‘The deliverance of the human from his self-created bondage, the glory of that which is beyond all grasp of thought, the happiness that is the very foundation of our existence, is nearer to us than anything of a physical nature…Liberation is a state of freedom where the individual ego is eliminated and the true egoless state or the state of self is cognized.’

– Charlie Lutes

Liberation generally means free or freed from something. After discussing ‘what is liberation’ with the group in our workshop, it became apparent to me that defining this term depends heavily on personal experience. It seems that no two people are able to understand ‘liberation’ in the same way, presumably because we all walk different paths in life that are designed in accordance with our purpose. Personally, I think that liberation means acceptance. Accepting a situation or circumstance in order to understand it and be a part of it or change it. In understanding something, you take away the power of oppression; you remove the unknown that stands as a threat to you. Liberation is a complete shift in a person’s perception and may even penetrate to changing their belief system.

I began to think about why or how we would adopt this term to develop our performance. Why do we what to liberate our audience? What do we want to liberate them from? Are we trying to liberate them or are we going to take them on the journey of our liberation? If our purpose is to liberate them, how are we going to make them understand liberation? As some members of our audience may not need or what liberation, they may be comfortable where they are; their comfortable with their situation or circumstance.

As a group you spoke about liberating or audience from consumerism by stopping them in their tracks to take a minute and observe their surroundings. To bring their awareness to the fact that they are products of a capitalist society. However, we also coincided that this idea seemed brutally straightforward; by bring awareness to consumerism we would not be liberating, instead we would be presenting the audience with information they already have. This realisation offered another perspective on what liberation may be. Liberation is to be informed of previously unknown information about a situation, circumstance or place.

Charlie Lutes. (1982). What is Liberation. Available: http://www.maharishiphotos.com/lecture53.html. Last accessed 5th February 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KamuKyjF4SA&feature=youtu.be

“The remains of the past are all around us” (Pearson, 98) The River Humber is millions of years old, Dinosaur fossils are often found, the Romans and Julius Caesar have crossed this river and for hundreds of years it had been used to import and export food and materials all over the world. It was 2°C, raining and very windy, except for the occasional dog walker I was all alone and I allowed my brain to wander. “There is no architecture without event, without program, without violence” (Tschumi) In the shadow of the monolithic Humber Bridge I felt very small and insignificant, however as my mind ticked over I realised that I was not insignificant, but by standing there I was in fact adding another layer to the millions of stories that already inhabited the banks of the river, and that was actually rather comforting.

Our performance will include an audio element, we are currently experimenting with what we want exactly in our audio so we gave ourselves the task of each one of us going out to record something. Our performance will take place on the Brayford Waterfront and we needed to add a personal touch to our piece, the theme of water is strong and since I live close to the River Humber I have recorded audio of the waves. I have been to this place countless times  and I never just stopped and listened. It was quite remarkable to just listen to what was happening in that moment, the waves, the birds, the wind. It’s important to know the history of a place as it can make you appreciate just how many things have happened where you are standing, but it is also important to be aware of yourself and be able to be completely immersed in the present.

Tschumi, B (1994) The Manhatten Transcripts (London: Academy Editions).

Pearson, Mike. (2010). Site Specific Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

From last weeks work we have concluded that an intense audio experience is an idea we want to explore. Our partly improvised 3 minute piece left us with feedback that it enabled the audience it created their own version of the city within their own imaginations. This evermore pushing Chloe and I towards the theme of a dream like state within the city. As the audience also responded well to the background audio track, saying it contrasted with my slower and calming voice we felt that this is something that could be more deeply explored.

Researching dreams I have found Freud’s theories could have some relevance to our performance. For example, “It cures sorrow by joy, cares by hopes and pictures of happy distraction” (Freud, 1953, 83) It seems innately human to dream if to dream to bring such emotion to the body. That is the sort of emotion that I want to bring to a person just walking down the street. To be connected to the area around you and yourself enough to create your own world.

Freud, S. The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: Volume IV (1990) The The The Interpretation of Dreams 1. London: The Hogarth Press. 

In response to my previous blog post discussing Tim Etchells’ 8 fragments, we decided to explore further into the observation fragment and take our exploration to Lincoln high street, we filmed the high street and wrote a message that describes how we observe each other every day. We took into account all the things Etchells explores in his fragment and even included footage on escalators to go with his view of the ‘production line’. We then wanted to challenge the social expectancy in society and reach out to members of the public to see if they would respond and we recorded this footage and our outcomes. Here is our 3 minute response.