Sonya Russell-Saunders
art curator and researcher
Interaction Order
The Interaction Order is a framework that describes the moment when two people are physically in each others presence. Erving Goffman asserts that humans modify their behaviour in these encounters adopting roles like actors in a play. This form of sociological study is measured by observation and these concepts are embedded within the exhibition design and staging allowing a multi layered approach to curation where audience behaviour is key to the work.
Live performance and audience interaction is documented and mediated through film, photography and sound recordings, ‘Interaction Order’ becomes both a live happening and a re-lived experience, transforming the gallery into an immersive, site specific environment.
This work was in collaboration with; Martin Prosser, Mycah Tequeron, Anais Lalange, Ana Rutter sound artist, Tim Pratt, film and photography.
Designed/edited specifically to respond to ARTicle Gallery space as large scale projection played along with Ana Rutter's sound piece that worked with naturalised, but highly mediated sound re-creating the live event.
Collective Representation : the smile and chat policy
Image/Still, Ana Rutter, 2014
An examination of gesture, social structures and corporate policy
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A new commissioned exhibition and performance that builds on the sociological observations discovered during Interaction Order, January 2014. It is a collaborative, multi disciplinary and multi layered approach to art and exhibition making, combining embodied dance techniques and choreography with sculptural film, sound and documentary filmmaking.
At the core of each artist’s presentation, is a close examination of gesture through everyday ‘pedestrian’ behaviour. Repetitive actions highlight the unspoken cultural rules we are guided by, and how we strive to perform acceptably within the value systems of the wider collective (be that social, cultural, ideological or corporate). The smile and chat policy is a contemporary corporate policy devised by a large supermarket chain, that instructs particular behavioural rules on its employees, simple everyday gestures such as greeting one another, smiling and chatting are codified to enhance our consumer experience.
Through repetition in performance, film editing and gallery structure, the concept is embedded in the gallery space, a deliberate intention to heighten awareness of the small nuances of gesture, and to create a space for the audience to reflect on how they behave within the social and corporate structures and sites they inhabit. Within the films are moments when the performers slip in and out of what they consider to be a performance state.
The live event was recorded with the audience and resultant films were placed back in the gallery completing the examination.
Article Gallery, 21 January to 13 February 2015
Performed by Anais Lalange, Hannah Parsons, Francesca McLoughlin, Jess Campbell and Alicia Kidman. Film and sound by Ana Rutter, film and documentary by Tim Pratt with direction/choreography by Martin Prosser
