in the blink of an eye- playback theatre sydney

ok- so having been to playback south in london, which was great to see how performance can come entirely from material (in this form of theatre- stories) offered by the audience and improvised back on the spot, have now been to playback theatre in sydney . this form of theatre uses metaphors focusing on feelings of the storytellers, relaying stories, moments, tragedies, dreams...and physically embodying objects and actions, it is a method used in psychodrama as a form of therapy- its therefore interesting to consider the type of audience member you get, why they are there.
there were many common elements shaping the evening but overall the sydney experience was much more cohesive and intimate- with a theme set for the evening to the stories- 'in the blink of an eye' and music accompanyment throughout to direct the mood, 8 rather than 4 performers,(audience of 50 in a tiered auditorium)but i guess that such an event can be shaped by those who offer their stories and how engaging these are to the audience- in this performance the stories were incredibly explicit of their situation-told to a room of strangers- and full of personal insight- the day i got my diagnosis with MS aged 18 to the day dad left aged 9 and then 15 yrs later my parents got back together and supported each other through cancer.the tellers sit on a couch at the front of the stage with the conductor who asks questions and once story had been told and theres a definite star middle and end defined, the teller picks characters, the conductor picks the style- eg chorus, and then watches it played back, asking the teller at the end how they felt about it. the story about the MS diagnosis used performers as the diagnosis envelope and as the disease attacking her legs simulating pins and needles as well as someone playing her...the playback was clever, real, emotionally charged and the teller was pretty choked saying, yes that was how it felt, it was good to visualise it. finding a new way of relating to or perspective on a difficult experience in your life?

in london playback my friend told her story of a geeky trainspotter on the eurostar train home to paris who she found fascinating, however she was a bit annoyed with the playback as it was centering on the emotions of reuniting with her family in paris rather than the oddities on the trainspotter- maybe this was because the playback seems to centre on the tellers emotions rather more than the actions- she knew what actions the trainspotter was doing through seeing him but didn't not know why??

overall- i would like to look more at methods employed to improvise and the experience of an audience member through participating, and the relationship between the original event, the telling and the retelling-playback

ps not sure about this photo- seems a bit too carry-on......;)

Improvising along the crack.....

using lena's action theatre improvisation techniques, neil, lena and i explored the crack at the tate, not my usual means of drawing/doodling/rambling notes in a sketchbook, but through our bodies- we moved in silence following each other's lead, crawling, sliding, tiptoeing along....mimicking the patterns in the edges at times, crossing the crack, positioning self parallel to it.....trying not to lose grip of each other...was a very liberating experience, ignoring those photographing and asking us questions til we reached the other end.....i looked up half way through and saw doug taking photos, he had spotted us from another level whilst on the phone and come down to watch us...it would have been good maybe if we'd encouraged participants to extend our line, but then we'd have come out of our zone.... afterwards a couple of school students came and asked us what we were doing which was a very wierd feeling, half the time i have spent in the tate has been as a teacher and here i was on the other side..great feeling to hold onto! i asked them why they did the rubbings of the crack, to which they replied..dunno, miss told us too. this made me think about our peformnace, it was a direct engaging one physically experincing the art installation, the path it ruptured through the floor, how it meandered and grew along the entire length of the turbine hall...i thoroughly enjoyed this physicality and didn't need to feel it was crucial to have drawn/photographed what i was actually doing, and in fact the photos doug showed me showed things i hadn't really noticed- that we drew a crowd and people were photographing us...recording experinces in memory is ok in itself, but a little visual prompt is ok too but it shows it from the outside not whats it was like inside so is subjective...have just borrowed the catalogue of the 'live art on camera' exhibition just finished in southampton- which looks at the relationship between documentary photos of performances and the usual line of photographic work of the photographers that took them- shame to have missed the actual exhitibion- think i need to start looking at photo style, recording and subjective nature of documentation- whats left in and out of the frame? WHAT'S THE STORY THAT'S ARTICULATED???? when not to document?

i started to think about whether this was a unique happening, and the master youtube speaks otherwise

thanks lena and neil for a great experinence!

Critical studies- notes from Tutorial

this tutorial was really helpful going through my critical research draft outline of ideas with sean- gave clarity to my wooly thoughts...

just to note a few things about areas for performance research;

research areas;the rubric-
1- a viewer/participant who offers their subjectivity (object, rayograph,story etc) as material for the work
2. an artist/performer who articulates this subjectivity
3.an object, artwork, outcome is created, OR the participant sense that their experience has been objectified

artists-

• tino sehgal- a GREAT one for me as has no documentation no material work (sharp intake of breath...it'll be good for me ;)

• allan kaprow and happenings, michal kirby and non-matrixed theatre

• aernout mix- recent show at camden arts centre

i think i felt happier as it went through my outline of research and re-presented common ideas in a more succint and developed fashion. lots to go away and find out more about :)

Critical studies Tutorial preparation (pre tutorial)

Ok- so here it goes- CRITICAL STUDIES RESEARCH IDEAS

My research proposal is to investigate storytelling through time based media within performance, shifting my photographic practice to a physically and virtually interactive level where it becomes subject/performer/action and less decorative object/illustrative backdrop.

The questions I aim to explore include;

• What is storytelling? How has it been used in theatre and visual arts practice?
Explore history and use of stories in culture, what makes a good story? What makes a bad story? Story telling methods, arenas, urban myths, fables and fairy tales, legends, personal stories told from the heart, the embellished, the old wives tale, the deceitful, the extract, the ear-wigged or overheard, the out of context, fictional, factual, manipulated, rehearsed, spontaneous, etc. How do we pull in the listeners intimately or unwittingly, and also leave them teetering on the edge of a cliff hanger....
Contextual references- Investigating use of stories in historical and contemporary performance using these ideas-
Bobby Baker, Uses stories to play out everyday life happenings.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film stills, invented characters in stereotyped stories within photographs
Will Adamsdale, Human Computer BAC, November 2007- “Cardboard cabaret stories.”
Caroline Smith- Spank, September 2007,real and virtual performer storytelling bringing together the autobiographical and the historical, using objects to tell stories
Stand up comedy+ Cabaret- hyped up/embellished storytelling
Playback theatre- storytelling as therapy, using participants in an audience and playing out their stories
Shadow puppets telling mythical stories, adopted through Paper Cinema, tales of Edward Allen Poe in Masque of the Red Death, Punch Drunk.

• How can time based media become performative, entirely consumed within the performance and less about pure documentation?

Looking at using real or invented autobiographical objects as aid memoire, props evoking stories, or as pinhole or hidden surveillance cameras, participants or self using these to ‘capture stories’ in the everyday to playback in a performance. Possibly a nostalgic object that poses just as that but secretly records, through video hidden inside, accounts given of reactions to it- what does it remind you of?
Contextual references-
Julia Bardsley-Trans-Acts, April 2007, “Trans-Acts forges an intimate dialogue between the audience & the performer, the artist & the creative process, live presence & the visual art object.” Exploring using pinhole photography in different ways and live presence and video thorough dialogue.
Peter Richards-History of Performance art- Group Pinhole photograph, dissolving boundaries between photography and performance, image as artifact that is made during performance and which survives it. “The giant cardboard obscura [is]site (as the stage in theatre) and source (the text - the actors) of the work.’ Sofaer
Curious- Camera as Participant, videos a performer performing to camera, a possible mechanism for storytelling
Sigmar Polke/Scott McMahon- experimental photographs abusing photographic processing norms
Zach Liberman+Theodore Watson- technique in Computer Processing-Virtual interaction with projected media

Practical context- Work underway
• Stories from participants objects that they couldn’t bear to throw away
Looking at the process of creating an image in a darkroom and exploiting the photographic ‘correct way to do things’ within an auditorium as a darkroom, photogram technique exploring objects and video projection of participants sharing their stories to camera will be employed to reveal and then destroy the photographic photogram image and at end encourage people to surrender their objects to charity or dustbin- the death of an object through the death of its shadowed image.

Reading- needs developing- Camera Lucida, Barthes, Joshua Sofaer, Conflict of Interest, Performance as a Spectator Sport.

Learning Agreement- re-thought: STORYTELLING

OK- so too much is filling up my sketchbook/ head and not enough in this blog, hmmm......

here goes next attempt to try to help me make a sense of the chaos i am feeling and so have come back to the learning agreement; am very excited about the storytelling idea as a way of exploring photography, my practice needs cementing and to become less tangential;)

so, back to the dreaded learning agreement....
1 Aims ( outline the purpose, scope, visions and ambition of your plan of work)
Overall aim at this stage-
To examine the relationship through the theme of storytelling, between photography and participatory performance.

• To explore what photography is to me and can become- photography existing entirely as process, and also as a process in which a created photograph, as documentary evidence, survives the live action, existing as an aid memoire or evidence it took place. To communicate ideas through experiences utilising photography, through adding visual interplay.
• To examine the relationship between traditional and digital photography, when to select which or a combination of methods according to concept, for example in exploring the experience of the process of forming a photographic image as a performative event in a staged darkroom.
• Exploring the role of time based media in the collapsing of audience-performer boundaries through audience participation in the telling and re-telling of stories.
  
• To take my visuals for performance screen based work to a much more interactive and less illustrative level within performance, where photography can become more about subject, performer, action, and less backdrop, decorative tradtional 'vj' object.
• To test the water at this exploratory stage by creating a series of experiments around storytelling and other narrative means, both individually and in collaboration with others.
• Developing greater knowledge and expertise about performance theory and ideas to make more purposeful connections with my photographic and moving image practice.
  

2. Objectives (The expected objectives leading towards the learning outcomes of the unit)
Carrying out a series of experiments. To look at what’s possible in photo-performance relationships and work with other’s whose practice has perhaps been more live art/theatre based to this point so that project work is mutually beneficial.

Part 1.STORIES

• Explore history and use of stories in culture, what makes a good story? What makes a bad story? Story telling methods, arenas, urban myths, fables and fairy tales, legends, personal stories told from the heart, the embellished, the old wives tale, the deceitful, the extract, the ear-wigged or overheard, the out of context, fictional, factual, manipulated, rehearsed, spontaneous, etc. Use of stories in historical and contemporary performance. How do we pull in the listeners intimately or unwittingly, and also leave them tetering on the edge of a cliff hanger..... Contextual references- Bobby Baker, Cindy Sherman, Julia Bardsley, Caroline Smith, Stand up comedy.
  

Part 2. PHOTOGRAPHY AS PROCESS AS PERFORMANCE.
WORKING PHOTOGRAPHIC METHODS TO EXPLORE:

• Developing darkroom processes into performance- using footprints created by the audience stepping in moisturising cream, through process of traditional darkroom based special effect- photo-batik, as well as torches for light trails, photograms. Use objects and participants in the process that tell and re-tell stories.Contextual references- Julia Bardsley, Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, Sigmar Polke, Adam Fuss, Scott McMahon.
• Exploring using time based media as a device where high and low technology (traditional and digital photography/video) and performer/spectator interact directly. Build into staged darkoom work using objects and participants.Contextual references- OFF 2006+7, Zach Lieberman, Golan Levin, Theodore Watson, Caroline Smith, Curious (re)actor2- performers, No-Domain, Paper Cinema, Plan B (Berlin)
• Exploring pinhole cameras as hidden surveillance cameras- e.g. objects with a non-camera identity, eg suitcase camera and an (invisible) performance as a storytelling (or photo-story capturing) prompt - telling story whilst doing the act of recording using pinhole - or tool hidden in an everyday happening, re-told later. Try this in the old school butchers in Morden Hall road? Or radiators as cameras?? When is the camera a participant- telling stories to camera either explicitly or secretly, camera is implicated within the story. Contextual references-Barabara Ess, Adam Fuss, Stephen Pippin, Justin Quinnell, Scott McMahon, 'What the Butler saw'.
• Sourcing stories- Exploring hidden camera in camcorder headset linked to portable multi media player, and camera phone- looking like texting for example, maybe as research or as a starting point for later re-telling. Try this in Laura’s Tube performance. Look at online performance possibilities. Contextual references- Surveillance manuals, Merry Alpern, ?? others?
  
• Photography within Participation project- how do others behave and react to cameras, process of making work as the work itself, removal of author, collapsing of audience-performer boundaries, democratising performance? How can the work be created.Contextual refs- Marysa Dowling, French and Mottershead, Spencer Tunik, Ann-Marie Lequesne, Gillian Wearing.

MORE CONTEXTUAL
Read and gain more knowledge about theory of performance work, go to shows exploring site-specific / technological/storytelling approaches- Masque of Red Death, Water, A Disappearing Number, Matthew Barney, Playback theatre.
Books- e.g. Camera Lucida by Barthes, Ways of seeing, Berger, Participation by Whitechapel Gallery. Responsive Environments: Architecture, Art and Design (V&A Contemporaries) by Lucy Bullivant.

3. The Plan of Work describing the principal stages and timescale of the work
1. PHOTOGRAPHY AS PROCESS
Devise series of workshops, developing around the theme of storytelling. Testing ideas on members of the VLP group, using the Observatory space in December.
Utilise methods explored in Participation project with French Mottershead, working technniques to get audiences participating in the work


blahblahblah the planning bit always stumps me...the how to do it, tbc

Learning Agreement- first attempt :)

Ok- so here goes;

1 Aims ( outline the purpose, scope, visions and ambition of your plan of work)
What’s the relationship between photography and performance?
As process, maybe outcome and as documentation? How can the many forms of photography be manipulated in the performance context to add visual interplay, narrative, collage to performative events?

What’s the relationship between traditional and digital photography, when to select what? the collapsing of audience-performer boundaries through perhaps joint participation, social engagement out on the street where both are sharing and creatively engaged towards outcome. Or the auditorium based approach exploring the experience of the process of forming a photographic image as a performative event in a staged darkroom.

Taking my visuals for performance screen based work to a much more interactive and less illustrative level within performance, where photography can become more about subject, performer, action, and less backdrop, decorative object.

Exploring through collaborations what performance can mean to photography and vice versa so neither is an ‘add on’ after thought.- moving away from the idea of vj

Testing the water at this exploratory stage by creating a series of experiments around these themes both individually and in collaboration with others.

Developing greater knowledge and expertise about performance theory and ideas to make more purposeful connections with my photographic and moving image practice.

2 Objectives (The expected objectives leading towards the learning outcomes of the unit)

Carrying out a series of experiments. To look at what’s possible in photo-performance relationships and work with other’s whose practice has perhaps been more live art/theatre based to this point so that project work is mutually beneficial.

1. PHOTOGRAPHY AS PROCESS
a) Developing extracts of Laura Smiths (VLP student) 'Anonymity' previous performance-using footprints created by the audience stepping in paint through process of traditional darkroom based special effect- photo-batik. This may be where the audience steps into moisturising cream and leaves footprints on photographic paper developed as photographic prints in an auditorium as darkroom environment.
Contextual references- Julia Bardsley, Man Ray, ?? others?

b) Exploring Processing using photographic imagery as a device where technology and performer/spectator interact directly. Possibly making work using simple techniques towards the group show in December.
Contextual references- OFF 2006+7, Zach Lieberman, Golan Levin, Theodore Watson (open source software developed for artists), Yahoo Hackday Nigel Crawley, Casey Reas, Ben Fry, (re)actor2- performers

2. PHOTOGRAPHY AS DOCUMENTATION OF EVENT. Review the status of my cameras through developing experiments- action man doll, DSLR, holga, pinhole, camera phone. Explore the idea of surveillance through photography- high and low tech.
a) Exploring pinhole cameras as hidden cameras- e.g. suitcase camera and an invisible performance in an everyday happening. Try this in the old school butchers in Morden Hall road? Or radiators as cameras?? Contextual references-Barabara Ess, Adam Fuss, Stephen Pippin, Justin Quinnell
b) Exploring hidden camera in camcorder headset linked to portable multi media player, and camera phone- looking like texting for example. Try this in Laura’s Tube performance. Look at online performance possibilities. Contextual references- Surveillance manuals, Merry Alpern, ?? others?
c) Photography within Participation project- how do others behave and react to cameras, process of making work as the work itself, removal of author, collapsing of audience-performer boundaries, democratising performance? How can the work be created Contextual refs- Marysa Dowling, French and Mottershead, Spencer Tunik, Ann-Marie Lequesne, Gillian Wearing??

3. Read and gain more knowledge about theory of performance work, go to shows exploring site-specific / technological approaches- Masque of Red Death, Water, A Disappearing Number, Matthew Barney.

Books- e.g. Camera Lucida by Barthes, Ways of seeing, Berger, Participation by Whitechapel Gallery, Processing A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists book, Casey Reas, Ben Fry. Responsive Environments: Architecture, Art and Design (V&A Contemporaries) by Lucy Bullivant.

3 The Plan of Work describing the principal stages and timescale of the work

1. PHOTOGRAPHY AS PROCESS
a) Devise series of workshops sharing photo-batik process with Laura, trying out processes over period 22-10-07 to 9-11-07. Testing ideas on member of the VLP group, using the Observatory space?

b) Read and begin to learn processing language and devices- review Michel Gondry piece, Drawing piece, make contact with Zach/Theodore? How can the ideas in processing develop more theatre based performative practice? Maybe test out existing pieces? Find others working in similar practice if possible in London- contact Nigel Crawley again? Over period until Xmas.

2. PHOTOGRAPHY AS DOCUMENTATION OF EVENT
a) Making objects into cameras-devising performances in relation to the nature of the object over period 22-10-07 to 16-11-07.

b Co-ordinate with Laura and others over this. Monday or Tuesdays?

c) Every Thursday til Xmas

3. Read in relation to supporting performances explored.

FRENCHMOTTERSHEAD part two-part two janet cardiff

Contextual reference- about Plan B performances

Taken entirely from this site; artists that work with toys, cameras, stories- something to come back to. i have highlighted bits of immediate interest.

Some things we have been thinking about lately…
questions we ask ourselves
Q: What is plan b?
A: Plan b can stand for Balham, Brighton, Bristol, and now Berlin and it can stand for all those who want to start again try another way.
We often talk of things not being ‘the Plan b way' we use this to make the other feel bad if they are mean, unkind, thoughtless, cruel, bitchy. I thought about an unwritten manifesto once in bed it went a bit like...
Plan b will not shout in performances, they will endeavour to make you comfortable, they will have open hearts and be honest at all times, Plan b is about you and me - you are free to come and go as you please.
And now if Plan b were to be visible it would just be traces of places that have affected us or stopped us in our tracks - obsessions with clouds, writing in sand, scary fish, airports, shop displays, a winter wonderland and a ghostly house.
I would like to say that Plan b could also stand for ‘being here’ (in a kind of dreadfully punning way, but seriously). What is it to really be in the moment, at this very location? Sitting in our studio, side by side, while I type this and Soph types some other notes for a proposal… The very things that are purposefully edited out of touring theatre work so that it can go anywhere, pretending that the black walls of studio theatres are all the same. Our work strives to respond to where we are now. That’s why we spend our summers sweating inside a building making 1:100 scale models of the art institution we were in. In that piece Me the City we wanted to shrink the world around us in order to try and understand it and examine it. Research and stories that sprung from that place were then projected large again alongside our live manipulation of the model and miniatures – a world that from the digital images stuck on model buildings was nearly believable. From our 3 camera angles we tried to create a film that used the low tech aesthetic to make what we hoped would be urban voodoo: by playing on our carpet with our model could we in fact make it snow outside? Could we entice strangers to meet and kiss outside the registry office?
Q: And as a ‘duo’ who inevitably work with dialogue why do we say that we work with ‘Spontaneous text’ instead of Improvised text?
A: Because Improvisation has all the wrong connotations and nuances from a completely different world, we’re artists, for god sake and these things are important to us. Improvisation is a tool actor’s use and it stays as a workshop technique within the framework of narrative theatre tradition. Spontaneous text as we mean it is something quite different – it usually involves the very careful defining of context and concept way before a word is spoken. It hates rehearsal and repetition. It is the utterances of people trying to be in the moment and in the context and here and now with as much of themselves as they can manage. It tries to answer the hardest question an audience member can ask of contemporary performance practice – why have you asked us here?
But to answer this question straight away is also a mistake and perhaps the mistake of dogmatic, narrative theatre making.
The art, as it were, is not to answer the question right away but to stay with the uncomfortable-ness and impossibility of the question because that is where the interesting territories are to be found.
Spontaneous text is a way of challenging The Text or previously constructed/crafted dramaturgy - rather one that responds to a 'nowness' of performing.
Q: How do you set up situations for Spontaneous Text?
A: we began with How do you keep on talking even though you have said everything you thought possible? In that piece we became the Girl and Clown from the infamous television test card F, which began in 1967 and has been shown more than any other program over 70,000 hours. We wanted to use this iconic, nostalgic and with the increase of viewing hours increasingly rare image as a way to talk about people stuck together. It was at times Kafkaesque and Beckettian and other times funny, banal, ridiculous and sad. We asked each other questions like; what is fluff? Do you think we are no longer needed? Are you real? What else could we do for a job? Do you think anyone is watching? And were interrupted by the muzak of test cards reminding us to retake our original position of being in an eternal game of nougats and crosses.
In a way Bed full of songs was also a spontaneous text but of song. In bed we set ourselves the task of singing all the songs we could remember and writing them down on a duvet till it was full. In both these pieces the audience were made comfortable as if in a domestic space with carpet, cushions, inflatable chairs – anything that would be a contrast to the hardness of a theatre seat, which required you to stay. As they were both long pieces, between 4 – 5 hours, the audience was free to come and go as they pleased.
As a task The Last Hour wanted to limit this endless time experienced in these works and put pressure on our ‘spontaneous text’. We were to say to each other truthfully what we would want to say to each other in the last hour – our confessions, affirmations and anger timed by a chess clock. As the statement was finished the other was forced to respond or move on, really listening was imperative and inescapable. Dressed as if this were a conference and directing the text to the audience and the listeners who were receiving the piece live on radio it was an intense experience for all. The end of the hour was not a clear state; was it the end of us, of the world or just the performance?
Q: What is the difference between the spontaneous text pieces and the more set pieces such as Me the City or your recent work in progress Wonderworld?
The more set pieces have always had a desire to continue the spontaneous text yet in making the works they have necessitated a framework, which gets nearer a ‘show’. Therefore a structure is put in place and a rough outline is made but no lines are learnt and an openness is still required. Because both pieces are about trying to condense experiences in the world; one is the scale of buildings such as in Me the City and in Wonderworld it was about trying to condense a 133 km journey. On our tandem we set off for a castle where we had a residency and made the journey to the venue the focal point. The arduous task of working together on this joint venture of physical stamina and co-operation made the end point, our destination, foremost in our minds. It quietened us. Yet we thought a lot about human power, inventors, efficiency, and coupledom. We were public and were we choose to position ourselves (front or back) played a large part in how we were viewed as in charge or not – yet our unusual tandem with brakes and gears at the back meant a finer more sophisticated set of negotiations had to be made. The performance took seven stages of this journey as opportunities to represent these experiences in different ways. Added by Kraftwerk’s Tour de France and R. Kelly’s I Believe I can fly we peddled our way through journeys that we take daily, make especially and the one that will end: life.