So a bit different, but yes newcastle does have an actual castle, the black gate and then the other caste. It is kinda spectacular, and is a bit diff from my normal excursions, maybe it wasn’t really a space apart this,a s much like when doing the maypole in Darlington, it felt a bit like it fitted into the castle as another attraction to look at, as most of the people who undertook it were tourists and many didn’t speak english. This was the first time in guiding people into the work I had to deal with people not understanding the description of the work. But still people didn’t see it as outside of the castle structure, and it seems to fit in ot what the castle offred. I did Swingball Shakespeare outside of the castle with passers-by, and then sing language duel inside, and tries tug of tango which is going nowhere, and had a bad slime experience, so tried it with this elastic which was also hard.
When trying to sign language duel, I Noticed upstairs there were shields and swords for people to try, so when in the great hall, it seemed to fit in with their dueling structure well. Lots of people took pictures of the signs on the board,a sif it was some kind of tourists attraction. People were really up for talking as they had the time. Lots of discussion about the work, and also a lady said that her children at home, had made a variation of paper rock scissors. Also the first participants were from italy and a man in his twenties was with his mother and father. The man did it with me, but a great deal of his attention during the activity was to his parents, and they laughed between themselves. He also translated and explained what he wa doing to them as they watch. There were two German tourists young in their twenties too, who tried the sign language duel, but only one wore the hand, the other insisted on doing it without the hand. It was interesting to see the visual difference.
On the swingball, one of the tourists, said he played lots of badminton, and so was kinda excited to have a go. Today I decided not to play it in pairs, but just to let people do it individually as getting them to play in pairs was hard to do, as people seemed to pass by individually.
I did find even for a Monday there was a good flow through the castle, and I didnt have to move too far, but everyone was very understated coming across it, it didn’t really have the edge of surprise in the castle, but the swingball did outside. I had a reporter from the local press, who is covering the Swingball Shakespeare. Which was interesting, and she did interviews with people in the work, kind of like, did you enjoy playing, was it hard to read the text. I have stayed away from this, but it was interesting to hear people’s reactions.
Visually the swingball was played outside the castle, and there are some other large buildings down there, it looks very unlike the rest of the town. The lampost was a bit low, but it was good. I made the mistake of trying to use one swingball that was on elastic, that I’d adapted form one I bought online, this was a silly design, as obviously you can’t play swingball with elastic, as when you hit it, it goes miles out and you can’t return it because the trajectory varies wildly. I had set up in the castle car park entrance, which meant I had to stop and start a number of times to let people park, and felt this was part of the Instantaneous structure of art on the margins and fitting into the area.
I also got high five afterwards by one of the particiipants, a Scandanavian, he hit my hand very hard, but obviously a sign of ‘Fiero’
Tried out the tug of tango idea, it isn’t really anything, I spoke around it and was good to do in this pace, just did it as a studio test, but it isn’t the next work, if there is another one to follow. Did it first with elastic walking away, but that is too dangerous, and what is the purpose of doing it.
So the Tug of Tango not really working out. Overall though I did find it kind of refreshing the different people we got, and the various nationalities, the conversations were very different, and as they were in some form of tourist mode, the way they approached the work was different, more interactive. The reason for partaking was very different ot the groups I had been working with before, so th different locations do draw out different people, depending on the nature and purpose of the location. It was refreshing to do the work there. It is a conflicting environment, and is only half way between the idea of it being known and unexpected.
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