Our trip to St Malo on the 17th of June 2015 with guests Gareth Syvret and Tom Pope, developed or aim to succeed the expectations of the locals in a foreign arena. In our small groups, we came up with several ideas to incorporate this enigma. Our first idea was using Sian. Sian bought 24 yellow roses at the local Market and our idea was to hand out the flowers in order to receive the reaction of the public. This was very successful in a way I felt encapsulated the senses of community and relationships.
Sian holding the yellow roses.
One of our targets for receiving the roses.
This experiment suggested positive, as many people where up to the challenge of exceeding this performance. In awe to Tom Pope, this idea of performance has given challenge by testing the public’s response. Chance has been established through the duration of the performance as many people changed their mind about receiving the flower. This then enabled the way we change our approach to people and the way we dictate our performance in order to receive a more positive outcome.
A woman happily receiving her yellow rose.
I was really happy with this photograph partly because you can clearly see the reaction upon this woman’s face. I am glad that our aim was established and that the roses gained a positive and interesting experience. I felt this interaction was key and I’m glad i challenged this.
Our next task was to use a blow-up ball through a mundane environment. The main aim was to characterize a movement which would represent a normal and sophisticated stance that we would use to challenge and chance the public community passing through this area and time. This movement was simple, the ball would roll down the metal railings and eventually, be passed back up to the top in which the movement would start over again. This action was repeated, and half way through, members of the public passed through and reacted in a surprised, un-realistic way. However, because we didn’t take much notice and reacted as if there was no abnormality, the action was suppressed as normal. This was also dictated through the way we kept quiet; regarding nothing abstracted or influenced our performance.
This technique proved very successful. I felt the aim was fulfilled due to the ordinariness, and the pace was very smooth and interactive. I feel an element of change was anticipated due to the challenge towards the transitions of normal and abnormal. I feel as a group we turned an action so simple to an action worth meaning, that the typical and mundane values where transgressed and pushed to the extremes.
Here is a link to the video of the Blow-Up Ball:
The next task we took was during our experience in St Malo’s local supermarket. The aim was to venture up and down the aisles of the market and pick up various items from the different shelves. This was among the public circle and wasn’t staged to the extreme. This was all captured on video and when one of us shouted ‘slow’, the movements of normal pace turned into slow-motion, leaving the only the public to react in a surprising and humorous way.
Surprisingly, the people of the public didn’t know quite how to react and in this in fact made them not appear in the video at all due to them realizing the performance and warding off because of it. The avoidance in such a public and mundane place ensured to us that we had really challenged and changed the transition of normal to radicalized, proving our performance as successful.
Setting up into our positions.practicing the repetitive actions.
Here is a link to the video of our Slow-Mo Market Dash:
The next task was to challenge the reaction of the public further. We directed one of our group members, Molly to climb into a small cardboard box. She then placed herself with our instruction in the middle of a busy pavement, central of St Malo’s town. We captured on video the audiences reactions and how they were challenged with the change of normality. This idea of chance was established too, as people who walked past gave molly the chance to perform.With the influence from Tom Pope, the suggestion of how if there wasn’t any people there would probably be no chance of any performance, so concluding this the location of this act gave this performance a chance to challenge the change in the public arena.
Molly waiting for her performance to start.Molly hiding in the box.
I felt this performance was very successful, and from the video you can clearly see the aim of this action being established. The feeling of change from normality to becoming surprised was clearly evident, and from the video this challenge was successful as we changed the normal transitions that wouldn’t of been there if our performance didn’t take place in that moment of time.
