Experiential
Experiential will influence you to think about cause and effect in relation to your mood.
There will be paint, smashing of crockery, music and aspects of live performance.
Find out how you respond?
Experience something you have probably never had to opportunity to experience.
After experiencing what Experiential came to be, My initial response is that of overwhelming catharsis. There was an incredible amount of research and experimentation that culminated into the piece we presented in our 4 hour instillation, and to see the effect it had on the spectators, made the whole process worthwhile. When we decided to piece together these elements into one space, we had no way of knowing how well the collaboration would work and whether it would have any effect on our audience. I believe this to be my greatest fear for the piece, that the months of research would have no effect, a wasted opportunity. Yet after feedback, it seems like that was not to be the case.
Everyone who entered the space responded well, either that their mood had been improved, enhanced or influenced entirely by their experience in the room. Personally, I remained in the space for the entire duration of the performance, acting like a mood puppet master and attempting to influence those in the space by controlling and contrasting music to the mood of the room to create different effects on the participants.
I found the overall changing atmosphere of the space to be the most crucial part of the experience, people could come in at one point and feel happy and exhilarated then come back an hour later and be filled with sadness by the same things. It was this shared experience that created such a contrast, and I find that effect to be the most interesting part of the piece. The shared explosion of moods and emotions seemed to amplify the feelings that people were experiencing, and this mood effected me, as although I was above the performance, I jumped when I heard plates smashing and I laughed when I heard the childish giggles in the colour explosion section, I cried to sad songs playing against the images of death and felt a calm release while listening to classical music and seeing others lying around doing the same. I felt the moods that were being projected out of the space, like I was leeching the emotions of the others there. It was this connection between everyone and all their feelings at once that left me with a sense of pride, and emptiness, as though I had no emotions left to feel, but that was the most satisfying part to the day, the build up and then release of everything That was my true experience – everything and nothing, and it was a powerful feeling, one that I am still recalling now to feel at peace.
I feel this piece has so many places it can go, and that it should go there – to its farthest limits for, as Albert Einstein once said, “The only source of knowledge is experience” and to know all we can about mood and therefore one another will always be a fascinating goal to strive for, in whatever context that occurs.
On Thursday 16th of May 2013, six third year drama students created a durational installation performance titled ‘experiential’.
Experiential caused audience members to think about cause and effect in relation to their mood. It allowed audience members to participate and experience things they may have never had the opportunity to experience before.
The installation consisted of five different stations which would hopefully affect and change the mood of audience members. The Stations were called, Colour explosion, Lose it, Say something nice, Sensory Deprivation and Express yourself.
Audience participation was a huge factor within this piece, for the whole intention of the piece was to see if we could change audience members mood.
COLOUR EXPLOSION
Within this station we had two large canvas’s present. One was an extension from our work in progress showing. We used a large amount of paint balloons and attached them to the canvas through the use of string. We made sure the whole space was well protected in case any of the paint was to explode onto any of the surroundings. We also took the comments from our work in progress session on board and created a popping instrument, which consisted of a pin being attached to a large pole. Lots of people came to experience this station and from the responses of audience members, it was a huge success and most definitely had an impact on changing mood.
Lots of audience members commented on how fun the station was and how it made them feel happy. Many of them were shocked at just how happy such a task had made them feel. We knew this would be a popular station and as predicted we started to run out of paint balloons. Because of this it meant that some audience members could only pop one, when they may have liked to pop several.
The aim of this station was to invite audience members into doing something that is different from their everyday lives. We also wanted to try and emerge the childlike ability of having fun and being messy without the consequence.
Below is an image of the canvas in the space before audience members were invited in.
As the day progressed more and more people visited the station, meaning we had to keep going and attaching more and more balloons. The final result was interesting to look at for none of us knew what the final product would look like. Below are some images of the final product.
As well as having the paint balloons in the station, we also had a canvas in which we invited audience members to come and paint on. We had an array of different coloured paints, sponges, paint brushes and mixing pallets.
Throughout the day more and more images were created on the canvas.
Eventually space was limited so some audience members were creating images over previous ones. The end result was also interesting to look at for it was a collection of everybody that participated, and in a sense was a physical piece of work that was created by the community of the performance.
In my opinion i believe the station was very successful for it helped to invite audience members into having fun, which successfully affected their mood.
If we were to use this station again, one factor i would change would be to make the paint in the balloons less watery so that when the paint dried, we would have more vibrant colours presented. If we were to develop this idea and take it further, i would dedicate an installation just to this specific area by having a room with white walls and floor. I would allow audience members to run their creativity throughout the whole room. To add to the element of childlike memory and that ability of having fun. As well as having paint balloons for audience members to pop, i would have a selection of balloons they could use to in fact throw at the wall if they wished, meaning they were more free with expressing what they wanted to do with the materials available to them.
LOSE IT
Within this station we sectioned off a corner of the room and created an X target on the floor. There was a line in which audience members stood behind whilst a variation of crockery was laid out for them.
The aim of the station was see if audience members would pick up an item of crockery, throw it at the target for it to smash to pieces, allowing them to ‘lose it’. The reaction from audience member’s in this station was interesting to watch for when people first came into the space, they felt shy and unsure of whether or not they actually wanted to smash something. However, once they had smashed their item they were amazed at how it had instantly changed their mood and made them feel better. Some people got really into this section for it is not seen as acceptable in everyday life. By allowing the audience to smash such delicate items like fine china, meant they were able to release all of their anger or stress out onto that particular item.
A thing we discovered from this station was it effected other members within the space, not just the individual who was taking part. It was interesting to see the different ways in which people decided to smash their item. Some audience members launched their item with great force, where as other members would just gently toss it towards the targeted area.
Unfortunately, even though we protected the area, it wasn’t enough and we had to cut this station short for the smashed items were beginning to damage the stage floor. This was out of our hands, but it would of been nice if we could have carried on with this station for it would have been nice to see how the following audience members related to it.
If we were to further this idea, i would like to invite audience members to bring in their own objects in which they would be able to smash. I think that by having something personal to them would effect their mood even greater in relation to having a random object with no relevance towards them.
SAY SOMETHING NICE
The pictures shown above are a small collection of the images we used within the say something nice section. Each member of the group had roughly 10 images each hung up in the space with fishing wire or attached to wall dividers.
We each took some images of a different member of the group away and wrote something nice about that particular photo. We also left pens within the station so audience members were invited to write something nice on the photos if they wished to.
Some things that were written alongside the pictures were comments like:
As well as having our images suspended in the air and attached to the wall dividers for audience members to write on, we also wrote nice comments / phrases on the floor with coloured chalk.
We also left piece of chalk lying around in case audience members felt like they wanted to write something nice on the floor as well. Our intention for the piece wasn’t to make audience members feel like they had to write something nice, but the invitation was there for them if they wanted to. If they did not feel like writing anything nice, we hoped that this station may influence them into saying something nice to somebody outside of the space instead.
SENSORY DEPRIVATION
Within this station we had two chairs stationed at the back of the room where audience members were able to go and sit and place headphones on. It was then up to us if we wanted to go over and blindfold them and tie them to the chair, making it impossible for them to get up and leave.
By trying to take away as many of the senses as possible from audience members, we wanted to see just how confident and relaxed they felt when they knew they were no longer in control and whether or not the loss of one or multiple sensors affected their initial mood from before they sat down.
There was no time limit to this station so for different members, we would leave them for varying amounts of time. After their time in the station, the audience responses were very different. Some people commented on how they could have sat there for hours as they felt so relaxed and happy, whilst not having to worry or be aware of what was happening around them. Another audience member stated to me how he didn’t like the experience at all, the fact he was tied up made him feel nervous and on edge and didn’t know what to expect.
These two individual responses go to show how different people react in the same situation and how it can have such a drastic contrast with the way in which their mood are affected.
EXPRESS YOURSELF
Within this station we had a variety of beanbags placed around the floor where audience members were invited to sit, lay down and relax if they wished. They were invited to use this space in which ever way they felt necessary, whether it was to sit and listen to the music that was being played throughout the installation or whether or not they felt the need to dance about. The aim of this section was to see how audience members would respond and whether or not the music that was playing would effect their mood.
When i went up to the balcony level to see Alex (who was manipulating the music), it was evident that audience members found the station to help them to just sit there and relax. We played some sad music and then played a contrasting happy song ‘walking on sunshine’ to see if this would automatically effect the audience’s mood. To our surprise some audience members within the station stood up straight away and started dancing with each other.
The thing i would change about this section would to possible make it more secluded, so audience members were able to just relax and focus on the station they were in instead of being distracted by everything else that was going off.
PROJECTION
Throughout the installation performance we had a projection that was constantly displayed on the cinema screen. The projection consisted of both good and bad images. An example of the good images were:
An example of some of the bad images present were:
We set out some chairs in front of the cinema screen to invite audience members to sit down and watch the projection if they wanted to.
The images were fast paced and on a constant loop for the 4 hour duration. Because the images were so quick it meant that they did’t all register in your head at once, meaning that because it was on a loop, every time you would watch the video you would notice something that you had missed the first time. Some audience members found certain images to be disturbing which made them not want to carry on watching any longer.
The projection in my opinion worked well with the manipulation of music. When i was sat watching the projection and sad music was playing, i felt myself focusing on the bad images, in contrast to when happy music was playing i found myself taking more notice of the happy images instead.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
If we were to conduct this installation again, i would like to see the variety of audience responses we would get in relation to the environment. Because we are students and conducted it within the LPAC meant that a lot of the participants were our close friends and other students. I would like to see the responses of audience members if we conducted the installation in the center of town where there is a mixture of people. It would be interesting to see how audience members who we don’t know and are not friends would respond to the different stations. In my opinion I believe that if we conducted this in a new environment, audience members may not respond so positively towards certain station, sensory deprivation in particular. I think this would be due to the fact we would be strangers to them and it may effect their decision in allowing us to take complete control.
Overall i think the 4 hour installation was a huge success. We had a large group of audience members and it was nice to see how people kept coming and going throughout the day, experiencing something different each time.
It was very rewarding to see how audience members were responding to our piece with such positive comments and it was satisfying knowing that we had been able to make somebody have a better day, just by affecting their mood with the simplest of tasks.
After the installation had finished it was interesting to see how the room had changed throughout the duration of the day. We had more people than anticipated come and see the installation so that was very satisfying for the entire group.
The outcome of the performance resulted on discovering the effect on the materials provided. One of the most interesting outcomes for me personally was the effect on the paint balloon canvas as has produced an amazing piece of art through the audience having fun. This canvas is effectively one of the products of ’cause and effect’ in our installation.
It is even more interesting as the canvas has similar qualities to the work of Ian Davenport who experimented with colour on canvas:
“If you put paint on to a canvas with a brush, you know what it will do. But what if you use something else to apply the paint? It’s going to do something different, perhaps something you never expected” (Davenport 2009).
Similar to the work of Davenport, we wanted the outcome to be exciting for the participants in control and the excitement they achieved from this.
‘Invitation’ was the core concept within our performance aesthetic. We invited our participants to enter the space and use the materials around them however their mood allowed them to. It was important for us not to influence the participants on how they should use the materials within the space this was so that their outcome was truthful to their mood. We wanted to see the ’cause and effect’ of the stations and for the participants to document their feeling through the materials and on the Twitter feeds provided.
It was also satisfying to see how the participants contributed to the twitter feed, there was lots of positive comments about how the different areas allowed them to express themselves and effectively change their moods.
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In the other sections like the ‘lose it’ section the broken crockery which surrounded the area was evidence of the participant creating an effect and at the same time releasing energy. In the ‘say something nice’ area the audience had left many comments on the pictures that said positive and nice things. It was important to consider that if we had presented our installation in a different environment, for example, in the middle of a city or in an area which invited public that we had not met before, would the outcome of been different? Would some of the comments have been different? Would the audience be more apprehensive about partaking in our ‘Experiential’ work? These were all questions that we brought to our own attention as it seemed that hosting this installation piece within the theatre and in an environment of like minded and similar people worked in our favour. Personally I think it would be very interesting to see the installation in a completely different light which invited the public and to see the effect from their point of view.
Ultimately, I feel that our Installation was very successful as the participants really embraced the sections and enjoyed doing it in the process. It was really nice to see all the comments and the effect of the canvas’ as an end product. If I was to change anything, I would like to experiment with different materials and objects and see if the results are different or the same. If we were able to take one of the sections and make it on a bigger scale and invite a different kind of audience I think it would be enjoyable to see the contrasting effects.
Works Cited:
The observer for the Guardian: Artist Ian Davenport on how he paints Availible at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/20/guide-to-painting-ian-davenport Accessed on: May 17 2013.
Response to our installation performance. 16/05/13
Experiential performance was a 4 hour long process with different sections for the participants to enjoy. Something we agreed on doing was making sure at least one of us was in the room at a time as a participant, enabling the audience members to get an idea of what you could do. We needed to remain professional and make sure we weren’t in the room to talk to our friends.
It was great to see so many people in the room at any given time and the use of the sections were all well received; as our tweets show, and they were always being used. A comment made by a drama student was how well the space had been used and it no longer looked like the Lpac Auditorium. I thought this was a useful comment for us to prove the space had worked well for our installation.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: The inspiration of Marina Abramovic with other use of audience helped when looking at our own installation. In Jessy Larson’s blog she explains how Marina Abramovic used the audience to make her performance with her ‘performance “Rhythm 0,” in which she placed 72 items on a table, some harmless and others not, and allowed audience members to do whatever they wanted with those items to her while she remained motionless.’ Even though we weren’t doing something to ourselves which meant the audiences needed to do something to us I believe that the installation wouldn’t have been an installation as we had the intention to use the audience as part of the ‘experiment.
SAY SOMTHING NICE: Another great influence is Franko B, especially when looking at the use of body and the influence he had for the section ‘say something nice’, the name was also taken from Improv Everywhere, this was a piece they did in a town centre. The idea was to get the public to say something nice into the microphone, the microphone was left on its own, this also meant it was not forced upon the public to engage them.
The idea of saying something nice was to u our own body and see what people have to say about it (had to be a compliment), and using our own pictures see if they saw something we didn’t.
Franko B uses his own body as his art. This was something we had looked at as a live element however, this was taken out.
COLOUR EXPLOTION: In another aspect of Franko B’s influence we also looked at how the paint section can have an affect on your mood. Looking at Franko B’s ’I Miss You’ where he was painted all white and walked up and down a ‘catwalk’ while his arms and feet bled. On his website Jennifer Doyle explains how the use of audience participation is important when trying to get a response. This is something we liked the idea of and wanted to look for a response from our participants with the painting.
Looking at the ‘finished’ painting you can see it is a colourful and positive one with a lovely idea that everyone we have met through university and become great friends with has left us something.
SENSORY DEPRIVATION: In a section called Sensory Depravation I was able to see how the use of music we made them listen to and the idea of taking away their sight for the duration showed a slight sense of vulnerability. I saw a participant not confident enough and having to ask to get up and another told me how he felt so relaxed and stress free. Perhaps this was because he had no option but to just sit and listen. At times I found seeing how long I was able to leave them for with out them wanting to leave and this was the majority of the time, it seemed to relax them and strip them of any responsibility.
The device which we used was left on shuffle meaning that neither the participant nor any of us was able to take control of this situation.
LOOSE IT: In this section I found myself asking how people were feeling and if they replied they felt stressed of like they could let of some steam I suggested smashing some plates. Their response seemed to be a positive, which can also be seen in the twitter feed. I found I enjoyed it because it is something you don’t get the chance to do in you daily life and the smashing is a way to throw an inanimate object and see the effect of your throw. I saw one person throw a bowl very hard and this smashed, but then I saw someone else who threw is carefully and it only chipped.
EXPRESS YOURSELF: This was something we came up with as our own idea due to the fact we had the same interest in music and how music is a great influence for us all. We wanted to give the participants an option to have a seat and listen. Whether it is a happy or sad song. We tried to use music as a way to manipulate the mood, I found this a great challenge as I had sat there through a whole song which reminded me of a happy time, however the next song was sad and with the projection also on next to me I found it made me sad and I had to move on. However it seemed a popular section with our peers, which again shows how important music is to us.
PROJECTION: A projection was shown throughout the whole performance of nice images but also horrible one. this varied from couples holding hands, flowers to a picture of 9/11 or dead animals. The images were played on a loop, which meant every time I watched it I always saw something new. This also worked well with the manipulation of music. The contrast of happy music and happy images meant I was happy, but the sad music and most of the images made me feel emotional.
If i had the option to do it again, it would be interesting to see what difference there would be if we took it into a different environment with the variety of people, look at the different times and could perhaps make it more of an experiment.
Work cited:
Jennifer Doyle, ‘Franko B’s “I Miss You“‘, Franko B: Text, Online at: http://www.franko-b.com/text.htm (accessed 17 May 2013)
Larson, J (2011) ‘The Value of Performance Art’ Art Ink, Online at: http://arts.umich.edu/ink/2011/11/30/the-value-of-performance-art/ (accessed 17 May 2013)
