Roy-Claire Potter.

Roy-Claire’s practice involves performance and installation that addresses linguistic theories modes of reading, writing and speaking. Which can be seen in their performance pieces such as ‘Posh mans pet’, where Potter used a type writer and gloss card to write their script which caused the writing to only be seen as a blur with an indentation. Roy-Claire then covered the lines with pen so the only way of reading the script was in the indentation, which can only be seen in the right light. Potter performed fragmented elements of the narrative as they read these gloss cards from the ground. When talking about this piece Roy-Claire began talking about reviews they had gotten in response to this piece, where they were described as being “a natural storyteller” by the writer.

After this I noticed Roy-Claire mentioned and read from reviews of their work multiple times throughout the lecture, which was interesting iv never had a lecturer talk about this it was kind of weird too, but interesting how they showed us some viewers opinions of them and their work in a lecture.

Anyway, I found a lot of what Roy-Claire spoke about in the lecture useful for instance in their performance piece ‘Playhouse’ where they had an installation of a sheet covered in images of dead house plants and layered with writings, Roy-Claire then performed on closing night ‘Playhouse Creep’ using the sheet and reading from this. Potter explained how they chose to perform on closing night on purpose as in past experiences when they’ve performed on the opening nights of exhibitions it has almost felt like they are being used as entertainment. My practice often involves performance pieces which I have done on exhibition opening nights before and I had simply never really thought about how performing on the closing night instead could affect the performance and the relationship between the audience and the performance.

I also found Roy-Claire’s use of how they described their performances as “having the text still moving” as they perform, this takes away the confidence of a scripted well-rehearsed performance, causing the flow to change and the audience to performer power and interaction to change as Potter explains the work as being “always under construction”. In some of my performances especially those with Amelia I like to leave a space for improvisation partially in hope of creating a different dynamic between performers and audience, so I found how Roy-Claire spoke about these different ways of engaging and effecting the audience and performer relationship quite useful.