This week Matt Shaw (on the right in the photo), Thias Martin and I discussed some ideas on implementation of perFORM and how this exciting idea might be realised. 

We explored the types of opportunities and potential applications.  We looked at ways of 'telling the story' of how the project got to where it is now and how it forms a logical sequence of creative activity.  We feel that there is stong commercialisation potential in this project.  If you're interested in find out more, please get in touch.

A fast train down from Manchester on Friday and a move from the FutureEverything conference at the Contact Theatre to outside the Hampstead Theatre where Matt Shaw and Bob Sheil of the Barlett and Jessica Bowles of the Central School of Speech and Drama were working with other colleagues producing a 1 to 1 scale representation of the potential space offered by this collaborative theatre design.  You can read about the review meeting we held at the Centre a while back in the post below this one.  

Thias Martin and I were invited to go along.  Jessica described us as a kind of 'prodding conscience - getting us to make progress'.  Thias in particular has been thinking about potential commercialisation routes.  For our part, based on feedback from the team, we feel we are able to add value, both to the development of the work and also to looking hard at the commercial and business potential of the collaboration.

It was exciting to watch the various groups of staff, students and others working with a contained and concentrated energy; trying to imagine what the space might be like, building a shared picture in their minds as they discussed angles, approaches and argued about technical points.  The space was laid out in 2D on a large granite plaza, criss-crossed with chalk lines, tape and rope.

I made an audio piece using Audioboo:

And using Reeldirector a short video which I hope gives you some impressions of how the work went.

This collaboration is at an exciting point and to us at the Centre we feel it's accelerating; generating new thinking and experiences for those involved.  There is increasing enmeshing of the creative, technical and commercial aspects and it's great fun to be involved.

Notes of a Collaboration meeting between Bartlett/UCL and CET/CSSD
An exciting meeting and discussion of progress and results of a collaboration between the Central School of Speech and Drama and the Bartlett/UCL .  The participants, led by Bob Sheil (from the Bartlett) and Jessica Bowles (from CSSD) are academics, practitioners and current and former students.  The idea; to report the work so far, discuss the implications and see how the collaboration might be developed.  We used the Centre for the meeting and Thias Martin (who is leading the work of our engagement with the Bartlett and CSSD) and I were invited to participate; to bring an external view and to take part in the discussion.  The participants agreed that the meeting was ‘bloggable’ and I made notes in realtime that I’m referring to in writing this.

You’ll note that I described this as an exciting meeting - and it was - it was also exactly what we hoped would happen once we got this space and began work.  That existing collaborations would see value in a ‘neutral’ location, where a degree of external facilitation/discussion might be available and where the open nature of the space could provoke open interaction.

Finding the 'space' for engagement

Anyone reading this who has experience of ‘proper’ collaboration will know how difficult this stuff is.  And here you have architects, performers and practitioners.  By character, they have very different drives.  Architects like to have a defined brief, they need to have a client and they want to pitch ‘a solution’.  Performers don’t like to compromise; the work is all and anything that gets in the way needs to be overcome; sometimes by force!  Practitioners are more pragmatic and perhaps tactical; they know that creative demands change over time, they need flexibility and adaptability; and it needs to happen.  The feeling I had, being in (but not of) the meeting was of a group of people (not a team yet - but close) striving really hard to understand one another and find ways to work together and collaborate. 

The collaboration is designed to test new ways in which theatre space can be used differently and sustainably.  The work of eight of the Bartlett’s students was referenced and  a focus on mobile/portable or perhaps temporary spaces agreed.  The first part of the meeting looked at ‘what makes this project different’?  There is common ground in seeing that this collaboration is different in that it’s not a theatre owner or a producer defining a brief for a new theatre and then getting a bunch of architects to ‘bid in’ on the brief.  It’s more about evolving a process of negotiation, discussion and discovery where new ideas can be captured and envisaged. 

Impetus and leadership from the students

Bob Sheil talked about the work of the students and that the impetus and leadership came from them.  The work is not ‘open-ended’ in that there are a set of agreed design constraints including the audience size of about 70 and a defined space (near CSSD, between two existing theatres) and a desire for a mobile/portable space.  There were 8 students looking at different themes: 

James Barrington - The Event Machines
Frank Gilks - Twinned Theatre
Justin Goodyer - Performative Parametrics
Ric Lipson - Vertical Theatre
Matt Shaw - Tending the Skin
Katrina Varian  - Parasite Performances
Tim Tasker - Theatre Loom
Andrew Yorke - Performance Laboratory
 

The potential for a building to add to the performance rather than be a ‘container’ for it

Bob talks about the unity of making, repairing and performing.  The idea of the building as the ‘skin and the envelope’.  The design team (writ large I think) as “designers of the circumstances that the building needs to respond to”. 

There was also a discussion of the impact of the space on the writing rather than building a space to respond to narrative and the potential for interplay between these. 

Jessica says that we may may be dealing with spaces where a less linear narrative, a more ‘filmic’ experience can be delivered.  Looking at ‘coming out’ of traditional theatres and moving into different physical spaces.  It is about a response says Bob.

“The Unit [at the Bartlett] is keen on making things.  You get new ideas by building things”   - Bob. 

“Yes, it’s like rehearsal”  - Jessica.

The meeting focuses on 2 projects; HearHere by Ric Lipson and Matt Shaw’s work over the past 4 months on a feasibility study for a mobile theatre which can emerge from a 45’ shipping container.

Ric Lipson - HearHere - An Acoustic Theatre Modulated by its Occupants

Ric is a former student at the Bartlett, now working with Mark Fisher Design.  He investigated spaces influenced by sound using a site at Orfordness; “how do the buildings listen?”  Ric built a cylindrical space to play with the sounds.

“Unfold the drawing and let it play as a score in the building”. 

He went on to do 3D modelling and he shows video; it’s a graceful looking earlike structure, a kind of cut through a cylinder or angled cone that catches the sounds around it - playing with the stresses and differences between the outer ‘ear’ of softer wood and the inner aluminium reflective surfaces. 

He tested the idea by building a model in a studio theatre and he shows a video about it. 

People move into the space and listen, the movement of the sound in the space and the reflections in the metal skin are all part of how the building ‘listens’ to its surroundings. 

He says there was a

 “Big discussion as to whether to mandate what people would do in the space.  We decided not to.  The interest in this project from Central is about how to use the space as a performance”

www.hearhere.info

Matt Shaw - innovative mobile performance space

“We took on board the idea of transportability” - the idea of a tailored container which could be used on a standard trailer.  “A boring site plan” in a trailer but that’s the start point.

An extra large 45’ shipping container that can be unfolded 3 times can give the target capacity for the project’s performance space.  Component parts come from the container and create the performance space.  [Passes round models].  The assembly of the space is part of the performance.  Also needs to exist as a closed state and express the potential of the project.

Matt describes the requirements for the space - in terms of a central space surrounded by an outer skin of some kind.  One of the major moves is the retention of the 2 end pieces of the container.  Trying to intermediate the spaces using these panels as fixed points.

“We have a limit of 3.2m w x 4.85 h x 14.85m - the largest container we can use in the UK"

[Matt describes the process of thinking about how to define and dimension the space.  He shows a model, made using the Bartlett’s 3D Rapid Prototyping machine.  The way in which the flat performance space emerges from the body of the trailer is impressive.]

“If it’s going to be sustainable maybe we should be using the available daylight and control the light entering the space.”
 
There are some fabulous design constraints that have driven the work:

The importance of both the ‘get in’ and the ‘get out’
Using the components of the object to define the space and also maintain the structural integrity both in transport and use
The idea of bringing daylight into the space; how do we control light?  Is it an advantage or disadvantage?
The ‘empty box’ studio vs the prescribed theatre space

The inner skin needs to allow flexibility but also to be acoustically helpful to the space.  The outer membrane is a challenge - how to make it work and ‘get it right’; maybe it’s translucent? 

There was an animated discussion of the ideas in the design, potential ‘markets’ for the idea in terms of audiences, performers as users and implementers of the space and possible funders. 

Taking the collaboration forward

“The project starts when something gets built” says Bob Sheil “We need to identify how the space will be made”

Other participants said:

“All of this taking smoke and turning it into substance needs to go hand-in-hand with really serious bean-counting”. 

“How do we move this project forward - need to sit with writers, sound people, performers and work out how to deliver it”. 

“It’s a collaboration between theatre and architecture and investigating the space interactions between them - it’s not just about buying into the object.”

Where next?

“It’s almost like a tangible research question in looking at how audiences are relating to the space”. 

There is also the need to understand how UCL/Bartlett and CSSD might use this idea.  It could be used to provoke and develop research.  Look at user-behaviour and how technology might play into the space.  It could be used as an educational space during term time and toured in the summer - there are lots of possibilities. 

Everyone agrees that in the next phase prototyping will be essential. 

The idea of bringing together a wider group; presenting the work so far, getting feedback and, through conversation and dialogue, looking for routes to developing the collaboration is supported by the participants. 

Another idea is to set up a ‘Project Office’ at the Centre; and arrange to meet on a regular basis - to promote more interaction and perhaps less formal collaboration meetings.