Author: Anthony Richard Lancashire

Framing Statement

Our final site specific piece in the GCW Library is a culmination of ideas from the last few months’ exploration and experimentation in the space. Drawing primary inspiration from Rachel Whiteread’s House (1993) and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Reichstag (1995), as well as more subtle influences from Forced Entertainment’s Nights In This City (1995) and Janet Cardiff’s Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (2012) we created our piece Functions and Fundamentals. Central to our work has been the idea of making people not only look but ‘see’ what surrounds them in, what is for most, a functional study place. Through the concept of materiality the project aims to play on the idea that “Wrapping ‘alienates, but at the same time makes clear what until now was blocked from our perception’”[1].

Hence by wrapping objects, like Christo’s wrapping of architecture (Figure 1), they stand out from everyday life and therefore it was our hope that people stop and ‘see’ them amongst the fast paced blur of everyday life where objects are only used functionally. Our work, where fine art meets everyday life in performance, uses torn out pages of books to wrap objects (Figure 2). Whilst this was partly a practical decision to provide a nice crisp definition to the objects underneath, we felt that destroying books to wrap things in a place where books are supposed to be preserved, was somewhat subversive and visually striking.

The project was framed in performance by the audience encountering myself, the librarian, fully wrapped in book pages with only holes for eyes in the downstairs entrance to the library. Here the audience were invited to collect a wrapped book featuring a series of instructions:

1. Go to the First floor.

2. Find Group Room 2.

3. Enter when vacant.

4. Explore, no time limits.

5. When finished place your book on the trolley and exit.

The spectators were able to enter group room 2, which was half wrapped in book pages, and viewed two videos (Figure 3 – Spaven, Laura (2014) Example of videos played in Group Room 2, Great Central Library Warehouse.) – one product, one process – of our group wrapping large objects within the site with the same book pages had been used to wrap the room. The performative nature of the piece was not restricted purely to the day of presentation. Many spectators have encountered the process of the work, the wrapped interior of the lift, a wrapped computer and so on. Throughout the final 4 hour performance, I remained still until the spectator requested a book at which point I selected one at random off the side table and delivered it. The other group members acted as Library assistants moving the books from the trolley in group room 2 back to their rightful place with The Librarian, controlled the flow of people in and out of the room and maintained order in our ‘new library’ by whispering their words.

Site Specific Computer

Analysis of Process – Exploration and Engagement

Back in January when we discovered that we had been assigned the university library for the module I was relatively underwhelmed. After all, this is a building on the campus of the university that is not unfamiliar to students researching and writing essays. That said, as Mike Pearson states in his book Site-Specific Performance, part of the process is “researching a place, often one that is imbued with history or permeated with atmosphere”[2] in order to produce work. At a brief glance it was apparent that our site began its life in 1907 as an industrial railway goods warehouse before being used as builder’s warehouse up to 1998. Until a 2004 renovation saw it open as the university library it spent some time in disrepair. During initial research into this style of performance, which appeared to focus on a building or particular locale, it was useful to note that “it’s not just about the place, but the people who normally inhabit and use that place”[3]. For me, to use a section of the buildings history, something from its present usage or something for inhabitants to interact with as inspiration would provide a performance that “engages with [the] site as [a] symbol,”[4] an important feature within this field of performance. Yet, it was also useful to think about the site not just as a library but as a space to perform and how redefining the space could be key to performance.

It amazed me during our initial exploration of the site that having been in the Library so often just how many rooms, signs and spaces I had not noticed. By investigating the building’s interior and exterior it helped us to begin to see links to the buildings history, how it has been adapted for use as a university library as well as the contrast of architecture between new and old. When on task recording the sounds of the space it took a while to tune in past the electronic hum and the mumbled conversations. It was quite strange in a place where one rarely stops to listen. After noting the rather loud clicking of mice and tip tap of keyboard’s I honed in on one conversation:

–          Out tonight?

–          No, my boyfriend’s round

–          From home or uni?

–          Home

–          You been together long?

–          Erm about 3 years

–          That is soooooo cute!

–          (laughter)

–          I wanted to go further away than here but I don’t know if it’d have worked. Here is good.

–          Yeah

–          Where you from again?

–          Hertfordshire

–          I used to work there!

–          Where?

–          Heart FM

–          Did you meet anyone?

–          JLS, Kasabian played, I used to get free posters all the time, I lost my job though cause I called Aston Ashton.

–          You lost your job cause of that?

–          Wait, Aston’s the little flippy one right?

Potentially one of many random conversations being had in the library, I felt there was something quite performative about it, perhaps a verbatim piece. Although the idea fizzled out, I felt that this was a useful process to go through as it was organically creating performance ideas from the specific site.

Engaging with theory would also prove to be integral to our work. Inspired by Tim Etchells and his work with Forced Entertainment, in particular their piece Ground Plans for Paradise (1995), we used maps of each floor of the library to literally write over the current names and uses (Figure 4). Like Forced Entertainment we replaced existing names with “descriptive names, literal names, names that refer to the use we made of the[m]… and not their official function”[5]. I found this to be particularly useful in redefining the space as it made what is a ‘public’ place ‘personal’ to me and to encounters and feelings I had experienced there. This made us consider the psychogeography (where the humans and their environment interact leaving traces) of the Library. It appeared that there were areas of the library more popular than others, certain places that virtually everyone interacted with and others that may have been forgotten or even unknown, such as the Zibby Garnett Library on the first floor had been to me. Thinking about how people interact with the space ultimately came through in our final piece. Through alienating the accepted norms, redefining space became a crucial part of our process.

Looking into existing site specific performance work really opened my eyes to its potentially interactive nature. Janet Cardiff’s Alter Bahnhof Video Walk cleverly used technology to guide the audience through the piece using their mobile phones. Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells’ library based The Quiet Volume looked at the subversion of use in multiple libraries, in different locations, as well as pointing out the sensory elements we can experience in s library through the use of audio commandments. This interactive and sensory nature appealed to me as potentially interaction with the spectator is more easily achieved with site specific work than the traditional theatre structure as it can be encountered. The use of technology in the works above made me consider the expansion into the digital age of performance and storage. Books are now available digitally as e-books with vast amounts of storage online and on hard drives, Ipod music libraries are also making CD libraries redundant.

Whilst technology would be later utilised in our piece, inspired by the work of Hampton, Etchells and Cardiff, at the time we focussed on the expanse of architecture. This is a visually predominant form expanse with our site as it is clear to see the difference between the old brickwork core and new modular buildings. The Lincolnshire Archives helped us to discover something that we couldn’t find online, something tangible, artefacts and documents to potentially help ground our performance in the site’s history.

Architecturally, we immediately noticed from Figure 5 that the modular buildings home to stairs and group rooms in the buildings current function were once wooden. Consequently it would appear that the buildings modern architecture took influence from how the building once looked. Another observation made was that the words Great Central Library Warehouse, at the Brayford Warf East end of the building, seem to have changed multiple times. Whilst the words Great Central Warehouse have remained constant, what now reads Library has been changed at least four times previously reading “Grain,” “Harcros” and “Pattinson” after the building’s owner or use. Furthermore a map of the Great Northern Railway (Figure 6) displaying features still recognisable today such as the Brayford Mere, train station, and Engine Shed sparked ideas of the site’s previous industry.

 

Analysis of Process – Wrapping, Materiality and Preservation

“The real power of site-specific work is that it somehow activates, or engages with, the narratives of the site … That might be with its formal architecture, or it might be with the character of the building.”[6]

Inspired by Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Reichstag, the initial idea was to internally wrap the floor to ceiling windows UL111, a modular building of the library.Through a range of brick-like materials we wanted to engage with the narrative of the site architecturally, making the building resemble how it once looked, thus bringing its history to life. We wanted to wrap to emphasise the materiality of the building’s architecture. Consequently, we spent a large amount of time looking at blueprints and drawing in space, considering the impact of imposing architecture onto architecture which we felt held a strong material presence. Additionally, we had planned to reconstruct the railway lines based on the Great Northern Railway map, which had ran between the library and the Engine Shed. However, as the project progressed we felt we were spreading ourselves too thinly and being overambitious which may result in a lack of quality in our work. Another problem encountered was because the lack of budget was restrictive of the quality of wrapping materials and therefore we risked our work looking like a cheap gimmick.

We decided to abandon the rail reconstruction and focus on wrapping. At this point we asked ourselves the question, why do we wrap? This led us to the idea of preservation. We wrap presents to preserve the surprise, the Ancient Egyptians wrapped bodies to care for them, old items are often wrapped to protect them from damage. We then looked to define preservation:

Preserve

1. To keep alive or in existence; make lasting: to preserve our liberties as free citizens.

2. To keep safe from harm or injury; protect or spare.

3. To keep up; maintain: to preserve historical monuments.

4. To keep possession of; retain: to preserve one’s composure.

5. To prepare (food or any perishable substance) so as to resist decomposition or fermentation[7]

Whilst this was an interesting idea, especially considering the function of a library is to preserve books, we had not decided an appropriate material in which to wrap objects. After playing around with a few materials including baking paper and tracing paper we found that the material was only any good when wrapping square objects with straight edges. However we then discovered large sheets of white cloth. We found that this material was more workable on a wider range of objects, providing both larger surface coverage and definition. This was especially striking with larger objects due to the impressive visual impact (Figure 7) – something we were striving for.

As well as the idea of preservation, wrapping can be used to highlight. Here the concept of not only looking but ‘seeing’ came to the forefront of the audience experience thus we were wrapping to open peoples’ perceptions. In addition to Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the artist who had a great influence on our work was Rachel Whiteread. Her project House (Figure 8), filled an entire house with concrete, before removing the bricks to leave a cast of the interior. Despite the fact the monument was demolished a mere few months after its birth, House made an impact. This particularly struck us, as we wanted our piece to have an impact even though it would be taken down only a few hours after its construction in order for the library to once more function normally. House was in its short life a monument and “as Robert Musil wrote that ‘the most striking feature of monuments is that you do not notice them. There is nothing in the world as invisible as a monument’”[8]. This quote particularly grabbed my attention when I think back to our original explorations of the library and how little I actually knew of what, to me, was a functional work space.

Analysis of Process – Framing The Library

For our final piece we decided that we wanted to wrap a section of the library’s Group room 2 where people could enter in small numbers to be completely immersed in the material. However on reflection we chose to only wrap half of the room in order to highlight the contrast of architectures and really expose the materiality of the space which features an amalgamation of materials such as metal, brick, concrete and glass. In order to give a more performative element we decided that a projected video tour of the library depicting wrapped objects would be shown on one wall with a second video on the half wrapped TV screen in the room playing the process of wrapping as we wanted our audience to have some insight into the huge journey of process we have been through on the module.

In the final weeks before our performance we had doubts about the material presence of the white cloth we had been working with. With materiality central to our work we wanted to ensure that we had made the correct choice to provide a crisp definition and meaning. Whilst we liked the translucent nature and manipulability of the cloth, we felt it was too decorative and pretty which was not our desired outcome. After an experimental phase of using materials such as paper mache – which seemed too much like amateur craft – and masking tape – which was too expensive for our project – we arrived at the use of book pages. Experimenting with different material developed our wrapping skills, so that by the final performance the art of wrapping was becoming second nature. The ripped out pages of books were relevant to the site’s function, provided a good quality of definition, helped ‘alienate’ the objects they encompassed and looked visually intriguing. As the found text of the books held no meaning as a text alone, we chose them in order to create a presence generated through the “intrinsic characteristics and qualities: its appearance, patina, texture, feel [and] size”[9]. The material presence of the book pages, for me, made us “redirect our gaze to that which was an absence,”[10] such as the function of the objects in the video and the architecture of the room. Through destroying the physical appearance of a book, it potentially drew the audiences’ attention towards the materiality of the site, rather than just the functionality. This led us to the name of the piece Functions and Fundamentals.

 

Evaluation

Unlike many site specific works with a single director or artist, our collaborative process allowed four times the brain power to develop ideas and potentially more ownership over our work as we had no external help. This meant wrapping the room from 11pm Thursday until 10am Friday was physically and mentally demanding. We had originally planned to wrap me from head to foot prior to the start of the performance, however as the room took longer than anticipated to wrap exactly in half, we had to adapt involving me being wrapped during the performance. As I was situated on the ground floor of the library near the entrance, almost everyone entering the library noticed me. The reactions varied from fear, to bafflement to laughter.

The performance ran from 10am-2pm drawing a satisfying amount of spectators, 16 parties of two’s or three’s in total. The spectators who entered the room (Figure 9) appeared to be relatively impressed by the visual spectacle, with many asking how long it took us to complete the task. I believe framing the piece by the audience collecting a book of instructions from me and finding the room to subsequently explore worked quite well as it created a more interactive, sensory experience for the spectator allowing them to form their own opinions and experiences from their visit as opposed to having a particular view imposed upon them.

If we were to run the project again, I would ensure there were no time restrictions on the room so that we were not forced to work through the night in order to prepare everything in time. By the time our performance began we were all exhausted with Laura actually being sick through exhaustion. Personally I have never been as mentally and physically exhausted doing anything as I was come the end of the piece. With an infinite budget I don’t think we would change our piece that much other than to buy more time, whereby we could add a more book pages to the walls over a series of days. This could potentially allow for a durational performance where audience members encounter the project at different stages and therefore all have a completely different experience of the materiality and function of the wrapping and objects in the room. Furthermore if I had been wrapped (Figure 10) prior to the event start time, as originally anticipated, the library assistants could have been free to walk round the library inviting people to visit The Librarian, in order to raise audience members and therefore the reach of impact of our work.

By practically and theoretically engaging with site-specific performance I feel I have advanced my knowledge of how to frame performance in a non traditional venue. Unlike a formal theatre venue defined by a stage and seats for the audience, site-specific performance offers the capacity to frame performance in much more creative and potentially coercive ways. The work of Forced Entertainment with guided bus tours, Rachel Whiteread creating installations to be encountered and Christo transforming buildings are a mere few examples of the possibilities of how to successfully frame site specific work.

 

Works Cited:
[1] Hanssen, Beatrice (1998) Christo’s Wrapped Reichstag: Globalized Art in a National Context, Germanic Review, 73, 4, 358-359.

[2] Pearson, Mike (2007) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 7.

[3] Pearson, Mike (2007) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 8.

[4] Pearson, Mike (2007) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 8.

[5] Etchells, Tim (1999) “Eight Fragments on Theatre and the City”, Certain Fragments, London: Routledge, 78.

[6] Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 35.

[7]http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Preserve?s=t

[8] Lingwood, James (1995) Introduction. In: James Lingwood (ed.) Rachel Whiteread: House, London: Phaidon Press Limited, 6-11.

[9] Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 118.

[10]Dennison, Lisa (2001) A House Is Not A Home: The Sculpture of Rachel Whiteread. In: Rachel Whitread (ed.) Rachel Whiteread: Transient Spaces. New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 33.