The promise of something to come

This is the result of what I did yesterday. Fuck All. Its strange how sometimes no matter how much you want to do something you can’t. It is filled with potential. Sometimes to such an extreme that it make the act so unbearable. Can this potential be an event in its self?

It is that potential that I now realise was the start of Tim Crouch’s piece. The audience is conditioned to the location, they know that the performance has to start and therefore the potential of it happening makes it start.

Within my own work (pacing) it is this potential that makes an audience willing to watch a monotonous action for so long.

Again this makes me think about the importance of a ‘witness’.

In the interview with Tehching Hsieh in freeze the interviewer suggests that he felt no need to see ‘Clock piece’ and that by simply knowing that it was really happening was enough. Hsieh attributes this to the importance of a signal witness in spreading a message and starting a discussion. Is even this witness important? Can the potential of a work going to happen be enough?

Things to think about

Subverting live art model

Documentation of live art in particular Durational work

Process

Repetition

Importance of a ‘Witness’ to a piece of work; is it enough just to know about it?

Teching Hsieh- knowing the piece is really happening- spread the message to start a discussion.

‘Isolation in the midst of others’

Record of the moment/ process becoming the work

Narrative?

Documentation as work in its own right?

Time

Abramovic- re-enacting in order to preserve

Audience within durational performance- audience community

Present moment (preserve) only a record of moment.

Interaction of audience

Installation as record of piece?

‘doing the work is itself a reward’

Revolution Road: Rename the Streets!

Whilst waking around Zoo art fair a leaflet was handed to me. It accompanied video documentation of a performance of a group renaming streets (via a blackboard) in Cambridge in front of a group of spectators. The leaflet reads as an order of service for the day’s events. In this respect it both acts as a prop within the piece and documentation after. It documents its self without meaning to. For me this made video documentation no longer necessary. In fact to even know that the performance had been undertaken was no longer of importance to me. The instructional quality to the text made the piece for me. It made it able for the work to be re-enacted again and again or indeed in the first place. Is there any need for the performance to happen at all?

Within the text this need becomes apparent through the importance of the ‘Witnesses’. The witnesses confirm the impermanent changing of the street name as a permanent. Only the witnesses will acknowledge this as a ‘real’ change. This ritualistic nature is pivotal to the piece naming the witnesses as ‘more important than (an audience or participant), like witnesses at a wedding or godparents at a christening.’ It mocks the importance of ceremony whilst relying on it.

Things to think about…

Importance of an ‘audience’ within own work

Ritualistic quality to viewing as well as performing own work

The Author

The Author- Tim Crouch. 2^nd Oct 2009- Royal Court

A must watch that plays which traditional perceptions of audience within theatre. Walking in you instantly know your own involvement within the piece. Two blocks of tiered seating face each other so that audience looks at audience. Sitting my self on the front row I am instantly nervous of how much I was to be involved. This is until till it was brought to my attention that it would not make any difference where I sat; just by being there I was to be part of it. This audience participation and bridging the gap between actor and audience were to be played with through out the piece.

Still now I am not entirely sure how the audience settled down in order for the performance to begin. Without any traditional theatrical cues for the start of a performance the audience hush for the beginning. The audience conforms to traditions of the theatre without any lighting or sound cues. They feed off each other to start a chain reaction of quiet. This conformity to tradition continues throughout the piece with the aid of lighting and musical cues. Tradition is embodied in the audience without being enforced in the space.

Although at first I am captivated with the audiences’ reactions to each other and the piece I find myself getting sucked into the storytelling. I forget that I myself am being watched. I am part of the piece without realising it. My belief in the story increases with its instantaneity. Where fact stop and fiction begin? This question is heightened by the placement of the actors within the audience. The gap between audience and actor is being lessoned and therefore belief increases.

Others are forced into participation with questions directed at them by one of the actors. Nevertheless they are limited in there participation with direct questions with limed answers within a story telling context. They are led to believe they are the performance with actually affecting it.

In relation to my own practice this piece makes question my relationship to an audience. How much do I want an audience to participate? Tim Crouch does this by letting the audience know there limits to there involvement through traditional theatrical devises such as storytelling, music and lighting within a non-traditional context. The audience are conditioned to react in accordance to there context while being pulled out of there comfort zone. This enables Crouch to exercise control while playing with our expectations. Could this conditioning be used within my own work to control an audience without enforcing restrictions?