This is the video documentation about my solo performance shown on Monday 27th of April in the WCA lecture theatre. The editing includes both parts of the video I had projected on the screen and the interaction I, as a performer, had with it and the sound.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PERFORMATIVE SPACE:
I began the preparation of the space locating two chairs that would have been my reference point in the orientation of my movements. Besides, I distributed the left over ones in the room in an apparently casual order. Among them, I set up a table with crisps, snacks and drinks on it. On the screen I projected the image of an eye shut. This image was in slow motion, so its tiny movements were just perceivable if somebody would have stared at it for long. The sound of a noisy chatting was eventually filling the emptiness of the space, giving the impression that something was already going on.
THE PERFORMANCE:
As it might be deduced, I started the projection and the sound a couple of minutes before the opening of the doors for the public. Then, I went out and back in among the audience, inviting to help themselves with the food and drinks. After some minutes of free chatting, as we were in a party or in an happening of some kind, the projection started changing slowly, and, as it can be seen in the video above, the interaction within my three means of communication -body, projections and sound- started.
AREAS OF RESEARCH AND THEMES:
My aim has been exploring different kind of relations with the audience throughout playing with de-contextualization and bringing the incorporality of sounds and projections at the same level of importance as the corporeal human body.
Themetically, I researched on the theme of the double, of the free will and on the symbolism of the eye. This is the reason why I wanted the performer (myself) being pretty much identical both in the projection and in the reality. The figure of the eye (which culturally represents the mirror of the soul and in most literature the vehicle of the inner self, as well as being the symbol of God for the Christian iconography) has meant to be the thread link of the performance.
Eventually, I managed to play with a double breaking of a frame of expectation in the audience and I had the opportunity to test how they would have reacted in front of it. Briefly, they expected to go and sit to assist a performance, and they found themselves in front of a kind of party environment. Then, once they located their mental frame into this context, they couldn't immediately realised that they were already part of a performance going on. It has been significant to me the example of a girl who asked me when the performance were foing to start and if she was still in time to go to the toilet. My reply, as a performer, has been: "Fell free to do whatever you want, however, the performance has already started".
PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS:
As it turns clear, from this project I learnt a lot about the reactions and the behaviour of the audience. Above all, I realised that in those cases of pushing the public to an high level of freedom and confidence with the space and the performer, it is necessary to be able to prevent and be ready to face every possible changing in the process of performing that this freedom inevitably implies. Much more than I actually was. I observed than people, after overcoming the embarassment, they actually behaved naturally and spontaneusly, as their mind couldn't frame that as a performative (or theatrical) environment as intended for the common sense. They therefore moved the set and (auch!) my only reference point for the movements, the only chair that I wanted to remin fixed.
Besides, as the voice over started, they started to settle themselves discretely on the chairs, turning them as they were et the cinema. That was the exact point they felt as the beginning.
From the feedback I received, I can tell that the interaction and manipulation of the reality by the non-corporeal reality (that can be seen as the opposition thoughts vs. actions as well as the contrast between the self against its social and mental structures, rather than the question of the free will) has been perceived.
From this experience, I dare to say that I want to carry on with this idea improving it and, possibly, working in a way to push the audience further in the process of decontestualization but maybe in a more subtle -and more effective- way.
