- How people behave differently when they think they're part of an experiment or being watched
This idea came out of lots of our research areas, the way that in amongst all these experiements and the like, what was we noticed was never really raised or considered was the very fact that the participants could have been acting differently due to their awareness or self-awareness of being apart of the experiment. Part of this self-conciousness could come from the feeling of being judged or tested, as demonstrated in the conformity experiment in my previous post, but what might be interesting to explore would be how people are aware of themselves depending on their environment, such as whether it changes in a private space, a public space or a performative space.
- Fourth Plinth
Andrew Gormely's Fourth Plinth project, inviting members of the public to occupy a plinth in Trafalgar Square for an hour to do whatever they pleased. What was particularly interesting about this project was the way ordinary people became performers and ordinary people became an audience automatically or even unconciously as they walked past. Also, the fact that it was putting the participants up on a pedestal and that it was being filmed for Sky Arts in an obvious way, makes it interesting to see how participants become more performative and out-going then perhaps they would in their everyday life, and the way the audience judge them as a performer rather than a normal person on the street.
"An open space for an open work that is about the democratisation of art"
Andrew Gormley
- Ian Breakwell's Auditorium
This example brought up in discussion was also particularly interesting in the way we can use the audience as part of the performance/installation in this fascinating juxtapostion of watching a performance and being watched...by yourself!
The cast, a group of spectators, is videotaped in two long takes by three cameras. In the first part they perform what the artists term 'coughsembles' and 'fansembles' and take us through a range of tics and fidgets as they wait for the show to begin. In the second they appear to be watching a circus-style performance, although we only see their reactions. The twist is that they had not been watching anything, but were invited to imagine what was happening on a footlit stage.
Auditorium is not literally interactive: it is a 32 minute videotape with stereo sound projected onto a large screen. Interaction is its subject, not its mechanism: its creators are intrigued by the different ways in which diverse audiences react. Joining an audience is a social act. Do we chat as we wait? Do we eat? What should we wear?
Hugh Stoddart
It would be very interesting to explore this technique further, not only looking at the way in changes the realtionship of the performer and the audience but also the way it reflects people's performative nature in life, whether people ever can show their true, unmediated identity or whether it will always contain an element of falseness.
This example spurted off a number of strands of thought that we thought might be interested to explore further...
Focus on one identity over another
Creating an identity for the audience
Creating a reaction they're not aware of
- Masks, Gillian Wearing
Not only is her work on masks beautiful, the mask and the face a key area to explore when performing identities, Gillian's artistic photography also begs the question of the effect of a person's identity when their image can be captured on film or in a photograph. Does it make it fixed, unbreakable? Also when a person knows they're going to be photographed how do they change the way they act or present themselves?Thinking in particular of the phenomenon of Facebook and the new age obsession of publishing our pictures
We also were thinking if we're going to try and do an installation where we've discovered something or experimenting something, we want the audience to be reflexive, looking back on themselves and realising something about they way they responded or about the experience they had. How overtly would we want to do this? Could we present the audience with having one motive for performance on the surface and then a different sub motive? What are we trying to achieve and what are we trying to cover? Would we have an obvious reveal or something to prove that there was a change in behaviour or identity? E.g. signng a petition. Or more subtle so the audience discover for themselves? Perhaps an after talk discussion.
- Internal
After Ben and Kwaku's experience of this performance at the Edinburgh Fringe, we thought Internal would be the perfect sort of way we'd approach our own installations/performance and so we thought we'd try to reinact it on a smaller scale to get some practice at interacting with an audience and staging something. Internal was a staged, private date in a booth, with a member of the public and an actor, blurring the boundaries of reality and performance as you didn't know how much of what the actor, and the participant for that matter, was put on and what was real.
Scripted conversation
-Name
-Where ur from
- Study course
- Likes and dislikes
Task for next session: Prepare to put on a reinactment of Internal with first year students through Codpiece, and also to think of Instillation ideas, what different effects can we create and the sound, smell, sight that goes into creating it.
Texts & Links:
- Anthony Gormley, One & Other, 'The Fourth Plinth' http://www.london.gov.uk/fourthplinth/plinth/gormley.jsp
- Stoddart, Hugh, A review of Ian Breakwell's Auditorium, Frieze magazine, November / December 1999, LuxOnline, 2005, http://www.luxonline.org.uk/articles/auditorium(1).html
- Wearing, Gillian, Masks, Tate Collection Online, http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=2648&page=2&sole=y&collab=y&attr=y&sort=default&tabview=lightbox - Dickson, Andrew, Internal: the ultimate test for Edinburgh audiences?, Guardian Online Theatre Blog, 17 August 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/aug/17/internal-edinburgh-audiences
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gfbDCi2RIA&feature=player_embedded
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KKD_u3skuA&feature=player_embedded
