audio for our eyes

Photography is the science, art and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. Therefore, my groups ideas of how we can relate our experience to our audience have changed. Instead of taking our audience/participants on a tour of Lincoln, through audio only, we have decided to ingratiate in the use of a visual stimuli.  This idea came to us when I recorded our wander ‘destination map’ on my GoPro, in order to add the audio over the top, so we could asses where we were in relation to the audio script and in reality.

When reviewing the footage with Karen, she directed us towards the notion of a multi-media experience, In which our audience listen to our vocal information/guidance, whilst viewing what we saw whilst on our own tour. This type of media integrated work reminded us of the performance format for ‘Uncle Roy’, by Blast Theory. This work by blast theory involves participants buying tickets to become part of the game. They sit in an office area on a computer playing virtually and wandering around the city. The initiators of this ‘performance’ then walk around the city with a walkie-talkie and a hand held computer, on which they can see the virtual representatives in real time. Their objective is to find as many people as they can, once found, the participants are ‘out of the game’. Obviously, our site specific work wouldn’t become a game, by in which we try and find our participants, but one in which our participants can see what was happening and what it was like when we partook on our destination specific walk.

we thus thought that taking our participants on the destination ‘tour’ with us virtually would help them understand their surroundings as we did and hopefully let them see what has changed in the time between our tour and theirs. As ‘The city is an arena where the unfamiliar flourishes, where the disjointed and the disrupted are constantly threatening to overwhelm us. It is also a zone of possibility; new encounters.’ (http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/)Whilst our participants are on our ‘tour’ they will experience the sights we saw whilst hearing the group and I talk them through the area, its past, present and the ever near future, the tour to our site will also help our audience understand our stimuli as they will be guided to places which have significance to our site, these areas will become apparent once on the tour and the site is completed.

 

 

 

 

Citation page:

http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/uncle-roy-all-around-you/

Progress – Samuel Robinson

After the Easter break we have come back with ideas to try and convay the information about the Lawn to the audience. We have had many idea like using mood boards and newspapers.  The last ideas have been to use a table cloth or a menu. The table cloth would work by printing the information onto the cloth so the cloth could be seen as apart of the of the history and future of the Lawn. The cloth would also show a visible progretion of time of the lawn. The cloth would also allow the audience to feel and touch the history of the Lawn,  where as recording it onto the track means that the audience would be detached from the history. The menu works in a similar way but it continues with the theme of the cafe as it would be based on Stokes menu currently in use. The menu allows us to add more information not only about the Lawn but our inspirations to the piece.  Our desition to use the menu was down to the practicaitiy of printing onto the table cloth but we are keeping the have cloth on the table with all of the tables without a cloth to represent the performance area. Also we feel it will be easier to give the menu to the audience and they would be more inclined to read it.

The Lawn and our progress- Ellie O’Sullivan

Recently we have re recorded each of our recordings to make them more clear and effective. My monologue based on a patient who had her child taken away from her, has been extended by adding extra pauses to create a ‘thinking’ effect. Which i also feel helps to create a personal relationship between myself and the audience, due to the time it gives us to interact. We went on to add blank spaces between monologues of ambient sound such as the sounds of The Lawn and a cafe. These spaces will be used as the audience read about the lawn from newspaper articles which we will create.

From experimenting with mood boards as a modern alternative to using newspapers, we have decided using newspapers will actually work better due to our site which is in a cafe. However one mood board which we created to illustrate the period when The Lawn wasn’t in use we feel we could still put to use at some point in the performance

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We find the leaves from The Lawn and the images used will give the audience a real sense of the nature and surroundings of The Lawn.

Furthermore, we have also spoke to the Manager of Stokes Cafe on the High Street, and we will be using the whole top floor on the day of our performance which will provide us with lots of opportunities with parts of the performance such as performative actions and allowing us actors to come in and out of character successfully within the space. Because The Lawn is turning into a Stokes cafe in the near future we couldn’t think of a better site alternative to use due to The Lawn being a building site. I believe the cafe will show the audience what The Lawn will be like and our use of dialogue, performative actions and visual imagery will provide the audience with information of what the lawn once was.

 

Nearing the end. – Sarah Cameron.

As a group we have found this module quite challenging. Our first idea, was to use the Arboretum’s link with WW2 to create a story following the lives of a couple and their family but, after visiting our site with Karen we realised we were going in the wrong direction as Karen explained to us. So, after discussing new ideas with some input from Karen we decided to try a different approach which almost divided the group. One idea was the idea of time, taken from the WW2 original idea, and simply focusing on the emotion behind the goodbye of war. This, I felt personally, did not fully connect to the site as much as I wanted our piece to; I felt you could simply put this idea into any site that had a history of War so I decided to dive deeper into research about the Arboretum and WW2 again. This time I managed to find a 1981 census for the Cold Bath House (It’s About Lincoln, 2013) and a retell of events from a man that had been in the area the time the Cold Bath House had been bombed (BBC,2005). Through finding this information, I had the idea of placing each of the people on the census around the Arboretum and have the audience walk around listening to each of the stories and memories that we had created for each.

On Tuesday’s lesson (17th March) with only three members of our group, I explained what I had researched and we decided to find some research to possibly link in with the stories of the people who had lived in the Cold Bath House. On the Wednesday (18th March) we decided to meet as a group to discuss Audacity and the backing track needed for the piece, after this me and Lee went to the Mac suite to use audacity and completed the track.

On the Friday’s lesson (20th March) we had problems as a group deciding which idea we felt was stronger, questioning whether it was easier to split into two different groups. Deciding we were stronger as one group we merged the two ideas together, and found our final idea. As a group, on the Tuesday’s lesson (24th March) we had planned to record what voice pieces we could but with all the voice recorders out we were stuck, instead we wrote all the lines and monologues we needed for the whole piece and planned to meet up Friday to record these and edit them in audacity which we did on the 27th.

We wanted our piece to come around full circle and make the audience feel like they had traveled a journey, to do this, we are starting and ending the piece with the same quote making the piece more cyclical. The time throughout the piece will be the present, with the performers simply giving the audience a starting point to imagine what it would have been like; the performers will not pretend to be the character only resemble them. The pieces we have recorded are in first person so the audience will be listening to the character’s as though they were alive and in front of them. As well as having verbal directions through the earphones, some performers will be guiding the audience through parts of the Arboretum. We wanted to work with the sites natural rhythm so as the audience are guided through the park, on the backing track we included every sound they would pass.

Works Cited:

It’s About Lincoln, 2013 Lincoln’s Smallest Parish [blog entry] 17 October. Lincoln. Available from https://itsaboutlincoln.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/lincolns-smallest-parish/ [Accessed 16 March 2015]

BBC(2005) WW2 People’s War [online] London:BBC Available from www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/10/a7503310.shtml [Accessed on 16 March 2015]