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).
