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)