February 2013 – Page 4

A Story Of Untold Cards

Christopher Greg Sellers / February 6, 2013May 13, 2013 / War and Loss

This week I was to attach particular descriptions on cards to a site, specific to the description on that card. I found this task to be very interesting, in locating different sites which from everyday objects. Perhaps, just like Willy Dorners work the descriptions may enable performers to work within the certain perspective of the site.

Card 1 : ” The shop window disintegrates almost in slow motion”

There was a crack in the window which therefore looks like the window is disintegrating when passing in slow motion.

Card 2- “We zoom in very closely on a crack in the pavement. A definite tremor”

The force of the tree is causing cracks in the ground as the roots have pushed their way through. I found on my travels many cracks in the pavement but they didn’t seem to be the result of a bigger force .

Clue 3- ” “This is an anxious tension in the air. A slight crackle”

My first thought seeing the card state “a crackle in the air” was to find lightning, or wind. Then my thoughts turned to a metaphorical sense music from the night club expressing a certain emotion crackling the air. However, whilst on my drift I spotted a flickering lamp whose rays crackled the night sky. It then gave me an idea. The glow of a lamp definitely shines into the air, casting a light which forces it’s impact upon a scene. When a light is being turned on the crackle is only slight as the bulb bursts into full emission.

To conclude, all these descriptions could trigger an idea for a site specific performance, can have many meanings and don’t simply state a certain site . Descriptions and sites can be overlapped so that just like my journey we can drift from site to site and see a continuous journey of society, of a developing narrative and of performance.

Card Irony

Rachel Miller / February 6, 2013May 13, 2013 / The Odds Are Stacked

“Buildings wobble”

The Cathedral. Again… But wait…Again. De ja vu. When doing my task of placing my card i observed the cathedral from the south side of Lincoln. Out side of the high street, on Sincil Bank where the Cathedral would seem to be at its highest. when looking at this card i found it hard not to be too predictable and apart from flying to see the Leaning tower of Pisa i could not actually find a building that wobbled. So i thought of this in an metaphoric way. Again. I thought about the cathedral being the focus point, championed so much as the main focal building in Lincoln. It appears so that all the building underneath the cathedral would wobble in fear that they have so much to live up to. It could be seen that in a way it over shadows all of the other wonderful buildings as its lit like a trophy in a Cabernet. In which the others cower and wobble with fear. The Holy qualities that the building possesses within questions the other building’s purposes. Although i felt it would also be fitting to shake the card slightly when i took the photo for some dramatic irony.

#Lincolnshireheritage.

[space]?

Rachel Miller / February 5, 2013May 13, 2013 / The Odds Are Stacked

The excitement that erupted when the class discovered that this could potentially be our performance space was rather encouraging as we seemed to all share a collective interest in this building and its history.

Always something i have seen on my travels into Lincoln, from the exterior i never knew that it even had rooms inside let alone over grown gardens. Empty spectating seats with hollow sparse insides. It felt like going into an over sized rabbit hole or the body of something. i felt like learning about this building was like learning about a body part of Lincoln. It made me think of all of the diverse memories that have been made in this place and whether those people were still around in Lincoln to tell them.

To be continued. Watch this space. ( Potentially)

Leaving an imprint of ground, material and people

Olivia Milne / February 5, 2013May 13, 2013 / Uncategorized

‘Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it takes the edge of admiration.’ William Hazlitt

Three cards, wandering lincoln finding places that we felt the words on the card reflected or told us to place them. I found upon reading them, that infact they were not undiscovered places the cards needed to be hidden, securely stowed. But places I walk past every day, places the words on the car reflected and I subconciously had kept account of. My own street became the new homes to two of my cards as it wasn’t until I stopped and thought, that I realised, my seemingly humble,e quite road possesed such mysterious, subtle activity. A cat roaming its pavements, lit up windows easily accessible to the curious eyes of pedestrians, voices heard through thin brick, and over gates. Again my drifting opened my narrow gaze to the enchantment of a road I walk up and down in and out of countless times a day. If it was not for the drifting opening my mindset and eyeline I would not daily be rejecting Hazlitts quote

Card One: ‘From here I can hear the sound of people talking and music I don’t recognise.’

Placed in Vodka Revolution booths, behind a speaker and stranger, both echoing unfamiliar words, conversations and rhythms.

Card Two: ‘There are ruins and buildings that will eventually become ruins and people that will eventually become bodies.’

Placed on a broken wall next to my house, littered with smashed bricks and fragmented concrete blocks. Been in ruins since I have moved in, curiously nobody has ever touched it.

Card Three: ‘ A shot from distance of other peoples houses, perhaps where a cat picking its way along the wall.’

Placed on the corner of my house, unfortunately cats were not present, but it is the exact spot where a robin sits everyday. Opposite the other side of the street lined with houses.

The second card began to resonate with me and I felt a sense of sorrow when leaving it on such a discarded and disheveled wall. In a way I began to feel like that about our performance being left on the Grandstand. The building once so glorious is left stood alone broken and unfixed. The card reminded me of the process and hours we will have departed with when at the grandstand and eventually the remains of our performance, the odd penny it came to light later on. I had mixed feelings about finishing our piece, but hoped the messaged we left would be powerful, it began evident to me after or performance that we did not leave the message at the site. It was shared with the people that visited it as we educated them in the lives lost and they carried that away back into society hopefully sharing and questioning the message back into moving life.

The Drift

Ben Middleton / February 5, 2013May 7, 2013 / Uncategorized

A drift put simply where you go for a walk through your local town or city with no destination or purpose in order to find the things mostly overlooked by the people who do have a purpose and a destination in their journey. The art form of drifting has evolved from the romantic walking that came about in Europe during the late eighteenth century which was a response against the age of enlightenment that was occurring around the time ‘a reaction against the material changes in society, which accompanied the emerging and expanding industrial capitalism in the late eighteenth century’ ((Oosthoek, Jan (1999) ‘Romantic Movement, late 18^th and early 19^th century’ online http://www.eh-resources.org/timeline/timeline_romantic.html (accessed 25th March 2013) )) the idea was to get back to nature, that nature was the key; the Romantic Movement was this alienation of the city and the move back to the nature because nature was seen as pure .

Drifting evolved from the Romantic Movement to being about the journey rather than on a destination (back to nature). Instead, it has the aim of ruling out destination altogether ‘first, separation from the community, then a plunge into flux in a liminal space, finally reintegration back into the community’ ((Smith, Phil (2010) Mythogeography: The art of Walking sideways Triarchy Press))the idea of plunging into a flux is that of getting, essentially, lost; this is so you do not rely on where you are going or sign posts or directions to interrupt the flow of walking that is supposed to be coming subconsciously. However, this form of reintegrating back into community is warned about ‘collapsing back into the everyday and missing the whole point’. In order to overcome this lapse back into the norm and forgetting all about the drift you can do little exercises or tasks to change the route or drift completely. For example, you could have the person use a large leaf as a map, or as they are walking have them look up at the tops of the buildings they walk past.

Linking the idea of drifting back to the Grandstand we can look at the old romantic walking of the eighteenth century. The romantic walking was about getting back to routes, essentially to nature, but with the Grandstand we could look at getting back to its original use of being a racecourse. Furthermore, since the Grandstand is empty, we can look at it as a non-place, or a place generally forgotten by the public; this echoes the ideologies of drifting since the focus of a drift is to find something generally overlooked by the public.