Site-specific Media

Sayles Talk [Danielle Eley, Joe Gammello, Elizabeth Tan]

 

Sayles Hill Great Space
May 15 2008

The laptop is unique in its mobility and its access to the Internet. Along with the laptop screen as the new cinematic screen, this portable stage opens up many possibilities for interpersonal communication in site-specific performance.

In this project we utilized the Internet phone software Skype to create a live video conference that linked a classroom in Scoville to the Great Space. Being an interactive performance, Sayles Talk involved two sites: the laptop, and the environment of the Great Space. The function of Skype as a piece of mobile space-shrinking technology was an essential feature of the project. This was further exemplified during the course of the project when the laptop was carried to another part of Sayles to allow our Skype actor, Andrew Tatge, to watch the next site-specific performance.

As seen in Fred Wilson's site-specific project Mining the Museum (1992), an idea was transported from site to site, each time making use of the materials at the site thus making a single idea site-specific at multiple locations. Likewise, the idea of Sayles Talk has the capacity to be carried out in many locations. However, the fact that the actor performed the piece using gestures and actions commonly seen in Sayles conveyed the site-specificity of the project. For example, if this same project were performed in the Library, the actor's gestures would involve reading, studying, and other library-related behavior.

Sayles Talk brings to the locale of Great Space a blend of common and foreign elements. On one hand, a laptop on a table or a face looking back at you from behind a table is not an uncommon sight. On the other hand, the close-up of a face on a computer screen interacting with you  is not  quite an everyday occurrence. The interactive computer screen created an artificial, alien space within the familiar environment of the Great Space. Furthermore, it is apparent from the image on the screen that the actor is in a different location. As such, via the laptop, this second location is virtually brought into the first.

Finally, while we had planned for Sayles Talk to be non-invasive performance, technological setbacks transformed the piece into an attention-drawing performance.  One of the setbacks was the lack of clarity in the audio leading to flawed communication. Besides physically drawing the audience closer to the performance,  the actor resorted to writing signs on pieces of paper at times to enhance dialogue. Due to this improvisation, the project resulted in a more engaged audience than we had originally anticipated. The actor even became an active audience member of the subsequent site-specific project in Great Space. Sayles Talk shone a light on the negative and positive aspects of the laptop beyond its typical audio and visual functions through the utilization of its Internet connectivity  (i.e. it was tight).

 

A Precious Second [Danielle Eley]

A Precious Second is a piece specific to the Gould Library.  Based on information from some other students, it seems reasonable to estimate that Carleton students spend an average of three hours studying and working in the library a day.  I have always viewed the library as a slightly suffocating space that actually impedes my productivity - especially as I often find myself distracted by the thought of what is happening outside - and rarely use the space for study. 

The video was made of images of the library shot over a 3-hour time period.  It was created using a digital camera and iMovie, which was burned onto DVDs and placed on various screens in the library.  Every eleventh photo is a shot of an American war-era propaganda poster encouraging hard work, maximum production, and sacrifice, all of which are elements of Carleton's academic program on which it seems that there is a tremendous amount of focus.  The slogans range from a simple "More Production!" to "Get hot! Keep Moving! Don't waste a precious minute."

The video was shown on two screens of the media-viewing stations on the uppermost floor of the library, a computer in the 3rd floor Mac Lab, and on a Mac that sits at the entrance to the library.  I chose the media stations, because they are rarely used, but the idea of someone stumbling upon the looped imagery and turning it off so that they can do work furthers my idea that people are putting study before anything happening in the world around them.  The same applies for the Macs, however those are in much more heavily-trafficked areas, so the idea was that the video might actually force someone to stop and think about the work before shutting it off.  I also chose these spaces because I liked the idea of presenting the outside world on-screen, as if it were something foreign or disconnected from our own lives.