Stuart Scott – Do You See What I See?

‘To move the work is to destroy the work’

(Serra 1994: 194)

In creating a site specific performance you are forming a relationship with a space or site. You use the site and are inspired by the site, every little detail of the site is emphasised by your eye. Peter Brook once said ‘I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.’ (1972: 11) So will my group in creating our performance. 

Edit: 05/05/2012

A Photo from the end of the performance.

Thanks for all who came and took part and a massive well done to the team!

Works Cited

Serra, R. (1994) ‘Tilted Arc Destroyed’ in Richard Sera Writings interviews, Chicago: Chicago University Press

Brook, P. (1972) The Empty Space.  Penguin Books Ltd

The performance started off very slowly, and we compensated for the lack of audience by over working our narratives. However as the performance progressed and we had participation from people it became a lot easier and allowed us to create more in depth narratives. I found it strange reading out the things people had written down on the cards, as it was like we were breaking their trust and revealing their secrets. The stickers no longer represented the locations we were given but instead represented each person. This added with the narration by one of us allowed the outsiders to be both audience to our stories and participants in the placing of the people. With the 3d models we could create more detailed narratives in the placing of people within the cathedral and the train station.

On the back wall we stuck the four questions and the postcards that related to them throughout the performance. It was interesting to look at the wall at the end of the performance and see a montage of memories. Even though we didn’t use all the postcards in the performance we hung the rest on the washing line. We felt that just sticking them in a box and disregarding them was unfair as each one though not depicting a specific location still contained a memory. Once we hung them on the line we likened the visual to an old style developing studio where for us, the memories are still developing into specific places we can document.

It was important we allowed the audience to feel welcome to participate and a few did, whether it be assisting us or adding their own stories on top of the ongoing narrative. Though we wore the flourescent jackets, it only worked as an indicator to the audience that we were instigating the process they could take part in. The experience has been overly fun and I was pleased the final performance. This whole module has been a real eye-opener for me.

So we ventured up steep hill and collected the responses of over 300 people. With such a great response there were so many stories and locations discussed on the cards. So much so we had to sift through them and pick out the ones we felt would be best to use within our performance. It was quite the experience speaking to all the different people on the day. People would write on the cards and then tell us more about their experiences within Lincoln. The whole day highlighted what our project was about, seeing Lincoln through the experiences of others. I found an interesting quote which summed up the day. ‘Such site-specific work incorporates documentation precisely in order to address the paradoxical relationship between its construction of a work and the site it needs to uncover.’ (Kaye 2000: 218) In documenting these experiences we have been able to discover Lincoln for ourselves and aided others in doing so. Mission accomplished? Not yet, there is still the final performance on the 5^th to do.

Works Cited

Kaye, Nick (2000) Site Specific Art: Performance, Place, Documentation. Oxon: Routledge

‘The best art and writing is almost like an assignment; it is so vibrant that you feel compelled to make something in response. Suddenly it is clear what you have to do. For a brief moment it seems wonderfully easy to live and love and create breathtaking things. In a sense, these are assignments — in the same way that the ocean gives the assignment of breathing deeply, and kissing instructs us to stop thinking.’

(http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/love/index.php)

Wes told us to take a look at Miranda July. In particular one of her projects titled: Learning to Love You More. We were posed a question: How does this project relate to our project Do you see what I see??

The project was started in 2002 with artist Harrell Fletcher. The project involved July posting assignments on the website for her participants to take part in and then their creations would be exhibited on the website. The project creates an electronic archive of the participants work and exhibits it to the audiences viewing the website. It prompts the audience to express their emotions and feelings. A few assignments caught my eye:

59# Interview someone who has experienced war.

This one in particular really made me think, such hurtful stories of sorrow. In a society where you can argue that current affairs feel in a way taboo, we really only hear about the war from history books and current newspapers.

32# Draw a scene from a movie that made you cry.

This interested me as some of the examples were films I too had seen and had an emotional response to. It allowed me to feel connected to the people writing their own responses. Similar to how we want people to connect with others through reading their postcards.

The scene movie from Pokemon the first where ash is brought back to life from all the tears of the pokemon.

Looking through the assignments is so brilliant. To see the work and the different varieties of work documented is exciting to look at. There are two types of performance going on within the piece, those who are creating to work and those viewing the collected archived work. It is an interesting aesthetic to look at. Who is the audience and who is the participant?

Our idea is similar as it documents the ideas, thoughts and feelings of our participants about their city. It provokes and emotional response in an audience member as we create a varied perspective of something they have glossed over. Wes made the comment that our piece could have been an assignment in July’s work and after looking at the website I can see why.

http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/love/index.php

We wanted the images on our postcards to have some relevance to us. Each is of a different location we have chosen. We chose to use a long exposure lens in order to replicate the style of a postcard you could buy in a shop.

Since the venture out in to Lincoln with Wes, this particular spot has made me think more about my observation of things. Having walked past it numerous times without really exploring it I wanted to highlight this place for its beauty.

My choice for the postcard.

Alex wanted to have his picture of Aroma Cafe. The Cafe played an important role in us developing the project as it showed us an example of the public writing down their thoughts for others to see.

Alex's choice for the postcard.

Larissa wanted to have a photo of the Arboretum, the reason for this was due to the fact a beautiful place exists in the centre of an industrial Lincoln. The band stand specifically adds colour on the backdrop of industry.

The band stand

Emma instantly thought of the Cathedral when she had to choose an image. We decided to take a less conventional image of the Cathedral So the group walked around the Cathedral and stopped at the small chapter house at the back.  It is such a beautiful part of the Cathedral but gets ignored as it is not the front view.

The Chapter House.

Stay tuned

The idea is coming along well. We were wondering how we could make our map more visually appealing. Larissa had seen a performance by Davy and Kristen Mcguire called the Ice Book. The piece incorporates light and origami images to create and tell a story. The images the light created seemed so beautiful and we wanted to mimic this is our own way. In looking over Blast theory’s Day of the figurines again. We decided to create our own version of Lincoln out of paper, we wanted a similar effect with the light so decided we would have a lamp that would represent the sun and the passing of the day.

Works Cited

http://www.theicebook.com/The_Icebook.html