As a three, when the module ‘Collaborations’ began, we were asked to consider the strategies of collaboration and what collaboration means to us. Collaboration can be defined in many different ways in the arts, business and everyday life. Whenever I hear the word collaboration, the first thing that springs to mind to me is the relationship between a group of people working amongst one another to reach and unified goal. Throughout this process we questioned as a group how we could shift our thinking to develop, explore and adapt compositional strategies for theatre and performance making to create something we haven’t made before. As a collective we strived to be open to all opportunities and avenues when creating this new piece of work. We considered the following closely: The role of each member in the collaboration, the role of the performer and the role of the audience. In order to explore these ideas, we discussed early on through the process how we could explore each of these approaches with the time we had.
Early on in the process we were invited to see ‘The Justice Syndicate’, an audience-centric collaboration created by neuroscientist Dr Kris Meter and computational artist Joe McAlister (fanSHEN). fanSHEN are a theatre company originally based in Newcastle which create interactive, playful and audience-centric theatre. Their work typically focuses on elements of performance, installation, and new ways of creating audience-centric experiences. As a company they bring people together to explore and challenge ideas that reflect on real life events and the ethics of the choices which we make in society. Their work is deeply imaginative based on the way they structure their work, and their recent performance ‘The Justice Syndicate’ is a fine example of this.
‘The Justice Syndicate’ is a playable theatre piece which is situated in a jury format. The performance bares the question of how we deal with our preconceptions and how working as a group to find the right answer can affect our decisions. The performance was combined with the relationship between technology and the audience. 12 audience/participants gather in a room which is laid out like they are in a jury. Once the participants are seated they each have an iPad in which they use to read case files, explore evidence and watch videos. Towards the end of each section the audience is given the choice based on the evidence they have to vote if the person accused of the crime is guilty or not guilty. The person in question during the performance is a top surgeon who is under threat of being convicted of sexual assault. His conviction would mean his work on operating on his patients wouldn’t go ahead. The use of the iPads in the performance meant I had my own personal time to analyse and form my own decision as to whether or not the accused surgeon was guilty or not guilty. What became more interesting was when we were instructed to reflect on these ideas as a group which left us questioning our ethics if this was a real-life situation. The conclusion we came to ultimately as a group left me questioning my ethics and whether or not I made the right decision, however, more importantly, when reflecting on the performance as a concept, it made me question roles within a collaboration. “Creative collaboration takes many forms. In some groups or dyads, the cognitive and emotional dynamics reach a certain height, after which the collaboration starts to disintegrate. In others, there is a carefully maintained balance, in which individuals who are committed to each other professionally and personally develop a variety of means to protect their partnership.” John-Steiner (2000;85). This carefully assembled piece of playable theatre left me questioning what kind of disciplines I would like to embed into my collaborative process in order for it to consider our roles in the collaboration, the role of the performer and the role of the audience. A few weeks after the performance we were lucky enough to have a workshop lead by Rachel Briscoe, one of the lead artists from fanSHEN. Rachels workshop engaged us to think compositionally towards the way fanSHEN create work in a playful and imaginative manner. During our workshop with Rachel we discussed works we had previously created and as practitioners and how we plan on moving forward by using some of fanSHENs compositional strategies to create game like scenarios within our work. Seeing ‘The Justice Syndicate’ and having some time to work and discuss ideas with Rachel was a rich experience at this early point in our process because it engaged us to further develop our ideas in a playful and approach our work outside our household styles.