Canteen: As soon as you entered the room you would be immediately notice the authenticity of it. There was real food being made in a pot that you as an audience where free to sample engaging the use of the most neglected sense in Theatre - taste. On all of the food contains and packaging you would find INGSOC logos and the words "victory ___". The absolute attention to detail would make an audience member curious and feel there natural inquisitiveness take over and cause them to explore the entire room. You could also smell the food and you would subconsciously already accept the fact that they are in a food hall. The use of repetitive orders in the background filled the atmosphere and if you were to sit down in there for more than a minute you would start to really feel the words the monotonous voice was saying in the background. This was used to remind the audience of the world that they were in and not even a place of getting something simple as food they could possibly escape the controlled and pressured environment they had been forced in to. Even to help build up my characters status in the world I appeared in a black and white film that was on repeat in the background all the time. The words I was saying were arbitrary and unimportant because it was on mute (this was to make it easy to eliminate the clashing with the other sounds and it left what I was saying to the audiences imagination). My gestures and aggressive body language was put in place to communicate more than words ever could. Finally there was a singular wall absolutely plastered with INGSOC Posters and other things such as missing children's posters which was put in place to draw the audiences focus and give them a reason to stop and slow down in this intense and fast paced world.
O'Brien's speech room and office: The scenery in this room all had a story to tell. To start off with there was this big looming pedestal, This was used to make the spectators feel belittled and small and to enlarge the status of the actor playing O'Brien. There was a camera set up in front of the podium which asked and answered questions about what the character's job was. A couple of computer monitors with excel program opened where used to simulate information mining. The purpose of this was to make the audience feel insecure as we already installed the belief that they were being watched and some of the personal information had already been taken at the beginning. This helped to break the barrier between performance and audience as they would start involving themselves in the piece and believe that some of their own personal data was on this system. In the back part of his office there was a wardrobe which contained some of the costumes he would wear plus it provided and actor with a part to play as O'Brien's personal dresser. This created a sort of snapshot or a life suspended in a moment and gave the audience a chance to look and touch and even try on some of the clothes of a particular absolutely smashing the fourth wall.
The Space (Anti-Sex League and 2 Minute Hate): The lighting in the space was very bright and harsh. We achieved this affect by using the strip lights already installed to illuminate the entire stage space. This gave the audience a feeling of intense heat and pressure within the room and people connect bright lights with the discovering truth e.g. Flash-lights. They feel like they are personally on show making them feel self concious. They had a projector which was used to show there self made videos. My personal journey didn't take me into the space so I am not quite sure what the videos were like but I can estimate that the ones done by the ASL were clinical and cut to the point in a very condemning fashion whereas in contrast the 2 minute hate ones would have been scarier and discomforting. They had access to surround speakers so if any of the videos speech, music or soundscapes were used they would have filled the whole room with sound creating a world around the spectators ears.
Stanley's Room: As soon as you entered the room you were hit with this since of humility and a personalised space that someone could call their own but on closer inspection you start to see the extent totalitarian control has on a space such as a human beings bedroom. The bed in the middle room looked uncomfortable do to the scratchy hay looking sheets and like it had been made my someone who needed things to be organised. This was done in order to give the audience an insight into what their own bedroom would look like in this world. The audience was given complete freedom so if they so wished they could have slept in the bed and if they chose to they would almost literally putting themselves in a character's shoes! There were two forms of sounds being implemented in the room. There was a hidden speaker system that was acting as a radio broadcast announcing some insignificant news. This was a constant background thing that audience had no control over as they would not be able to find it to turn it off. This mirrors the fact that in book it is impossible to turn off the telescreens so you have to put up with a constant monotonous voice dribbling on in the back of your head. The second sound system was a vinyl record player which was playing a 1920's jazz kinda music which complete shifted the atmosphere of the room and added this quaint personal touch to the room giving it a personality. One of the best features was the simulated telescreen through the apple mac. There was a lot of potential just to do another looped repetitive item but instead there was an anti-capitalist cartoon playing. This was used to not only show the political ideology of the author of the source material but it also caught the audiences eye and gave them another purpose to stay in the room.
Lecture Theatre: (disclaimer - I never had an opportunity to see this area but these are the notes I gathered from other people) The lighting in there was slightly bright and slightly harsh, this was created by using the normal lights in the room. People said that the bright lights gave them a suffocating feeling and it made them want to leave. The used a Prezi with a grey colour palette to give a cool business type atmosphere to the audience. This was used because it suited the purpose of the scene that was happening. However before entering the presentation space each audience member was given a surgical mask. This was a very clever devise and reasons for doing this include;
- Depersonalisation - Which gives the spectator freedom to act different than usually devoid of the feeling of being judge and punished for the actions. This makes them feel even more free to explore the dimensions of the world without fearing that someone is going to no who they are. The only disadvantage was some people decided that was a cue for them to misbehaviour and try distract the actors but that is a risk you have to take.
- Mob Mentality - Last year in my psychology class we did a case study of one of Derren Brown's shows which involved gathering a mass audience who anonymously voted to ruin the night of another man and watch even thought they were given the decision to give him a nice evening. When humans are grouped together they are more likely to take more risks because they feel that they are backed by the collective.
- Practicability and taking away of identity - Since there was numbers written on each mask the audience could easily referred to as that number if needed taking away there own identity thus getting ridding of any insecurities. It was easy for an audience member to tell a fellow participant from an actual actor and if there were to wander off into authorised territory would could easily find them.
Outside (my own area): Due to the fact we had no access to electric mains and in was raining we had to get creative with our use of multimedia. I noticed that a lot of the groups were using the same mediums e.g. Video and projection so I use this as an opportunity to explore new ways of creating a multimedia performance. Even before the real performance began we set the atmosphere and environment by sound and movement. We took advantage of the big open glass windows in the reception area and as the audience members were waiting to go in they watched us do exercise and march. The could also here my loud voice and piercing whistle through the door which made them feel slightly intimidated. The whistle was one of the most useful props I used. It helped me to command attention and be heard and created a sound the audience would eventually learn to associate it with fear and panic. We then used a type media no one else used through out the entire performance. We sang. Cleverly the people in the Canteen left there windows opening so we could be easily heard and as we sung with full patriotism. This not only engaged the audience like we intended it to but it also creating a sense of insanity within us. We wanted the audience to sing a long with us but sadly the confines of human shyness shone through. Our costume even more help to create unity between those that we were wearing it but also the bright colours attracted the audiences eyes and made them watch us. The yellow macintoshes really contrasted with the dark grey-ish colours on the inside that it drew attention to our performance.
Room 101: If I am honest this was the "main attraction" of the piece. There was no way that you could have been there and not heard the piercing screams of someone being tortured or be drawn in by the ominous lighting. One of the clever forms of multimedia that was used was the use of projection. Now instead of going with the obligatory projecting onto a screen they used a white stage block which had a bigger aesthetic effect on the entire room and the audience. The video that was playing on the projector was of a very graphic eye surgery on a loop. This would obviously make the spectators cringe because it looked painful and want to look away but their morbid curiosity sustained their focus. There was a sound loop of a baby crying in the background, This not only helped to create a creepy atmosphere but it also triggered subconscious separation anxiety in the audience as they want to find this baby and take care of it which was a point that Charlie Norton made in his evaluation. As stated in previous post there was a problem with getting sufficient lighting in the blacked out room without turning on the lights. This was resolved by finding more small lamps and by the TV Static which bathed the entire room in this eerie crackly light that would cause disorientation if you stared directly at it. This was improved on by simply adding some blood! This was done to help the audience write the story of the room in their heads. Finally the use of props with top notch in that room. They had a set of tools covered in blood on a dirty table cloth that weren't actually used. The reason for this was that it left the power of the tools in the audience imagination so they created their own use for them without being told.
What could have gone better?: One of the most occurring pieces of feedback I got from audience members was that had no clue where to go. After a while they were just standing there not knowing what to do or where to go next. I think we put too much trust in the audience to find their own pathway and somewhere along the way they got lost. We could rectify this by maybe giving them a timetable of events or some type of map so they can follow along or at least find where they needed to go. Another criticism I got was that some of the rooms were a little bare and lacking depth compared to others. If we were to do this again I would make sure that every corner of each room is filled with things to explore and watch. The P16 Spect-actor's main priority was to help herd the audience and move them from place while posing as audience members. Initially it was a good idea but somewhere along the way (and this probably do to the 15 minute brief they were given) they started becoming primarily actors and creating their own performance. This would have been okay but it started interfering with our own set timetable e.g. The mini revolution was cancelled due to the fact they made their own little rebellion before us and cleared the room. From this I have learnt that communication is very important in this type of performance. Lastly we could improve on our use of media by incorporating even more aspects of media! We could delve deeper in other mediums like dance, and strobe lights and smoke machines. We were obviously limited in our resources but we could have found even more creative ways to create cost effect yet powerful multimedia.
Moreover 2050 was a massive, intricate piece of experimental immersive Theatre. We all contributed highly to the performance using new found multimedia techniques. I feel like I gave every single audience member a unique experience that they will never see again.
