Observation Deck is not so much ‘one on one’ as ‘on one’s own’. In a back room of the BAC, there is a contraption conceived and designed by Patrick Killoran. Essentially, it's a viewing platform with steps leading up to a wooden plane. One is instructed to lie down, lining your head up with the cut out square at the end, and, when ready, to ease yourself out of the window.
Thus protruding the first thing you’ll experience is trepidation, particularly if – like me – heights aren’t your forte. Your wooden perch feels awful flimsy and there’s certainly no safety net below. Nor are there handles to grip white-knuckled, straps to take the strain or barriers to provide peace of mind. This is raw and it’s real.
Gradually, breath by breath, that subsides into the sublime: a new perspective on a familiar sky, dotted with stars or fluffed with clouds. Looking up at the building at your waist is like staring at a painting in perspective. The object becomes unfamiliar to the point of distortion. Arch your neck backwards and you’ll see the city upside-down, stretching off the (in my case, sunset-streaked) horizon.
As a ten minute window of time, it’s yours to do with as you wish. I found it incredibly peaceful and cleansing, a chance to absorb and exhale, but I can see how some might tick the experience off and move on.
Lying there with the window frame over my chest, two things occurred. First, I would have liked to have been pushed out rather than propelling myself. Second that, once I felt safe, I would have liked to go further towards the tipping point of imbalance. I suspect both relate to the BAC’s chosen (and, in my opinion misconstrued marketing-speak) tagline: Face Your Fears.
When we experience (in a framed setting), as opposed to spectating (on or through the frame), there comes a desire for that experience to go further. Just as we scream ‘faster’ from a fairground ride, we want to be pushed to our limits and test ourselves against them. In an individual setting, where the experience in the moment is mine and mine alone, we want to set the boundaries for ourselves. When the other audience members are absent and forgotten, the one-size-fits-all mould seems a needless and problematic constraint.
And yet, where the artist takes us too far and oversteps the mark, we are quick to lay blame at their feet. (Think of certain responses to Internal. Note to self: must stop using Internal as go to example.) The trouble is that this edge of tolerance (or discomfort or otherwise) is necessarily a fine, fine line. Even on its cusp, we believe that we could go further. We always want to believe the Buckaroo will hold one more item. We like that gamble, but we don’t like its backfiring.
This, it strikes me, is the challenge faced by artists working with one on one theatre and interactivity, even with the experiential at large. Play it safe and the result is blandness and feeling shortchanged. Misjudge the balance in the slightest way, take us too far, and you lose us entirely. It is terribly delicate balancing act that needs approaching with a great deal of care.
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