Solo Performance Sophie Wright

So, the two and half hours have gone, the studio is empty and the performance is complete. It was an extremely long day, from setting up the exhibition to tearing it back down but it was all worth it.

The audience turned up, read my instructions and ‘made me beautiful’. However, it was interesting for me to be able to sit back and listen to the conversations going on around me. I couldn’t see my face throughout the performance so was unaware of what people were actually doing to me. The performance kind of did a 360 turn, as I started off so natural, bare faced and was then used as the make-up doll. However, the affect the make-up had turned me into something my audience didn’t recognise, so by the end they were trying to make me as natural as possible. A difficult task considering I had around eight layers of foundation, powder, bronzer and blusher on my face.

I have always suffered with watery eyes, when I do my own make-up they tend to run, so unsurprisingly this happened during the performance. People were unaware of this though and thought I was crying which had a deeper impact on their experience. Many people whispered in my ear apologising for ‘hurting’ me or ‘making a mess’.

I was taken aback by many aspects of the performance. Firstly, how gentle people were and how cautious they were about touching my face. The face is an intimate part of our body even though we use it everyday and people can see it. To touch someone’s face in order to change their appearance is something that we don’t do, as human beings; apart from doctors, plastic surgeons etc. Another part of the performance that really shocked me was the affect the performance had on the audience, both individually and as a group. One audience member had to leave as they were too upset to stay and watch anymore. Although I was very focused throughout the whole performance, I listened to every word which was spoken. I felt content that people felt they could talk openly in there, people were having jokes with each other and discussing the performance.

The audience member who left, is a good friend of mine. He felt that my face had changed so much that I no longer looked like myself, therefore he wanted no more involvement. I remember him saying that none of my personality was there. When he usually sees me, I am smiling and laughing and there was none of that present. Other members of the audience agreed, saying they just wanted me to smile, to know that I was still there.

This reaction shocked and upset me and made me really think about the affects of make-up and changing our appearances. The make-up covering my face became more of a metaphor for covering my personality. I began to think of other performances I could create from this one to make into a kind of series, which would expose the media culture as a negative medium.

Below are photo’s the audience took after adding make-up to my face, these clearly show how they went from natural, to over-the-top and then back to natural.

           

 

This is the response I had from the audience at the end of the whole experience. I feel that the audience went away thinking about what they had seen and how they have been influenced by the celebrity culture.

The technology that is now readily available to us on a day to day basis in constantly improving. Each month a new phone is coming out or a new laptop with the latest gadgets and its difficult to keep up, well I certainly find that it is. However, with this in mind, technology has now become a large part of all performances, particularly installation pieces.

The idea’s I had were simply that, ideas, as I wasn’t sure if they would be possible. Luckily, there were some extremely helpful and very knowledgeable technicians around to make my vision a reality.

I find that when you go somewhere, anywhere: the doctors, to town, a friends house, there are magazines and newspapers everywhere. We cannot get away from what the media want to show us, which is why we are so unaware of the impact the ‘celeb’ culture has on us. Therefore I wanted to re-create this during my performance. The LPAC foyer has television screens which advertise various shows etc, I wanted to use these screens and have a live feed of the performance in the studio streamed downstairs. This meant that people who didn’t know about the performance or weren’t going to watch it, could still be a part of it. I wanted to be as accessible to as many people as possible.

I had re-thought my first ideas which was to have a projection outside on the LPAC, as there were lighting difficulties due to it being lighter at night. However, I felt that using the television screens would have the same affect just on a slightly smaller scale.

Not only did I want the live stream to appear downstairs but also as a projection in my exhibition. This was achieved through a 3-way Skype call, something I had never even attempted to do.

My exhibition also included another projection with the title of my piece ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. This was high on the wall just before entering the magazined area.

As I have previously mentioned, I set up a Twitter account specifically for my performance. I wanted this to be a live feed so my audience could tweet about the experience they had. This was placed at the end of the exhibition so the audience were able to experience everything. I decided to use an Ipad for this as it was smaller than a laptop and showed the variety of technology that is available.

The only light I wanted for the exhibition was the natural light that streamed in from outside. My reasoning for not having any artificial light, especially on the magazines, is that I didn’t want to glorify them anymore than they already had been.

The only lighting in the studio I needed is a white wash in the area where I will be sitting. As the studio is quite large, there will be two areas of dimmed lighting which appear like stepping stones to guide the audience to the end of the studio where I will be sat.

Below is the exhibition in order: Projection-Quotes-Marquardt Mask-Performance Title-Media/Magazine Centre

The development of the exhibition represents how the  real progresses into the fake.

 

 

Marina Abramovic’s work tests the limits of her body and mind and also looks at the audience performer relationship. During her performance Rhythm 0 in 1974, she laid out 72 objects for her audience to select and choose how to use these on her body. Some of the objects were for pleasure while others were for pain, they ranged from a feather to a loaded gun. Her audience took full advantage of the freedom Abramovic had given them; they stripped her, stuck rose thorns into her skin, cut her with razor blades and placed the loaded gun in her hand and pointed it at her own head. This is the perfect example of Abramovic pushing her audience to their limits to see if they could face the moral implications of their own actions.

My performance will not have any sense of physical danger in it. There will be clear instructions for the audience to guide them. This amount of audience participation is something I have never experienced before, either as a performer or as an audience member.

My performance will last between 2 – 3 hours. The reason I have chosen to have a durational piece is because I want the make-up to show the ugly side of beauty and how large amounts of make-up can transform somebodies appearance. So then hopefully, next time they see a beauty campaign or a ‘perfect’ looking celebrity they realise the amount of work which has gone into it.

An Artist is Present, another of Abramovic’s performances, lasts for over 730 hours. For this performance she had to prepare her mind and body, she wanted to be cleansed so she was free to offer her whole-self to her audience. When she first did this performance, it was with her collaborator Ulay, however he had to leave before the end of the performance due to the amount of physical pain he was feeling. Although my performance is not nearly as half as long as there’s was, I realise that I will need to prepare my body to sit in one position for such a long time.