19th April 2012
Following the development of our idea we had to quickly adapt what we had done so far for the work in progress session scheduled for the 19th of April.
We did not want the work we had done so far to be irrelevant or go to waste, so we incorporated the previous sleep idea with the new immersive performance, based on a specific event, in this case 9/11 and the catastrophe it caused.
We sectioned off a corner of the room, to emulate the cube we are hoping to create for the final performance. We filled this space with pillows and bean bags making it a comfortable space to be in. We were unable to get hold of projectors or tech for the work in progress, so we created our intentions by placing laptops, one at each of the walls to represent that is where the projections would be. These laptops played loops of our footage that we had attained so far. We used this to act as our sleep related media, giving the audience the awareness of sleep. One by one we began to move from a sitting position to lying down. We then played various mixes of sleep and relaxation music, of which Danny produced and mixed live. The playing of this music occurred for about 10 minutes as this is roughly the amount of time it takes to fall to sleep. Throughout this, each of us would sporadically do a movement out of our grid routine.
Once everyone was in a sleep / half conscious state a mobile phone in the middle of the room began to ring. The phone rang several times before connecting to a voice-mail which played real footage of a phone call that occurred during the events of 9/11. The phone signified the breaking of dreaming, into reality. This is where the immersive performance would take over, producing a virtual reality within the cube of the catastrophes that happened during 9/11. The emphasis would be on the use of the mobile phone and the role it played within this particular emergency.
Feedback:
Once performing this and explaining our idea to the class, the general consensus was that we had the basis of a good idea. The only worry was re-producing or attempting to represent such a big and famous event in history, specifically American history. It would have to be handled very carefully, with especial weariness of not causing offence. The idea was proposed that perhaps the emphasis would be shifted more towards the use of mobile phones, not just in 9/11 but in modern society and events of terror. This way we could add more of a contemporary relevance to our piece.
By Nina Woods
