Framing statement: The concept of preservation.
So, our group got the University GCW Library. In my initial blog post I wrote that I felt inspired and intrigued by the library, the idea that a library can save things, and when thinking more about it that that is the ultimate purpose of a library. To save information, art work, novels, documentaries, history that, otherwise, if there weren’t such a thing as libraries, would be lost. The knowledge that a library can hold so much information you begin to wonder why they do not hold more prestige. Even before we had a chance to explore our site I was interested by the idea that the library was used to preserve, and in the end, preservation became the underlying idea behind our final performance. One of our first influences that carried all the way to the end was Christo and Jeanne Claude’s wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995. We were inspired by how visually stunning the end result was and how the act of wrapping could be perfomative. After exploring the library and spending hours there observing how the site works we had developed our concept. We wanted to wrap objects that we felt were fundamental to how the library functions and alienate the objects that people would use yet would take for granted, and forget how important they are to the library. We wanted to wrap these objects but show the audience at the same time we therefore came up with the idea of filming our work, our wrapping process, and then filming the finished product and showing these films to the audience within a wrapped room. So they get a first-hand experience of the wrapping whilst being shown the footage. We planned to do this in a small seminar room. We found this to be the most practical room as it was the smallest we could find, so we didn’t think that we would have a problem wrapping it, but also interesting in terms of architecture. Within the room there were many types of material, such as the steel girder and brick work form the original wall of the warehouse. We thought that these would look beautiful wrapped and let the audience question what was underneath when the wall was clearly an odd shape. In terms of the performance day we were not going to invite audience, we decided to wrap a group member at the entrance to the library as a way of advertising. We decided to whisper if anyone approached us as it is routine to whisper in libraries and go from there. The performance would last for four hours and the audience could come and go within that time period. The audience would have a contribution to make however, if they approached us interested we would give them a wrapped book that had instructions to lead them to the room and by the end of their visit they would leave their book on the trolley within the room, so we would create our own library.
Analysis of Process: Materiality of the GCW Library
“Materials may be of the nature of the site … or they may not. This may or may not be important. “(Pearson, 2010, 115) Through our process we have explored the art of wrapping and how and what you use to wrap an object can really mean. How does what you are using to wrap something reflect how it is presented once wrapped, and what connotations do certain materials have? The first one that sprang to mind was paper or rather tracing paper, we also thought about using greaseproof/baking paper as it had the same transparency as tracing paper yet could be sourced at a cheaper price. After our exploration with paper we realised that it would not give us the effect that we wanted to create with wrapping. It creased easily around objects, and looked too messy for the effect we wanted to create.
Wrapped stool, 12/03/2014 – 9pm, GCW Library.
After trial and error showed up that paper would not be a suitable option we thought about the material Christo and Jeanne Claude used for the Reichstag and came up with the idea of using fabric, so we went on to experiment with it, seeing how it differentiated from the paper. We found that the material was better to work with. It was more flexible than the paper and we were able to stretch it over flat surfaces such as the booth and the beam, and mould it round uneven surfaces like Anthony, one of our group member’s, body. We found that the material enhanced our idea of preservation within the library. They almost symbolised dust sheets used to cover furniture when a building is left for a length of time or for protection.
Anthony, the activator, wrapped, 04/03/2014 – 10am, GCW Library.
However after a work-in-progress showing of our experiments with the material and having received feedback from both tutors and other students we found that the material, for some audience members, didn’t work and sometimes our concept wasn’t as clear as we wanted it to be. The main feedback was that the material didn’t define the space as much as paper could have. All the crevices of the room were covered up, rather than wrapped. We went back to thinking about paper and how we could use it in a different form; we decided to try papier machè. We thought that this method would still incorporate the aesthetic of paper but would be able to define the space better. We practised by wrapping a library chair in cling film to protect it and wrapping the papier machè around it. We also tried this on a small section of wall. We found that even though the papier machè defined the space better it didn’t feel like we were wrapping any more, even though we liked how the end result looked it did not fit within our concept.
A chair, wrapped with Papier Machè 28/03/2014 – 11:50am, GCW Library
We still wanted to carry on with the idea of paper so we went back to thinking about the primary function of the GCW, which, was to store books. So we thought why not wrap the objects with book pages. This meant that we are alienating and highlight the objects that are important within the library by wrapping them with something that is essential to not just this library but any library. We thought that this material would also give us the visual impact that we wanted to create with our wrapping. We managed to purchase 30 second hand books and after tearing the pages from the binding we had enough pages to start experimenting with.
We practised wrapping the room we would use for the performance so we could gage an idea of the practicalities of using this material. After spending four hours one night wrapping the room we figured that the only problem was timing. In four hours we had only wrapped a quarter of the room. Though this process was more time consuming, we felt that the effect of having the pages wrap the room was far greater than the material. We also felt that we were wrapping the architectural features of the old warehouse, the brick and steel girder with material from the building as it is being used today. This, we thought linked well with our idea that the library preserves books and we’re showing the books preserving the old warehouse, it is almost cyclical.
When we realised how time consuming it was to wrap the room with the book pages we then sat down to re-evaluate what objects we would want to wrap to show as part of our process. We thought about the parts of the library that were fundamental to making it function. What did people use every day that they took for granted what was key to making the library work and what would happen if these things were taken away from the site. We spent some time in the library apart as a group and each observed things of our own and then came back together to discuss what we thought were the most fundamental objects within the library. We came up with the objects and key words that summed up our observations;
- Activator
- Digitisation
- Accessibility
- Storage
- Intimacy
- Outlook
Each of these words would be assigned to an object that we would wrap. So the activator would be the person who uses the library they activate the systems within the library, therefore we would wrap a person. Digitisation was taking the computers into account and how in today’s society tablets and e-books are becoming more popular, so we would wrap the computers. Accessibility was linked to the stairs within the library, giving the activators access to the library. Storage was all about how the knowledge within our site was stored, i.e.: the dewy decimal system, everything ordered and stacked and shelved in a certain structured way. Also, GCW stands for Great, Central, Warehouse, so that was its primary use before it became a library. Intimacy came from exploring the library and seeing the users within the site being so private with their work. However what struck us was how intimate the lift was. The lift could have been categorised under Accessibility, but when observing how the people act within the lift, we noticed how enclosed and intimate the space and how frequently it was used, therefore we decided it was worth highlighting. Outlook referenced the windows on the first floor. After exploring we really appreciated the architecture, as they were the original windows. We felt that the window was important to wrap because it gave an outlook into the world outside the library and how the knowledge from the library feeds that world.
The Window wrapped, 27/04/14 – 15:47, GCW Library
Anthony wrapped 01/05/14 – 00:28, GCW Library
The back stairs wrapped. 27/04/05 – 10:57, GCW Library
We felt a certain labour came with the wrapping of our objects over the weeks before the performance. Each of them took minimum of 3 hours to wrap we felt that somehow we wanted to incorporate the art of wrapping into our performance. Of course the audience would see the wrapped room but they would not experience our wrapping first hand. As the labour of the wrapping became a prominent part of our process. To explore this further we looked at practitioners such and Christo and Jeanne Claude who initially fuelled our primary ideas to Rachel Whiteread and her project In 1993, House. In this project she filled an entire house with concrete and then removed the outer layer and left behind a cast of the house. Even though this was not wrapping the concrete cast of the house left a lasting impression, it was left to be seen and noticed, it had become a monument, “the idea of monuments is to preserves certain ideas in mind.” (Stuart, 1996, p21) In light of this we began to think that we were almost creating monuments within the library, we were wrapping the objects to accentuate them and emphasise what they bring to the site. We felt we had a lot in common with House and through more research we grounded our concept within our minds more clearly.
Once we had figured out what to wrap and justified it alongside our concept we just had to figure out a medium of presentation for our work in process. We decided that video was the best, after all we did not want to wrap the objects during the day as well as the room as the whole point of our piece was to highlight the objects but we didn’t want these to be blatantly obvious, therefore, “our plan was to use performance to draw attention to then highlight the detail… through the use of mediated image and video” (Pearson, 2010, p77). We figured that as the audience came in and saw the wrapped objects and us wrapping them on the videos we had created and edited, they would walk out of the performance and acknowledge and be more aware of them within the library. We thought this because for Site Specific performance a popular method of presenting the practitioners work is through the medium of video. It is a modern technique that introduces the audience to the performance in an inquisitive and unique manner, varying on the performance however. This is done by practitioners such as Mike Person, The Presence Project and Janet Cardiff, The Alter Bahnhof Video Walk. At the beginning of the module we were shown the video of Christo and Jeanne Claude wrapping the Reichstag.
We were drawn to the idea of recording our whole work in progress of wrapping the library objects and as in the video of the Reichstag you could see how the project develops and we wanted to include this in our performance. We wanted the audience to see the technique and the progression of the wrapping, within the wrapped group room. Therefore we decided on showing two videos side by side, a ‘work-in-progress’ video of us doing the act of wrapping and another video of how it would look to a user of the site to come across these wrapped objects. We found inspiration for this second video from Janet Cardiff and her Alter Bahnhof performance and how that was performed and documented. We thought that when the tour took the audience member around the station they were looking into someone else’s memory’s and that he video helped preserve them, ““a good and accurate memory that can store and retrieve knowledge and experience used to be one of the most desirable attributes of learning and the acquisition of knowledge.” (Gibbons, 2006, p.3) We then linked this to our piece by thinking about how, like Rachel Whiteread we are creating monuments, and that those monuments are used to remember, also linking this to our presentation idea inspired by The Alter Bahnhof Video Tour.
We liked the steady pace and high quality of the video. The idea that the audience member would come across something on the video but then it wouldn’t be there in the actual site itself, which is the basis of the piece. We want the audience to come in and see how the objects that are wrapped are big, key and fundamental to the library’s operation, they may use them every time they are in the building yet now after our performance they would possibly notice them more. The impact of the video would hopefully be lasting too so therefore the objects we wrapped would leave our audience with a lasting image of them and they would remember them even after our performance, which is what Joan Gibbons says about contemporary art, “the range of attitudes towards and uses of memory will contribute to a far more general understanding of both contemporary art and contemporary memory” (Gibbons, 2006, p3)
Evaluation of Performance: The Functions and Fundamentals
On performance day we had never been so mentally and physically exhausted. Because of the restrictions within our site we were unable to book the room we wanted to wrap for the day before. We were only able to book the room for a maximum of eight ours, so we had to use that time for the performance day, however after wrapping the different sections of the library over the past few weeks we were aware of how long it would take to wrap half the room. Therefore our only solution was to go into the library during the night when it was un-bookable so there was chance of another group of students using the room and wrap through the night to then perform during the next day. We began at 11pm on the 8th of May and finished our get out at 4pm the following day; we were awake and working for 17 hours straight. Even though the wrapping as labour was only meant to be shown through the videos (both shown below) and the first impression of the wrapped room, because we were completely exhausted, it gave the audience an insight as to how ambitious and difficult process it had been.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkvgUr19kKc&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6mThydI5MQ&feature=youtu.be
In terms of framing the piece we decided to physically wrap Anthony on the ground floor hoping that by doing this it would create interest and we could gather an audience. We had also wrapped books and written out instructions for them to follow. This approach worked well, we had 12 groups of people some on their own some in pairs or groups of 3, the audience were allowed to interact with us as much as they wanted they were allowed into the room to explore. The general reaction we got from them as they left our room was positive. We seemed to have created the visually stunning impression that we wanted from the very start.
Group Room 2, 09/05/14 10:15, GCW Library.
When performing the question we got asked the most was ‘why only half the room?’ On one level we wanted to wrap only half the room to show how stark the contrast was between the wrapped and the unwrapped. We had a definitive middle line that separated them. However our only motive wasn’t just artistic. We could not afford to wrap the whole room as it took 70 books to wrap the room and the 6 objects. Also due to the time constraints that we faced we would never have been able to wrap the whole room in the time allotted to us. Through performing, we did ponder on the idea of how stunning it would have looked to do the entire room and if we had a bigger budget I would have liked to wrap a greater amount of objects within the library, such as a main stair case, something to make people think, wow. This whole process of exploring a specific site in depth and researching other practitioners we have become more aware of what art is and by engaging with all these different elements that make up site specific performance we now can clearly see the difference between performing and acting and how the everyday can become performative.
WORKS CITED:
Gibbons, Joan (2007) Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance, London; I.B Tauris & Co LTD.
Morgan, Stuart (1996) Rachel Whiteread. In: Fiona Bradley (ed.) Rachel Whiteread: Shedding Life. London: Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd, 19-30.
Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
then be used through the QR codes through multi-media technology for example, video recordings, audio recordings and photographs. Our group received some criticism during the presentation for our original idea; however advice was given about how the idea of using technology as a way to allow people to obtain knowledge in a different way really intrigued them. This then led our group to create all of our ideas based on QR codes. For our performance we wanted the audience members to pick up a leaflet and scan the first
