Mental:

In order to transfer our own personal mental vulnerabilities to the space, we developed one of our past experiments and integrated it into the piece. The Experiment consisted of asking other people to write a question based upon when they felt most exposed and vulnerable. After doing this, we then at randomly picked a question and answered them honestly. No one knew at the time not even ourselves what kind of questions and answers we would gather. Questions such as ‘When was the last time you had sex?’ and ‘What dress size are you?’ were picked out and answered truthfully. In reflection to the first time we did this some questions did not make me personally vulnerable but others did. For our final piece, we then decided to integrate the idea of showing our mental vulnerability through simple questions therefore, we got together a selection of questions from the experiment and questions we wrote, sat down in a vulnerable space and filmed them.

The most interesting thing for me was how much I personally would let people know about my life. It was one of the hardest things I have done. It was challenging, to answer questions that truly made me feel Vulnerable. For instance, a question that hit a nerve was ‘Have you ever been mentally or Physically abused?’ As I read the question, I was visibly scared. No one in the room knew what I was going to say, I myself never thought I would be even talking about something that happened so long ago. Its not a question of me answering it. The whole project is about what makes us ourselves feel vulnerable and exposed. This question did. Physically I was shaking as I spoke, mentally as soon as i spoke the words there was no going back. I had to explain the whole story. It was a challenging thing to do, but at the time of be sharing my ‘secret’ made me the most vulnerable I have ever felt. The reasoning behind putting it into the main performance was because we were exploring our own vulnerabilities. I like all the members in the group have exposed so much of our lives, for everyone to see. Although on the day, I know I will be more conscious that other people hearing one of my worst memories to date but I would like to think it will translate that we are all human however big or small our problems are. Something that makes me feel exposed and vulnerable does not necessarily mean it would be the same for someone else. In my eyes it represents what we are trying to portray in the piece.  The more you expose yourself through your thoughts and insecurities and you breakdown every boundary, only then you can be truly feel vulnerable.

Physical:

How can we make ourselves physically vulnerable? We conducted an experiment at the beginning of our process where we looked at our insecurities and marked on our bodies what we would change about our physical appearance if we could. We then invited people in to honestly draw what they would change about us. Some as expected were more honest than others. This was testing in its self because we had to expose as much as our selves as we could. Personally I could only get into shorts which came to my knees and my bra because consciously I couldn’t bring myself to take of anymore clothes. One participant in the reflection at the end even said they would have rather have been in our position than theres. Which I find the most interesting. We exposed as much as we possibly could at this stage. At the time, I thought that was all I could do it was more of my mental boundaries stopping myself from taking off any other clothes. I felt exposed around some people I knew, so at that stage I was feeling anxious and vulnerable even before we got the date of our performance.

The next question was how could this be translated into the space? The answer, through live performance. On the day, we shall make ourselves, in front of an audience the most vulnerable and exposed we can be. This will symbolise physical vulnerability, we shall take our clothes off and expose our barest and most exposed forms. The idea of getting ‘naked’ in a studio for a performance in front of an audience can and is daunting. But for us to physically show exposure and vulnerability ourselves doing this is essential. As six twenty something women, all representing different body shapes, exposing our bodies to a 21^st century audience could not be more nerveracking. Each person with their own insecurities in one place at one time, pushing their own personal comfort zones. Exposing their physical imperfections and dislikes is very rarely seen within society. 

One main influence for our physical representation of exposure, comes from Vanessa Beecroft. She created a performance called VB45, in which she had many models and actors exposing their bodies to an audience. ‘Most of the time, these women are naked, wearing shoes and make-up only, to appear as if they were stripped and wear a naked uniform, rather than being naturally nude and free. ‘ (Shapiro, 2008) This links into our performance in the physical representation as it looks at what it means to be physicallyu vulnerable. By the end of our performance, we do not know what our physical representations will be. But hopefully by pushing ourselves, we can physically show our vulnerability. This should also been seen through our body language.

The piece like Beecrofts will be unrehearsed. ‘Without rehearsal, the women always address the audience in a conscious way’ (Shapiro, 2008) The permance essesscial relies on our personal representations of mental and physical exposure and vulnerability. We have all the right materials on the day we will be ourselves and it depends on the atmophere we create in the space. We will will not be actors, every reaction in the final perfromance is our own emotion.

Works Cited

Shapiro, D. (2008) VANESSA BEECROFT Interview by David Shapiro. [online interview] http://www.museomagazine.com/VANESSA-BEECROFT[Last assessed 11 December 2013]