An A with no B…

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Adam Joshua Robinson

“In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.” (Debord, 1958)

Researching drifting opens up new paths for a performance, drifting suggests ways in which we can experience a site and begin to understand the various ‘little gems’ hidden throughout the landscape. I use the word ‘path’ because the step of drifting I would like to focus on most is the very first step of drifting in the ‘Handbook of drifting’ “the derive lops off the last three and short-circuits flux straight back into separation.” (Smith, 2010) The ‘Derive’ is what I would like to particularly focus on in this post as it is the one word I could not understand without research and really exploring its meaning.

First I’d like to begin with explaining the ‘Derive’ using my own definition in the Mythogeography text it talks of the Derive interrupting a rite of passage and then goes on about separation and integration and creates a very complex sentence without any example and so I shall use an example. Take a rite of passage such as Baptism, firstly the person must purge all other faiths and beliefs (Separation), secondly said person must then question whether they are willing to accept the beliefs of Christianity (Flux in Liminal Space), Finally the person undergoes the ceremony and accepts everything to be thrust back into that community (Re-intergration). The purpose of the ‘Derive’ is disruption, to allow for the purge but prevent re-intergration, to leave you in a constant flux leading back into separation, the place you were with no sort out end, ‘An A with no B’.

An A with no B, The places you discover.

It is with a sense of security and an unawareness of boundaries that you achieve understanding drifting and in particular walking without knowing where you’re going. In a twist, it would seem that the Derive has a deeper understanding with life itself, we never know where our B is until we get there. Site Specific just seems to use this to realise life as a performance.

References:

Debord, G. (1958). Theory of the Derive (Debord). [online] Available at: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.html [Accessed: 12 Feb 2014].

Smith. P. (2010). The Handbook Of Drifiting. Mythogeography : A Guide To Walking Sideways. 118- 121.

The Found and the Fabricated.

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Samantha Milne

During the second session in the Grandstand, I was given the task by Michael to sketch out the areas of the site that we had been exploring last week. I took this opportunity to also draw some of the areas that were given less attention but still have a lot of character and performance potential. The drawings are a bird’s eye view of the specific area which highlights important/characteristic features that possibly interact with the site’s history and narrative in one way or another. ‘The real power of site-specific work is that it somehow activates, or engages with, the narratives of the site in some kind of way. That might be with its formal architecture, or it might be with the character of the building. It might be to do with the history of that building. (McLucas, quoted in Morgan, 1995, p. 47) in (Pearson, 2010, p. 35)

I felt that sketching the site and focusing on the architecture of the building was extremely helpful towards my further knowledge and understanding of the site as a whole. I found myself thinking and imagining about how the individual spaces would have been used in the past in comparison to how they are used now; picturing scenes of wartime and horseracing events, casting inspiration from many of the architectural features. ‘Site may directly suggestive of a subject-matter, theme, dramatic structure: it will always be apparent as context, framing, subtext’ (Pearson, in Pearson and McLucas, no dates, p.7) in (Pearson, 2010, p. 35)

References

Morgan, R (1995) Y llyfyr Glas; Brith Gof 1988-95. Cardiff: Brith Gof.

Pearson, M (2010) Site Specific Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillian.

My reaction to the specific site.

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Charlie Hewett

It’s true that, upon visiting the grandstand for the first time, I knew nothing about it. It was exactly for this reason that I tried to stop myself from creating ideas to use for the assessment and it became clear that even though I hadn’t heeded my own advice, I should have.

What I imagined I would feel from the inside of the building was: death, loss, fall from grace etc. when in reality it is fairly welcoming when you get used to how empty it is. In stark contrast to the silence, rust and forbidden areas of the outside the inside seems to stubbornly hold onto it’s former glory.

It is the contrast that I am now most interested in. I would be very happy if I could come up with an aesthetically interesting performance which reflects the Inside/outside, cold/warm, old/new feeling that being in and around the Grandstand gives me

Drifting Around – A account into last week’s meet

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Kieren Davies

After last week’s session, we got into small groups of 4. My group consisted of Katherine, Adam and Kent. Our task was to explore the space for a allotted amount of time and to use our bodies to highlight a otherwise unnoticed part of the building, adapted from the work of Willi Dorner who used brightly clothed human participants to fill a otherwise forgotten area of the space they were in. In our search we saw the back of the building had some fairly rusty fences. We used our arms to lean off these to create a shape of a crucifix with our body in a sense. Our next task was to then actually move this inside the Grandstand Building.

In our group we found the back room, where there was these magnificent steel pillars inside. For our second group task we had to incorporate us hanging off the fence into this room we had chosen. The Handbook of Drifting, by Phil Smith, was our reading this week and as a group we decided to incorporate this theme into the performance piece we had to make.

We all chose a starting position that would have kept us part of the room we were in. I chose to drape my arms around the pillar, facing the cold steel. Our intent for this short performance piece was to incorporate the actual rules of drifting and to only abide by the rules that it dictated. We chose certain rules such as “picking a theme” something you can stick to whilst doing this piece by searching for sharp angles or by thinking about something and then immediately doing it letting your body dictate to you where you go and how you get there. Sensitisation as well was a interesting one as you had to concentrate, at least for me. As you walk around the room you hear the breathing patterns of the audience that came to watch, the footsteps my fellow performers took. One part included me looking out of the windows in the room the sunlight was extremely bright this morning we were there and my eyes squinted a little.

I used one of these rules in particular which was ‘Don’t be satisfied with irony – insist on double inauthenticity (Smith, 2010 p.120) This spoke to me purely because it says to not conform to what is comfortable to you in a performance aspect. To merely be satisfied with how you think rationally and not to think outside the box on a project this big is foolish, in my own opinion. By being inauthentic however does that mean we are purposefully going to try deceive or counterfeit our audience about the site we are in? I’m still thinking how putting something inauthentic in Grandstand would serve any purpose but another question arises in my head in does works of art that are spurious and devoid of concept truly considered weak? I appear to be rambling but again it’s a thought in process.

(Sorry Katherine)

Of course after doing the performance I hadn’t actually realised what I did. It took me until yesterday to truly feel like I had build the foundation to make a connect with the site building itself. A very vague thought I understand, but in a piece where you don’t speak and only allow yourself to walk and think you do gets you to think and react.

I also, upon first gaze have completely became enamoured with this stunning fireplace in the room we did our performance. “Per Ardua Ad Astra”, a rough translation apparently is “through adversity to the stars” which is the RAF’s motto is written over the main fireplace, and upon further questioning Michael informed us of the RAF past that the Grandstand actually had. I thought I was excited when I found out a morgue was planned to be build at the Grandstand but the military past it has is outstanding.

I have much more to post about the location at a later date, as I need to gather my sources together as well as upload these images I captured of the place to give me thoughts on the architecture.

References:

Phil Smith. (2010). The Handbook Of Drifiting. Mythogeography : A Guide To Walking Sideways. 118- 121.

Response, creation and site: discussing space through authorship

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Linford Leslie Butler

Butler, L. (2013) ‘The Grandstand, Lincoln’. [electronic print] Available at: http://lncn.eu/ft37 [Accessed 06 February 2014].

Last Friday we had, as a group, our first opportunity to visit and explore the Grandstand. Exploring this new site for the first time without objectives could have been a difficult experience, attempting to make sense of the space without any framework within which to do so. Michael’s suggestion, to consider the spaces we explored and to author a series of almost free-written accounts, documenting our initial reactions to some of the smaller spaces within the main Grandstand building, was a useful way of entering into dialogue between oneself and the site.

Miwon Kwon has identified how conceptual perception of site has changed “from a physical location […] to a discursive vector” (Kwon, 2004, pp. 29-30), and it is this idea of the exploration of site as a discursive process which I discovered on my first visit. As a way of exploring and reacting to the site, I engaged in the creation of small texts, through which I “told as a distribution of stories and dramatic episodes” (Lorimer, 2006, p. 515) my engagement with the Grandstand as a site. Through a process of responsive creation, I became capable of holding in stasis the process of feed-and-feedback which existed in those fleeting moments between site (its structure, history, context) and self. The space gave information which I interpreted through sense – sight, sound, smell, touch; what Fiona Wilkie calls “site as story-teller” (Wilkie, 2002, p. 158) – becoming a “space of encounter” (Wilkie, 2008, p. 101) which I in turn engaged with, closing that feedback system through my “personal account of experience and of place” (Pearson, 2010, p. 15), in the form of these short textual responses.

I thought I would share those initial accounts as it may be helpful at points throughout my personal process of discovery to refer back to those first thoughts, unadulterated by expectation or research, that I had during my exploration of the Grandstand. Equally, they may help others to augment their own responses to the Grandstand, encouraging engagement with the site, either through the validity they might find in the correlations between my thoughts and theirs, or the challenge my reply to the site might pose to theirs if significantly different. The following are reproduced verbatim from my original response.

The Main Hall

Rough and ready. Plastic chairs stacked in a corner, no system, ready for use whenever. Lights hang from chains and, occasionally, a flicker. Scuffs to paintwork and chipped skirting boards. Battered steel pillars, engraved “PORTER & CỌ LINCOLN”. Rough, tactile brickwork exposed to become a ‘feature’. Electric heaters crudely affixed to walls; a warm pool of orange glow.

The Bar

Darkness – all I see is by the light cast through the door I lean against to hold open. A musty, unused smell. No longer a bar but a storeroom, children’s entertainment replacing the liquid of adult entertainment. Walls and metal grilles imprison things. An old triangle to call “time, gentlemen, please”, oddly out of place now.

The Cleaner’s Cupboard

Cold metal storage containers, ladders, padlocks, a Jewson spade, “Back Britain, Buy British”, the cleaning rota, whitewash, paint, bulbs, a small bingo game, air freshener, chemicals, a fan, a bucket containing some murky water, pine gel, Henry the Hoover, “Christmas Decorations, Do Not Move”, an alarm procedure entirely in CAPS LOCK.

Caretakers Office

Oddly hidden away, out of site – how does the caretaker oversee their kingdom? Perhaps a convenient place to slip away for some shut-eye; it might explain the pillows and the blankets. Ordered and organised but not ‘lived in’. An unloved, functional place. Two visitor chairs, keys in a box on the wall, labelled by number. Notice: “IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE THURSDAY AFTER LITTLE MONKEYS THAT THE BINS ARE TAKEN OUT OF BIN STORE.”

Corridor

People passing through, more useless objects with nowhere to be kept stored here. A small sticker on a door: “Warning: Contains Asbestos.”

References

Kwon, M. (2004) One Place After Another. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lorimer, H. (2006) Herding memories of humans and animals, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 24, 497-518.

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

Wilkie, F. (2002) Archaeologies of memory: Mike Pearson’s Bubbling Tom. Unpublished paper.

Wilkie, F. (2008) The production of “site”: Site-Specific Theatre. In: Holdsworth, N. and Luckhurt, M. (eds.) Contemporary British and Irish Drama. Oxford: Blackwell.

The Grandstand Project

A site specific performance at the Grandstand in Lincoln

Monthly Archives: February 2014