During the first semester in the master of scenography of HKU I wrote a letter to Henny Dörr7, my tutor and course leader, to share my views on spectatorship. At this point my research and the artistic system I explained before didn't exist yet. Although, by looking back I see how far I have come in relation to my approach to spectatorship, I spontaneously wonder, did my work since then considered or answered the questions I posed in that letter?
- Makers shouldn’t act as the stultifying schoolmasters and expecting to transmit their knowledge to the spectators.
You are right! Jacques Rancière was right! Anyway I have no knowledge to transmit, I have no answers to give. I have my opinion and many questions, but still, I have to be careful in how to express them. My purpose is not to point you out what to look at, but rather give you glasses to see through. The glasses I offer are not myopia glasses, they will not correct your vision, they will not make you see properly as this means that previously your vision was problematic. I know nothing about you or how well you see. The glasses I suggest have multi focal lenses. With these you can see the same thing in many ways and you have to decide for yourself what the reality is and if it exists.
- But do you expect the spectators to see through your glasses in certain ways?
Sometimes I try to guess, sometimes I wonder, but I always fail and this is the best about my work. That's why I offer glasses and not contact lenses. In this way even if I have the tendency to expect I can't impose my expectations.
- Aren't you afraid of becoming vague?
I am more afraid of the opposite. My context is quite specific, it is difficult to become vague. I am afraid I won't give the spectators the space to play with the glasses and challenge their vision.
- You are talking about glasses and I wonder do the spectators need to actually wear them? Do you make a pair for each of them? Do they wait in a line to try them on?
I am still working on that. I can't give you a straight answer. I wish I could find a way to make them use the glasses without having to actually wear them and maybe as a group.
- I see... Last question: Do you ask them what they see ?
I don't really want to ask them in a straight way. I usually observe them wearing them and I take notes. They also watch each other wearing them. Sometimes they look each other through their glasses.
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The role of the spectator in my work
Last but not least, the spectator...
Undoubtedly, the spectator has the most important role in my work. Although all the components seem to be equal in my artistic system, the spectator has a double role. He is part of the system as a necessary component to create the work, and at the same time as the reason, the work is made for. Also, sometimes the spectator becomes a performer, and he is the catalyst that activates the deceptive effects through his interaction with the existing environment and the replica. Among the components, the spectator is the most unstable and unpredictable.
When I started this master, I was asked to “experiment,” and I remember I used this word instead of “making works” to refer to what I was doing. “I did an experiment,” I would say. I was always thinking of the word as a means to explain that your work is not an end product or something finished but a work in progress. Now I realize that the word ‘experiment’ is not only referring to how finalized the work is but also to its relation to the spectator. It is an experiment because it doesn’t stand alone; it depends on its interaction with the spectator. Until the moment he will experience the work, the work is not complete, nor it is after, as each spectator reacts in his own way. It is like a dress. Without the body wearing it, it is a piece of fabric and on each body looks different. With every spectator, the work will turn out differently as the spectator is an uncontrollable value, making the word ‘experiment’ ideal. Once a work ceases to be an experiment, there is no reason for it to exist.
Which spectator?
As I mentioned above, the spectator has a double role in my work. In my mind, I separate his roles as the one of the “component,” which is his contribution to the deceptive situation, and as the one of the ‘receiver’ of the whole experience, who reflects on what experienced. If this is not clear, imagine the spectator in front of a mirror. His image reflects on the mirror, and together with the background, he constitutes the mirror’s content. According to what he thinks of his reflected image, he turns his body around. Because of the light, in every angle, he looks different. This is the role of the spectator as a “component;” it is the spectator as an entity that includes his mind, body, and senses. When the spectator steps out of the mirror, after (but also during) his experience, he forms a certain image of him and reflects on it. This image triggers thoughts that will be translated to realizations, decisions, and maybe actions. This is the spectator as a “receiver.” It is his reflection on what he is experiencing. These two roles are only separated in my mind. In reality, they exist together and affect each other. However, this separation helps me analyze them.
The spectator as a receiver
Talking about the spectator as a receiver is equivalent to think of the question: how I envision the experience and the interpretation of my work. This question, though, hides a lie and a trap. A lie, because no one can tell in advance how others experience, perceive and interpret and a trap, because envisioning a certain interpretation means believing in “the presupposition of an equal, undistorted transmission’”what, according to Jacques Rancière, is “the principle of stultification.” (Rancière, 2007:6)
Thus, the question should be, what do I want to express through my work, which takes us back to the beginning of this document and how I express it without presupposing the equality between my ideas and the spectator’s interpretation. Jacques Rancière, in “The Emancipated spectator,” talks about the performance as
“a third thing to which both parts can refer but which prevents any kind of ‘equal’ or ‘undistorted’ transmission.”(Rancière, 2007:6)
He compares it with the book that is both the link between the master teacher and the student and what separates them.
“The book is that material thing, foreign to both the master and the student, where they can verify what the student has seen, what he has told about it, what he thinks of what he has told.” (Rancière, 2007:7)
I must say that the example of the book helps me understand Rancière’s point while raising questions for me. When a performance acts indeed as a “mediation” between the two parts and prevents “stultification” and when it doesn’t?
How is it possible for the performance to be “that material thing, foreign to both” [the artist and the spectator] as the performance is the artist’s creation? How is it possible to create something that will be foreign to you?
I think I know the answer to these questions, and I actually wrote about it above when I talked about how the word ‘experiment’ is ideal when referring to work. The maker should have the same relation with his creation as the master has with the book. If the performance represents the maker’s ideas, then it doesn’t work as “a third thing” but as ‘the master’s knowledge. The performance is not a manifestation of ideas and thoughts but a composition of questions; questions that both the maker and the spectator can answer in their way.
The spectator as a component
It is his mind, his body, and his senses...
I like to think of the spectator in the same way I think of the ‘existing environment’ as a complex entity consisting of various elements. This is another reminder for me as a maker to not forget what the spectator consists of and how I can approach each of these elements.
As Helen Freshwater puts it in the book theatre & audience:
“...audience members bring their whole bodies with them into the auditorium, not just their eyes.” (Freshwater, 2009:18)
Indeed, theatre and performance practices are unequally focused on the spectator’s experience perceived by his visual capacities. But as we mentioned already, perception is a complicated process that involves more than what our senses grasp or better combines these inputs with other factors. Εven if we wanted to focus and isolate an experience on a single sensation, this would be impossible. When we see, we automatically “hear” and “touch,” using our imagination and when we hear, we automatically “see” or “feel,” visualizing the sounds.
Freshwater, referring to phenomenology and Merlaeau - Ponty’s work, continues:
“In the Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Merleau - Ponty reminds us that our entire experience of the world is embodied and that this embodiment frames our every perception and thought.” (Freshwater, 2009:19)
As the goal of my entire artistic system, which the spectator is a core component, is to create a deceptive situation; everything is connected to the way perception works. Then, following Merleau - Ponty’s thoughts, the approach to the spectator as a component must take into account this embodied perception. But then, what embodied means?
In my view, an experience is embodied when the spectator is aware of his body’s presence. Is a “traditional” theatre performance embodied? Where the spectators have to sit and watch other bodies performing for one or two hours? I would recklessly say no, but then I remember the back pain and discomfort I usually feel when I have to sit for a long time. Of course, I am very aware of it, but then I suppress this awareness as it has nothing to do with what I am watching. It is part of my suspicion of disbelief mechanism. Thus any experience can be embodied, as perception is already embodied if the spectator doesn’t suspend his bodily awareness. Accordingly, this awareness can also evolve if emphasized.
Towards an embodied experience, and as deception is related to perception and perception is embodied, we can’t but also think of the replica’s creation as a process directly related to the spectator. Thus, how the replica will replicate the existing environment corresponds to how the spectator will experience the replica. Which of his senses will be more involved? How is he going to be positioned? What if the spectator’s head is placed inside the replica while the rest of his body is in the existing environment? What if he is experiencing multiple replicas that each replicate only one element of the existing environment? These are only some of the questions that emerge when I think of the spectator as this complex entity, and I focused on all his senses and bodily presence. Approaching the spectator in this way creates many possibilities for different work to happen but at the same time raises a setup issue. How many spectators can really experience my work at the same time?
Beyond 1 to 1 - Hybrid Setups
My focus to create deceptive situations based on embodied experiences, most of the time, lead me to a one-to-one setup. A one-to-one setup is when a work is made to be experienced by one spectator each time. This setup opens up many possibilities as it facilitates an individual experience where the spectator has the opportunity to approach the work, touch it, move, and, in general, use his body and senses. In my practice, this is also translated into more possibilities for the replica, its properties, and ways to interact with the spectator. Furthermore, by looking closer at my artistic system’s scheme, it is clear that I approach the spectator as a singular unit, an individual, and I am thinking of what he consists of. This already orients the research towards a one-to-to experience or a few personalized experiences. Still, in all cases, the triangle replica-existing environment-spectator involves one individual in the spectator’s position and not a group of people who experience the same thing together.
Acknowledging this tendency towards spectatorship, I often questioned why I reject other setups that include a larger audience and what I win or lose with this decision. Obviously, this decision was quite intuitive and convenient as it was best fitting the research for the reasons explained above. On the other hand, it was also problematic. The one-to-one setup limits the total number of spectators and eventually, because of time, fewer people will experience the work. Also, in a setup like that, the feeling of being together and how one spectator affects the other are missing.
At this point, I would like to share an experience from my practice as a dance teacher of small groups. I have been teaching dance in groups from three to nine people, and someone would wonder what the relation is with scenography and spectatorship. It has to do with dealing with a group of people that has expectations from you. To my surprise, classes with three attendants were not easier than classes with nine. Sometimes, the same class with the same people and the same choreography would have a totally different outcome; also, one person could change the vibe for the whole group. Many could judge this example as irrelevant, but to me is an important lesson of how people are completely different when they are part of a group and how each individual can influence the group according to his mood on that day. With a one-to-one setup though you completely exclude this parameter of togetherness and the feeling of sharing the same role of the spectator.
Finally, my tendency to create work to be experienced on a more personal and intimate level, combined with the need to share the work with more people and maintain the feeling of togetherness, challenged me to create new, hybrid setups. In addition to that, the circumstances and the challenges that the covid-19 pandemic emerged highlighted even more the need to find a solution to combine the advantages of different setups. In most cases, the solution was to have a second layer of spectators watching the “one” spectator experiencing the work. However, there were cases when a one-to-one experience was documented and later shared with a new audience, like in the project “Alone.” Sharing the work in multiple layers also influenced the work itself. It transformed it into a multi-layered experience, perfectly aligned with the idea of perceiving reality in different and multiple ways and the concept of replication. Also, the fact that spectators were watching other spectators introduced to my practice the idea of the spectator in the role of the performer.
The spectator as a performer
Giving the spectator the role of the performer is not something that I imposed in my practice, but as I previously explained, an intriguing consequence. It first happened in the project “Alone” when I wanted to share the experience of a video walk with a distant audience. In this case, the spectators that physically participated in the video walk were documented, and the footage became part of a film I later made. Without my intention, the participants in the video walk transformed into performers for the people watching the film. Interested in this situation, I decided to research further the relationship between the spectators in my next project, “Boxed realities.”
In this project there were even more levels and relations among the spectators. As the project was part of a group exhibition, there were people moving around, watching and experiencing other works. Thus, although the installation was designed to physically accommodate two spectators, the “outsiders”- namely the rest of the spectators in the exhibition- inevitably witnessed these two people moving around with boxes on their heads. This way, the work acquired two layers of spectators: the “insiders” and the “outsiders.” This condition resulted in the “outsiders” being curious about the installation and intrigued to try it. Still, without distracting the “insiders.” On the other hand, even if the “insiders” attracted a lot the attention, they didn’t feel watched because of the box covering them and the focus that the experience required.
Furthermore, the two “insiders” were also interconnected. Through their directed position and movement in the space but also through technical media. Since a GoPro camera attached to the first spectator’s box was live feeding a screen hidden in the second one’s box. These two “insiders” became performers without being aware both for the “outsiders” and each other. In addition, the fact that one could control what the other would experience added to the work an extra layer that could be discovered after the end of the performance in case they discussed their experiences.
The spectator in the role of performer gradually became a pattern in my practice. In my work “Perspectives” I created a network of video walks. Each video walk was unique for its spectator but connected to the others. While the spectators were following their own routes, they were meeting and crossing each other; sometimes, things and people in their videos matched with the moves of the other spectators. In this project, the spectators also acted as performers but differently: they weren’t the “insiders” of an alienated installation but co-spectators intruding in the realm of the performance.
This spectatorship pattern also enhances the deceptive situations. The blurry boundaries between spectators and performers disrupt how we perceive ourselves and others in the context of spectatorship. As we are used in the traditional theater setup where every spectator is a member of a remote audience, having spectators interact and invade in the performance raises questions about what is coincidental, what is designed, and what role each plays.