Perera Venuri's sentiments
St Spot
For ST Yeounrag and I shared what we created in response to The floating bottle, and Natsuko a version of her initial work. I had not seen her work before, and had responded to her process. So it was interesting how there seemed to be common points in our work and framing. At ST spot I share my response ‘the Passport Blessing Ceremony’ which had been already created and shown before.
It was the first time for Yeoungran to present her response to the archive box.I had also a shared with her a letter of my process and response after receiving Natsuko’s bottle. Again, although a very different work, an ‘experiment’ with the audience, there were common elements and framing here as well. Particularly, all the works had questions and responses in some form or other. And the concept of borders, us and them, created identities, systems of power vs citizens.
Each of us had what I feel is a minority perspective of the situation in our countries.
Post ST spot
Afterwards, we continued our discussion virtually. Sri Lanka has a very different situation being western colonization, as opposed to modernization. And the modernisation models used in our country are mostly from Singapore, Japan and China. We continued to discuss ‘Modernization and Colonisation’ and what we could imagine or find out as the effects in our respective countries. I felt this was still a large and complex framing. We tried to record historically and tried to compare how things happened with important events related to colonisation and modernisation that impacted out countries over a set times frame.
For the next phase I spent some time in with Natsuko in Fukuoka. Yeongran was not able to join us physically as she had just had a baby, but was in touch with us virtually during this period and gave her feedback.
Post ST Spot, After Yokohama, we decided to use ‘contract’ as a framework. Natsuko told us about the unequal contract between USA and Japan. We looked for similar contracts in Korea and Sri Lanka, for example Sri Lanka with colonisers. Then we tried to transform them into more personal contracts.
Earlier we had thought of a structure of a classroom for the performance, as we had seen modern educations system as one of the very problematic models of modernisation. After St spot, Natsuko was inspired by Yeongran’s response at and proposed we make an experiment to try out with the audience, recreating the competitive, hierarchical structures that came out of modernisation. We wanted to use a game we may have played as children that may be common in all our countries, and then transform it from there. The ‘experiment’ was built around how the contracts were created and how they are perpetuated by local systems who then begin to own it and take it to another level.
During the experiment participants sign various types of ‘contracts.’ and follow a set of instructions, and the ‘system’ slowly gets from open and fun to more strict and oppressive. An education or ‘training’ part was also included. Member of Groups, Group Leaders, Sub Leaders, and one Supreme Leader were various positions the participants would find themselves in.
We had no idea of how the experiment would end - it was not meant to be a scientific experiment, where there was a hypothesis, and we text the conclusion. We hoped that somehow, each participant would observe themselves during the process (this is a core feature of Natsuko’s practice) and response to their observation. There was a hope that somehow people would find a way to break or get out of the system. We tried versions of the experiment in Fukuoka , Kuala Lampur and finally Kyoto Experiment.
This was an interesting but difficult process for me. Both Natsuko and I took part in the experiment along with the participants. Observing my self I did not feel comfortable with putting people through and replicating the oppressive structures that they had to face in their daily lives. After creating the experiment where we would insert levels of instructions intermittently “please …….” I started noticing the signage in English everywhere in Japan ‘Please do this .. “ or Please do not do this’ So I felt the instructions very relevant. But I felt a deep anxiety during the experiment, especially when it would go on for a long time, and when some people were following diligently, and the Supreme Leader was also doing the role very well. I felt like a dictator who had put unknowing people to do this work, buy starting with a game, so they initially felt it would be fun…There were also people who were not aware when they came this would be a participatory ‘experiment’ and I felt this was not fair on them. We of course let people have the option of sitting out and people took this option.
I trusted Natsuko’s conviction in the experiment, as the final experiment was in Japan, and I felt this is not my context. In Sri Lanka, for example, I felt we would have to create a very different of ‘experiment’ as the tendency for people to follow rules, or this kind of system is not so much present. We have many rules, and education system for example is full of them, but people are always breaking the rules, to an extent where there is civil discord, corruption, accidents and so on.
We always started the experiment with an introduction to the project and ended with discussion. We had various responses from the participants on different days and some interesting questions suggestions on how the experiment can be improved. It brought out a very heated and deep discussion.
P.S.-
When did we do this?? Was this before ST spot?? I wrote this but I think this is during our first time together in Japan ,
( We looked at how various institutions were also affected - for example - education. And also how language changed- what kind of words were introduced to our language after modernisation/colonisation. We also found that all three places had common folk stories. Natsuko had an interesting concept about one powerful external outside controlling ‘eye’, (Perspective) and how could we bring the ‘eye’ inside, more with us, and multiple eyes, perspectives..)