While watching the Radio Ballet Leipzig (Radiodispersion, 2008), I noticed that the use of an mp3 player within a performance can create a shift of power in social situations. For example, within certain sections of the train station the majority of the people there were “actors”, whose presence outnumbered the non-participating public. This contrasts greatly to what usually happens within society. Thus, this shift in power towards the “actors” forced those who were not participating to became the minority, and perhaps feel awkward. Comparing this to Mike Pearson’s Site-Specific Performance (Pearson, 2010), it is clear that this is an example of a ‘They go there, you and I do not’ (Pearson, 2010, 24) situation. The creators of the piece used an mp3, which didn’t require their presence, to alter the ‘physical stances and body attitudes’ (Pearson, 2010, 24) of the participants in a social situation. It also encouraged them ‘to touch and smell and listen as much as look’ (Pearson, 2010, 25) in a way which opposed social norms which are considered odd. The use of an mp3 interests my own ideas for a performance because it allows a creator to dictate to a willing audience without actually being there, thus allowing the piece to be performed whenever is best for the participants.

Bibliography

Radiodispersion (2008), Radio Ballet Leipzig Main station Part 1 [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3pfa5QNZI [Accessed 10 February 2015].

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

”How many of your friends do you text daily? Okay, now keeping that in mind answer this: Do you have more conversations through technology, than you do in person? It seems that more and more people are moving away from face-to-face interactions, but instead moving towards a more technology-driven way of life. Myself included, society almost needs to use technology to communicate. Without it, we would be completely lost with minimal communication. Of course, this is society as a whole…majority rules.” (Inspire mag)

I read this article after our very first workshop and it made me think how I and the majority of people around me are dependent on technology. Although it seems like technology has had a huge negative impact on our basic human skills, it is crucial to acknowledge its benefits. For example long distant communication is faster and far more efficient with the use of Skype, text messaging, directing messaging on social media and email; it has also made knowledge incredibly accessible to anyone, with a communications devise, at any time. Therefore opening the doors for a much greater education then what may have existed in the past; technology as feed the growth of many fields from medical to entertainment, which is magnificent because the larger occupational fields grow the more jobs there are available for people. However on the other hand, as the article highlights, technology has had an equally negative effect on our generation. From personal experience and from observing the world/ society around me, it has become evident that we live in an era where we would rather text and call then go out and meet. On many occasions you will witness groups of people ‘spending time together/ bonding’ yet everybody within those groups are drawn into a technological world through the device that has gained their undivided attention, oblivious to the surrounding that they a physically present in. Physically they are in a place/ location yet mentally they are in a completely different world. It makes me wonder if one day texting will become the new way of speaking. Instead of using my mouth to say ‘hello’ to the person standing in front of me, I would have to use my mobile phone or tablet to text them ‘hello’.  With this said, think for a second how many times you may have passed somebody in the street that could have been a major influence in your life, but you missed them because you were looking down at your phone.

Zorzini, C. (2013). Technology’s impact on society in today’s generations. Available: http://inspiredm.com/technologys-impact-on-society-in-todays-generations/. Last accessed 10/02/2015.

Last week, we watched a variety of work. I personally was inspired by the Radio Ballet. The particapants all doing the same actions in the train station I felt was very powerful to watch. Although some movements were intended to be comical such as the dancing, the simple movements, for example standing still in a space and ‘loitering,’ were extremely powerful and effective to watch. Another example of previous work we explored was ‘Super night watch’, I really enjoyed this piece of work also as not only was it a very brave performance, I really enjoyed the video documentation aspect of it.This is definitely something we will explore in our piece.

Radiodispersion (2008) Radio Ballet Leipzig Main station Part 1  [online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3pfa5QNZI [Accessed 6th Febuary 2015]

Dominique and I decided to choose the task of leaving messages of enchantment and friendliness on trees throughout the city. We chose to use luggage tags that we could handwrite messages on and then later attach to the trees. We decided to use more than one tree in the city to monitor the audience’s reactions and to see if the location changed that. The first space we chose was inside the restaurant-bar Walkabout in the high street. Although this was not a real tree we felt it still would have the same effect. I was interested to see whether the use of a tree inside would change the audience’s willing to read the messages and interact with us. We chose to leave the messages on the tree, as due to the venue, the public were not comfortable coming over whilst we were creating the task. After this, we went further into the high street, here we got a lot of different reactions. We were mainly approached by children asking what we were doing and then looking at the messages; we had a similar reaction on the Brayford Waterfront. Our aim was to test people’s reactions and willingness to participate as this will be something we will have to deal with in our final performances.

In Etchell’s ‘Eight Fragment’s on Theatre and City I have chosen to discuss three of the eight ‘fragments’ which I found interesting and which gave me ideas to how performance can be produced in Cities.

In ‘Exploration’ the notion of awareness and observation is emphasised. The term, “dead of night” (Etchell, 1999, 76) suggests that darkness prevents exploration because it shrouds the places around us and restricts our sight. In the morning, however, the light enables us to explore because it gives us a sense of security . Harbisson describes this “veiled arrival” (Etchell, 1999, 76) as “acting out an allegory of knowledge” (Etchell, 1999, 76).

‘Maintenance’ describes a man’s repetitive “ritual” (Etchell, 1999, 77) in which he walks the same way at the same time every day. The man’s strange actions opposes the everyday normalities of life, however the man’s repetitive nature also reflects human’s tendencies to repeat their everyday lifestyle as if it is ritualistic. (Getting up, going to work, going to bed).

‘Destruction/Construction’ concerns itself with “the fascination of ruined places, of incomplete places” (Etchell, 1999, 78). These buildings create an impression of unfinished business and decay. The history of such a place cannot be ignored as with every building, comes a story, a past. For Mike Pearson, places like this allow “the past to surge into the present” (Pearson, 2010, 10). The people who resided in or merely visited these places in the past leaves a residual impression in the place itself. Rom’s theory that “to walk is to leave footprints” (Pearson, 2010, 21) suggests that each person adds to the history of a place or space and that these footprints resemble the mark and memory of that person. Every time we enter a space or a place, “the visitor is aware that each surviving doorway was once entered, each window was once looked through” (Pearson, 2010, 24). Their residual presence survives in these spaces and it is vital to recognise the importance of this in order to fully understand the history of a place itself.

Etchell, T. (1999) Certain Fragments. Eight Fragments on Theatre and City. London: Routledge.

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