WAREHOUSE

Our initial encounter with Great Central Warehouse Library was a really interesting one. Our first hurdle was establishing what we mean by ‘site-specific performance’ before we could even begin to think about such performance in this erudite and enigmatic environment.

We began by considering how we differentiate ‘site’ from both ‘space’ and ‘place’. We came to the conclusion that a ‘space’ is empty, until you fill it and therefore has great potential and possibility. A ‘place’ however is inherently active, a physical setting for people to inhabit and interact with. A ‘site’ then is a focused framing of space being used in a place, where something has happened / is going to happen.

This however led to further discussion of the purpose of site-based work; realising that site-specific performance is not about the physical space but its conceptual perceptions and identity. Followed by a consideration of space’s place within its surroundings, not fixed within a theatrical context but based on a hyper awareness of the dialogue between a performance and its surroundings.

We then went on to explore the library, walking around each floor observing and listening to people as well as discovering spaces – such as the Zibby Garnett Library – that we didn’t even know existed! We had the interesting task of finding a space to sit and create a stream of consciousness, noting everything; sights, sounds, smells and our thoughts and feelings create by this experience. The thing I found most interesting about this task was taking a seat on the third, supposedly silent , floor and realising just how full of sound it was. I found the coughs, rustles, clicks, bangs, slams and even a ringtone considerably more distracting than the hub-ub of the lower floors.

Personally, this early discussion opened my eyes to the broad scope of site-specific performance and corrected a lot of preconceptions I had had about the simplicity of site work. Exploring the library in this way made me far more excited to explore the possibilities of site work in such a dynamic setting full of structures, contradictions and most significantly, life.

Let’s eat granddad or let’s eat, Granddad. Just as Grammar can save lives and change a sentence entirely, the context of a sentence can drastically change its reception. I have been playing with the idea of context and found some interesting examples of where the context of the library allows sentences and ideas that would otherwise be unacceptable in public to be seen and accepted.

A particular example that stood out was a book called “White over Black” and had these words in large print down the spine of the book. Written across a building in a city centre this could be taken as a racist protest, an anti-racism protest or even just some awful, ignorant and bored children’s scribblings, But on a book, it becomes a wealth of knowledge, a beautiful idea to be explored and argued and counter argued and that’s all down to the context of the library. The second you walk in you become open to every great idea ever thought and written, you see everything through new, analytical, eyes. Not bound by social constructs, the library is a neutral ground, all are welcome and all respect each others purpose in being there, the furthering of knowledge is intrinsic to our future and without this no mans land of knowledge giving neutral context to all thought and ideas, we would be without a future.

This is what the library means to me, I plan to break down each section over the coming weeks and explore how books from Psychology, Science, religion, computing, history, politics, media, social studies and more are effected by the context the library gives them and the people who use them and give raw feedback on the knowledge I gain from this and how it will effect the creation of our piece, often is very conceptual ways, a stream of thought guided by this incredible site.

A couple of days ago we got told to explore the library with fresh eyes. We had three instructions to develop from.

• 1) Sit and record thoughts and responses to the place chosen
• 2) Watch a site and describe in detail what happens
• 3) Sit and listen and record everything that you hear.

We chose to listen and record everything that we hear. At first we went to the third floor which we thought would be very interesting as it is described as the ‘silent’ floor. When I have been up there before working, I believed it was very quiet as people are forbidden to talk. However, when we went up there and sat and listened, we recorded something very different.

Although the third floor is meant to be the silent floor, it completely contradicts itself as the library is the one making the noise. With the printers printing pages after pages, it’s doors so heavy banging against it’s frame and the keyboards making sure that they are heard above the other noises. Maybe because this floor is ‘quiet’, everything seems to be amplified and the library is  being heard for what it actually is, a working space.

On the second floor, the contrast was definitely noticeable. I could not hear the Library in the same way I did with the third floor. The natural sounds were lost in the conversations between one person and another, or even on the phone; crisp packets russeling and the fizz escaping from Coca-Cola bottles. This was the same for the first floor and worsened on the ground floor. It was as if the typical “library rules” of being quiet and doing work were trying to escape the closer to the exit we were.

This really made me think about breaking the rules of the Library as part of the performance. What boundirescan we push?

 

Photo-Spencer, Jessica: 3rd Floor, 2014