¿Walk?

Installation

Alec Clegg Studio, Stage@Leeds

20th January 2023

Produce/ Design/ Perform/ Video Editing

Pit-a-pat… pit-a-pat!!

‘¿Walk?’" — an immersive experience that defies the ordinary while embracing the extraordinary. Join us for a leisurely stroll, where everyday activities transform into moments of discovery. Delve into the essence of walking and unearth the joy of making the ordinary extraordinary. Elevate your daily life as you uncover the secrets to infuse it with a touch of special, a dash of fun, a measure of fulfillment, and a sprinkle of shine.

Shall we go for a walk?

As a part of a degree project in the University of Leeds PECI3704 independent practice module, Mika deepened her interest in performativity in everyday life. She confronted the question ‘how to raise awareness of everyday performance’ that she had in the semester and created an output that audience.

To learn the way to investigate the new meaning of daily behaviour and create it as an unusual behaviour, Mika researched artists to know how they express themselves while redefining their daily objects and behaviours. Simultaneously, she conducted some practices; observation, walking in different ways, relocating daily behaviours, repeating and reversing daily behaviours with objects, and sensory map activity.

Observasion

From observing people walking on the street and noting down descriptively about their walking, Mika noticed the walking demonstrates emotions, feelings, and mood rather than their walking habits. Also, the behaviour may influence by the baggage they bring, clothes they wear, daily plans they have, other concurrent behaviours, and interactions with other people.

Walking in different ways

Based on the observation, Mika went back to the studio place and practice to walk differently. This includes walking in different expressions, walking with a conscious of clothes, environment, and actions, improvising with the definition of walking, and walking with sounds and music. She noticed that the sound can also become a prompt to perform, and sometimes the beat can change walking speed and reaction as well as construct a background of walking.

Relocating daily behaviour

Conceiving the idea that the black box stage could compose daily behavior as a special activity, Mika also tried to brush her teeth in different locations on campus. Outside of the usual bathroom, she conducted the activity at lunchtime on campus street, the common room, the cafeteria, and the library. The viewer's reaction allows her to recognize the way to present the audience can be a significant transformative opportunity.

Repeating and reversing daily behaviour with object

Adding the element of objects, Mika counted and lined up hundreds of blueberries and then ate the blueberries after crushing them. Both the repetition behaviour and reversed behaviour led to the loss of sense of reality and the original meaning. The daily behaviour can suddenly become another activity if making the behaviour separate from the usual definition.

Sensory map activity

Moreover, Mika managed to have a workshop to let participants follow a smell or a sound for 10 minutes and draw a sensory map. She noticed this can be one solution to focus on walking behaviour because of the effectiveness of removing the original purpose. To complete the task, participants had to act a different way from usual, but could still associate with themselves by being provided with an option.

For better understanding...

Throughout the activities, Mika always raised different questions after each experiment to lead to a better understanding: What is walking? What makes walkers change their behaviours while walking? What does the audience think when watching daily behaviour? How to raise audience awareness of daily behaviour in daily situations? How to develop audience engagement in the workshop?

From the findings, Mika focused on walking behaviour in her final performance. Walking is the behaviour that all visitors conduct every day which visitors can easily engage in. Also, walking varies depending on the circumstances in which they are located, therefore, she expects the audience can easily find the difference. It aimed for visitors to engage in their daily behaviour (walking) differently from usual while providing inputs and activities based on her notices. The final performance was held in Alec Clegg Studio in Stage@Leeds with a style of installation. Setting with the audience was surrounded by 4 screens, which showed the video, sound, and quote as well as instructed walking exercises and shoe activities.