Public Moves!!!

It was a bright, warm day on Sunday as people met at the American Visionary Arts Museum for Public Moves. On my part, it was well worth the half hour spent finding a parking place to take part in it. We met in the Cafe on the third floor to be briefed by Josh from the Shua Group. I and the rest of the sound crew also met with Steve Bradley to go over the final changes that had been made to the megaphone portion of the performance. Soon after, a sea of people made their way down the spiral staircase and out the door of the museum to mount Federal Hill. The sound of shrill frogs amplified by massive speakers on the Visionary Arts Museum and Science Museum was already in the air as the megaphone people reached the apex of the hill. I stopped closest to the Visionary Arts Museum, and the other two, Mui and Jessica, went further so that we were stretched out as a long line at the back of the performance space. From there, everything began.

From a technical perspective, the sound portion of the performance was near flawless. During our first performance at 2 pm, some elements like voice were dropped because of cuing issues. It wasn’t until I was on top of the hill that I realized how hawk-like a stare I would have to keep up in order to get my cues from Angelica on the roof of the museum. Even so, the whistles and feedback came in as planned and added an excellent dynamic to the performance. By the second performance, most of the issues we had during the first had been ironed out, making for a much smoother process. It was a great experience to be such an integral part of the piece.

Probably the best part of the experience was being able to observe the performers as almost a bystander. I watched them perform the movements, advancing from Intersection to Meeting and then to walking in a line down the hill. My favorite part was when the megaphones sounded a long whistle and all the performers froze. Suddenly, all the other people who had been mingling with the performers found themselves to be the only one’s moving. Some proceeded to leave the space and stand outside of the “boundaries” of the performance space. Others, including a cyclist, continued to move through the maze of frozen performers. The sound of their movement flooded the scene, which became the void of all other sounds. When the megaphones sounded again, everyone began to move again like nothing had happened. By this time, we had plenty of spectators asking questions.

I found that I needed to be better prepared to act as an information desk clerk, since about seven people asked me questions during the performance. Most were content with my simple one-liner “It’s a performance.” Others were persistent enough for me to expand my description to include snippets like “It’s called ‘Public Moves’” and “a series of public interactions.” All that got me to thinking about what exactly this piece seemed to mean from my perspective.

Objectively, Public Moves is a collection of everyday public interactions and motions that have been amplified and strung together as a series of distinct movements. Sounds of the everyday variety and not so everyday like bees and other insects are amplified accross the hill from two points of origin. The public moves through the performance space unhindered and oftentimes unwhittingly becomes part of the performance itself. Others are inclined to leave or at least watch from the sidelines. Some complain about the sound, others comment, point and laugh or just silently take in what they see. What does this mean?

Steve Bradley described Public Moves as a performance that calls into question the role of public space. What is acceptable in public space and what is not? Is public space suitable for all kinds of behavior and interactions? Is it a place for a performance of this caliber? Much the same way subtle sounds like insects gnawing through wood were amplified to the point where some people complained, the actions that a single person might perform were amplified two hundred times. Public Moves gives the public an opportunity to retrieve that which it has taken for granted and to make it more of a spectacle and a novelty. Performers had the opportunity to mimic those walking in or around the performance space during Intersection and to mimic typical public actions such as lying down in the grass or taking part in a group portrait. This illustrates two perspectives on the use of public space – that which is actually in occurrence and that which is generally typical. In both cases, the scale at which the action is portrayed is large enough to give it substantial attention. The significant presence of insect sounds in the piece beckons us to consider public space as a realm of social patterns and customs. Insects are very social and group-oriented creatures, much the same way people are prone to be in public areas like parks. The Meet portion of the performance created a repetitive pattern very similar to insect contact and separation in which information or a simple greeting is exchanged. Finally, the reaction to the performance given by observers seems to indicate an unwritten law as to what people find to be acceptable in public space. This law is entirely dependent on the individual and what he or she expects to find in such public spaces. Some are more willing to invite change than others, and this fact was made particularly obvious during the performance. It beckoned bystanders and performers alike to consider the potential of what can be done in public space, as well as the possible repercussions for doing them.

Though it’s all said and done, I still get chills thinking back on how awesome that experience was. Just the thought of two hundred people coming together with one purpose in mind has the epic proportions of a rock concert. Taking that sort of energy to Public Moves made it a great success and an unforgettable experience.

All systems are go…

Hmmm… fellow sound person Angelica looks hyped about Public Moves. And no wonder…

Public Moves is set for tomorrow. Looking forward to what comes out of it. There will be two performances – one at 2 pm and another at 4 pm. We were afraid that rain was going to postpone the whole thing until next week, but the call has been made and IT IS ON!

Over the last two weeks, the sound people have been meeting with our VC3 instructor Steve Bradley to practice our megaphone portion of Public Moves. We’ve done the bulk of it in front of our fellow students twice, so I’m confident we’ll all be comfortable doing in front of 200+ performers… I’ll keep my fingers crossed. The megaphone whistles and feedback are pretty much set in stone. The chatter portion goes all over the place. We’re all thinking up things to say. The motto here is “keep it positive.” Some of us are reciting poetry mixed in with random sounds. I’m all in favor with pretending to have a conversation about cleaning up the planet or promoting world peace. We’ll see what comes out. Two performances leaves a lot of room for experimentation.

Today we met for the final rehearsal, which met inside the Visionary Arts Museum due to pouring rain. We were in an awesome room on the third floor that had enough space for just about anything. There was a group of fifty or so people practicing the moves while the sound crew discussed the order of the sound pieces. The debate was on whether or not we would follow the other participants in their motions while making our sounds. For the sake of keeping it simple, we decided to stay mostly out of the picture. That takes a load off my mind, since I’ve got to keep my ears and eyes out for Steve on the roof of the museum so I can get the cues that I need.

Overall, I’m excited about whatever is going to happen tomorrow. The turnout is estimated to be around 200 people, which should allow for an awesome performance. It sounds like there’s going to be food and other performances going on tomorrow as well. Guess I’ll report it when I see it.

“Public Moves” is going to be awesome…

Yesterday, I participated in a rehearsal for an outdoor performance piece called “Public Moves” put together by the Shua Group and Urban Tells. It takes place on Federal Hill in Baltimore by the Inner Harbor. As luck would have it, the weather was perfect for the rehearsal, in which somewhere between 50-70 people participated. I think they’re hoping for close to 500 people for the actual performance. Even with what there was to work with this time around, we attracted quite a bit of attention and had a chance to advertise the piece to interested individuals. After all, a big part of the whole thing is that anyone can take part in the performance. There were even two wedding parties up on the hill that day, being as it was a Saturday in Baltimore.

The idea behind “Public Moves,” as I understand it, is to encourage people to observe their interactions with others in a new way. The rhythm of public movement is being enhanced by a series of different movements carried about by a large group of people that mimic, interact and connect with the people around them. As one of the leaders put it, our challenge was to “move the hill.”

Federal Hill is a perfect place for this performance, because it has a great slope to it with a flat top and is visible to a great deal of the Inner Harbor. Part of the performance takes place on the slope and part of it takes place on the summit. We are only using about half of the hill’s perimeter so that the entire piece can be viewed by everyone. Also, it’s a sizable hill and I don’t think they wanted anyone getting lost.

I started off as part of the actual performance, following the motions that our leaders were giving us to do. First, we climbed up the hill, which left everyone winded. Then we did something they called “Intersection,” in which we attempted to match the paths of people walking both on the hill and in the distance. At first, this felt a little uncomfortable to me, but it helped that I wasn’t the only one doing it at the time. We even followed others taking part in the performance. Some mimicked people sitting on benches and lying down on the slope of the hill. After that, we worked on another motion called “Greet,” in which we walked randomly around, giving each other a handshake. We got the hang of that pretty quick. It was about then that I was called over to help my Visual Concepts III instructor, Steve Bradley, with the sound for the piece.

There were four of us, as well as Steve, working on the sound that day. My part to play was to use a megaphone in about every conceivable way, including playing with the whistle, creating feedback effects and chanting random syllables through the mic. Each of these components were be used in the final piece during different movements. I’m looking forward to seeing it all come together. Two of us will be using megaphones down on a street island at the base of the hill. We’ll be getting our cues from Steve up on top of the Visionary Arts Museum a little ways away. We’ll try to perform in sync with each other, but a slip-up or two won’t kill the piece. I appreciate that a lot. I would be nervous about pulling this off in front of so many people, except that I believe that this is going to be incredibly awesome.

I’m not exactly sure if I can make it to the next rehearsal, but I will definitely try to make it to at least one more before the final performance. Can anyone tell that I’m stoked about this?

So, my header is a conversation piece.

I need somewhere to start this blog off, so let’s begin with the header. I’m big on up-close. Details create a whole new world for me that is as intricate as what my senses can take in. You figured it out, right? Yeah, it’s the bowl of a clover. Sure, I could have put the whole clover up there so you could immediately go, “oh look, a clover…”, but that’s representational. You get representational everyday. We take representational for granted everyday. Most of us do. Then there are those of us who still read every street sign out loud on the highway. Bottom line – representational is free, easily accessible and widely considered part of mundane life.

That’s not good enough for me. Do I intend to dis representational with this post? No, I just want to shake things up a bit, get us to realize the vast beauty in the representational by isolating its elements to the point of abstraction. It’s that simple. And I find it easy to spot the beauty and intricacy of nature in cropped close-up shots like my groovy header.

And that’s another thing – when you look at that header and recognize it’s components and how they relate to nature, what mental labels do you create? By mental labels, I mean those little tags we subconsciously put on things that automatically determine their physical makeup. With each label we create, a whole encyclopedia of info goes along with it. Each element of a scene becomes an object with a history that we have compiled from our own past experiences. Consider these elements: grass, clover, shadows, green, pink, white and so on. We’ve all seen grass, clovers, shadows, and for the most part, our memory tells us how boring and common those things are. We’ve seen grass before, and we remember cutting it and weedeating it again and again. See? History. Mundane.

But that’s just the natural response. There are others, things that artists train themselves to utilize. Let’s put a little Gestalt into this. If you can stand on your head and think with the right side of your brain, what else do you see? Abstraction, lines, shape, and color. Color was already mentioned along with the basic components of nature. Granted, color is natural and, like all else mentioned earlier, potentially a mundane fact of life. But when considered in composition, it isn’t a single color, line or shape that matters. It’s how armies of line, shape and color interact, collide, bounce and play with each other. Is that a white and pink clover in a patch of grass or a bold white reacting strikingly with a sea of green intertwined with flowing blacks? It all depends on how you wish to perceive the image. I find that cropping makes it easier to release the mind from reality and to allow it to focus on alternative realities – where one color is a hero and another is the villain and where one bold line attacks another. Or maybe there’s a less violent story hidden in nature. It all depends on where you look.