Group 2: Anne, Marianne, Sidsel, Sophie
”My House”
http://eyespot.com/share?cmd=permalink&r=0XCzIG2UEoANhriEJW0yIWo8q2#
In an attempt to highlight the relationship between public and private spaces, we decided to bring the atmosphere of the home into a commercial area where every private notion is basically absent. The space we chose to inhabit for a short while was the department store “Salling” and the furniture showroom at “Sinnerup”. By situating our performer on the borderline of what is acceptable public behavior, we sought to create awareness about how we perceive a home-like public scenery, and how this perception can be disrupted. We expected the spectators to react with doubt and skepticism, and these expectations were definitely met. In addition to our visual documentation, we feel it necessary to mention some of the reactions that unfortunately were not caught on tape.
In Salling, we managed to create confusion and frustration among the shop-assistants as they clearly did not know how to react. As more and more personal artifacts surfaced, and our performer made herself comfortable, we observed the opposite with the personnel. Their discomfort became obvious as they started making phone calls and asking their colleagues for advice on where to draw the line. “Is it okay to use a laptop in here?” After about ten minutes of circling the area, one of the shop-assistants finally(?) dared to pose the question “can I help you?”.
Sinnerup turned out to be a slightly different scene, mainly because of the lack of personnel, which opened for a different type of interaction between the performer and the audience. One might say that this was a scene where the line between public and private became more obviously blurred. Resulting in questions like “are you a part of the exhibition?” (Answered cleverly by our performer: “No, I’m just enjoying myself!”) Customers moving around the performer as if she wasn’t even there, and curious people just standing there - almost as if they were waiting for something to happen.
The two scenes also displayed differences in reactions to the person videotaping the event. In Salling, people rather quickly linked the performer and the photographer to each other, while in Sinnerup people did not recognize the two elements as part of the same happening.
