To hear, is to see. The basis of our experiment is to find out if you can still have a performance when sight, life’s main sense, is taken away. For some they do not have the option to see, whether they were born blind or it has been a gradual process, they learn to use their other senses to ‘see’ the world. This itself is an entirely different experience, one which sighted people cannot understand. Matlin and Foley explain that the auditory system and the visual system ‘have evolved to provide us with a sense of three dimensional space’ (1992 p. 340)
We hear sounds that range from a quiet whisper, to the bang of a firework, from a birds tweet to a lion’s roar. When you are not dependent on your hearing, you take sounds for granted. Helen Keller, who was both deaf and blind, makes a strong argument as to why being deaf is worse than being blind. Her blindness ‘isolated her from things, but deafness isolated her from people.’ (Goldstein 2010 p. 260)
The idea of being isolated is the reason we decided to use HeadSpace. This creates a more intense feeling when hearing certain sounds, during the wedding scene, hearing the horse and cart travel past the three microphones gave the effect of the journey.
‘Physical Definition: Sound is pressure changes in the air or other medium. Perceptual Definition: Sound is the experience we have when we here.’ (Goldstein 2010 p. 261)
Throughout our performance we used a number of different types of sound, some were our own voices, some were live sounds made from various objects and others were pre-recorded songs played via an ipod.
Proto-Type’s Whisper gave us an insight into Headspace. We were able to experiment using the idea behind Whisper, which included using the microphones and headphones so we could experience being both a performer and a spectator. A few elements of Proto-Type’s work we found effective and have adapted to our devised work are…
- The constant noise of a tap dripping and a low hum of electricity humming – this created a strange effect in my individual headspace whilst experiencing the performance so that when it eventually stopped, the silence felt eerie and unnatural to me. In our performance we use this technique by allowing a long pause, followed by the noise of a girl crying quietly for two minutes. We feel this translates the desired ambiance for our piece, holding the audience in a state of agonizing silence.
- The depth of description in the story told was so rich in detail that you imagine the story so vividly in your head. This is something we have focused deeply on in constructing our monologues, so the audience will conceptualise the story in their own heads according to their own preconceptions of a celebration.
- The use of second person in the narrative makes the story each audience member’s and no one elses; something we have encorporated into a few of our small monologues, so the audience’s imagination is more crucial to the performance reception than ours whilst commuinicating the stories we have created.
Sophie Wright, Caitlin Clark
WORD COUNT 261
WORKS CITIED
Goldstein, E. Bruce (2010) Sensation and Perception, Belmont: Wadswort
Matlin, Margaret W. and Hugh J. Foley (1992)Sensation and PerceptionMassachusetts:Allyn and Bacon