‘Am I purposefully lost in space, trying to get my bearings?’
–
Yes would have definitively been the answer before the session in week three. Now I only answer yes with some hesitancy, as I feel as if the space is starting to reveal it’s self to us, revealing it’s history, charm, struggle, loneliness, helplessness, willing and needs. As each one of these rounds the bend an canters into sight, it feels as if we are that much closer to understanding how we can draw attention to the things that the site speaks of, for it does speak, to each of us individually, instructing our decisions on performance whether consciously or not.
–
‘As I move around do I leave marks: ‘to walk is to leave footprints’ (Roms, quoted in Whitehead, 2006, p. 4)’
–
At risk of sounding like I am calling my classmates to arms, I will say that I feel that we are, on our journey, leaving ‘footprints’ and impressions on the site and the people who inhabited it long before we did. From things as little as a mother from the playgroup placing her hand on a pillar directly where a post-it note had resided the day before and wondering why it is sticky, to the memory the man walking his terriers will have of half of the group clambering along the railings of the courtyard area, to the litter which we may leave in the bins on a weekly basis, to a stray balloon making its way onto the sixth hole’s putting green. The final footprint we will leave, though, will be the performance, and as I grow more and more attached to the site, I feel that it is our duty, and my right to make known to others what the site has to offer today, and what it has offered in the past.
–
‘What are the circumstances of my presence? Am I a stranger or an inhabitant? Do I pass unnoticed or do I stick out? Are my actions clandestine or do I draw attention to myself?’
–
The answers to all of these questions will change the longer I spend time at the site, however, I feel that after reading Govan’s ‘Inhabited Spaces’ and ‘Architectural Spaces and the Haptic’, it wouldn’t be wise to forget that spectators will be asking themselves these questions and, at that time, will be reaching near opposite conclusions to us. Yi-Fu Tuan said that, ‘architectural space reveals and instructs’, with the suggestion that a cathedral (the building and parts thereof) becomes a symbol for the values it projects. In this light, whether the grandstand projects to us a feeling of loss, dilapidation, renovation, rejuvenation, hope, sorrow, misery, heartache, former glory or boredom, it is not a given fact that a spectator will see the same, meaning a performance with a high level of ambiguity is surely out of the question? The Grotowski example, which is provided in ‘Inhabited Spaces’, created a living environment in which spectators joined in, is this the way to draw an audience to the point of realising the subject and motive? The Reckless Sleepers example used the incongruity of an industrial backing and lavish tables dressed in period banquet style to heighten the irony of the space, is this a possibility to provide a clear subject and motive? Or, do we look at this another way, do we want to be so ambiguous that the audience can draw their own conclusions? Is it an idea to ask in some way what exactly they got from the performance? Do we want our audience to feel every single emotion of alienation and the feeling they’re intruding or that they simply don’t belong?.
–
‘Who am I and what am I doing?’
[Answer to follow shortly]
–
References:
Govan, Emma (2007) Making a Performance. Coxon: Routledge P114-119.
Pearson, M. (2010) Site-Specific Performance. Palgrave Macmillan: London. P19.