using them for aesthetic inspiration or for creating atmosphere. The extract also explains how we should consider that the site’s architecture may ‘establish a certain social code’ (ibid. p.5) and when staging a site specific performance it is also ‘about acting in architecture… it demands we pay attention to distance, scale, style… light, heat and sound’.(ibid. p.3/4)

Finally, after Wednesday’s workshop I was eager to look into more of Christo and Jeanne –Claude’s work and found this piece which I found particularly astonishing and worth sharing.

‘Wrapped Coast’

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia
1968-69

[i] Pearson, M, Site Specific Performance (Basingtone: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)

[ii] Jen Harvie and Dan Rebellato, Theatre and Architecture, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

The top of the hill

Documentation from a Site Specific Performance Project in Lincoln, UK (2015)

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