So was working out of the foyer of commercial house, and also exploring the area around the centre of town. The foyer works were Sign language Duel and WordPlay and the work for the exterior environment was Swingball Shakespeare. This time I bought along a sound person to try and get better sound. This day also gave me a number of different games to play, n diff locations, but also a series of expert players, who are the circus performers, as well as general public. I also had an interior space, the foyer of commercial union house. I found that wordplay came alive when the circus performers did it. They really looked for interesting locations to place the text and to hide it also from each other, so they started to do it that the text was semi revealed. It made me think again about this art game. I also used less text so only 5 slips each and that seems the optimum number. Wordplay is perhaps the most open of the games, allowing the most variation from those attempting the work, now the idea of the hidden text, only half revealed. I still feel there is something more.
I felt embolden for the choice of pole for the work this time, and was in the town centre ,with high footfall. This meant i could canvas those around and get a good flow of people to take part. It was interesting that most participants found it tough to get past a few hits. When I tried it with the expert testers, the circus people,they actually got into a rhythm, and started to deliver the Iambic at the right speed, and they also manage to get to the very end of the text. They also worked together on the challenge, which rather than hitting the ball really hard, they worked together hitting it in such manner that the other could reply, so creating a very rhythmic game play. When doing Swingball Shakespeare One participant who played on his own, said he couldn’t read, so instead i read out the text while he hit the ball. Actually afterwards he said thanks, and that it had really helped him playing the game.
Back at the space, one of the participants was heavily into games, and upon seeing the hands, I think proving my concept of the seductive interface, started to really ooh and ahh about it. This is also the idea that just engaging with the object is entering the circle.
The sign language duel went as it always did, although the gaming person did a move, that he said was his power move and was all moves in one, that led me to think can you have a power move, that is a combination of all the moves, how would you earn this? It could be interesting. The circus people were interesting in the manner that they
Afterwards went down to Chilli Road School in Heaton, school to play it with a couple of teachers before band. Heaton had the look of the photos I had been examining of play after the 2nd world war. It was good to do and felt like I was reenacting out the photo and the time. Heaton very old looking. The two really got into and were great at annunciation. I did it on a lower one, that was good in the end, as i shortened the lead, so it worked well.
The circus artist from floor 6 tried out the swingball, and managed to do the whole text,recreating the actual rhythm of the work. So here it showed that due to its analogue nature, it did provide a level of skill that people could show in order to perform the work. They also read the text through before starting which helped them. So they took it pretty seriously.
research 