Following the reading on Why Performance by Mike Pearson, it has been understood that the following reasons why performance can be used as a method for examining and analysing a particular landscape. The landscape is researched and utilised for artistic engagement as a site specific performance.

He made the following reasons clear why performance can be used in this way:

1 ) Enhancing and informing public appreciation

2)  Stimulating public imagination

3) Performance can bring to life the history and culture of a landscape

4) Reacting ‘onto’ (fiction) and ‘from’ (documentary)

5) Provide a mechanism for enacting the intimate connection between personal biographies, social identities and biography of place

6) To provoke questions about a place

7) Shifting from the ‘optic to the haptic’

8) Illuminate places that do not easily reveal themselves but which have their own unique characteristics, qualities and attractions.

9) Combines creativity and academia

As enlightening as all these point are I will use my top three to find a relevant connection to my process of my own site specific performance. The first was number five, this is relevant because when using narratives within art pieces it is important to make an intimate connection. An intimate connection allows our audience or participant to relate the stimulus to their own lives and this will essentially allow them to engage and make the performance their own. Moreover ‘shift from the optic to haptic’ (Pearson, 2011) optic meaning vision and haptic meaning touch, this is simply depicting the process of where the audience or participant’s perception changes from just seeing to experiencing, embodying an emotional connection with the site. This is relevant as it important that people make a connection with the performance otherwise the audience will not actively engage and they will simply become a passive viewer making their experience meaningless. Lastly number eight, highlighting places which one would have not been so easily considered allows us to push site specific performances in new directions for learning. This is relevant to my process as I should always be thinking of new ways to push forward my own performance to make sure it develops to the furthest possible.

Works Cited

Pearson, M. (2011) Why Performance. Arts & Humanities Research Council.

Image used: http://artsytime.com/img/artwork/photograph-jan-leonardo-wollert/photograph-jan-leonardo-wollert12.jpg