5.9 Million (2015) was a large scale interactive performance work looking at surveillance which was presented as part of the summer programme at Tramway in June 2015.
The idea for 5.9 Million came out of an urgent desire expressed by the group to respond to a culture of contemporary surveillance and its increasing role in every aspect of young people’s lives today. From CCTV to Facebook it seems that we are always in the spotlight and there is always someone watching. Everything we do is recorded, documented, archived and nothing is forgotten. The group wanted to know what this means for our future and if there is such a thing as a right to privacy anymore?
During this process the young people worked in small groups to create a new room each week, they would take an article, a photograph, a song or an essay exploring a different idea each time. This then created a bank of material that they were able to select from, edit, develop and polish into a three minute experience for an audience member.
The concept of the work was that an audience of six at a time entered the space and were led to wait outside a black curtain which led to a small room. This marked the beginning of a journey during which the audience were led around ten separate rooms to encounter ten performances lasting 3 minutes each. Each completely different – each a reflection of watching and being watching – there were many unexpected surprises along the way. The piece finished with the audience being lead through a secret split in the curtain of the final room they entered and into the centre of the space. They were brought into this central private space to witness the company perform a combined text and movement piece that looked at all the things we do when we are not being watched.
The staging for the work was designed by a former member of Junction 25, Rebbecca Ziola, who at the time was studying architecture at the University of Strathclyde.