A March Against Consumerism

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Emily Rose Cartwright

Framing Statement:

The aim of the high street these days is too make consumers spend money; we want to stop this with social interaction by breaking everyday routines even if it is only for a fleeting moment.

The word ‘Liberation’ was the starting block to our performance; we were asked what it meant to us in the context of our site: ‘The High Street’. After discussing the high street with not only our group but with others as well, it became clear that the main aim is to spend money. This led to a discussion on how we could change this, however we knew that we would never put a stop to it outright, this is where the concept of a ‘fleeting moment’ came from . We wanted to create a piece that would not only disrupt the flow of the high street in the moment of interaction but would also make the audience think about it later. This is part of the reason we used simple interactions, ones that people use in everyday life. However the context of the simple interactions, made them feel abnormal. It’s not everyday that you walk through the high street and are confronted by 4 girls wearing ponchos and sunglasses holding giant signs asking to be hugged or give high fives.

Our performance took place on Thursday 7^th May between the hours of 11am and 1:30pm, the signs were spread across the length of the high street, we had four in total each had a different message: ‘can we hug?’, ‘can we high five?’, ‘can I compliment you?’ and ‘what would you write?’, these signs were printed on A2 signs that were 3 foot high so could be seen all the way down the high street. The order of the signs was important; we started at the bottom of the high street with the sign that needed the least interaction (compliment) and ending at the top of the high street with the sign that require the most social interaction (what would you write?). The objective of the performance was to allow social interaction, this is why it was imperative that we were inviting, meaning that we had to look happy whilst stood with our signs, this was then juxtaposed every half an hour with the ‘changing of the guard’. Based on the formal ritual performed outside Buckingham Palace, we marched to the stone bow for a rehearsed changing over. This juxtaposition highlighted the fact that it was a performance, and also tied our performance in with work by other performance artists like Andrew Stitt, Gillian Wearing and the work that took place during the Happenings.

Analysis Of Performance:

Our piece took heavy influence from quite a lot of other performance art work. We looked into many different practitioners throughout the module however we were influenced heavily by just a few. Whilst researching the use of signs in site based performance work, we came across a piece of work by Gillian Wearing called signs that say what you want to say and not what someone else wants you to say. It was one of her earlier works and involved members of the public holding up signs that they had written something on. Early on in the process we looked into Wearing’s work, just as inspiration for the audience interaction portion of our project. I personally felt that I was very much the same as Wearing at the beginning of her work; I was nervous about approaching strangers however as Wearing said “once I actually got the statement out… I’d say 85% of the people said yes“ (Wearing,1999,) this was the same with our performance. In test runs, we did it with smaller versions of our signs, people had a tendency to complete the action on the sign when prompted but never really knew why they were doing it. As a group we tried to explain, but as we hadn’t produced a prepared speech the answers varied between performers, which is not something we could afford on the day. The performance’s message about the liberation of consumerism would not be effective if an audience member heard 4 different versions of our aim. This is why we decided early on in the process that we needed a framing statement for the piece, one that as actors, the four of us could learn, and would describe concisely and clearly our aims for the performance.

Drifting was a big part of the whole process, we read sardine street box of tricks, this highlighted the fact that location is important to a performance. ‘you need to be hyper-sensitised to the flows, stories and textures of what is around you’ (Crab man& Signpost, 2011). I use the high street every day and until I did my first drift from St Mary Le Wigford right up to the Cathedral I had never noticed many of the things that it contained. We decided to drift individually before meeting at the bottom of Steep Hill before continuing to the top as a group. The top still being the optional site for our performance at this point. As Lincoln is one of the oldest cities in the country dating back to the roman times there were a lot of interesting things to see, however the thing that struck us most as a group was the misplacement of a single brick in the path. This one brick being slightly out of place highlighted the idea that small changes can make a big difference. The idea that one brick could change the look of the whole street was mesmerizing to me, it made me contemplate the idea of loneliness and how something that has been out-cast can be forgotten about so easily, just like a non-consumer is on the high street.

The process started with exploration on Tim Ettchell’s 8 Fragments, whilst reading this the one that stuck out to us a group the most was observation/ coincidence. In this section Ettchell’s states “we pass each other like objects on a projection line.” (Etchells, 1999, 79). It was after we spent time observing the high street as bystanders we realised how true this was. Lincoln High Street is the epitome of a production line created by large shopping corporations, consumers walk from one to the other rarely stopping, with the one goal, to spend money. This is where the beginnings of our idea came to fruition. We knew we wanted to challenge social stereotypes and defy the rules liberating not only ourselves but the consumer as a whole from the restraints of a consumerist society.

This led to one of our first experiments in our site. We took the idea of a production line and looked at it literally taking inspiration from things like escalators; ‘on an escalator we watch each other, getting closer, and then just as we could speak, or even touch, our eyes drop and the moment passes (Etchell 1999, 79). People passed one another mechanically. We wrote messages such as ‘can we high five?’ on post-it-notes and held them out, whilst traveling in opposite directions to people on the escalators. The aim was to take people out of their comfort zone, it also broke the anonymity people hide behind whilst by themselves when on the high street. By breaking the usual flow of the escalator we changed the function just for a fleeting moment, Pearson states that “In public, we may require a kind of physical restraint, a kind of decorum that allows the mass to function” (Pearson, 2010, 98). By approaching strangers with a request to take part in a simple action that was already familiar to them, we stopped them from being taken out of their comfort zone too much, meaning they were more likely to engage in the practice making audience interaction more likely.

DominqueGent,2015

We not only engaged with the audience we also used observation to look at people on the high street ‘the city was always about glimpsing other lives?’ (Etchell, 1999,79). This is why we used the post-it-notes in order to make snap judgments about members of the public, we documented this through the use of photography much like Gillian Wearing does with her pieces. This task allowed us to look at people we would usually ignore whilst on the high street. What was most interesting about this task is that throughout the whole process we were mostly ignored, people were disinterested in what we were doing choosing instead to carry on with their daily routines. Whilst doing this activity we noticed a man handing out fliers, after watching him for twenty minutes we noticed that nearly everyone that walked passed him ignored him. Due I believe to the fact that on the high street people are pre programmed to believe that everyone is trying to sell them something. This led to the interesting notion of gifts and how that man could have been handing out anything, but as people have a preconceived notion of leaflet givers have ignored his plight to help people. This concept interested us, as we wanted to try and find something that would pull people out of there own worlds for long enough for them to notice their surrounding, and have a chance to change their opinions on the high street and its purpose in modern society.

Harris, G 2015 Shutting out the world

Although part of the brief for frequency festival is pervasive media we decided it was important to steer intentionally away from it. We noted from our trips to the site that whether it was people making phone calls, sending/receiving texts, listening to music or doing other things, mobile phones have become a staple of modern day life, leading to the lack of attention people pay to one another increasing. During our final performance I had a conversation with a lady who said “I think it is appalling that young people are always on their phones, they are missing everything”. This statement is for the most part true; however it is not just young people technology has also gripped the older generation. Whilst carrying out our first test, I saw an equal number of people over the age of 30 on their phones as I did teenagers. The aim of our piece was to make people notice what was around them, by doing this it was clear that pervasive media was not an option for us to fully reach our goal.

After our first experiment we were quite set on the idea of giving gifts, we then sat down and wrote a list of possible gifts we could give to passers by that would disrupt the flow of their journey, however the act of gift for even a short period of time would then resonate with them for the rest of the day. We then settled on just five that we could take onto the high street in a series of trial runs.

P, Crowe, 2015 Changing of the Guard Taken 7th may 2015

P, Crowe, 2015 Changing of the guard Taken 7th May 2015

We found was that ‘ Can we high-five?’ and ‘Can we hug?’ were by far the most popular. However, the most interesting reaction we got was whilst Dom was holding up the ‘Can I compliment you?’ sign. A boy came over to her and asked a load of questions about what we were doing and why. His response also gave us motivation as it backed up all our thoughts about the piece. “I don’t normally go out of my way to talk to people, but you really interested me and made me want to talk to someone new” . This is the basic idea of our piece, we want to draw people out of their comfort zone and go against the usual practice of the high street.

Emily Cartwright, 2015 signs part 1

Overall this trip allowed us to explore the bottom of the high street and ‘challenge the hegemonic use of the urban space and the audience as a consumer’ (Hancock,2012). The fact that consumers took time out of their day to take part in our experiment. Another thing we found is that a lot of people walked passed and then came back and interacted with us or watched us for a while before interacting.

'Everything is connected in life...' 1992-3 by Gillian Wearing OBE born 1963

G, Wearing 1999, Everything is conflicted in life

The hardest part of the process was trying to decide what we wanted to be on the final sign. Looking back at Gillian Wearing’s work in her piece signs that say what you want to say and not what someone else wants you to say, we decided we liked the idea of the audience being able to have their say. Wearing used the idea of confessions on her board, asking people in Trafalgar Square, however she did this project over a long period of time collating hundreds of images, this is not something we had the luxury of being able to do. She also stated that ‘the most important aspect was approaching strangers on the street and the interaction between us’ (Wearing,1999). This perfectly summed up everything we had been trying to achieve with our piece up until this point. However we didn’t believe that the confessions was something that would work with the other signs we had created, it didn’t fit with the idea of gifts that we had been pursuing.

The Guardian, 2009 The Fourth Plinth

Now that we had decided on the content of three signs we still had one that was blank, so we began to draw comparisons to the Fourth Plinth program, ‘The Fourth Plinth Programme is the most talked about contemporary art prize in the UK. Funded by the Mayor of London and supported by Arts Council England, the programme invites world class artists to make astonishing new works for the centre of the capital city.’(London.gov, 2015) The plinth has been left blank since monetary issues stopped a statue of Henry IV being built there. Since 1988 it has been a site where artists can erect temporary work on the plinth and have their work shown for a certain amount of time. This idea of audience participation and giving the audience a chance to be heard and share their views inspired us to leave one sign blank on one side with the message ‘what would you write’? Anthony Gormley did a similar thing on the plinth as his art work, for every hour for twenty four hours a day Gormley invited members of the public onto the plinth, he stated “It will be an experiment, I imagine that there will be extroverts who will see this as an opportunity to do the biggest party trick ever. But I have no expectations. I would be absolutely happy if somebody got up there with an umbrella and just stood still for an hour. The idea is that this will be a portrait of Britain made out of 2,400 hours of 2,400 people’s lives.” (Sooke, 2009). The idea of the audience getting to be a part of the performance was an interesting concept, and is something we decided needed to be a part of our performance. Although it didn’t have to be as explicit as Wearing’s work it allowed the audience to participate. The question ‘what would you write?’ allowed the audience to be as personal as they wanted, meaning more people were likely to write something down. As it was whiteboard after each ‘changing of the guard’ had taken place the idea was for any signs that had been written to be taken down, so that it was a blank slate for the next performer. However if something was written at the beginning of the thirty minute interval before the change took place, then the performer was to hold the sign with the audience members words on. I think this was an interesting concept as it shows that once it is written it can apply to anyone, the only way you could distinguish between who had written it was the handwriting, which strangers can not identify you with anyway.

Performance Analysis

Politics was always going to be an issue with our piece. Although we didn’t want the piece to be overtly political, anything that is done that goes against the norm that is set by society is always seen as a ‘political movement’. The became more to the fore with our piece especially when we found out the performance day was going to the 7^th of May 2015, the date of the General Election. We also found out that you are not allowed to publicly vie for votes in town centers on election day. We were concerned we may have an issue with the fact that our signs were blue and did look slightly like a Conservative banner, this is why we had to monitor the ‘what would you write?’ sign, as any overtly political messages may have caused issues. This being said, we didn’t want to oppress anyone by censoring their free speech, so we decided as long as the comments were not derogatory towards anyone then it should be allowed to be held up.

Overall the performance went better than I could have ever expected, the reactions the signs we’re for the most part positive. The easiest and best to hold up were the ‘can we high five?’ and ‘Can we Hug?’ these created the most response but i believe this is because it didn’t need that much interaction, the audience could take part without having to take too much time out of their day. ‘high five’ also attracted a lot of family groups with children running up to us to give ‘high fives’. we also felt that the weather was going to affect the performance more than it did. During our rehearsals in the high street it rained and the audience stopped interacting, this did make us nervous especially when we saw the weather forecast, however it wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be even in the rain passersby still stopped to engage in the performance and ask us what we were doing.

Crowe, P, 2015 Can We Hug Taken 7th May 2015

The costume worked well it kept us looking the same and in unison. However one member of the group did take off their poncho which i feel did detract from the performance slightly as it stopped us all looking the same. The fact that the ponchos were clear and the other three members of the group kept theirs on did soften the blow slightly.

Site specific performance has taught me that performance doesn’t need to take place on a stage, ‘all the worlds a stage’ (shakespeare, 1623) I now have an appreciation for the use of site and space as an influence for performance, Site specific performance allows you to discover a site making a performance that has more depth as it takes inspiration from the surroundings and the history of your site.

Works Cited

Etchells, T. (1999) Certain Fragements. London: Routledge.

Govan, (2007). Between Routes and Roots. Performance, Place and Diaspora. 136-143.

Hancock,S (2012) Contemporary Walking Practices and the Situationist International: The Politics of Perambulating the Boundaries Between Art and Life. Contempory Theatre Review, Vol. 22 Issue 2, p237-250. 14p.

London.Gov (2009) Fourth Plinth [online] https://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/arts-culture/fourth-plinth[accessed on 10th may 2015]

Persighetti, S. and Smith, P. (2011) A Sardine Street Box of Tricks. Plymouth: Blurb Inc.

Sooke, A. (2009) Antony Gormley’s Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square. The Telegraph, 26 Feb. [Accessed Online] at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4838343/Antony-Gormleys-Fourth-Plinth-Trafalgar-Square.html

Apted,M, Fergurson, R. De Salvo, D. (1999) Gillian Wearing. London: Phaidon Press.

emily cartwright (2015) signs 1 [Online Video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSb6UobOszg [accessed 12 May 2015]

Dominique Gent (2015) Site Specific Observation Video [Online Video] https://youtu.be/CVtcgAIdgnc [accessed on 12th may 2015]

P, Crowe (2015) Lincoln performing arts Flickr

The Guardian (2015) The Fourth Plinth: the story so far [Online] http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jul/07/fourth-plinth-one-and-other [Accessed 13th may 2015]

Tate, (1993) Gillian Wearing OBE. [Online image] London: Tate. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wearing-im-desperate-p78348

QR CODES PERFORMANCE -Selma James – Final blog post

Image

Questioning Retail (QR) was a performance conceived from the observation of our dependency on technology, specifically smartphones. The only way an audience member was able to communicate with us, the performers, or understand the content within this performance was through a smartphone. As technology, specifically mobile phones, has become the most successful product of the capitalist culture, Question Retail (QR) quickly developed into a performance that was self-reflective on capitalism and the consumerist culture. Realising that technology, particularly smartphones, have become a basic necessity in our everyday life, it was only fitting that technology be a fundamental component in our performance. Built on the foundations of questioning the system, capitalism, that the retail industry thrives on and the retail environment in relation to humanity, we created a performance that did not intend to criticise consumers in the high street, instead the QR performance intended to enlighten and ignite a conversation between us, the performers, and our audience in order to reflect upon our society. Our collaboration was highly influenced by the expectations of the Frequency Festival which emphasised the theme of liberation. Our performance was structured by the use of QR codes, however although it seems simply this use of technology had not yet been explored in the artistic world until our production. Within this blog I will reflect upon the various concepts and previous site-specific art that inspired and influenced the birth our Question Retail (QR) performance; our process of creating this performance; and finally a reflection on the performance which took place on Lincoln high street on May 7^th 2015.

Liberation

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 us 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 personal goals. Questioning the truth that the word liberation signified, we concluded 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.

Bases on self-reflectivity, before beginning this Site-specific performance journey I was not aware of the fact that a smartphone made its owner a walking encyclopaedia. With the help of Wi-Fi and data, a smartphone is the key to unlock almost every single piece of information in this world, but not every smart phone owner is aware of their power. The QR performance seeks to liberate its audience from this ignorance; it seeks to demonstrate the greatness that technology has provided humanity with as well as liberate consumers from capitalism for just a moment while they interact with us during our performance.

As liberation was the key ingredient to the piece of site-specific performance that we created, our understanding of the word liberation transformed from meaning freedom and acceptance to simply being aware of the society and time we live in. Our intentions where to liberate our audience from the consumerist culture 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; and show them the power they posses as people of this time and their dependency on technology gather than on people.

The consequence of Technology

Albert Einstein said,

“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” (Mount, 2015)

Sixty years after the death of one of the world greatest minds, it seems Einstein’s prediction has come true. It is certainly acceptable to believe that technology has become a basic necessity to our existence. Thriving on our cravings for instant access to everything with minimal effort, the growth of technology has exceled the expectations of anything humanly imaginable, thus, creating a new breed of people. Einstein presumably was insinuating through the above statement that by being dependent on technology we are further away from humanity than the generation before us. And that perhaps with the growth of technology, humans are evolving into machines that can function entirely solo with absolutely no dependency on anybody else.

People on their phones while at a social gathering, Mount 2015

Although to many 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. However on the other hand, as Einstein feared, technology has had an equally negative effect on people, particular on my 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 that group is drawn into a technological world through the device that has won over their 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. 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.

Pervasive media and QR Codes

“Pervasive Media is basically any experience that uses sensors and/or mobile/wireless networks to bring you content (film, music, images, a game…) that’s sensitive to your situation – which could be where you are, how you feel, or who you are with.” (Pervasive Media Studios)

Pervasive means to spread throughout. Thus QR codes are the newest form of pervasive media. QR codes are a growing technological means of accessing information. Used by major commercial companies, such as McDonalds, as an easy access portal to their websites. Acknowledging that QR is an abbreviation for quick response, it is evident that technology is simply catering to accommodate our impatiens. QR codes eliminates the effort of having to type in a web address, this form of media owns its rapid growth to the fact that it gives people the option to simply scan a code in order to access the information they seek. First created in 1994 by a company called Denso Wave intended for commercial use. In just twenty-one years, QR code have developed into a portal that allowed scanners to access any sort of information attached to the code, as well as become a quicker way for shoppers to find information on the products they are buying.

A QR CODE used in the performance, 2015

For our performance we changed the meaning of QR to stand for Questioning Retail. We also took advantage of the fact that QR code are a digital tool that emphasises how small the internet the world. We consisted many way in which we could use a QR Code to liberate our audience form consumerism. Although we kept our performance simple by wearing a T-shirt and giving out flyers with QR codes printed on them, one of the most thought provoking performance ideas we brain stormed was to temporarily tattoo QR codes to our skin. As QR Codes were originally intended for commercial use, imagine for a moment the affect temporarily tattooing QR Codes to one’s body. Instantly the coded body would be labelled, thus making it a product. For the duration of the tattoo being on the skin, the person does not exists as an individual being, instead they become a product manufactured by society. If QR Codes where tattooed to a person body, as we had intended to do for the performance, Albert Einstein’s fear would be at its peak, because humans would no longer own technology and use it as a tool, instead technology would own the human and use him as a puppet to drive it growth in capitalism. But isn’t this already happening in our society? Although technology has not yet grown to point where it is inbuilt to our bodies, I has already taken over our lives through our dependency on it.

AR Art

Currently QR (quick response) codes are the fastest way to access information. By simply scanning a pixilated code printed on any surface you are taken into a digital world. This advance of technology may be used to introduce an entirely new movement within the artistic culture. In an article entitled, ‘Invisible visualities: Augmented reality art and the contemporary media ecology’, Amada Starling Gould explores AR (Augment reality) artists phenomenal use of technological tools such as QR codes to reveal their work, therefore illuminating a new perceptive on media – media that exists a form of expression.

Inspired by AR artist Tamika Thiel work entitled ‘Transformation’, we devised our entire performance base on the concept of technology being the key to our content. the Only way an audience member could truly partake in our performance was if the they scanned the codes we had on our T-shirts and the codes we handed to them. It is evident through Thiel’s work that the QR codes and the portable devises used to scan these codes are only vehicles that allow a person’s mind to travel to a different space. However, in order for this ‘travel’ to happen, there needs to be a purpose or depth created within a realistic space, as shown in ‘Transformation’. Considering the essence of invisible visualises, this artistic style makes art accessible only through a digital devise, however it does not compromise the essence of traditional art, which is to enlighten and/or express an idea, perspective, emotion etc. Tamika Thiel’s work was particularly influential when we where devising the historical content for our performance.

Lincoln city then and now

Capitalism

Capitalism is the social system in which we live. As a system, capitalism thrives on class division and profit motive. It is a system in which the minority rule and everything has a price. Capitalism has become more than just the social system it has become a religion.

In agreement with Russel Brands statement that Capitalism is a religion, Walter Benjamin states in his writing ‘Capitalism as religion’:

“one can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religions.’’ (Walter Benjamin)

In observing the system on which the 21^st century western society depends on, it became apparent that money holds a power in capitalism equal to that of God in other religions. If capitalism is a religion and money stood as God within the capitalist religion, the high street would be equivalent to a church. Introducing ‘Retail therapy’, the church of Capitalism claims to help people, consumers, release street and feel better through spending money and gaining material assists.

In regards to our performance, the concept of capitalism being a religion had a significant influence, particularly when exploring social interaction in the high street. Firstly it is important to identify that ‘social interaction’ is a topic that explored people’s relationship with the high street and the characters they portrayed whilst on the high street. The high street is a place where people (consumers) experience the height of capitalism, as it is the church of the capitalist religion. Weather conscious of it or not the people of the high street are followers of capitalism and thus portray certain characteristic similar to that of the capitalist system. For example, whilst overserving the movement of the high street it became apparent to me that many people have a goal they wish to obtain whilst on the high street shopping, this characteristic is also found in the anatomy of the capitalist system. Capitalism is built on obtaining money for growth, thus it is fair to conclude that as consumers we have adapted to the traits of the capitalist system to the point in which we mirror them.

The Situationist movement

Situtaionists’ believed that change began with oneself and that a change in ones perspective of the world would change society. In order to practise their concept, situationists’ seek to disrupt the flow of social norms.

Our performance was on May 7th which was also the day of the general election. In order to subtly reflect this we incorporated Situtaionist art into our performance. Are intentions where to be political without being bias to any party, in order to create this balance we took care to ensure that we did not mention any political parties or discuss our political view points with our audience. As one of the first movements to analyse capitalism it is no surprise that they an Avant-grand artistic approach. With the use of a surreal time portrayed within the images, such as the one below, and the their choice of words and statements, situtaionist artists can be recognised at political critics.

Situationist art, Google images

It is evident that situtaionists’ seek to break the norms of society or the habits of the capitalist system by mirroring them in order to illuminate the horrific affects that this system has had on society. Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle is a critique of consumer culture. Debord reflects the control the media and commodities have over consumers.

“As capitalism’s ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all levels makes it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name their own impoverishment, putting them in the position of having to reject that impoverishment in its totality or not at all, revolutionary organization has had to learn that it can no longer combat alienation by means of alienated forms of struggle” (libcom.org, 2006)

After researching the situtaionist movement we were inspired to incorporate some its characteristics into our performance. Our aim was to disrupt the flow of the consumers on the high street and having a conversation with them that questioned the capitalism in it current consumerist form.

The Lives of the High street

The lives on the high street where a significant influence in our research for social interaction. By day the high street was home to all consumers and businesses, however by night, the high street turns into a home for the homeless of the city, the people that no body notices whilst shopping or getting to work. The shop doors that to material fulfilment during the day are also a place o sleep for the homeless at night. Whilst observing the movement of the high street it became apparent that unless a homeless man intentionally makes himself noticed nobody sees him; it is as if he just blends in with the concert jungle we call the high street. This observation evidenced a social issue that is hardly spoken about. Below is a picture take of a homeless man on Lincoln high street, I attached the caption ‘Would you help him if you could?’ to this picture as it was used at a source for a QR Code.

Homeless man on Lincoln High street, 2015

I found this image particularly provocative because this man is sitting directly in front of a store, however after observing him and the movement around him I noticed that only a few people stopped and spoke to him or helped him. Personally, I found this incredibly disturbing because capitalism preachers the benefits of retail therapy however as a human being would it not be more fulfilling to help other?

There is no place for art

Initially we intended to past QR Codes on a public wall on the high street, we approached two spaces, the glass shelter and Marks and Spenser’s wall on the high street. However, we were unable to get permission to use either site. Our solution was to criticise capitalism through the use of its main vehicle, marketing. Our performance was simple yet provocative. We gave out QR codes as flyers and portrayed the character of a promoter on the high street. This however meant that our audience struggled to approach us as they thought we were trying to sell them something. What we discovered was that instead of listening to our opening statement where we made clear that we were a performance not a sales pitch many people abruptly stopped us saying ‘I’m not interested’ and hurryingly walked past us. I also observed that because of the character we were portraying many people intentionally avoided us, by moving to the other side of the street; avoiding eye contact and putting their heads down. However, the audience members who did interact with us understood the point of our performance. As a performer I feel that I gained a lot of high concept ideas from interacting with audience that I had not noticed we had explored through our research. For example, I had a conversation with a gentleman who pointed out that our performance highlighted a horrifying social truth. That as a society we worship money because we work for it and most disturbingly is that capitalism has managed to put a price on money and that price is human sacrifice. After this conversation during our performance it came to my attention that every oppression and war that has and the ones that do exist with in our society were driven by money, from slavery to the middle- Eastern wars, the price of money is human sacrifice.

Works Cited

Mount, H. (2015, January 11th). Was Einstein right? Physicist once said he feared that technology would surpass human interaction – and these photos show that time may not be far off . Retrieved from Dailymail online: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2929268/Was-Einstein-right-Ph

Thiel, T. (2012, November 22). Tamiko Thiel: Tranformation. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdB62q8tZCA

Watershed (2015) Pervasive Media Studio: What is Pervasive Media? [online] Bristol: Watershed. Available from http://www.watershed.co.uk/pmstudio/what-pervasive-media [Accessed on 26/01/2015]

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

libcom.org (2006) Situationists – an introduction [online] Available from: https://libcom.org/thought/situationists-an-introduction. [Accessed on 1st May 2015]

Lyotard, J.F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge. Translated from French by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. UK: Manchester University Press.

Russel Brand. (2015). Is capitalism a religion. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW2TBJPuoAI. Last accessed 13th May 2015.

A passageway to improvement

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Joe Thomas Facer

For the past few weeks I have been focusing solely on my performance and how it can be improved. Since all the texts have been written and chosen for the piece, I can only make a few edits regarding their content. However, there have been several changes in regards to the order of these texts and the order of the objects. For example, a text based on the expeditions of Franklin through the North West passage was, at the start of the process, going to be performed at the end of the piece. However, after a great deal of thought this section has now been moved to the beginning of the performance as it will greatly benefit the performance as a whole in this position. In addition, the use of the Gluck has also been under various alterations. While it was originally decided that the Gluck would be used only at the end, it has been changed so that it is played several times throughout the piece. This should give the performance a more authentic feel. In regards to the 3-D footage, it has all come together brilliantly. I have also been looking into the work of the theatre group Seven Sisters who utilise both sound and video within their projects to give the audience an experience they will never forget. While their project Atalanta (Seven Sisters Group, 2010) used video and sound in a different way to how my performance will, their use of these techniques when regarding Greek mythology has inspired me further emphasise these aspects within my performance. Also the fact that they use video footage to match the audience’s path is similar to my piece as I use the 3-D video to match the description of my descent down St Peter’s passage. For the next week, all that is possible for me to do is to continue rehearsing and aiming to improve my vocal techniques and movement.

Bibliography

Seven Sisters Group. (23 July 2010) Atalanta. [performance] Seven Sisters Group (Dir.) Oxford: Ashmoleon Museum.

Situationist

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Alys Victoria Brown

When developing our concept in order to reflect the day on which we are performing, election day, we began giving our piece a more political focus and began researching Situationist ideologies.

“The Situationists, were the first revolutionary group to analyse capitalism in its current consumerist form.” (libcom.org, 2006)

This international organisation of social revolutionaries expanded upon Marxist theory and avant-garde art movements. Guy Debord for example wrote his The Society of the Spectacle, a critique of contemporary consumer culture, in which the Spectacle refers to the control the media and commodities have over the passive consumers.

“Situationist tactics included attempting to create “situations” where humans would interact together as people, not mediated by commodities. They saw in moments of true community the possibility of a future, joyful and un-alienated society.” (libcom.org, 2006)

After discovering this, it was inspiring for us to see how our performance piece reflected this theory of the ‘spectacle’. I particularly felt that our chosen site inspired us to question the consumerist nature and human interaction we witness within it. But also, our piece is to ‘create a situation’ where “humans would interact together as people not mediated by commodities” (ibid) reflective of the situationist ideologies.
We aim to disrupt the flow of the consumers in the high street by having a simple, human conversation with them whilst also questioning the environment around us and the ‘spectacle’ of society by inviting them to use pervasive media to access our performance, through QR codes.

libcom.org (2006) Situationists – an introduction [online] Available from: https://libcom.org/thought/situationists-an-introduction. [Accessed on 1st May 2015]

Best, S, Kellner, D (1999) Debord and the Postmodern Turn: New Stages of the Spectacle. [online] Available from: http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/Illumina%20Folder/kell17.htm [Accessed on 1st May 2015]

Wikipedia (2015) Spectacle (critical theory) [online] Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectacle_%28critical_theory%29. [Accessed on 1st May 2015]

Audio Problems

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Naomi Victoria Jones

The recording process is a long one. It requires tests, and re-tests to ensure that all recordings have sufficient volume, clarity and timing. We have found that this can be challenging to achieve especially without a proper recording space.

One of the main problems we have faced when recording our peice was volume. The pre-recorded telephone call with Ron was booming with volume, yet we struggled to recreate anything like that level of sound with our own mircrophone. We tested out numerous positions for the microphone in order to figure out optimal position for picking up our voices. Thoughout the testing process we found that plosive sounds like ‘b’ and ‘p’ were being picked up more than other causing a sort of popping sound to appear in the recording. We found that the best way to get rid of this was to alter the angle in which we positioned the microphone and speak to it with our face sideways on.

Taken 28/04/2015 in one of our recording sessions.

However audio recording is useful as it enables us to listen back to our own voice and make judgements based on our tone, and whether or not we think this tone works for the overall aim of the piece.
Each recording comes with its own set of difficulties and editing. Each must be re-wroked so that the white noise is removed. It must then be adjusted to the suitable time length before being added onto the final piece. This is long, arduouos process but when done correctly should result in a professional sounding piece.

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