FRIDAY 17TH JULY 2009 5pm, WW101, AUT, MOUNT ST, AUCKLAND
TEST SITE 02 was configured with the aim of shifting action from visual mimicry to a more interpretive response. This time, the wireless camera worn on the body was concealed and the monitor on the body removed. The sight of the ‘screen body’ performer was removed (she wore a blind fold) – so that she could sense the space via all her senses with the exception of her vision, yet her body was ‘seeing’ the space via the wireless camera and sending a video stream to another room where the second performer ‘interpreted’ the screen image into text. Reading the video image the ‘interpreter’ sent a visual reading via text, received in real time on a large projection in the space of the ‘blind’performer. Of course she cannot possibly read the text, although the audience can, and so the onus is on the audience to offer her the visual information. They don’t really get this. Perhaps this could be more instructive. I also think they are too distracted trying to ‘work things out’. This is famliar, as with TEST SITE 01 there seems to be a desire to ‘get it’. An impatience to understand the whole, and paradoxically a passive inertia to go and discover this for themselves, wanting to know what it’s about before they have explored the entire space for themselves. Is this the inertia that is a result of redefining space and place in the digital realm? The two TEST SITES have made obvious the innate coding of space that we are accustomed to behaving by. What happens when these codes of behavior are broken and reconfigured? The participants don’t quite know how to respond – they don’t know how to respond in an environment of the unknown. This response has revealed the importance of considering the boundaries we are breaking, or the codes we are using in a space, if any.
The instant gratification of TEST SITE 01 was clearly both satisfying and stimulating for the participants. Yet it’s not my aim to satisfy, gratify or entertain. I want to stimulate, but on a more complex level than merely devising a scenario where mimicry becomes the ultimate goal.
The motivation behind TEST SITE 02 was to raise the stakes, to give the audience a greater sense of consequence or responsibility. Anja, wearing the wireless camera inhabited the space with them. Amazingly, she very quickly became objectified by her inability to share the space through mutual vision. Participants weren’t interested in assisting her, she was ignored and excluded a lot of the time. The video imagery, observed by the interpreter in the adjoining space was seemingly seductive and was witnessed voyeuristically. It took some of the participant’s considerable time before they understood that Anja, our blind performer was in fact observing them through the lens of a concealed wireless camera, and that their images were being sent real-time to the ‘interpreter’.
TEST SITE 02 could be active independent of participation, however, potential for the audience to become effective in the process was a key aspect of the work. In response to the lack of interaction there are few directions to question. Firstly the direction of the performers actions requires more concise direction and intention. Secondly, the space and the codes of behavior that accompany it, or the lack of code need to be challenged. Thirdly, we could consider another obstruction. I don’t want to ‘direct’ the participants through instruction, the work needs to be prescriptive in it’s own right for the audience to make their own discoveries.
