When looking for initial ideas, I began to think of areas around the idea of ‘shopping’ and ‘retail therapy’.  What stuck out for me was how shopping supposedly  increases peoples moods, bringing a sense of self-satisfaction. But, does one merely shop for satisfaction? Or do the corporate companies of the world perpetuate a greed driven society in which the capitalist system is constantly driving forward the ideas of  wanting more. What gets me is when will anyone be satisfied with the amount of ‘stuff’ they have?. What also struck me, is the word ‘therapy’. It could be interesting to look further into how shopping can be seen as a potential stress-relief or a therapy and what effect that has on people. As the process progresses, it will be interesting to see how we can mold these ideas and thoughts into a performance.

“I’m gonna’ pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket…”

Retail therapy is an odd yet charming concept. The idea that one can go through a simple bad day, heartbreak, or bad news and fix it with a new pair of shoes that you can’t really afford but “to hell with it! I deserve it.” I’m one of those dangerous impulse buyers. If I’m in a bad mood I can walk around any store and spend anything from 20 to 70 quid on stuff I don’t really need nor particularly want. I find myself in toys r us after a bad breakup buying 5 boxes of Lego just to keep myself happy for the evening. I don’t know why I would think that would work. Little bits of plastic in replacement for emotion? Ridiculous. But… imagine if shops sold actual emotions? I don’t mean you pay some little old lady to tell you an uplifting anecdote from her past to liven your mood. I mean somewhere between the drug dealers in Doctor Who’s Gridlock and the ever famous ‘Drink Me’ potions from Alice in wonderland. Shelves upon shelves of ‘Happy’, ‘Sad’, ‘Love’, ‘Anger’ and so on. Would it be the cure for all humankind, or the beginning of its decline? We already have the monstrosity of date rape drugs; imagine getting drugged with ‘love’. You could even slip a bit of ‘generous’ to your mean boss who won’t give you that pay-rise.

In a time where the phrase ‘retail therapy’ is thrown around between varying levels of need, how far would people be willing to go to feel just that little bit happier?

Hey folks!

Well ive had this crazy idea about our performance. Now it may sound  too obvious but I always thought of shop mannequins. There’s this popular horror video game called Silent Hill. You may or may not of heard of it but within the plot, these mannequins come to life whenever the lights are switched on and I always envisioned us as performers making use of the space disguised as mannequins. if a member of the public was to turn on these lights, we would move in such a surreal or possibly scary manner.

This is only just an idea and we don’t have to use it but I figured lets try and come up with as many ideas as possible 🙂

Having had time to reflect on what will most likely be the most consuming module this semester, I am definitely excited to create something new and innovative around the theme of retail therapy.  Although for some reason I cannot see what the others have written in terms of ideas, my initial thought was to perhaps not get too hooked on the link between shops and retail therapy. I personally would perhaps like to explore into something deeper, perhaps the basic transaction between one product and another and how else this framework is used in other aspects of life. Alternatively it could be quite interesting to recreate the space, regarding the shop’s history, for example if we researched that one shop was a butchers, we could then use that as stimulus instead. How we would collect this information however, I don’t know, but using Grantham history could be very creative in terms of performing in the festival later on.

I also have some other ideas that are perhaps a bit vague at the moment but might be worth mentioning. I like the idea of using shopping trolleys… maybe for some kinds of synchronized movement.  Also I thought it could be really fun to have a dystopian shop, kind of like a shop built for a zombie apocalypse…. like I say not quite sure where I’m going with these ideas, but I am very excited for the journey.