Portugal in Lancaster
Sent by Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy
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‘Un Ange Passe’
Very comforting, clever use of mixed senses. I loved seeing the public
reaction (especially because I hadn’t really thought about it throughout).
I loved it. I liked the anonymity of waiting with the lavender but I think the instructions for where to wait could be more specific, as it was I felt a bit vulnerable / confused. Once the interaction began however I felt completely safe and secure. The walk was lovely and the video footage was incredible. I walked home with a smile on my face. Very effective.
Thank you x
1. Vue – View
Found myself looking at Church St – really looking above eye level at the 1st and 2nd storeys…
Remembered the beauty of the vista – Judges lodgings, stone Georgian, the Priory above and the tree behind – the ginnel leading between the lodgings and the DSS –
You forget the beauties when you live here…
2. The Station Piece
Reduced me to tears. Filled me with a sense of peace and purpose. Reminded me of a more courageous time…it was beautiful.
3. The Map…a bit of folding fun.
Back to childhood…I’ll go to my place on a Sunny day
Deborah says :-
Quite bizarre in places. Disorientating in lots of ways – the disjunction between familiar places and unfamiliar ideas – also the audio is a bit like having someone else’s thoughts in your head because it’s so immediate and personal perhaps – because you’ve got the headphones you know you’re the only person with these words in your head – which is a bit like they’re your own thoughts but they’re not. So that is a bit unsettling, but not in a bad way. I really liked the sensory weirdness of what’s in front of you being like but different from what you see on the camera (at train station).
I think any kind of disjunction between the evidence of your senses must be slightly disturbing – it’s interesting to think about – it makes me wonder about the emotional impact for people experiencing sensory disturbances (I mean for medical reasons).
All very interesting and evocative.
Josh says:
He liked the map the most.
*Handwriting very difficult to read on this one, sorry!
I really liked the station piece. I thought it was really well done, very noisy (?), but I didn’t feel as thought I was being manipulated or coerced into participatory(?) or being an emotional response
The mix of the sound on the headphones with the (____?) of the station worked really well.
It was just a really gorgeous experience – thank you!
Richard’s walk was a lovely honest walk. Such an interesting response to ghosting Lancaster. I was trying to picture where he was in relation to my position. There was this strange coincidence when he texted a picture to Duncan who was with me of his position in respect to us. I love when things like that happen.
Hello again Rommi 
We folded our streets
together
One over the other
East to West
North to South
Sandwiched
- triangles and squares
Your mysterious red envelope
led us from Vue to view
but rebellion
took us
Swaggering
to the punch of the
piercer’s gun
I abandoned girls
on the pavement,
fainting,
I ran up the hill,
Ran up the steps
looked out to sea
to see your view
And there you are
And here you are
As the tide comes in
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Day 6
The day of public performances and last minute tweaks were pushing people’s stress levels! Nothing like a bit of adrenalin to get everyone going. Working with technology provides its own problems and their were issues with wet weather and the GPS pacs…
But it all came together eventually and people arrived to a programme of five different sketches and works-in-progress, which took place in the Storey Creative Centre and around Lancaster.
Dan and Katerina got involved showing people how to fold their maps. We were able to test out how people found a ‘how to’ video in comparison with having someone to show them in person.
Despite the weather, the GPS piece, ‘Here Well Trodden, There Very Faint’, was in working order. This collaborative project was by Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy, Rachel o’Dwyer, Mary Stark and Dan Koop.
Mary and Duncan were able to have a game of quickdraw cameras after sending the participants on their audio walks…
There were two pieces in the Storey Creative Industries Centre which were prerecorded mp3 tracks listened to individually on personal mp3 players.
‘Un Ange Passe’, by Rommi Smith, Janice Greenwood, Fi Hamer and Steph Sims, took place at the station as a performance for one person at a time. It used a prerecorded mp3 track and a mobile video as well as cleverly chosen props and expert timing to create a unique and moving experience.
Richard Hepenstal had created, ‘The days that take weeks, the weeks that disappear’, a walk leading from one urban view (Vue Cinema) to another more contemplative peaceful site, which looked out over Morecambe Bay. He left a map for participants, as well as a letter and a visual plan.
Playing with ideas of presence and absence, as the participant reached a point to which they had been guided to by a hand drawn map, they were able to look out and imagine Richard in a place specified by an arrow on a photo of the same view. At the same time, they received a photo by SMS of the view at which Richard was looking.
‘Morecambe Bay 3.30pm 6th August 2010′
(‘mobile image’): ‘one of a series of images texted to participants in Lancaster’
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Tags: audio walk, mobile technology, performance, props, public space, video
Day 5
We carried on working on our self-initated projects today, with a brief gathering in the morning to discuss progress. The first task of the day was to help Richard, an artist who was working individually. He had given us all sentences to say which he recorded using binaural microphones near the castle.
The group working at the station spent time clearly mapping out and developing their ideas on large sheets of paper, as well as testing them out practically on site, making a video and devising ways of using simple props to enhance the performance.
The group working with the map of Lancaster as a starting point spent time pulling their ideas together, dividing up tasks, making recordings and then listening back to them in specific locations.
Katerina was keen on the idea of scripting and writing text to be recorded for the audio walks. Rachel was happy to take on the technological role of working with GPS so that different soundbites would play in specific locations.
The ‘fortune teller’ map was a playful interactive object and Dan was given the task of creating a video which participants could download or watch before they began their audio walk.
Mary wanted to record sounds in the city and had been interested in layering time using digital recording. Her task was to use binaural microphones and record four walks in the directions of north, east, south and west which would then be merged together to create a soundscape which would be used as a background for the audio walks.
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Tags: audio walk, binaural mics, mobile technology, performance, props, sound recording, video
Day 4
The opportunity was given for people to work individually, or in groups, on self-iniated ideas over the next couple of days. The work which is produced will be performed and shown on Friday afternoon at the Storey Creative Industries Centre and around Lancaster city centre.
Deciding on ideas to take forward either individually or in groups to be performed and shown on Friday afternoon. One group has chosen to develop the idea of angels in everyday life/’Wings of Desire’ with a piece which will take place at the train station.
Another group decided to use a map of Lancaster city centre as a starting point for creating audio walks, devising routes for experiencing the city through folding the map and using the creases as markers, as well as creating a folded ‘fortune teller’ from the map, which also dictates the route a participant will follow.
In the afternoon, Duncan gave a workshop on using GPS in theatre and art. We were able to experience Duncan’s GPS piece called ‘Always Something Somewhere Else’ in the city centre after the workshop.
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Tags: mobile technology, public space
Day 3
Today three groups used different types of sonic technologies to experiment with ideas for pieces of work. People formed groups through their preference for source material to use as a starting point for this work.
The choices of source material to use as inspiration were:
a real story from a daily newspaper, the Lancaster or Manchester Guardian http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/8306843.Poole_Council_surveillance_deemed_unlawful/
a video clip where people are sitting on a train and the audience can hear their thoughts from ‘Wings of Desire’, a German film made in 1987, written by Peter Handke http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093191/
a passage from the book ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino
The three techniques we were able to use were:
recorded sound and mp3 players
live transmission using a radio transmitter and a number of receivers
mobile video
Before starting we discussed at what point a location for an idea could be determined. For example, a specific site could be used as a starting point for an idea, or the concept for a work could come first with a place incorporated in at a later stage.
The group using a newspaper article as source material selected a story on the front page about a family who had carried on living in a house that they had sold because they were trying gain a place for their daughter in an oversubscribed school. They were suing their local council after they had been subjected to ‘covert surveillance’, which is usually used for suspected terrorists.
The group made two soundtracks, one with two people acting as a mother and daughter on a shopping trip to a book shop as they start to notice they are being followed, and another one with two people following them acting as private detectives. The two tracks were then put onto four mp3 players so that this became an audio walk for four participants in two pairs. Props were given to participants so hopefully they would not have met before and would experience the feeling either of following someone intently, or feeling like they are being followed and watched.
The group taking ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino as their starting point worked with mobile video near Lancaster castle, playing with disorientation and differing perspectives through mixing prerecorded video made in a site with live action in the same place, so that real time and past events were layered together.
A final group, who were exploring the ‘Wings of Desire’ idea of angels in everyday life, worked at the station creating text which was spoken as a live performance using radio transmitter and receivers. Participants were asked to describe random acts of kindness which were spoken live to listeners on the station platform.
In the afternoon, the groups moved on to try a new form of technology.
The newspaper article inspired work developed into a recorded soundtrack where a person is given an mp3 player and instructed to get into a car which is not theirs. The soundtrack describes growing paranoia as the participant is followed by performers who are videoing and stalking them. The culmination of the experience is live performance where the participant is confronted by the performers as if they have been framed in a crime for which they are innocent of committing.
The ‘Wings of Desire’ group worked with mobile video to create a piece without dialogue on a platform at the station, using stillness and perfect timing. This was a performance for one participant at a time, which confused real events with recorded ones to place the participant in a character’s role and feeling as if they had seen and touched by ghost.
The group working with Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’ idea used recorded sound to explore absence and dislocation, using interior sounds played in an exterior location. Their instructions were very clear and they used a hidden clue in a wall for the participant to find.
At the end of the morning and afternoon we fed back after testing out each other’s ideas, discussing at least one successful moment and what we would want to be developed further. We headed to the pub to finish discussions around problems of working in a public space, how to give specific framing and structure so that participants and performers are very clear about when a performance definitely starts and ends.
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Tags: instruction based work, mobile technology, performance, public space
Day 2
Today we began by heading out into the city centre to do some exercises using different techniques working with sound in public spaces. We began by listening to three prerecorded tracks on headphones whilst staying in the same place in a location, in a ‘silent disco’ set up, collectively listening and watching to see and feel the varying emotions and effects a different types of music can have.
We then moved on to do a Subtlemob using two prerecorded mp3 tracks listened to on headphones, which combine a fictional narrative, instructions and a musical soundtrack to create a performance where everyone takes turns at being both a spectator and an actor as they listen and move around a public space.
For the final exercise of the morning, we used live radio transmission with one person acting as a guide through a space wearing binaural microphones and giving an ‘in the moment’ feed of spoken descriptions in the past tense, whilst the rest of the group followed around twenty footsteps behind listening on headphones.
It was fascinating to test out these different approaches and to begin to see how technology can be used to create immediate durational performances. It was also useful to experience and observe the reactions of the general public and to see just how much participants of this type of performance can blend into everyday situations, possibly even interacting with the public without them realising that they are becoming part of a live art event.
In the afternoon we worked in groups at the Storey centre, selecting a personal memory from yesterdays location writing workshop to develop into a recorded soundtrack which gave at least one instruction to the listener. We had around half an hour to think about what we wanted to do and to record it. We we also asked to consider when to give the instruction(s), what they would might be and why we might use them. We had to choose and work within a space inside the building opening up a personal memory as written material to be re-staged for a listener.
After completing this exercise and listening to the groups recordings we discussed our responses and which things we felt we might like to develop. We talked about different types of instructions and how they can range from a very specific action to a loose invitation or a question to reflect on. The group chatted about the ethics of instruction based work, as well as what happens if participants get instructions wrong. The idea that ‘the reader completes the book’ was brought up, bearing in mind the notion that misinterpretation of instructions can sometimes become a valuable, exciting and interesting element for both the artists and the participants.
The last exercise of the day took place at the train station where we used live radio transmission plus written instructions to create simply choreographed interventions on a station platform. We all wrote out individual instructions, breaking them down into muscle-by-muscle movements, for example, “Choose a pillar each, walk over the the pillar, place one hand on the pillar, extend the arm fully, swing around the pillar, repeat until you hear the next instruction.” We split into two groups of five so that one group performed the instructions as they heard them transmitted live as they were read out by Duncan from the bridge above the platform. The other five people were able to watch as their instructions were carried out amongst people waiting for trains. The synchronisation of the movements which came from the instructions being transmitted live seemed key to this work. It was also intriguing to see how we naturally turn public spaces into unconventional theatres, with trains coming and going acting as curtains being lifted and dropped to open and close a scene, and a bridged walkway transformed into a balcony for spectators to view the performance from.
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Tags: mobile technology, performance, public space
Day 1 – Workshops
Paul and Duncan introduce the course in the gallery space at Lancaster University.
Working on the Lancaster University campus creating performances responding to public spaces with personal memories.
One of the sites in Lancaster city centre, where we used written documentation as a way of recording sound which was then performed back into the same space.
Creating a live audio walk using a mobile phone on loudspeaker. The audience/participants are allowed to imagine a journey through a site as a guide talks them through it from beginning to end. As they then make the journey, the guide directs them through the space using only their memory of the route and its surrounding environment.
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Tags: documentation, location writing, performance, public space
The first day of the Ghosting Lancaster course has been focused on everyone getting to know one another, gaining a contextual understanding of the type of work that we will be exploring this week, and actually starting to make and perform work in locations in the city using written documentation and locative writing as a way of recording sound, describing space and stimulating personal memories.
There are nine participants on the course coming from a range of backgrounds, from theatre directors who have been classically trained to fine artists, academics, performers, musicians, a poet and participants from a recent previous Subtlemob. Interests within the group are diverse, covering performance theatre/art which integrates mobile sonic technologies, creative writing, public art, fine art, sound engineering, music, physical computing, humanities and filmmaking. As part of the first three days of the course, participants will be giving informal presentations as a way of sharing their individual practices and interests with the group.
Duncan and Paul opened the course talking about using headphones and recorded sound as a lens to look differently at real spaces, locating and layering memory, documentary and fiction.
Their shared interest lies in observing, transforming and subtly shifting everyday behaviours in public sites through working with mobile technologies and performace. They talked about the idea of ‘ghosting’ in relation to everyday mythologies, future possibilities and past memories, as well as the Shakespearean idea of ghosts and angels acting as messengers or intermediaries.
We also discussed:
whether our society is visually or aurally dominated
schizophonic/direct sounds
how music and sound can change the way we visualise and experience anything, be it a film or a real place
rather than feeling distanced or removed by mobile devices, how can we use them to become more connected to our immediate surroundings?
a current novelty around headphone/instruction based audio work
Some of the artists/theorists mentioned today:
Francis Alys
Jean Paul Thibaud
Hamish Fulton
Improv Everywhere
Ultrared
Janet Cardiff
Ambient Addition
Allan Kaprow
Friedrich Kitler
Thomas Eddison
William Burrows
Alvin Lucier
William Gibson
Rimini Protokoll
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Tags: context
