As our installation relies on our audience member’s participation we had to make sure, all of our sections within our piece was easy to follow, and the material we used was appropriate for all age ranges. We also made sure the stage was very visually effective for the audience members, as we thought that most of our public would be younger audience members we made sure we swerved as far away as simplicity as possible, In the book Introduction: Contamination or Remediation? by Giesekam states that William Dudley says, that young audience members don’t like ‘the stillness where you’re in one locale for two to three hours…They like high visual dynamics and action, all those things people think theatre can’t do’ (2007, p.4) Within our piece we had many things for the audience to do and also had a projection played the whole time, for them to watch and keep them engaged. As we knew most of our audience members are students, we thought by getting them to tweet their feelings and experience of the piece was so much more interesting then asking them to do a boring questionnaire. As many people tweet, they can not only do a fast summery online of how they felt but also enjoy doing it too.
My body is a temple – exploring the effects of deprivation on the body and mood
To further our research into cause and effect, and being inspired by artists such as Stellarc and Orlan and their exploration of the workings and limits of the human body, I felt it would be interesting to see how depriving the body of the things we need to function well would effect my mood, and others around me as a separate linked effect. To achieve this in a short time span, Abbie and I agreed to undertake this study as a pair as well as individuals, mainly as we live together and so our close quarters could accentuate the effect of our moods on each other and therefore could accelerate the experiment over a short period.
We set a goal of a minimum of three days, as that seemed to be long enough to see some effect yet not far enough to see our full limitations, and then to see how far we could go without eating anything.
On the first day of the experiment, it began tough. It became painful apparent how much my life is centered by food, a routine has naturally set itself in place around meals, I wake up and have breakfast then prepare for the day. Then I perform some small activity, or go to work or set time to do university work. This is punctuated by lunch and snack breaks and then is culminated with dinner at a late hour, then some relaxation can take place for the rest of the evening. Without food to break that up, and without the energy that came from food, I found that I was somewhat focused on the fact that I had to stop my impulses to eat. This was at first an amusing task, as it is so out of the ordinary to be doing, and only a slight hunger rumbled throughout the day. I found it hard to sleep at first, as my body was urging me to eat, but a lack of fuel soon kicked in and I had a short restless nights sleep, being awoken by hunger pangs. I felt as though it was the fact that I was refused the food that I needed added a sense of resentment to the task. I didn’t want to take part by the morning of day 2. I found myself trying to reason – with myself – that this was a pointless activity and that food would be the easier option.
It was the revelation that eating would be opting out of difficulty that led me to begin to angrily push down these desires to eat. I started to resent the need to eat. It was almost like a struggle with my own body to become independent of needs and desires. I wanted to choose for myself. I pushed it to the forefront of my mind that this was something I had chosen to explore, and the effect would be a great experience to understand fully for myself. As I became more focused on my desire to push myself, my overall attention to my hunger subsided somewhat.
By day three, hunger was no longer an issue to me. Either I had become accustomed to the feeling or my body had given up trying to tell me to eat. By day three, it was clear that my body couldn’t function well without food. I was unable to sleep, so I was lacking all energy, and I could no longer focus on anything. People would talk to me and I would stare blankly into space. My skin had become pale (or at least paler than when I started the experiment) my hair seemed limp and my muscles ached. There were thick dark rims underneath my eyes and water didn’t quench my thirst. I couldn’t think about food anymore, I wasn’t thinking at all. I would be permanently confused and light seemed too bright to me. I developed a crease between my brows as they were constantly furrowed as I tried to concentrate on anything, even simple things like speech. I became basically impossible to be around, as I was defensive every time someone spoke to me, as it required effort and attention I couldn’t give anyone. I started to shout at those who were around me as I became frustrated that I couldn’t cope with everyday interactions.
I found that Abbie and I began to stay away from each other, not being able to bare anyone’s company, as though it was too hard for us to handle company, and with us both being abrasive and yet lethargic and reserved, it was pointless to interact. There was an awkward avoidance, like the other wouldn’t understand how we felt about the task and so we stayed apart for the best part of the experiment.
After the completion of the experiment after three days, as our moods began to interfere with our work and studies not just our social lives, it became clear that mood is an overlooked everyday bodily function. We were depriving our bodies, first of food, then of sleep and of social abilities, and it was being inept in social interactions that was the hardest part for me to experience. It made me feel alone and sad, I missed my friends and yet didn’t want to be around them for fear of abusing them. Clearly mood is important to us all, and adverse effects to our body has a quick manipulative effect on our moods, which can change our personalities in general.
From this experiment, I believe that it would be greatly beneficial as a social science experiment to continue exploring the effects of deprivation, but not just of food, but other needs we have, and to take them to further extremes then we explored. For example a month long cut off from the world socially in every form, just to see how we cope alone.
“Its not just about you, its about others” (Abramović 2013).
Our performance is installation, based on the collaboration of the audience and the artist. Both participant and performer use the space using a range of materials, audio, visual and live elements in which they are able to experiment with. It is important to have a relationship with your audience because it can reflect the way in which they understand the process of the performance and whether the performance stays with them or whether they do not wish/feel comfortable to participate at all. It shows a range of flexibility and diversity within participants of all ages and moods and effectively proves the way in which they ‘perform’.
Manipulation of the the senses have been interesting in our discovery within our rehearsal process, looking at how a person reacts in an environment which challenges the mood that they are in, allowing them to express that mood. Erika Fischer-Lichte in her chapter shared bodies, shared spaces: the bodily co-presence of actors and spectators says: “The actors act, that is, they move through the space, gesture, change their expression, manipulate objects, speak, or sing. The Spectators perceive their actions and respond to them. Although some of these reactions might be limited to internal processes their perceptible responses are equally significant: the spectators laugh, cheer, sigh, groan, sob, cry, scuff their feet or hold their breath:” (2008, p., 38).
The performance aim is to see how the spectators mood will affect the way in which they look at something, how they react in an uncomfortable situation or how they choose to use an object. “performance remains unpredictable and spontaneous to a certain degree” (Fisher-Lichte 2008, p., 38). This hopefully, becomes the core element within our installation piece, it should be unpredictable in the way the participants mood reflects they way they perform and ‘spontaneous’ in the outcome of their performance.
Therefore Marina Abramović’s quote “Its not just about you, its about others” (2013) demonstrates that the audiences reactions within the installation piece will make up the end performance. The installation should become an environment which his inflicted the senses and changed the way in which they/we will feel for the rest of the day.
Works Cited:
Fisher-Licte, E. 2008 The Transformative Power of Performance London: Routledge
Abramović, M. 2013 Availible at: http://www.marinaabramovicinstitute.org/noqt Accessed on April 21 2013.
Work Progress Day!
On the 19th of April it was progress day where we showed back to our class members some aspects of our installation. This was very beneficial for our group as because it is down to the audience’s participation we needed to test out our ideas so far.
We tried out three different sections from our final installation, including how music will affect your mood, plate smashing and also paint balloon popping. What we aimed to achieve this day, was to see how well these experiments would work and to see how the audience came about them.
The music experiment insisted of sensory deprivation from one of our fellow audience members. We placed a blindfold over their eyes and tied their hands up behind their back and put on the headphones. Before we did this, we asked the individual what mood they were currently feeling. We then tried to contrast their mood with the song we chose for them. This was to see if and how music changes your mood. Simultaneously, with this exercise one of my group member’s span and pushed the audience member around the room. This was to bombard them will emotions and feelings to see what the outcome would be to their mood. Afterwards, we gathered information from the audience and also asked them to Tweet their own responses.
Then we took our audience members outside to smash crockery, and pop balloons to see what affect these also had on their mood or if it stayed the same. We again asked for people to leave responses on Twitter.
This day was extremely beneficial for us as a group as it helped us realise what worked and what needs more work on and what did not work at all. We concluded that the music experiment would work better if we didn’t have them on a chair and they stayed still so they can just focus purely on the music they can hear and forget everything else around them. The class gave us feedback saying that this part was the weakest experiment out of all three. Which personally, I agree with as it seemed the most messiest due to it being the first time we tried to sensually deprive someone whilst then spinning them and choosing the song. Without this trail day, we probably wouldn’t have realised how unpolished this would look because thinking it seems easy, but we needed to dedicate roles specifically.
Our Work In Progress Day
Yesterday, Friday 19th of April was our multimedia work in progress day. The day was an opportunity for us to show the rest of the group a sneak peak of what our performance may be like, looking at how certain aspect would go and whether or not things needed to change etc. As well as showing our ideas and progress to the group, it was also a chance for us to see what other groups had come up with. I think the day was very successful because not only did we receive a great deal of useful and critical feedback from our peers, we were also able to support their initial ideas and consider things to help improve on their performance piece which they may not have considered their selves.
For our performance, we had considered having multiple stations, all with different elements within each of them which would help to determine / change mood. For the work in progress we decided that it would be beneficial for us to only try out a few of these sections.
The stations we decided on showing to the group was smashing crockery, popping paint balloons and sensory deprivation. For smashing crockery and popping paint balloons we thought it was best to conduct these excises outside, for health and safety reasons along with creating mess within the studio space.
Because we had limited materials for the day, we explained to members of the group that they could either participate in one or the other, so everybody would have the chance to do something if they wished.
Smashing…
So, with a suitcase with cups and saucers in, we asked people to collective come and collect an item and throw it into a specific area (out of the way of the general public). Some people threw the items with great force and anger where other members gentle tossed it into the air. It was quite evident though that the act of smashing helped to relieve stress and anger, making the individual feel a lot better and less stressed. The reason for this exercise was to see if something as simple as smashing a plate would in fact change an individual’s mood. Evidence showed that this section was a success with the ability to change a person’s mood. One member of the group said that she had had a rubbish start to the day and just by smashing that one item, automatically lifted her mood and helped towards her being as tense and stressed. The problem s we discovered with this section is how wide spread the pieces of broken crockery actually went. With this in mind we would then need to think of how we would contain the pieces on the day, whether it was by throwing things into a large box / container or sectioning off a piece of the room where odd bits and pieces wouldn’t fly off in all directions. A member of the group also asked us if we had thought about the use of protective eyewear, for it could be seen as a health and safety matter if a small piece was to backfire and end up in somebody’s eye. With this in mind, everybody agree it would be best to provide audience members with protective eyewear such as goggles on the day.
Once we had finished with this section, some members of our group cleared away all the broken crockery. Here is an image of the result of the smashed up pieces of crockery.
Popping…
The other experiment which we conducted outside was the popping of paint balloons. For this section we had filled several balloons with a mixture of paint and water. We then attached them to a small canvas (we would be using one on a much larger scale on the day) with the use of string and drawing pins. The purpose of this was to ask members of the group to simply go up and pop a balloon. Even though we had provided aprons and protective covering for their clothes, some members were reluctant to participate for they didn’t feel comfortable in getting too close. However, the individuals that did take part didn’t expect the result to be so beneficial. They said it gave them a sense of fun and made them think back to being a child. It was also clear in this station how the popping of a single paint balloon lifted an individual’s mood by making them happy and feel childlike. This was the kind of response we were hoping for and the fact it worked was very promising to us. However, some things didn’t quite go to plan, and by conducting this exercise for the work in progress helped us to overcome this. One problem was that not all members were willing to take part because they were afraid of getting splashed, even though we had provided them with protective wear for their clothes. A way in which we decided to overcome this was by suggesting to them would they feel more inclined to take part if they had the choice of popping the balloons but with the use of a pin of the end of a long stick? The reaction to this seemed a lot more willing and so this was something we could look into using for the final performance. Another problem that we faced with this section was that some of the balloons were not blown up enough so they did not actually pop when stabbed with a pin. This was a little disappointing for us but we knew the way to overcome this problem was to make sure on the day they were blown up to a particular size, which meant they would more elasticated making them more prone to popping when pieces with a pin, meaning the paint would explode and cover the canvas provided.
Here is a picture of the canvas once the balloons had been popped. We thought that it looked good and we liked how the different colours mixed together. This is just a small example of what our final product may look like as we will be using it on a much larger scale with a variety of different colours.
Sensory deprivation…
We conducted this experiment inside the studio. For this we used headphones, an iPod, scarves/ blindfolds and a chair. We asked for a member of the group to volunteer to sit on the chair and endure the experience we were going to offer them. We asked them what kind of mood they were feeling so it would give us an indication of what kind of music we would play to them. If they felt happy then we would play sad music, or if they were angry we would play relaxing calming music. The participant was unaware of this though as we wanted to see if the contrast in music to how they were currently feeling would affect their mood. We tied the individual to the chair by hands and feet so they were unable to move or get away. Once they were listening to their chosen mood of music, without them knowing we changed the music to a contrasting piece. Whilst all of this was happening we were spinning their chair and moving it around the room to try and add to the sense of them not knowing where about they were. Taking away a person’s senses can be quite challenging and we found out as there are certain things such as smell and taste in which we could not manipulate.
The feedback from this exercise was interesting as the individual said to use how they didn’t expect the music to contrast with their current mood and in way it did have some impact on their mood afterwards. The problems with this exercise is how they said to us by seeing a spinning chair, they had a feeling they knew what we were going to do to them.
Out of the three different experiments we presented to the group the sensory deprivation had the least impact on the individual. This was beneficial towards us though as we were then aware of the problems within this section which meant we were then able to go away and develop on the idea.
The outcome of the day was very useful towards us because the other members of the group helped us to give the different exercises trial and error, and they gave suggestions as what we could do to make each of the different sections better.
As well as asking them to participate within the different exercises, we asked them to post a tweet on the twitter page we had created for the performance, asking them to post how they were feeling and whether or not the stations had an effect on their mood. The reason we asked them to do this was so we had a physically piece of evidence with responses on instead of them just telling us as when people say something, overtime it gets forgotten, where as the use of a physical copy would last.