Therapy in a performative process

When looking at exposure as a theme, originally we saw a purely physical revelation was the best way to explore this. We began to discover than a mental vunreliabilty was something as complex and uncomfortable to be presented with and to personally expose. Through asking members of the public, the thing you would least last to be asked, we gathered a hundred questions, with content varying from sexual experiences, to physical insecurities and matters of the heart, that we opened and answered. By documenting this process, we began to find subject matters and themes in the questions that forced us to reveal something inner, to the camera, something we found uncomfortable or unsettling to answer, as well as hearing. This concept we took further, but writing questions that delved deeper into the emotions and stories provoked by the publics written questions. Over a period of time the documented change became evident, our answers became more thorough and emotive.The process presented several unexpected revelations, in the sense of learning about the other participants as well as the stream of thoughts I presented.

Our process began to become a therapeutic experience, revealing dark thoughts and experiences for the first time. The documentation of these questions were so organic and genuine, that we did not want to replicate them through a live medium. The security and acceptance installed within the group throughout the various experiments conducted throughout our process, created an environment in which we felt comfortable to release information that we felt we could never fully explore or reveal, in front of an audience. When exploring a physiological perspective on creative setting used as self-exploration, Carl, R, Rogers emphasizes the explicit link for such therapeutic process to happen due to the setting created by the other participants.

‘The directional trend which is evident in all organic and human life – the urge to expand, extend, develop, mature – the tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism, or the self. This tendency may become deeply buried under layer after layer of encrusted psychological defenses; it may be hidden under elaborate facades, which deny its existence; it is my belief however, based on my experience, that it exists in every individual and awaits only the proper conditions to be released and expressed.’(Rogers, 1999, pg. 351) The core conditions that we had unknowingly created;

‘The core conditions are:

– Empathy

– Congruence or geniuses

– Unconditional Positive Regard or a Non-judgmental warmth or Acceptance.‘ (Rogers, 1991, pg.351)

We felt could not be replicated in the [performance by and unknown audience. These conditions, which through varying experiments, acts of acceptance and non-judgmental traits, enabled us all to push our own exposures out and be as honest as possible. Due to the environment we had created not being easily if at all replicated we found the medium of film was the best way of capturing the essence of our answers and truths that then could be in as a scopohilic form presented to and audience. Our honesty’s and reactions where them ‘subjected them to a controlling and curious gaze.’ (Mulvey,19765, pg.186)

We found when filming the answers the other group members observing and not speaking reactions were powerful in their own right. The sympathy or disgust or surprise provoked in itself, was a performative physicalization of our thoughts. It was the body language and facial reactions that we thought was important to incorporate into our performance. Theses reactions were not manufactured and varied dependent of the person witness to the answer. We decided due to authencity of emotion revealed from the speaker and the observer was something we needed to present in the space. The live per formative element in relation to the video of our answers, were no ‘acting’ but were the honest reactions of the audience and our own responses to what we were hearing and seeing. The idea of cringing or crying or turning away, presented us in the most broken down way. This was highlighted through the space in which the piece was presented in and the time it was held for.

1. Rogers, C (1991) Becoming A Person. London, Constable & Company Ltd.

2. Mulvey, L (1957) Visual Pleasure and Cinema. Screen 16/3 (Autum)

Marina Abramovic- a pioneer on exposure

Marina Abramovic’s self-exposure in mental and physical forms is seen throughout her work. Her public relationship with artistic and romantic partner- Ulay, were crucial parts in many of her performances, which due to the nature of their fame evoked by their work were objectified and revealed in a lot of her work. She showed an example of de sexualizing the physical female form in a collaborative instillation piece presented in the opening of Onsolo park, in which bodies were painted silver and intertwined in the surrounding of the park. Many of her works such as ‘Nude with Skeleton’ (2002) and ‘Thomas lips’ (1975) she bares her self naked to an audience and shows her honest reactions to physical pain such as cutting herself with a scalpel and matters of the heart in her durational piece ‘ The Artist is Present’ performance in the New York Musem of Modern Art.

Marina Abramovic, 2002, Nude with a Skeleton

She exposed herself to judgment as well as physical abuse and even a potential death, giving her audience member a suggestive use of the tools she had presented to them, such as scissors, cigarettes and a gun to inflict alteration to her, in some of her works. Artists such as Yoko Ono presented similar work in her piece ‘ Cut piece’ in which audience cut of her clothes.

Abramovic’s fame has lead her to have many curious fans, despite so much of her works honesty based on her own personal relationships and exploration, she conducted on Reddit an hour long‘ Ask me Anything’ session, in which she answered varying questions asked by her fans. The honesty presented in her answers we could not physically see her forum was much larger, but to me I felt it dehumanized her and her answers were not spoken by typed. This process I had found after we had edited our film and I found in principle it was intimate and truthful but due to the medium it was presented in, it became cold and distanced, the barrier between the audience and the performer was so distinct and strict that I found her answers were not relatable to me. This made me realize how the importance of exposure was in our performer, if were just to have shown the film, we could not have even been in the space or had to witness the judgment and empathy potentially felt by the audience. The idea that for 1 hour 50 minutes and 27 seconds we could not escape the secrets and truths we had revealed, or the looks and thoughts physicalized through human reactions became a daunting prospect. The reason for the medium of the film was to stream the honesty that we thought would have been clouded if we were to conduct the process live. We found by becoming an observer of the film we also were subject to our own live reactions being viewed by the audience.

Initial Thoughts

Introduction: Livvie Milne The aim of our piece is to expose vunareablitly on to society, blurring the lines between performer and audience. Based on the notions of reaction to surroundings and spectacle, the observed becomes the observer, witnessing exposure from in front and behind the glass. By setting this durational piece in an intuition, this live art piece becomes witnessed by everyday people, who would not nesseccarily be exposed to such artistic context. By exploiting the notion of vulnerability in the physical framework of a glass window, we project our bodily and mental insecurities, onto the general public. The piece is based on the breaking down of boundaries, created in physce and by the expectations society puts on us. The reactions by the performer and the audience confuses these generic roles, as the performer will be able to see and hear the spectators reactions.

Exposure: Livvie Milne Exposure can come in multiple forms and be varying in extremity. The basis of our piece is on the idea of revealing something of us to an audience. The blurring lines between the spectator and performer we find both sides of the glass reveal their emotions and are exposed to the reactions of each other. The words Exposure’s two definitions are 1 the state of having no protection from something harmful: 2 the revelation of something secret, especially something embarrassing or damaging: In our piece we find both of these ideas capitalized on. The first one definition is highlighted through the physical removing of clothes. We become subject to potentially hurtful, angry reactions from on lookers. We felt the location of the durational piece was crucial. We wanted the audience not to be people who attend exhibitions or contemporary pieces, regularly. We wanted the performance not to be framed in a theatrical, experimental setting, but in the middle of an institution where young people exposed or not exposed to the arts would witness the process. There is more than just a physical exposure, (removing clothes to show body) we are also exploring a mental vulnerability through vocalizing our thoughts and emotions in the piece. The idea of putting on a brave face is rejected as a stream of consciousness can or cannot be verbalized through microphones projecting these thoughts to the observers the vulnerability demonstrated in this. The theme of Exposure is as prominent as the observer or the performer wants. The idea of a ‘Brave Face’ can be a shield to the exposure, and the observer can look or ignore as much as they choose, similarly the performer can chose to reveal as much of their body and mind as they choose. Vunerliablty is witnessed by both sides and it may be so overwhelming that both sides chose to let it block their exposure. The battle between insecurity and the openness will be clearly shown and heard in this process. The second definition summarizes clearly the inhibitions that may prevent exposure. Physical and mental insecurities, for example someone may have spots, therefore often masks their complexion with makeup, and would feel nervous exposing that to society. The Role of exposure in modern day Western society is controversial. Some may say through the emphasis on media and its accessibility that nudity is something that is common. With the porn industry in the UK alone being estimated at One Billion pound industry. Is exposure still relevant to an audience whose age consists of a modern generation who has lived through this increase of this growing market? We feel it still is. The idea of emotional exhibionist is something not often revealed, especially in the ages of 18-25. The Market is made up of airbrushed glamour models many surgically enhanced and made up. The piece we are conducting promotes the opposite of this. It is more than revealing our bodies; it is revealing our emotions, our worries our Insecurities. It rejects the idea of perfection or tampering with the natural physical form by barely exposing traits, or scars or feelings the performer may not feel natural to reveal. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4305257.stm

Boundaries: Chloe Pitts

Boundaries:

1. Something that indicates a border or limit.

2. The border or limit so indicated

For our piece, I wanted to read further into the role boundaries play within our everyday life and culture. In our modern society, there are a number of things created, to disconnect the relation and create boundaries between what our minds can create, and what we in practical reality may achieve. Every day we face a social constraint, which further increases the limitation of our capacity as individuals. Within our piece ‘Nuditate’ there were many boundaries that needed overcoming in order for the piece to be created, such boundaries included; boundaries that Society places on the individual, theatrical boundaries (including the breakdown), and the problematic boundaries of our performance space, which was later decided as being too difficult to work with due to the intimate nature of the piece versus the extremely public setting of that performance space. Society creates a strong sense of boundaries on the individual through family boundaries, religious, racial, political, national, geographical and many more social boundaries – these boundaries however are mainly constructed within the mind. This relates much to the boundaries created within the theatre; perhaps the only boundaries in theatre are the ones we place on ourselves, on our imagination. Performance Art however, ‘continues to indicate the contemporary tendency to break down barriers between the arts and to help us to understand that ‘performance’ can take many forms’ (Brockett and Ball, 2011, p. 252). Much like performance art, i wanted my performance to break down barriers through the many different technical and visual elements used within the installation piece. The first boundary we faced when creating our performance was the element of nudity in our piece; nudity in theatre can and has been criticised as a churlish way to give shock value to a production, while also being described as a ‘semiological scandal’ (Pavis, 1998, p.238). However, due to the shocking manner of nudity it highlights why it still shocks the audience and why it is still such a powerful tool. As a society, we believe we are comfortable with the naked body; as it appears to be advertised all around us, in the media. These images however are not true to life and have been photo shopped to have imperfections and fat removed, therefore what we really see is an ideal of what humans might look like if they were produced as perfect. The raw power of theatre, on the other hand, is that it can cause the audience to experience discomfort by exposing the audience to things that they might not be as accepting of as they thought. I wanted to use the nudity aspect within my piece to explore the process of vulnerability, and exposure within society through the ‘de-eroticising of the nude body’ (Harris, 2001,p.69) I wanted to achieve this by confusing the performer audience role through the use of ‘Self-reflection, decomposition and separation of the elements of dramatic theatre’ (Angelaki, 2013, p. xii) There were also many boundaries when choosing performance space, and this is one which my group faced as we tried to choose a space which was open to the whole university, therefore giving an honest true to life feel to the piece but also creating problems which might not have been encountered if performed in a theatrical environment. Within that space, the performers also had boundaries to overcome in terms of feeling comfortable with their bodies. My performance, much like society had many boundaries that need overcoming in order for it to work.

Works cited

Angelaki, V. 2013. Contemporary British Theatre. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brockett, O. and Ball, R. 2011. The Essential Theatre, Enhanced. Boston: Micheal Rosenberg.

Harris, S. 2001. Bertrand Blier. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Pavis, P. 1998. Dictionary of the theatre. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Insecurities: Gabby Evans

What constitutes as insecurity? Hating the way you look? Feeling repulsed by your own body? Disagreeing with your thoughts? Loathing the way you think or speak? Being alone? When you feel worthless? A personal dislike? Basically, to be insecure means to be uncertain or anxious about ourselves, both physically and mentally. Insecurity is closely linked with the key themes of Vulnerability and Exposure. Everyone at some times in their lives will feel insecure, whether it is about what they look like or about how they act around other people. At one point or another it will affect us, however like myself, many try to mask these insecurities from public view. Over the next couple of weeks we aim to explore our own individual insecurities and why they make us so vulnerable. Personally I believe the more we expose our faults, the more vulnerable we become. I also think it is going to be a challenging aspect over the next few weeks and will need us to be fully committed as we shall be letting other members of not only our group but potentially audience members into our essentially personal thoughts, feelings and insecurities.

Intimacy:

Tiffany Thompson Defining intimacy can be difficult as there are different types of intimacy, intimacy in a relationship, intimacy in performance and intimacy within society. Definitions of intimacy are:

The condition of being intimate
An instance of being intimate

Different definitions come across however the definition of intimacy leans towards intimacy if relations with another person and not in performance. However, Maria Chatzichichristodoulou and Rachel Zerihan define intimacy as, “Intertwined with feelings closeness, trust and familiarity intimacy occurs through effective communication between some people in some kind of relationship” ( 2012, p.1) as we are exploring the notion of vulnerability on society I think intimacy plays a big part in being vulnerable. However, when being intimate with someone whether it being in a performance or in relations with someone could make you become vulnerable within yourself. Questions asked when exploring Intimacy, how can you be intimate with someone when you can’t be intimate with yourself? Can you be honest when exposing intimacy and vulnerability? How can you make the audience be intimate with the performer? Chatzichichristodoulou, Maria and Zerihan, Rachel (2012) Intimacy Across Visceral and Digital Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Vulnerability: Lauren Olerenshaw
adjective

adjective: vulnerable

1.

exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.

“we were in a vulnerable position”

Our final experiment and our process, Is wholly based on vulnerability, what we have come to realise is that mental vulnerability and physical vulnerability can come hand in hand. During our process we have played with the boundaries of who has been made to feel vulnerable whether it is the audience or us as performers. What we discovered throughout this process is everyone will have a different state in which they feel vulnerable, for us as 20-21 year old girls what we found as a common ground was we all felt at our most vulnerable when physically bare, we use make up and our clothes as masks to hide what we do not want others to see.

Conclusion: Chloe Pitts To conclude, we decided to conduct a series of experiments within the dramatic context and safety of the theatre. This exposure to an academic, theatrical audience will help shape our piece before it is shown to the public. By exhibiting some of our original thoughts that have helped us reach a progressive idea, we will monitor reactions and self-reflect upon our boundaries we have, to evaluate if they prevent us, or if they can be expanded and stretched.