n0media

decentred home

archive

programme

interview

press

community

contact

Community | Jon Manton

Performance (2003/4)

The model installed is a skeletal reconstruction of the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich. The sound emanating from is being streamed live from various rooms in the Norwich Art and Design School. The building is delivering a performance that normally goes unacknowledged. By the use of this model these performance sounds are brought to your immediate attention. The spaces in the Arts School that you can hear now have a presence outside of themselves.

The basis for this project when it was originally installed in the Maddermarket Theatre was to remove the physical stage as the centre of artistic activity in the theatre.

This piece creates a stage on which two main aspects are performing. These are the sounds that emanate naturally from the building and the sound caused by human interaction with the space both physically and vocally.

Any person passing through the space is unconsciously performing, unlike the cognisant performances of actors on a physical stage. Of course even in the context in which this piece works conscious physical actions are still occurring but without the thought associated with a staged presentation of trying to be a character.

Actions that you do everyday are normally controlled by your subconscious unless something abnormal to that action intervenes. For example, when you walk down a set a stairs you do so without thinking unless you perceive that the steps are slippery, rotten or a board is missing, and then you consciously ‘watch your step’. However, when on a stage an actor is thinking consciously about his movement most of the time. He thinks about how he is moving and where he moving to. Therefore when on the hypothetical stage, set up within this model, a person’s gestural relationship with the performance space is different.
A persons vocal offering to this space is also different in this context as spoken word is not constrained by pre determined text or atmosphere.
Performance must have an intelligent recipient. In this case it is you. However, unlike when you are watching a production on the physical stage, here you can’t visually identify the source of the sonic material.
Those of you who may go into the Art and Design School today may change roles within the context of this hypothetical staging if you happen to go into one of the spaces presented in the work. You will go from being an audience member to a performer. Once inside these spaces you may also have a heightened sense of aural perception, encompassing all existent sounds. This will be due to your presence before this model.

Model by David Sidnall