i went on a play date with @eugeneochia today.

in a crowded underpass and on a busy street at almost peak hour, i tried the following two tasks:

1. stand in a crowded place with your eyes closed for a length of time

2. catch up with someone walking ahead of you, and walk next to them for the rest of the way.

(videos to follow in the next posts. note also that this was a test, and videos were more for demonstrative purposes. we did simulate the recordings to look like we were passers-by as much as possible. in reality, the most ideal results might be the ones done unfilmed)

we took turns so we could both has a sense, from the inside and outside.

eugene had very interesting observations, which i will leave to him to word them himself, and i’ll post them up sometime soon.

personally though, the tasks were harder than i imagined. or rather, getting started, and getting going, were harder than i imagined. i was gripped by a lot of anxiety and i suspect it was for the following reasons:

1. all of my senses reminded me i was a female leaving herself to be extremely vulnerable in public. when i stood with my eyes closed at the underpass at orchard train station, which has constant traffic pretty much all day, i got bumped into a lot. compare this to eugene, who did not get bumped into at all, though we must note that he stood a little further into that passageway while i was pretty near the entrance/exit. the bumps accumulated and felt like it was escalating, or perhaps so because my fear was also increasing. i started to hear laughter, and quite near me as well. the realisation that someone might find it funny enough to take advantage of me, to touch me and run off laughing. i’m usually pretty good with stillness, but i knew anxiety was creeping in, though comforted by my own reminders to myself that this time, i had someone recording me and watching out for me, right? right.

and then something happened. a woman, travelling alone, stopped and posed next to me for the camera. i felt her and i heard her. and i smiled. i felt a sense of relief, and yet, also that of being ridiculed. and immediately i caught myself judging myself - why would i fear ridicule? i came up with this idea! plus, it’s not my first time doing something like that in public. in fact, i’ve done way more “embarrassing” and “daring” things with strangers.

2. this was singapore. my nearest memory of doing “crazier shit” like that in public has to be Brisbane last year, when Dan Koop got us out fulfilling a list of tasks as well. Not quite with the same objectives, in fact, totally different and opposite of what I am attempting. But the principle of putting ourselves out there, is similar. i look back and wonder, did i hide behind a sense of anonymity and incognito because i was a foreigner in that place? and here, i carried the baggage of what i understand the singapore public to be like? in other words, i’ve judged my audience/participants already, haven’t i? i drew another boundary even before i went exploring the first one.

3. i may or may not have judged them, but i certainly did not trust them. without a premise and a context, you really will never know who you’ve just picked up to participate in the work. the one-on-one performances i have done have probably seen me in just as, if not more, vulnerable situations with the other, but there’s been an understanding that it was a performance project (the photobooth work), or that there was some sort of physical setting (backgammon at el tarro), and for that, the terms of the exchange was measured to a degree. when i stood there with my eyes closed, i realised i did not consciously decide, what i was willing to offer, and i panicked.

this was the first play date, and only 2 tasks in its barest form, and already i’m a little overwhelmed. but like what i want to share with my players, it’s about trying a different degree with a different variation to each one, exploring the depths and lengths of our individual limits to these known boundaries. and so i’m looking forward to the other tasks, and to more play dates. and of course, to some tweeting as well.