Next Wednesday we are going on a school trip to St Malo as part of our work related to subversion. During our time in St Malo we are required to work in small group and come up with a series of different performances that would be considered as subversive, thinking specifically about how the audience would react to different performances considered strange and peculiar . I have brainstormed and selected a few of my best ideas.
1 – Writing with chalk
After reading George Orwell’s dystopia novel 1984 for my English A-Level coursework, I was drawn to the writing of a diary extract made by the main character, Wiston Smith in which he wrote ‘DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER’ – an act of rebellion against the novel’s oppressive regime. In the context of the novel the act of writing such a phase was an extremely serious crime that goes against the framework of the society. This has inspired me to write in chalk the same phrase on the streets of St Malo. This will be a subversive act, that symbolize a challenge towards society because of the context that the slogan played in the novel. The slogan, because it only has a reference to a fictional work therefore in reality has no direct meaning in real life. Instead it will be related more towards the contextual themes of the novel, which include general criticisms of society, through the use of extreme examples. My performance will therefore be a general, non-specific criticism of major issues within society, along the lines of government and the role of community.
2 – Capturing people’s reactions
Another idea which I have come up with is to photograph the reaction of the public whenever a subversive act is taking place either by a member of my group of even when we assemble as a collective group. I think that it would be an interesting idea to see how subversion has an effect on the people who are subjected to it. Through this I will be photographing from a candid/observational perspective without trying to influencing my subjects. This style of photography is known as documentary photography because I am attempting to give a realistic, accurate portrayal of events that are happening. It will be interesting to see from an outsider perspective the influence that subversion plays in society, without necessarily being part of the act nor perceiving it as the role of an audience. There is a definite element of chance within this type of photography. There is absolutely no way of knowing how the performance will turn out, and the outcome will depend entirely on the audiences response. My main intention of this is to document form an objective manner how people in society react to something considered ab-normal. It will therefore serve as an interesting research tool concerning the role of subversion in provoking responses within society.
3 – Tennis Ball Games
My final idea is a bit more general. It involves me photographing a performance of people taking part in a game-related activity with a tennis ball. I have not planned anything in particular, and will act spontaneously to evoke a game situations, perhaps at an informal moment, such as a break-time. The overall basis of this performance is to see how people react in casual and informal settings, and test whether they will behave more subversively in the context of an informal environment, and the extent of there awareness of this. Photographing this will be very interesting because the photograph can then be used objectively to test out a theory. The main objective therefore of the photo in the case is to illustrate how subversion works in real-life. I will include text at the bottom of the photograph in order to show the viewer specifically the purpose of this photo. In this instance it is important to highlight the meaning, as otherwise there is no clear meaning behind the photograph, and therefore there would be no indication of any thought/conceptual ideas being expressed.
