A collaborative exploration by 14 artists and 3 theatres May 20-242015
in the city of Stege, Denmark. Our intention with this board is to document
our beautiful workshop and inspire other groups on their journey.
Enjoy!
What is Inspiration?
About Insp Lab
Day 1
Location
Participants
What is it all About?
Play - Exchange - VerbalizE - Learn - creatE
Exercises - Insights - Dialogue - Method sharing - Reflection - Ideas Images - Soundscapes - Movements - Feelings - Sensations - Energy
Make Rules – Change Rules
Day one
(leads to interesting strategies).
our Results:
Photos
Alison writes about their "space adventure"
Create a really "Bad" piece
Theory Models
- not taking care of the audience
- Labeling it ART, too serious
- Exaggerated singing
- Too many props, too many things going on
- follow only one idea
-follow too many ideas
CHOREOGRAPHY game
by Mia Lipschitz
What is a Game?
Photos
We played a card game from 1904, where flax, hay,
oats, rye, corn, barley, and wheat are traded.
wikipedia link
We took turns as players and observers and learned
- winning strategies: trade a lot, and with many different people
- blocking strategies: Uncle Joe's tactic of hoarding cards
- don't think that everybody understands the game
- some people will challenge the game and try to bend the rules
Photos
What is going to happen in which place?
Who is doing what?
Photos
Guests are Arriving at 14.00
Christians Notes
Photos
Photos
Where to go from here...
A science fiction writer I met told me his practice is to “feed the swamp” –by which he meant his subconscious, the part of his mind that accepts the moments of our experience that resist description or characterization, the ones that exist apart from a descriptive language. To “throw things into the swamp” is to accept them as is, and “it crawled out of the swamp” is for them to emerge again, perhaps as inspiration.
For me, the days at INSPIRATIONS LAB 2 were filled with shoveling things into the swamp – not just the moments that can be labeled, such as Christian’s curiosity or Aiva’s lovely foot, but the moments between labels, the pauses, the inchoate and true."
Ken Eklund
Read Ken's report here
there was SO much to discover in the process Annette facilitated in Stege. So many new ideas, new perspectives, and such a truly brilliant context in which to do it. Knowing Annette already meant I went with some expectation, but it ended up being nothing like I would’ve expected, and so much more as a result. I’ve got a whole new list of heroes, of people to channel, of potential collaborators for future projects, of people to Skype when I get stuck… I hope they all see me as that too.
Steven Lawson
Steve's blog
Where do we go from here? I hope to retain the inspiration and new-found knowledge from this week, but I fear it won’t be long before I am sucked into “show mode” again.
The need to make a perfect thing, and the fear of failure are the enemies of inspiration.
Alison Neighbour
Alison's blog
Organizers
sponsors
contact us
Siri Facchini Haff
Cantabile2
+45 55 34 0119
siri@cantabile2.dk
Hannah Karina Mikkelsen
Teatret Masken
+45 54 88 99 66
info@masken.dk
Project leader
Annethia Teresa Lilballe
Project Manager
+45 30 32 04 98
annethia@live.dk
(Creates more interaction).
Then invent new rules and discuss them
Rule: You have to balance a coin on your hand. Don’t lose the coin or you’re out. The one who keeps her coin longest is the winner. (you may make the others lose their coins!)
Aiwa Roga
Latvia - Visual artist
Alison Neighbor
Theatre designer & scenographer from Wales
Christian Liljedahl, DK
Interactivity, performance, poetry and technology
Island,
Actor and performer
Ingrid Riis
Nykøbing F., Denmark; photographer
Johan Segerberg
Sweden /Denmark;
musician and composer
Ken Eklund
California; game and experience designer
Knud Riishøjgård, DK
Composer and performer
Laura Madsen, DK
Script writer film and TV
Mia Lipschitz, DK
Stage Director
Steve Lawson, GB
Musician and
social media expert
Vera Rahbek,
DK , Artist, painting and sculpture
Hannah Karina Mikkelsen
Director Teater Masken
Nykøbing F. Denmark
Co-producer of insp lab
Pernille Plantener-Holst, DK
Lightning designer and co-Manager of Grønnegade Teater
Co-producer of insp lab
Siri Facchini Haff
Stage performer at Cantabile 2
Co-producer of Insp lab
Annette Mees, Facilitator
Netherlands/England;
Artist, director,
maker of adventures.
Annethia Teresa Lilballe, DK
Project manager inspi lab,
actress and performance coach
Ingrid Lill, DK
Illustratror and graphic designer
Sketchnoter at Insp lab
Allan Hansen, DK
Lighting& sound
technical assistance
http://limepro.eu
Click on the diamonds to see Fotos and Video
Make Rules –
Change Rules
We are going to develop a set of shared tools through iterative processes.
Alter a Children's Game
create something that is unique to your Group
How to make little people
What is a game?
Status: How is it going?
Inspiration from Nature
WORKING TOWARDS Tomorrow's PUBLIC EVENT
This process can be trained like a muscle
Is better than just making something beautiful
Don't lose The Coin
Interesting Failure
Make a present for a Group
...
No attack from behind
No attack without eye contact
Then the receiving group has to remake and improve the piece
1) It has to have a place
2) it has to be beautiful in some way
3) It has to have an action
Rules:
Give it to the Group. All The others are observers.
Form Groups.
one Group Creates something for one of the other Groups.
make it as bad as you can, on various levels
it was surprisingly difficult to make something bad!
Groups of three:
Tell each other in your group about how you work and what you are inspired by 20 min.
-Brainstorming:
What is the kind of thing that only the three of you can make? Play around
- Action:
Create something together that only the unique combination of skills and preferences in your group can bring forward. .
Results:
- Form a circle. One person performes "her favourite move". The next one has to replicate this movement, plus add her own, until the last person has to perform all moves.
- repeat all moves. Repeat once more, fast.
- perform the learned moves to music.
Ken Eklund, game and experience designer
Alison Neighbour
What was "bad"?
Evaluate...
Group 2 "Untitled"
Group 1 "Toilet Piece"
A mystical event in the women's bathroom
The exciting sounds of electric cables immersed in a jug of water
Two girls dancing a drawing of water on the floor
What happened in the abandoned attic?
The wall of Ideas
We had a big wall with post-its..A growing collection of ideas to be remembered, remixed and repurposed
Day Two
Collect & Evaluate
Results:
Pernille took us to Møns Klint in the evening
Ken asked the guests to make a gift for one of the artists and was given a polyphonic song himself
Participants and guests played with oil drums
Steve sampled Christian's electric sparks and made music from them
Christian investigated into the origin of ideas
We served bright green inspiration shots
Video
Video
Coffee Explosion
Guided meditation and intuitive painting session by Aiwa Roga
Photos
Photos
Scenographer Alison taught us how to make small model figures. It was great fun, and the little people ended up in installations, stop motion films and as sketching models.
with secret tangler
Kluddermor
with additional handicaps
Rules: Pick a well known childrens' game for at least 15 people and make one radical shift to it. Play it with the other group.
Play
Then Discuss the rules:
great icebreaker
no rythm
no defined end
Day 3
Steve Lawson about the Bad Art excercise:
"Next up was making intentionally bad art. Which is REALLY hard! Especially amongst a group that has formed around a collective experience of trust and the creation of a safe space to experiment. Friendships were forming and personalities emerging thus the ‘danger’ with any bad work was that it just became ‘so bad it’s good’. So we tried to make confused, terrible, boring work. But as predicted most of it turned out funny. One piece ended up being one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. Like, clutching your stomach laughing funny."
Steve Lawson:
"So we set about making a thing where Christian created sparks and crazy explosive noises in a coffee pot, and I sampled it. He stripped the bare wire on an electrical cable, plugged it in and stuck it in water. Nothing. Water doesn’t conduct, see? It needs an additive. He started out by soaking some microwave popcorn in water to get the salt off it (THAT’S HOW HE THINKS!!) then switched to hydrochloric acid for the performance. Meanwhile Hannah was pushing me to play more, create more music for her to represent visually. She immediately latched onto the layered, patterned, interlocking nature of looping, and started to photograph the details of the room, of my music gear, of the space to pull together a textural collage. I saw this, and decided against the big melodic spacey melodic stuff that had been part of my development process over the sampled sparks and electrical noises… They didn’t fit her images, so I went back to textures and patterns. Processing, playing, linking the shining glittering sparks to the textural photos… it was the beginnings of something beautiful. It was a bit scrappy, and we hadn’t given much thought to staging, to how the audience would see it, but we had an idea that ended up in bits on the wall of ideas.
Alison Neighbour writes about "Light the water" by Knud, Laura and Aiwa:
"Magic is often found in simplicity. The surprise splash of a bucket of water onto a concrete floor, with natural light through the windows creating unexpected shapes and patterns in the reflections. Hands and feet are used to spread the water, which also forms a character of its own and runs in unexpected directions, its fingers reaching out towards the audience. Aiwa generously shares her illustration practice with us and transforms it into a piece of performance art that invites the audience to join in creating the picture. Knud and Steve added sound looping to form the beginning of an evolving scenographic soundscape, with the image leading the creation of sound, and the sound growing to make a lingering echo of the visual layers that had been built up. This moment is the start of a larger exploration of found sound and visual image working together."
alisonsscenographyblog.wordpress.com
Steve:
Video
24 hours before the public event it felt more like production than play to many participants
Swap roles!
Involve the guests!
Turn it around!
Get out of your comfort zone!
Aiwa served green inspiration shots
Annethia welcomed the guests
Annette said a few words about inspiration lab
LAB!
Fotos: Annethia Lilballe
Our guests were active and involved, they:
Alison about her group's piece "gain the world":
(...)"On the first day we created a space adventure – tasked with the challenge of creating a piece with an action, image, place, and a gift for the audience, we gave the audience paper towels to wear as space helmets and led them on a journey through the outdoor space of the theatre (an old factory) to save the earth. Our props were simple: a tiny bicycle with flat tyres, a globe, and a walking stick. The piece consisted of Laura and myself (two non-performers) making the audience duck and dive, watching out for meteors and space junk, follow lines of tarmac, and eventually, ride the tiny bicycle together in a circuit around the globe. Design-wise, I can’t say it was my finest piece of work, but our audience bought into it and made the piece live through their enthusiastic participation. Johan told me he’d taken his children on the same journey when they became tired of the performances happening indoors – they came without the baggage and self-awareness that adult audiences find it hard to escape, and were able to take the piece to another level, despite the fact that all the props had by this point been put away. Johan walked them through the journey, and the children became so totally invested in the spirit of it that they were able to ride the bicycle despite it not being there, and to hold onto their helmets without the piece of paper as a substitute prop. They believed the guard would hurt them if they didn’t hide underneath the window, they were genuinely on the look-out for stray comets and rogue space junk. If only we can find a way to re-awaken our child-view of the world, to truly believe and play, to re-gain the ability to 100% buy-in to a story, a game, or a drama."
https://alisonsscenographyblog.wordpress.com
Foto: Annethia Lilballe
Location: Old sugar factory in Stege on the Island of Møn.
We had several big rehearsal rooms, a VERY big hall, a cosy small attic room and a coffee maker to our disposal.
The surroundings of the run down factory with lots of things to discover was inspiring in itself
The image closes by moving the cursor out.
photo: Steve Lawson
Steve Lawson writes:
The Wall Of Ideas? that sounds grand…
Ah, yes, the wall of ideas – anything that came from any of the ideas that people liked ended up on the wall of ideas to be remixed, repurposed, reimagined. Our piece of ‘bad art’ happened in the women’s toilets. That ended up on the wall of ideas and two much much better pieces ended up staged in there. We’d never have done that without the permission to explore ‘bad’ ideas and discover they were really good.
So the things on the wall of ideas built towards a final set of work that would be made and for which there would be an outside audience. We didn’t really make it ‘for’ them, but they would be a factor in how it all played out. We were able to think about the experience of this work for people who weren’t in on the joke, who weren’t already attached to the journey that got us there… We broke off, started to form groups ourselves, exploring the various spaces available, having conversations about possible work.
www.stevelawson.net
What Inspires you?
I am inspired by everything and anything:
Real things, real processes, real people are my inspiration.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Inspiration lab is a perfect place for me to get to look inside other people.
- I can see what others do, I can also ask them what is going on in their brains while doing their work.
- I want to get to know the creative process of other people because it is helping me bring out creative potential in other people.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
The dancer needs to move to be creative. Maybe moving and physical motion is what the author needs to do to break the writers block..
What Inspires you?
People. Encounters with people, ideas from people, encouragement from people, questions and challenges from people. Everything stems from interaction, conversation, friendship and the quest to find new heroes.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
A whole new set of processes, interventions, ideas, perspectives... My curiosity has been fed way beyond the point where I can remember and contain the amount of exciting new stuff, and the level of inspiration from the other participants is wonderful. New ways of seeing, doing, being, making, disrupting... Am also really inspired by the facilitation process - I was already a fan of Annette’s work and thought process, but experiencing her plan and path through these few days has added another level of respect, admiration and inspiration to that.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Try to discover and understand where your energy comes from, and look there for inspiration. Try not to feel inadequate if someone else’s path and process don’t work for you. See if you can draw principles from their ‘success’ rather than specifics. Find the good and use it for self-encouragement.
What Inspires you?
I am getting inspired by peoples energy and diversity in combination with:
atmosphere - sound - light - colors - elements - nature
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Before INSP LAB ll i never really analyzed my process. It was like natural acceptance. In this workshop many questions about inspirations has arisen.
I got inspired from busy brainstorming with other creative minds. It´s inspiring to feel you are on the same wave with others.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Close your eyes and imagine the objects in your body.
Analyze other peoples work.
Do not care so much. let go and experiment.
What Inspires you?
Silence inspires.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Just trying - and trying something different.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
STFU - ("hold kæft og lyt")
What Inspires you?
Steder - Rum - Objekter - Fotos
At overhøre fremmede personers samtaler
Streetart
Hjemløse
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Just do it!
If you should share advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Allow (dare) yourself to do something.
What Inspires you?
I am inspired by the genius of people who are not in the business of being creative. A girl puts a GoPro camera on her hula hoop so that she can see her own performance - and now we all get to see it also. There is so much creativity everywhere, I find it inspiring just to look at the world.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
As a game designer I am used to a different kind of theatre than the traditional theatre. So this is all new to me. The Lab has been one discovery and insight after another. The creative process in theatre, as I have experienced it at the Lab, is much more emergent than than I ever imagined.
If i am facing a blank page I get inspired by listening to my self, my most inner selves, an what moves them. If I am facing an obstacle, if I am stuck, I get inspired by seeing the problem through the eyes of someone else - as my friend the lawyer for example or a famous artist.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Change your point of view. Ask a better question.
Set something on fire. Look for the things you are afraid of and then move toward it. Make it into a simple, ridiculous game and begin to play it for real.
Close your eyes and fall into the well.
What Inspires you?
Beauty inspires me. What is beauty?
- Things that makes me think, that moves me and makes me uncomfortable.
- And amplification of stuff
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
INSP LAB inspired me to see my own creativity in a new perspective; in a collaborative context.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Visit a therapist.
What Inspires you?
It is inspiring to combine artistic disciplines, people and corners. I am inspired by space - sounds - visuals.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Keep - get rid of - start again
Play and experiment.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Just do it!
Play.
Photo: Steve Lawson
What Inspires you?
It inspires me to gain insight in other peoples workspace. The unexpected / unexpected constellations of people.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
It brought the understanding of going through meetings and clashes between creative constellations over a period of time (in this case 4 days).
New insight was especially given to me by the 30 min. shared exercises - Alisons Little People, Aiwa´s coffee paintings & Christians brainstorm over the theme ice.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Allow always a place for that what you don´t know. The strange and unexpected - mistakes.
What Inspires you?
Life in all is glory.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Through interaction with other artists and professionals I enrich and open up my perspectives towards practice.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Inspiration is interaction!
What Inspires you?
Human beings, broken dolls, weird plants, useless tools and crazy science. Also all philosophy that undermines naïve realism and the existence of an objective world.
How Did Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
I learned about other creative approaches than my own very visual way. I was impressed about the creativity of the participants. I got many ideas to use in group processes and great insights into the nature of creative process. There was a very special atomosphere of connection, free of ambition or competitiveness.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Don't wait to get inspiration. Waiting for inspiration drives it away. It wants to go where the action is. Start working, have fun, then it might show up.
CRACKS
A plastic arm, attached to a broomstick, was part of the piece, too.
CRACKS
The "recievers feeding the artists down below through the cracks in the floor.
CRACKS
The "receivers" got to feed the artists, standing there with open mouths, with cake crumbs.
Gain The World
A dangerous expedition through outer space. (note the space helmets!)
"Don't tread on the black holes"!
Later the comet Hannes came swirling in and killed one participant.
.
The Silence of the Rain
A 3D weather-themed soundscape, timed by an eletric water jug which the master of the rain Ken Eklund ritually switched on with a two-hand sword.
The Silence of the Rain
A 3D weather-themed soundscape, timed by an eletric water jug which the master of the rain Ken Eklund ritually switched on with a two-hand sword.
The Silence
of the Rain
A 3D weather-themed soundscape, timed by an eletric water jug which the master of the rain Ken Eklund ritually switched on with a two-hand sword.3
What is Inspiration Lab?
Inspirations Lab is a three year project, locally rooted in South Zealand. It is a collaboration between three regional theaters: Teater Masken (Nykøbing F.), Cantabile2 (Stege) and Grønnegade Teater (Næstved).
Inspiration is the seed
The mission is to bring artists together to inspire each other with methods, new ideas and collaboration.
Our vision is to prove that inspiration is the seed for innovation and production. By being non goal oriented, creating a safe workshop space and by investigating inspiration in many ways, we believe that productiveness will arise whenever the seeds are ready to unfold.
Annethia Lilballe, Project manager
Annette Mees started out at Royal Academy of the Arts in The Netherlands, while living in the country’s hackers HQ. This combination led to an artistic practice blending elements from theatre, gaming, art and digital culture and is expert in the development of new interactive narratives and experiential digital models.
The last 6 years she was an artist director of Coney, where she developed, produced and directs large-scale projects with interdisciplinary teams.
She is about to start an new company Further More. The company will launch with an international project in which she will aim to predict the next 50 years. She will lead a Lab on each continent groups of 15 and 65 year olds and artists, activists, academics and other experts.
Annette also works as a dramaturg and advises on the integration of digital technology and theatrical live events, with a particular interest in new business models and new forms of audience engagement made possible by pervasive technologies.
She has made work for and with The National Theatre of Wales, Kensington Palace, Tate Britain, 01SJ San Jose Biennial, Bains Numeriques in Paris, King’s University, New Art Gallery Walsall, BAC London and many more people and places.
She speaks nationally and internationally on audience interaction, the integration of live and digital work and how to make beautiful experiences that allow for a real dialogue with your audiences. She recently spoke at Nordic Cultural Meeting Point in Reykjavik, Women Shift Digital at the National Theatre and for the European Media Desk and The British Council International Literature Showcase.
Then came what may end up being the most important conversation of the entire event for me. A discussion with Hannes (Iceland actor) and Ingrid (Danish photographer) about what we could do to be truly ‘bad’. We decided it would have to be offensive. Not comically so, just horrifically, gut wrenchingly foul, but badly done. This resulted in a 20 minute conversation of horror-one-up-manship. The story getting worse, the scenery more terrible, the list of taboos being broken longer and longer. It played out like a remix of ‘The Aristocrats!’ joke. See just how horrible you can be, but with the added impetus to stage it in a really crass way, and incorporate as much first-year-drama-student bad surrealism as possible…
Then came the killer line. Just as we’d finished devising this despicable, unperformable work, Knud – a sound designer, composer and generally delightful human being from Denmark turned to us and said ‘just burn a dog’. No exclamation mark. No shock, just a single line that would make for a show more offensive, more horrible, and much worse artistically than our 20 minutes of fussy point-scoring offensiveness.
‘just burn a dog’.
Again, I cried laughing for about 20 minutes. Literally unable to speak. Definitely in the top 3 or 4 funniest things I’ve ever heard in my life, entirely dependent on having spent the previous 20 minutes in conversation about this terrible thing and having that bubble burst so spectacularly.
But also, it was UTTERLY profound. That level of ability to cut through fussy bullshit, to dig beneath the layers of box-ticking ‘impact’ of a show, of a work, of a piece of music, of the staging of a work, and realise that all you needed to do was burn a dog.
So now, the question for me is always ‘where’s the burning dog?’ what is that thing? It may well be that the fussy version is the thing that needs to happen – be as simple as you have to be, but no simpler. There are aesthetic worlds that require a level of complexity and specification to have their meaning, to do their job. But often, the quest for the burning dog will uncover a whole other kind of story.
What Inspires you?
I am inspired by the Outdoors - the Sea - the Sky - Open Space - Imagery - Other People - Life
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
New diciplines, beauty in the local area, new materials, intensive experience, learn by doing, learning from other people, play, testing, be brave and take risks, ask difficult questions,
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Collect experiences
Find place for yourself
Explore physically & mentally
Keep moving
Interrogate yourself
Be curious
What Inspires you?
To me inspiration is the power that makes me want to do things, create and change things.
It inspires me to get ideas avnd visions. To see possibilities. Sometimes I get inspired by other people, their acts, what they say they think. I get inspiration from their ideas.. Their ideas create ideas and visions in my head.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
INSP LAB helps me believing in the creative power of people. And to keep believing in following crazy ideas as the first steps og the path of creating valuable new stuff.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
If you want to make new stuff then you have to say yes to your own crazy ideas … and to others...
What Inspires you?
Inspiration er bevægelse, det er skabertrang, og lysten til at lege og leve...
What Inspires you?
I am inspired by humans!
And that we have different backgrounds. That we are skilled and experience the challenge of doing something other that we normally do.
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Insp Lab fill me up with impressions. The actual actions - the inner experiences - the emotional - the mental.
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Observe others, listen. Try things out and make it your own.
What Inspires you?
Artwork & Music - Moving my body – Movement with others
Observing people´s non-verbal language
Listening to stories
Reflection time with nature
How Does Insp Lab Add to your understanding of your creative process?
Communication, coordination, collaboration and management is an art form!
Both structure and freedom
If you should share ideas advice with others on how to get inspiration.
Go where you feel energized!
"Game of Thrones"
The visitor is invited inside. The room are lit by living light, First the visitor are asked to choose one of the four elements. They are represented by a Tarotcard and the element in fact. After that there are 12 rooms with doors open. On every Throne, there is a cart to choose. Every of the small room are lit by a light on the throne. The combination of the chosen element and the card from the throne all have a combination that gives a number from 1, 2 or 3. The number gives permission to one of the 3 rooms upstairs. Thiese rooms each have a special event.
It all had a touch of mystic with the tarot symbols and numbers and the special light downstairs and upstairs. We were 2 groups who cooperated in this.
Vera Rahbek
Alison about "Game of Thrones" and about "breaking the rules"
Game theory and the possibility of a player subverting the game, either on purpose, or because they didn’t understand the rules. What is a successful game and how much do we permit it to be broken? The final piece that Pernille, Vera, Johan, and I created, was a game of choice and tarot cards that led to the audience choosing one of 3 small rooms, each containing a different experience . The first part of the experience involved the audience making two choices. These choices led to the creation of a number (1-3), which indicated the room to which entry would be permitted for that audience member. It was intended as a one-person experience, so that the choices and experience would be individual, and also because each room was approximately the size of a toilet cubicle. We hadn’t considered that some people might want to break our game, until an audience member came forward with her son – they wanted to try the experience together. At first I thought they simply hadn’t understood, and explained that it was for one person at a time. But she was insistent, and so we let them into a room together. I don’t know how they experienced their chosen room, I didn’t get a chance to ask, but their approach brought up the question of how strictly we set the perameters of an experience, and how broken a game can be before it is not even a game anymore. Do the audience know best? Or do we, as creators, know what will work for them? There has to be give and take here. It wasn’t a problem for them to experience the room together (although they may have been a bit squashed once inside), but once I’d told them it was only for one, and we had had to discuss this, the moment was already broken, the experience was damaged. I could have not said anything, but I felt my duty towards the game to explain the rules. Who wins and who loses? Can a phoenix spring from the ashes of a broken piece of work and create something new and better? Sometimes yes, sometimes not. In practical terms, how much space can we give an audience to make free choices within a piece of work? Games always have rules; and people always have expectations. The expectations and the rules might not always match.
alisonsscenographyblog.wordpress.com