Consider ‘linear’ and ‘cyclical’ in your performance. How important is the organisation of time in your work? Consider the essence and organisation of time in your work in relation to Pearson’s organisation principles.

Consider space as an organisation principle. How can you organise space in your performance? Why is this organisation important?

Don’t forget you can refer to ideas of performance in terms of ‘liveness, digital space, immediacy, presence, absence, corporeal, Real’. We discussed these in terms of performance this week and we began to connect them to your own work. Try and articulate your connections here.

My groups drift, which we embarked on last week, took us to two places of interest, both of which we all found intriguing and slightly creepy!

The first was a desolate playground. Some pictures were taken by Anna, who will be uploading them shortly, but the area was essentially the remains of what used to be a childrens playground (a slide is still standing, be it in a questionable state…). As a group, we found this to be a really enticing space, as it had an air of creepiness around it, as well as the possibility to explore childhood in the city in past decades.

The second site was an old building near to this playground, formerly known as the Lincoln Equitable Cooperative Industrial Society Lmt. The building is now a student accomadation, but the exterior remains as it did when it was first built (1861 according to archives online). After a bit of research, I have found some archived files surrounding the building, which encompasses budgets and costs of stock, suggesting the building was used in some sort of industrial way as the name suggests. In the archives, records of deaths of workers have also been noted, with reference to the ‘death of mr M Smaller. This could be something interesting to focus in on, if the other idea surrounding childhood falls through.

Anyway, that is the initial research our group has done on the building so far, more extensive research will no doubt follow.

Link to the archive online: http://archive.lincolnshire.coop/1910/1913_-_Directors%27_Report_-_part_1.pdf

Nick Wilson

FOLLOWING ON FROM ANYA’S POST

Whilst searching for history and information about The Lawn online, we came across a site which informed us that the Lincoln Archive center held authentic journals,registers and diaries from the 1800’s when The Lawn was opened and used as a mental illness hospital. The experience was new to us and we found the process of the research exciting yet daunting as there were strict rules held in place whilst you were inside the Archive center due to the building holding factual and statistic information about the people of Lincoln and Lincoln itself.

Me and Anya went on to view the Restraint register book, which we found fascinating as it was in such a fragile condition holding the original documents. In addition to Anya’s information from her previous post we also found questions within the register which were asked to relatives/friends of the admitted patient. These questions excited us as we believe we can use them on our audience so they have a real sense of what it was like to be a part of the asylum. These questions were as follows:

1.What is the age and employment of the patient?.

2. What are the supposed causes of the insanity?.

3. At what period of life did the patient first exhibit symptoms of insanity?.

4. How many attacks of the disease have they experienced?

5. How long continued and how long have been the intervals of sanity?.

6. Has_____ been under any medical care whilst insane, if so who’s.

7. if_____ has been admitted into any public or private institution, when and for what courses was ____ discharged.

8.Is_____ laboring under any infectious disease, or other bodily infirmity affected with fits or palsy.

Here we find the audience will be shocked hearing such abrupt questions about such a sensitive and delicate matter.

Within the register of restraints used within the Asylum we found that the hospital used several restraining methods on their patient’s almost every day for decades. We are excited to see how we will be able to incorporate the factual information about the restraining methods into our performance. Here are the examples which we found:

• Both hands tied to bedstead
• One hand tied to bedstead
• One hand in lock and chain
• Restraint belt and locked in room
• Muff collar and hobble restraint
• Restraining waist coat

I went on to research images of these restraints used some i found disturbing and emotional.

Today proved to be an interesting day for us as we took a trip to the Lincoln Archive, a place which allowed us to view information regarding The Lawn, by looking at the original documents which would have been created when it was being used as the Lunatic Asylum. These documents included, Physician Journals, Register of Patients and Register of Restraints.

The document which Ellie and I focused on was the Register of Restraints.

Opening the fragile book, on the first page there was a letter which would have been sent to someone who was considered at the time to be a lunatic. I managed to copy down what this said, as I thought it could potentially be recorded and used in our piece.

‘Gentlemen, having reason to believe from personal enquiry and from the annexed certificate that (Full name) of the parish of (Parish name) in the county of (County name) is a lunatic, we request that he/she may be admitted to the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum.

We are gentlemen, your obedient servants.’

Reading this, I at first thought that as it seemed quite an abrupt letter, which suggested to me that patients were treated harshly, but with a further investigation, methods of restraint did not seem too extreme, and other documents suggested that Entertainment of the patients was quite an important matter.

‘Entertainment for the patients was an important part of their treatment, and provision was made varying from the purchase of Dominoes, a fox and goose board and draughts. (Lawn I/3/106) of the penny and a choice of weekly magazines in the 1830’s (Lawn I/3/222, 247, 233, 292) to music, dancing, cricket, quoits, football, bowls and croquet in 1871.) In 1871 boating, picnics, special dances, theatrical performances, lectures and concerts.’

I was quite surprised after reading the section on entertainment, as from what i already new about asylum’s I did not expect patients to be treated as such. I think the trip to archive was very interesting, and as many historical facts have been gathered, I think it has gave us a good start on the research process.

Lincolnshire Archive

Lincolnshire Archive Document Request Form

Anya Fitzgerald

On our drift we went to The museum of Lincolnshire Life. It was so interesting as there was a lot about Lincoln that we didn’t know. Lincoln was involved in the WWII in a lot of ways and seeing this we felt we should include it in our performance. As we walked through the museum there was different rooms showing what a house would look like at that time and also pictures with descriptions explaining something in the room or something related to it. As we walked through the museum it became more related to war and one part had a lot of sounds effects, of guns, shouting etc. So we thought about adding similar sounds in for our audio. We got to one part of the museum that was filled with tanks and vehicles used in the war and we discovered they were built by women. There was also a small classroom that had very strict rules for women teachers.  As the only all girl group we thought basing our performance on that would be effective. I had an idea that would could have separate stories, for example, a little girl in the toy room, a mother, a woman building the tanks, a mother who’s sons gone to war and a teacher, and they could explain their time and how the war has impacted their life. The stories could then all have a common ground and we could perform all together as a group outside (weather depending!) I think going back with idea would be very beneficial as we may be able to record some sounds and think about would we would like to research. We should also interview the staff their so see if there is any information they could give us.

Chloe Downie