Sighle Bhreathnack-Cashell

TENATIVE TITLE

The Arena

INTRODUCTION

Form:

Using an empty setting associated with public gatherings, with an emphasis on an audience and a performer (such as a cinema/auditorium/theatre/circus/ballroom) for a private or solitary 'experience' or 'encounter' for an individual. This may be done using an existing space or constructing a space myself using furniture, lighting, sound and film.

Research:

The individual within a group in particular settings and contexts. The performance of the self in public and in private. Psychology of group dynamics, the history of public entertainment, temporary and permanent spaces for group activity/theatrical spectacles.

Questions:

What effect the group has on the individual and vice versa. How this is reflected in architecture and design. Experiment with various 'set-ups' for encounters, based on visits to existing spaces/situations and reading/writing research.

RELATION TO PREVIOUS PRACTICE

'Scenarios' – Volkshotel

Using chairs and diagrams created potential 'scenarios'

'Dinnerdate' – BuroRotterdam

Huis Sonneveld group crit

RELATION TO A LARGER CONTEXT

History of staged events where the performers are 'real' people in scripted reality scenarios – Gladiators, Dance Marathons, Reality TV Architecture/Interior Design/Music as tools for manipulation – Neil Leach, Bryan Lawson, Alain de Botton Psychology of group dynamics – Asch, Milgram, Zimbardo Performance of the Self - Erving Goffman

PRACTICAL STEPS

- Research the history of mass staged events, specifically focusing on architecture and design techniques used to manipulate an audience - Visit spaces such as cinemas, auditoriums, theatres and meeting rooms. Both when they are in use and when they are vacant - Film/photograph these spaces and possibly do interventions or performances also - Construct my own physical spaces in the studio using furniture, lighting, sound and film

REFERENCES

Read/Watched

'Dance Marathons- Performing American Culture in the 1920s and 1930s' by Carol Martin

'They Shoot Horses Don't They'

'Colosseum', BBC

'Black Mirror' Charlie Brooker

'Centruy of the Self' Adam Curtis

'We Live in Public' - Josh Harris (documentary)

'The Xfactor' ITV

'Privacy' Barry Schwartz

'The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life' by Erving Goffman

'Autobiography' Barbara Steiner and Jun Yang, Thames and Hudson, 2004

Reading/Watching

'Better Living Through Reality TV' by Laurie Ouellette and James Hay

'Camofladge' by Neil Leach,The MIT Press, 2006

'Utopia' edited by John Carey

To Read/To Watch

'Artificial Hells' by Claire Bishop

Perform or Else, Jon McKenzie (steve has pdf)

Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched Andreovitz

'Archive and Aspiration' by Arjun Appadurai

'Governmentality, Biopower, and Everyday Life' by Majia Holmer Nadesan

Governing the Soul - Nikolas Rose

The Man Who shocked the World - T. Blass (Biography of Milgram)

Opening Skinner's Box - Lauren Slater

'Clowns' and 'Roma' by Fellini

I also remember discussing your work in terms of 1) the theatre of the social psychology experiment (clasically Milgram and Zimbardo) 2) self performance in social life and in the media. This is rich territory and I'd like to see you describe your own work in terms which draw on these elements. The modalities, drugs &c.