Hannah Nicklin

What is Zero Hour?

I was originally going to release this info a bit later, but turns out people are already booking (the very limited) tickets, and didn’t want anyone in my networks to miss out.

The Zero Hour Bus Tours are 4 pieces of audio loosely themed along the lines of ‘the apocalypse’, designed to be listened to on the N11 night bus (London) between the hours of midnight and 3am. The journey will take roughly 35 minutes.

They are a Forest Fringe commission for the In Transit Festival 2011.  Along with Steve Kilpatrick on sound I have been writing one of these experiences.

You can buy tickets for any of the 4 different ‘tours’ (and the rest of the festival) on this site, and below are the direct links to the times and dates of my and Steve’s piece. The piece is gently interactive. It might ask you to do small things; look out the window, hold onto a handle. Nothing that might make you look silly.

The tickets are free, but limited; for mine there are only 6 per journey. As we are being only ‘tolerated’ by TFL, you will have to pay for your bus journey (£2.20 cash, £1.30 Oyster). My journey is from World’s End, to Liverpool St. Further instructions will be provided after you have bought your ticket.

MON 25TH JUL, 2011 12:35am

MON 25TH JUL, 2011 1:05am

MON 25TH JUL, 2011 1:35am

WED 27TH JUL, 2011 12:35am

WED 27TH JUL, 2011 1:05am

WED 27TH JUL, 2011 1:35am

I am still looking for a few more volunteers to help me on the night, there are more details about that here. Please get in contact ASAP if you are available on the above dates/times, plus the weekend before, and interested in running around London in exchange for a drink, £10 expenses, and all the costume items that I might furnish you with.

Then and Now

Image shared on Flickr by somegeekintn via a CC license

I saw two very different pieces this week. Both made me react quite strongly so I thought I’d scribble a few lines about them. (aside: what’s the typing equivalent of scribble? Patter?)

Although really very different pieces, one devised, one scripted, one raucous and difficult, the other anxious and heartfelt, it felt like they were both, in some way about inarticulacy; Ugly the inarticulacy of a potential then, What I Heard About the World about the inarticulacy of being, now. Here are some thoughts:

Ugly

Ugly is a piece touring regionally with Red Ladder Theatre, the script is by Emma Adams and is a really challenging piece which I struggled with. It was only actually by the post-show discussion that it really began to work for me. That’s the first time how I felt about a piece has been changed so dramatically by talking with people involved. <insert something about me being stubborn>

Both the text and the direction was relentless. There were no still characters, no still moments, even moments of (opted) coitus were frenetic and impersonal, the characters seemed to be archetypes left out in the sun too long then fed a combination of amphetamines and ritalin, and the language warped and broke and jarred and choked with swear words. I struggled to hold my attention to it because it rattled on without respite. And I think that now feels like it was the point. It was not structurally sound. It felt like it was too long. And it said big things, at the same time as (with the frequent swears) saying nothing. It was a flawed vehicle about a flawed future. When I got back from Twitter I described it as a mix of Alice in Wonderland and Threads. And as I pile similes and metaphors on you – you hopefully see something, too, of inarticulacy. The experience of the play, not the words or the action, is where the heart of it lay.

But I also think that this play wasn’t really for me – not that I didn’t like it, but that for me, it’s not necessary. It was a piece for younger people, the ones who don’t see beyond now because as yet their life doesn’t require them to, and don’t connect the many news reports to a future. I don’t need convincing climate change is deadly. And I’m not one to be convinced in such a frenetic, physical way. I think it did want for a greater connection to that audience – this came out afterwards – ‘what happened in between’, ‘how did it get to that’ – they needed a glimpse of something they could recognise, to tie them back to their own lives. But it stubbornly refused that. And that’s a point in itself – you won’t recognise anything apart from that these are people. But some of them aren’t even that.

The other Climate Change Play that has stuck with me for a long time is (the lovely) Steve Water’s Contingency Plan. A completely different, very realistic, near-future double bill about flooding somewhere very like my home county and Westminster’s reaction to it. The script was an exquisite piece of almost porcelain sculpture – and as Steve, and like me, cerebral at heart. That was my watershed. But I think for a few people, younger, Ugly might be theirs.

Continue reading…

Rain Rain, Come Again.

http://walkwith.tumblr.com

Just squeaking in a blog post at the last moment to keep to my ‘at least 4 a month’ quota. Lots has happened this month, Mayfest took up a great deal of it, then I completed 10,000 words of PhD chapter 1 and other material for my first year progress board, including all of the fore-planning (I actually have the next two and a bit years planned out, which is an unusual combination of reassuring and scary). I’ve also released a first foray into soundwalk style storytelling to the general public, and agreed to and submitted an abstract for a joint paper on the inefficiencies of the academic conference in representing performative thoughts for a TaPRA conference in September… That’s written better in the actual abstract. So a busy month, though I really do intend to do a run down of my experiences at Mayfest sometime soon, promise.

The image above is from the soundwalk I’ve released, check it out at http://walkwith.tumblr.com – all it requires is an mp3 player, 10 minutes, and some rain. I would really appreciate any feedback you have – either in text/audio/image/video form via the site, Twitter, or even posting me handwritten/collected things (as some people have). It’s my first experiment in the form, and at the moment is a bit like a monologue-with-interactive-bits than something that might be called truly interactive or player-as-protagonist driven. I shall have to get working with the second-person referential, I think. I’ve also got plans to play with binaural audio – to develop a real 3D feeling with the headphones. You can hear some really good examples of where that can lead at Papa Sangre’s house, the audio storytelling is there described as a ‘video game without video’. Make sure you wear headphones when listening. I’m getting some mic’d up ear buds and a cheap minidisc player (from Twitter, the lovely @daveisanidiot) to experiment with that. My brother (trained sound engineer if you’re hiring/have intern work/want someone to hold a boom mic whilst BREAKING WOOD) is also going to help out, so more technical stuff and higher quality hopefully forthcoming.

These experiments are all eventually leading towards the ideas I have for the currently quite cryptic Umbrella Project (no zombies involved), which I’m trying to secure some funding before lift-off. If you know of any funds, grants, or tech/web/music support-in-kind that might be out there and interested in being involved in a country-wide pervasive storytelling experiment, let me know. You can follow the Umbrella Project on Twitter here, and if you have £8,000 (I have a fully costed and sensible budget and everything) you wanted to throw at me, please do!

Finally, as June arrives and July seems much closer than it did in May, I’m beginning to think about what I might talk about at Shift Happens on the 5th and 6th. Shift Happens is an industry (as opposed to academic) conference about arts, learning and digital technology, and there are some really big speakers from places like 4ip, The Guardian, and the National Theatre also up there, so I’m trying to work out how I can best fit in. I suspect I’m there as a passionate loud-mouth and blogger before I am an academic, but I do feel like the dialogue needs to move on from ‘you should be using/interested in tech’, ‘but it’s scary/time consuming/too hard/not monetarily justifiable’. Perhaps a focus on the harder times that are upcoming with regards to the Tory-Lib Dem arts cuts. I’ll have a think about that. And if you think I have a particular clear message that I’ve hitherto missed, do let me know, very welcome!

Merry Bank Holiday Weekend. And if any of you are off to the Rough Beats Festival next weekend, find me and say ‘hi’. I may even say ‘hi’ back.

The Ethics of Progress

Image shared on Flickr via a creative commons license by gnackgnackgnack

I’ve been meaning to write a post on the Unlimited Theatre (@untheatre) show which I went to see at Curve in the middle of April for a couple of weeks. I am currently struggling to blog with other commitments crashing into my schedule, including (but not limited to) the preparation of the material for my first year PhD progress panel, but I really wanted to talk about Ethics of Progress. Not in a traditional ‘review’ sense, but more in terms of my personal reaction to the subject matter. So here I am. Bear with me.

At the age of 16, and having got the same grades across the board at GCSE, I found myself facing a choice – the local science specialist 6th form – to do Maths, Chemistry, and Physics, or the specialist performing arts 6th form, to do Performing Arts, English Lit and Fine Art. Being young and unburdened with worry, I left it to chance, and gravity, and tossed a coin. The arts it was. I don’t regret that, but I regret being made to choose, and I am lucky to have in some degree returned to it in my PhD.

If you know one thing about me, know this: I work hard at learning.

I passionately believe, above all, that there is nothing that you cannot understand, and that knowledge and understanding are two of the most subversive tools at our disposal.

There is nothing you cannot understand, only the voices of others instilled in your head that tell you some kinds of knowledge are not for you.

The recent forcing through of the ignorant and immensely damaging Digital Economy Bill did not speak to me, as it did to many, of a broken democracy. It spoke to me, ultimately, of a society that fetishes technological ignorance. A society that contains within it whole swathes of people who will proudly declare that they’ve never sent an email. Politicians who will believe the monied hands of lobbyists over the people interacting in online worlds every day and who understand them. A country who will believe the tabloid journalist over the eminent peer-reviewed scientist. Pretty is stupid. Clever is dangerous. How many people have you heard utter the phrase ‘I just don’t understand politics’?

A democracy is really broken when the people are convinced that it is beyond their understanding.

A society is fractured each time a person considers any of its contents beyond their comprehension. Continue reading…