Initial thoughts on Nunning.

Learned a bunch from the Nunnery show. The overarching impression I've walked away from my piece with is that I've thrown open too many doors and have to figure out which ones are the ones I'm interested in moving forward with. I may or may not get around to organizing them into themes before I post this. Just want to get things down while they're still quite fresh.


So what is the piece about? Let's start with what seems to be there based on observations and audience feedback:

• pretty singing
• minimal, often unconfident live performance
• slippage between live and recorded image. What is actually happening live and what is pre-recorded? (I even saw one woman taking the headphones off in the middle of watching it, which was fantastic)
• immersion of viewer through soundtrack
• alienation of viewer through trapping them in a corner behind a camera and forcing them to watch complicated video piece on a small screen
• a layered piece that was read on different levels by different people
• a vague sense that there was "alot there" but no one at the actual performance who could put a finger on it
• from feedback pre-performance "extremely rich" area to explore. Yes, I'm finding it overwhelmingly rich!
• putting the audience in my shoes behind the camera
• confusing the role of the viewer to those around them who think that the person behind the camera is actually filming. As a result, preventing many possible viewers from approaching the camera and watching the piece.

What I wanted it to be about, or things that I put in there on purpose:

• embodiment in space of both viewer and performer
• performer highlights interesting aspects of space through movement and vocalization
• video reinforces these
• performer ultimately becomes integrated into the different sensory layers of the space
• viewer becomes embodied simultaneously through immersion and alienation. When they walk away from the piece, they have a heightened awareness of the space.
• 3 phases to video that shifted mood, but also shifted weight of foreground/background between the video and the physical space
• mirroring 3 phases live

What seems to be ideal viewing moment for this piece?

• when the place has some people milling around, or walking from place to place
• when I appear live in the space as well, especially when singing. even if the singing isn't the same tune as the video piece.

If I did piece like this again, conditions I would insist upon:

• layered space: a place where there are people walking through, different points of entry and exit. I tried the piece in 5 different locations, both at WCA and at the Nunnery. The most interesting ones had people in different planes from the viewer walking through the frame. The 2 locations that were enclosed rooms were pretty boring.
• 2-3 days in the space before the performance to rehearse and plot out performance sound and movement. The performance side of things continued to be weak for the whole weekend. My performance skills are at a point where I still need to have a clear plan in place ahead of time. I can't wing it and hope for the best, even if I love improv. Sticking to a path and controlled movement on Sunday made me feel like I was starting to get there, and allowed me to find a good pitch to my performance over time. I was hoping that having all this time would do exactly that. However, in the future, I need to have this time BEFORE the actual performance!
• 2-3 full days of shooting with rough edits performed each evening or on the fly. Although I felt good about the work I did in the Nunnery. I ended up limiting my possibilities by only taking half a day there. Things that I thought would work together when reviewing the tape in the space ended up not working together at all. Editing is so easy with final cut these days!

But what exactly is the main point of interest or focal point of the piece?

• is it about the space?
• is it about the performer? in the foreground or the background?
• the viewer? alienated or immersed?
• the articulation of space through movement? sound? alienation? interruption? integration?
• my embodiment as a performer within my body? surroundings? in relation to the technology? the viewer?

Other things I felt or heard repeatedly:

• When I think back on this weekend, I feel like I'm playing a conceptual tennis match. Except no one's keeping score.
• live performance was chaos until Sunday. On Sunday, I had time to find something to do with myself that seemed to hold things together more. I created a walk for myself around the gallery walking backwards and forwards as if I were another person just looking at the art. However, once in a while I would stop and study something that wasn't the art, or start singing. If someone blocked my path, I reversed direction.It was interesting and seemed to make the piece hold together better.
• the whole piece "worked" on Sunday, but what do I mean by that?
• at what point do I give up and get someone who is a trained performer to do it for me? This question makes me really angry. I feel like there is some assumption that if you're not really good, you shouldn't put yourself in your work. How will I learn if I'm not in the work? And yet ultimately, when does my lack of performance skill get in the way of me communicating what I want to with the piece? I can't answer this right now. Still narrowing down what the piece is about?
• is it really important that people sit behind a camera? What would be other ways of doing this?
• soundtrack was fab.
• I realized that I was most interested in the sonic dimension of the space.
• I am also most interested in exploring the sonic dimension of video. I think. The one piece of this I can clarify right now is that I think the true power of video rests in its marriage of both sound and image.
• most people wanted to sit with the piece longer than one cycle. This is good. However, the underlying criticism of this is that I should have made the piece longer, chosen maybe 1 mood, or made each section longer.
• The discussion on Saturday kept coming back to the idea of audience expectations. This was most interesting because it made me think about all the unexpected, or extraneous things that audience members might focus on with my piece. For example, the whole thing about people spending ages in the space and not touching my piece because they didn't really it was a piece and the signifiers for a camera on a tripod are not to approach. This throws a whole new debate about my piece out there. And I need to be careful about such things because it can detract from what I am more interested in communicating with people.
• The other thing that comes to mind about being trapped behind the camera is that one of the interesting things about Janet Cardiff's video walks was that even though the viewer is behind the camera, their bodies are in motion, which seems like a freer way of experiencing the piece and perhaps enhances the viewer's embodiment of the piece. (I do believe Harriet made some comment along these lines when she viewed my test piece!)
  
• The piece was TOO hidden. I didn't want the performance to be in your face. But I wanted people to be aware of it. People were aware of my presence more than they were of the video. Sadly, my presence was nowhere near as interesting as the video.
• Do I need to be in the space to make the piece "work"? Are people walking away with what I intended when my presence in real time isn't there?
• Do I need to control when the viewers encounter me in the physical space?
• Is it interesting to have it unravel completely differently for every viewer?