After reading the introduction of Mike Pearson’s Site Specific Performance, I began to understand how it is not just as simple as moving theatre too a new place. You have to research into the history and background of the space you wish to perform in, not only to inspire the performance but to understand and respect how the space was originally formed.

“It’s not just about a place, but the people who normally inhabit and use that place. For it wouldn’t exist without them”  – Pearson,M.(2010) Site Specific Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Reading Pervasive Games gave me a new perspective of pervasive media to consider. How often are we involved in a game without even realising? If we are to create a piece of pervasive media, we will be forcing an audience to confront a truth about their own lives that they were either unaware of, or did not want to acknowledge?

The unaware audiences that were the victims of a pervasive game became afraid, insecure and paranoid when confronted with the fact that something they had honestly considered to be genuine was in fact a hoax. This is not surprising, it would then make them question everything else in their lives, what else is simply pretend? What is real and what is not?

I think this is a fascinating train of thought. I believe it will impact greatly on how I contribute towards creating my groups piece of pervasive media. I will constantly be asking what effect our actions will have on the audience. Will it make them afraid and paranoid, or will it just simply make them aware of a truth they already knew but were afraid to acknowledge? This of course depends on what the groups wants the audience to feel. The actors of the pervasive games clearly wanted to make a huge impact upon people, which they achieved, being compared to terrorists at one stage. But our media probably wont be as evocative, for one thing it certainly wont be as large scale as the BBC. So yes, we want to impact upon an audience, but how far are we willing to go?

What I have learned from Mike Pearson’s Introduction is that the space is a performance in itself. That’s what makes a Site Specific performance so interesting, there are so many ways in which it can differ.

“regarding site as vacant space awaiting performance” Pearson, M. (2010) Site Specific Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

“The play as event belongs to the space, and makes the space perform as much as it makes the actors perform” (Wiles,2003,p.1) – from Mark Pearson’s Site Specific Performance.

What I gathered from the first session was that sire specific is any type of performance done anywhere other than designated theatres. The performances can be strange and sometimes confusing but there is always a deeper meaning behind them.

(My understanding of Site-Specific Performance after reading Mike Pearson’s “Site-Specific Performance”, Introduction.)

Site-specific Performance Definition: performance generated from or for a selected site
‘Layers of the site are revealed through reference to historical documentation, site usage (past/present), text, sound, personal associations, half-truths, lies.’ (Wilkie, 2002a, 150, as cited in Pearson, 2010, 8)
Part of the work has to do with researching a place and its history, then inserting a classical or modern text in to this ‘found space’ which then throws a new light on it.

Pervasive media is new types of digital media linked to an awareness of place and location. It is delivered in to the fabric of everyday life. (Watershed, 2015)