Our first response to the term resilience was to look into different meanings of the word. Objects can have resilience, the ability to return to the original form after being bent, compressed or stretched. It can also represent person’s ability to recover from illness or adversity. We did some experimentation on the resilience of different materials and found plastic bottles to be interesting thing to work with. We also knew that we wanted to activate the audience, let them take part, and it would also be interesting to try to test their resilience. E.g. how long could a performer just stand and squeeze a bottle before the audience gives up?

Another material that we found very interesting to work with was oobleck, or non-Newtonian fluid. It is made out of cornflower and water and has properties of both liquids and solids. You can slowly dip your hand into it like a liquid, but if you squeeze the oobleck or punch it, it will feel solid. We did some exiting experimentation with the material and decided we wanted to give the audience chance to play with it during the performance.

On 9th and 10th of November we had the opportunity to play and experiment in the theatre space. One thing we explored was focus and perspective and where we wanted our audience to be located in the space. We decided to use live feed camera to show different angles of the bottle squeezing. We would use three projectors and project onto cling film in front of black walls, after having tried to project onto few different surfaces.

In the end of November and beginning of December the group had regular meetings where we developed our ideas, made a storyline and a rough model box for our performance. We thought it suited our performance well to use plastic looking materials for the set, and decided to go with a laboratory themed design, where the whole floor would be covered with dust sheets. In the middle of the floor we would have a big table where we would make experiments with bottles and oobleck. The four of us would act as performers and be dressed in boiling suits, wearing protection glasses, gloves and blue socks. The audience would be seated on the balconies and the performance should take place both down on the floor and on the balconies. As our storyboard was divided into several scenes, we thought it could as well blend into the other groups’ performances.  

In the week 14th-18th of December we had a production meeting with where it was decided that our performance and the “Group Fabric’s” performance would be joined into one performance. During this week we also had access to workshops and again opportunity to work in the theatre.