Concept:
Disturb a private sphere in a public space. Ask random people with headphones, what they are listening to, just to make them aware of their own little bubble they have created.
Goffman: roles, involvement shields, focused/unfocused interaction…
Place:
The train station (There is a lot of people listening to their own music here) and Busgaden where people are waiting so we do not have to stop them to ask the question.
Reaction:
Will people find it annoying, be open about it, ignore us etc.? We hope that some of them will invite “us” into their private room asking if “we” want to hear the music too.
Method:
Record → Sound and video on Mobile phone for documentation.
Conclusion
Our (in)visible theatre took place at the railway station in Århus and in Bruun's Galleri. Our theatre started in the hall at the station, afterwards we walked down at the tracks and then we finished our performance in the Bruun's Galleri, and without knowning anything the travelers walked in at our stage. We placed us in different corners and started to spot people, who wore headphones. Our point was to stop these people, who had placed them self in their private bubl, and take them back -for a short while- to the real world, where we were. At the same time we would practically invite us self into their personal place without really asking. As you can hear at our examples, the people was very polite, maybe a bit surprised that this man just was asking, what kind of music they had in their headphones, because he was curious or just wanted to widen his music horizon, but everyone, as you can hear, gave him an answer. Some of them even started a conversation. Thus we did not get any clear physical reactions from the "spect-actors", but we are quite sure that we have touched something inside them, interrupting their private sphere like that.
As we presented this theatre we did only appproach people who was waiting for their travel to start. We could see that they had nothing to do, and they knew, that this man also knew, so maybe they also feelt a bit forced to answer. The question is, if we had appoached them, as they were on their way away from the station or were walking at the street, maybe they more easily could have turned us away!
We are sorry that it is only in danish, but it seemed silly to speak bad english, because the spect-actors problably would be more curious about the thing going on, hearing a danish accent hidden behind. We will improve our english for further work :-).
Here's a link to a short not so complete video (yet), had to struggle with iMovie and with eyespot.com, but here's one until eyespot will again work on my computer Group 9 Video (So Far)
Ok here's a little better version, the synchronization isn't quite good though. I can't figure out the audio edit in eyespot, but I think you can get the picture here: Updated Version
Anette Damgaard Nielsen
Rune Schlosser
Sune Rehhoff
Gry Sandager Møller
