PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – Notes on Site-specific Work and Artistic Research 28 (Texts 2001-2011) annette arlander acta scenica PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – Notes on Site-specific Work and Artistic Research (Texts 2001-2011) Annette Arlander PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – Notes on Site-specific Work and Artistic Research (Texts 2001-2011) Publisher Theatre Academy Helsinki, Performing Arts Research Centre © Theatre Academy Helsinki and Annette Arlander Graphic design Hahmo Design Oy www.hahmo.fi Layout Edita Prima Oy/Annika Marjamäki Cover Photo video still, Year of the Horse, Arlander 2003 Printed by Edita Prima Ltd, Helsinki, 2012 Paper Carta Integra 250 g / m2 & Cocoon 120 g / m2 Font family Filosofia. © Zuzana Licko. Acta Scenica 28 ISBN (Paperpack) 978-952-9765-95-9 (PDF) 978-952-9765-96-6 ISSN (Paperpack) 1238-5913 (PDF) 2242-6485 Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 7 1.1 A RESEARCH REPORT 7 1.2 AN ARTIST’S JOURNEY 10 1.3 ON LANDSCAPE 12 1.4 ON PLACE AND PERFORMANCE 17 1.5 INTRODUCING THE CHAPTERS 25 1.6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 31 2 LANDSCAPE AS SETTING FOR STORIES - RADIO PLAY AND DANCE PERFORMANCE 35 2.1 HOW TO PERFORM LANDSCAPE? 36 2.2 FAIRIES AND VIA MARCO POLO 37 2.3 THAT TIME 39 2.4 FAIRIES - IDEA AND REALIZATION OF THE RADIO PLAY 42 2.5 DANCING WITH FAIRIES 57 2.6 VIDEO WALKS AND DOUBLE HAPPINESS IN WATER 62 2.7 DISCUSSION 65 3 LANDSCAPE AS SCENE FOR MEMORIES AND FANTASIES – RADIO PLAY, SOUND INSTALLATIONS AND SITE-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE 67 3.1 PERFORMANCE AS SPACE – SPACE AS PERFORMANCE 68 3.2 SITE-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE, SOUND INSTALLATIONS AND RADIO PLAY 74 3.3 BEACH PEBBLES – AN EXAMPLE 88 3.4 SPECTATOR POSITION - TIMING AND FREEDOM OF CHOICE 101 4 LANDSCAPE AS ENVIRONMENT – SOUND, TEXT AND VIDEO IN INSTALLATIONS 111 4.1 PERFORMING LANDSCAPE - ACTING TEXT 111 4.2 WHERE THE SEA BEGINS 126 5 LANDSCAPE AS VIEW – PAINTING, VIDEO IMAGE AND TOURISM 135 5.1 NATURE, LANDSCAPE OR ENVIRONMENT 135 5.2 PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – A BODY IN THE WIND 137 5.3. PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – THE ARTIST AS TOURIST 149 6 LANDSCAPE AS SITE – SITE OF ACTION AND RECEPTION PULLED APART 163 6.1 PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – CHANGING SITE 163 6.2 MANY PLACES, MANY PATRONS 174 7 PERFORMING LANDSCAPE AND AGENCY – TREES TALK 181 7.1 FROM PRIVATE TO PUBLIC OR DIRECTING WHOM? 182 7.2 MORE TALKING TREES 196 7.3 EXHAUSTING MODERNITY - LIVENESS IN THE SHADOW OF THE HAWTHORN 204 8 WITCHES’ BROOM – VARIATIONS OF AN AUDIO PLAY 215 8.1 CREATIVE ENDEAVOUR 215 8.2 BACKGROUND 218 8.3 WITCHES’ BROOM (EXHIBITION) 221 8.4 SOUND AND MOVING IMAGE IN SPACE 236 8.5 QUESTIONS CONCERNING AUDIO PLAYS 239 9 PERFORMER AND ENVIRONMENT – IMAGINARY MODELS 243 9.1 PERFORMING WITH TREES - LANDSCAPE AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH 244 9.2 NOTES IN THE SAND - LANDSCAPE, MOVEMENT AND THE MOVING IMAGE 254 9.3 PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – DOCUMENTING WEATHER 265 10 DOCUMENTATION, ARTISTIC RESEARCH AND ANIMAL YEARS 273 10.1 DOCUMENTATION, PERFORMANCE AND RESEARCH 274 10.2 FINDING YOUR WAY THROUGH THE WOODS – EXPERIENCES OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH 287 10.3 ANIMAL YEARS – PERFORMING LANDSCAPE BY THE CHINESE CALENDAR 307 11 HOW LANDSCAPE MOVES ME 321 11.1 LANDSCAPE AND THE YEARLY CYCLE 322 11.2 STILL-ACTS, IMMOBILITY AS ACTION 325 11.3 STILLNESS AS AN ELEMENT OF PERFORMANCE ART 328 11.4 AS WITNESS IN THE LANDSCAPE 333 11.5 WHAT IS REPEATED, WHAT IS CHANGING? 343 11.6 PERFORMING FOR A LIVE AUDIENCE 350 11.7 SUMMA SUMMARUM 353 12 PERFORMING PLACE AS INTERRUPTION OR AFFIRMATION 357 12.1 EVENT SCORES FOR PERFORMING INTERRUPTIONS 357 12.2 PERFORMING LANDSCAPE AS AFFIRMATIVE PRACTICE 368 13 PERFORMING NON-PLACE AND THE CHALLENGE OF PERFORMATIVE RESEARCH 377 13.1 THE LITTLE MERMAID 378 13.2 SELF-IMAGING 379 13.3 PARADOXES 381 13.4 PERFORMATIVE TURN 382 13.5 NON-PLACES 386 13.6 CHOOSING SILENCE 390 13.7 OUTCOMES AND EFFECTS 393 14. EPILOGUE 397 SOURCES 400 Primary sources 400 Bibliography 404 Unpublished sources 415 Internet sources 419 Performances and radio plays 422 Music 423 APPENDIXES 424 1 INTRODUCTION This compilation of texts presents the story of more than ten years of explorations in performing landscape, undertaken parallel to and sometimes as part of and my work as professor of performance art and theory at the Theatre Academy, Helsinki. Since I am now leaving this position it seems appropriate to gather some of the results of these years into one place. The topic of these texts is very loosely related to my teaching, however, the concerns of which are better expressed in some other publications.1 These texts can be read independently, although they are organ- ised following a loose chronology and a development of sorts. In this introduction I first describe this collection as the result of an extended research project (1.1) and of an artist’s journey (1.2). After that I present some views on landscape (1.3), on place and performance (1.4) and on site-specific art and performance art (1.5) as an opening of the topic. Then I briefly introduce the thirteen chapters (1.5) and end by acknowledgments (1.6). 1.1 A RESEARCH REPORT This compilation of texts is the report from an informal and extended research pro- ject on performing landscape, which I embarked upon soon after completing my doctoral work on performance as space in 1998. The main premise of the work was that a live performance takes place as a space and my aim was to show how space could be an interesting starting point for a performance both as spatial relation- ships and as a place creating meaning. In passing I noted that if we consider focus- ing attention to be the main task of an artist, there are few things more important to focus on than the environment we live in, but mostly ignore. (Arlander 1998, 32) The first plans regarding landscape were created in order to participate in an appli- cation to the Academy of Finland for a research project dealing with visual compo- sition in performance.2 My short plan for that project, which was never realised, 1 See for instance the introductions to Episodi 2 (Arlander 2009 d) and Episodi 3 (Arlander 2011 a), 2 In the application dated 15.5. 2000 the research project is called “Visuaalinen kokonaiskompositio tutkimuskohteena – ohjaustaiteen, skenografian ja valaistuksen yhteishanke” [Visual composition as research object – collaboration of directing, scenography 8 PERFORMING LANDSCAPE – Notes on Site-specific Work and Artistic Research (Texts 2001-2011) contains the first formulations of the questions that have occupied me during these years and are reflected in the texts in this collection. In a draft in May 2000 (in Finnish) I describe how I am interested in the meta- morphoses and transformations through which the incredible although often unre- markable phenomena of the real world can function as starting points and material for various forms of performances; how the experience of a specific place, environ- ment or natural phenomenon can be transformed into a presentable form, into a play, a radio play or a performance. The scale of a performance follows the size of the performance venue and more importantly a human scale (see i.e. Aronson 1991). But the elements of a landscape are often enormous or tiny. Or duration? How can one describe the slow and seemingly non-intensive processes of nature in the “efficient” narrative time of a performance, without completely destroying their character by turning them into a cultural artificial language, into messages, the origins of which are unimportant and the efficacy of which rests on their recognisability and familiarity. These kinds of questions lead to the broad fields of cultural studies. As an artist, however, I am more interested in smaller questions, like “how?” in practice. (Arlander 2000 b) In the plan I describe questions related to transformations between various media and contexts, like radio play, live performance and installation, referring to my experiences of creating a radio play and a dance performance based on the same material as well as plans for future work along the same lines. This draft was further developed as part of a research project, planned in co- operation with literary scholar Kuisma Korhonen in 2004, between Theatre Acad- emy, Helsinki and University of Helsinki, with the title “Encounters” 3 (not funded either). In our part of the project at the Theatre Academy, we asked how an artist encounters a philosophical text. My contribution within the research project, Per- forming Landscape, included a plan for three publications, an artist book, an arti- cle in a joint Encounters publication, and a collection of texts called “Performing and lighting design]. It was compiled and led by Professor Pentti Paavolainen and included myself as post doc, the doctoral projects of professors Katriina Ilmaranta and Markku Uimonen, projects by doctoral students Timo Heinonen, Laura Gröndahl, Joanna Weckman and Tomi Humalisto from Theatre Academy and University of Art and Design. 3 The plan consisted of two projects “Encounters: Art (Dance, Theatre, Performance) and Philosophy” from Theatre Academy and “Encounters: Philosophy and Art Research” from University of Helsinki. The project was compiled of various existing research projects; the participants from Theatre Academy included DA (dance) Kirsi Monni and doctoral students Ville Sandqvist, Pauliina Hulkko, Ari Tenhula, and Soile Lahdenperä and was led by me. In the feedback from The Academy of Finland the group was criticised for being heterogeneous, which it admittedly was. Annette Arlander 9 Landscape – notes on site-specificity in the light of practical experiences with doc- umentation and display”. The two first mentioned publications have not been real- ised; the third publication is the one you are reading now, albeit in a modified form.