“All of time and space; everywhere and anywhere; every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?” (Matt Smith, BBC, 2010)

The idea that Site specific performance relies primarily on that which is around us is what makes it important. Take a chair, for example, alone in an empty room. The site specific performance will come from the emptiness of the room and the solidarity of the chair. Perhaps a monologue told from someone sat in the chair about their life, they sit on their own in the centre as their words and memories fill the space around them. On another side of the coin, a performance taking place in the a food court of a popular shopping centre will have a busy, crowded and food related feeling.
You can take “Everywhere and anywhere” and turn it into a performance space and that’s what is fascinating. What’s even more fascinating is time, and how that comes into play on what the outcome of the performance would be. Take the room with the chair, for example, give it a few years that room might become something completely different. But you may still choose to do the play about the empty room, jarring the audience as it’s a clash of what is there now and what once was. I think the most interesting performance would be in a building’s ruins about what it used to be.

I find site performances about the places they are actually in most fascinating.
And that’s why I don’t like doing Grantham.

The Grantham task started out being ‘have some empty shops, but think about science too’ which was fascinating, and relevant, and I could understand, but slowly it’s become just about the science. I don’t get how it’s site specific any more. Our group has tried our best to stay on the shop idea with the science, as this is what site specific is about. I get that the ‘site’ is the whole of Grantham and it’s history, but I feel ignoring the rich setting of empty shops is a bit of a let down, as there was so much potential and I’m assuming these shops will not be available for next year’s students.
There were talk of shop mannequins, and mirrors with vanity, and performances watched through shop windows and these seemed fantastic. Where did they go?
It’s just a shame, but I hope our group’s Human.Inc will at least be able to attempt to encompass both shop and science successfully.

Matt Smith, BBC (actor) (2010) Doctor Who Season 5 [trailer] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbmMhNe6aA [Accessed 22 March 2014]

Dear Customer,

Thank you for taking an interest in our products and treatments. It is always pleasing to hear such enthusiasm about our company, and always helps us to strive for greatness.
In regards to your request for a brief description of our goals and “Mission Statement”, this is what we have managed to put together for you.

Human.Inc is the beginning of a new era, a new dawn and a new life. Everyone has their problems, everyone has their worries, and everyone feels like they aren’t perfect. This is where we come in. Human.Inc is a movement created to make your insecurities our main priority. With a host of the leading scientists and dermatologists working every day to create perfection, we are happy to bring these bounding leaps in technology forward for human consumption. Combining your DNA, muscles, skin and anatomy with our patented Human.Inc bio-mechanics, we are able to take you one step above human, to perfection. Human point 2. We are also working towards creating fully functioning human counterparts to provide help and company for those that need it, though it must be remembered; that kind of technology still has a while left to go. For now, enjoy our range of ultra safe products and mechanics soon to be hitting your stores in a few months.

We hope this brief description will help you to understand us in more detail.

Thankyou very much,

Hope El-Roi.
Founder of Human.Inc

“That which is above is as that which is below and that which is below is as that which is above, for the performance of the miracles of the One Thing. ” (Webb, Jr. 2009)

Although alchemy never really achieved what it set out to do, it did manage to create and explore many other possibilities. A lot of the research surrounding the idea of Alchemy looks at ideas of things like the planets, gender, sorcery and the 4 elements. Those four elements encompass Fire, Water, Air and Earth, and these 4 elements are often broken down into the masculine (fire and air) and the feminine (water and earth).
When I was younger, my school used to take us on many science museum trips, and one of the most memorable (probably because it was so terrible) was Magna. Magna was a self proclaimed science centre that at it’s heart had 4 ‘pavilions’ devoted to each of the 4 elements. The Air pavilion had stuff to do with wind including a large fan, the earth pavilion consisted of a JCB construction site, the fire pavilion had a fire tornado… which was not working both times we went, and finally the water pavilion which was basically a big pool of smelly water with a path down the centre. As kids we just scooped our hands in and flicked the water at our friends. Although admittedly this place was truly terrible, the aesthetics of the rooms and the 4 elements fascinated me. This idea and aesthetic forms the basis of a performance. Using ideas found in the classical scriptures of alchemy, we can create a performance of physical theatre or movement piece inspired by the four elements. Using epic music (such as this one) we could create an epic multimedia performance viewed through the window of our store. Moving our bodies in time with the music as projections are blasted around and onto our bodies we physically become the elements, until a climactic finish where we end and with our four separate symbols, create the pentagram, thus showing equilibrium or harmony.

Webb. Jr, John Charles (2009) The Emerald Tablet Modern Version, Online: http://www.aloha.net/~johnboy/Etablet.htg/emerald_tablet.htm (accessed 5th March 2014)

So our group has begun work on the idea of Alchemy. Alchemy was something that Newton looked into while he was alive. It is quite simply at it’s heart the search for the philosophers stone, the development of the elixir of life and the attempt to create gold from base metals.
My group was having some difficult times attempting to try and find any form of performance that would have worked in this field of information as it felt like everything we researched just took us back to the idea of making a science class in a shop. Something that would be both un-interesting for an audience, but also un-interesting for us as performers.
Myself and Sarah got together one night to take some pictures using some of the imagery from the more wiccan style of alchemy to get a better grasp on a form of aesthetic so we could continue with. This very simply took the form of fire-lit Gothic make-up with black hairspray, black clothes and a bit of Photoshop to add more Alchemy tables.
Whether or not we continue this kind of aesthetic is unknown to us, but it did help to make our group feel more comfortable with creating something theatrical out of the simple title ‘Alchemy’