THE "CORPORATION IN OUR HEADS" FINAL REPORT Page 1 September 21, 2000 Attendance: 20 Seating capacity: 60 ( 33% ) Opening night of this experiment that explores how Corporate voices have taken up residence in our collective psyche. Its also opening night of the Vancouver Film Festival and the Fringe Festival closed three days ago, but still, considering there are about 150 organizations who said they would help with networking, the turnout for this first of four nights is a disappointment. Having said that, the people who were there seemed to have a entertaining and valuable time. There were insights for me. I was nervous starting this first night because there were things I had no way to know would work without trying them: The evening is based on Augusto Boal's Cops in the Head -- an exercise that looks at internal voices that have taken up residence in our heads, but that are other people -- friends, relatives, etc.....real people in our lives. In this event I am wanting to look at the voices of Corporations that have taken up residence in our heads, voices that try to get us to do things that may not be in our best interests, in the best interests of the planet, the ones we love, etc. Can we use the theatrical exercise to do this? Can/will people be able to manifest the voices onto the stage and play them as characters? Yes. The people in the room did this wonderfully tonight. The story that was chosen: A woman who is an activist is walking down Robson Street and she comes to The Gap. It is the only place that sells jeans that fit her. She knows that the Gap makes its jeans in sweatshops. She ends up going in anyway. In the improvisation (which is a monologue...there is just her.....no antagonist) there is a moment where she looks around the street (which is filled with people who I have asked to walk back and forth) and wonders if anyone she knows will see her....checks her watch...and decides it is "safe" and she will go in. I froze the scene at the watch.....while she is concerned, and about to decide. The first voice is vanity -- the Gap itself -- and tells her that she knows she is fat and these jeans will make her look thinner.. The second is Eddie Bower who is telling her that the Company is changing....its OK now.......the third is the Gap again, but this time telling her she deserves these jeans because she is beautiful and they will make her more beautiful. The fourth (I can't remember the Brand) is telling her she is a Loser if she doesn't go in and buy the jeans. The audience loved the exercise. There were lots of interventions on the Corporate voices. Something that happened over and over again....people needed to argue, sometimes vehemently with the voices....and we came to understand that they really wanted us to engage with them on this deep level......that "getting into it" with them, was not necessarily a solution. On the other hand, one intervener pointed out that as he found out more and more about the character of the voice, as the voice was less and less of a "powerful stranger" .... as he understood the tactics of the voice more, he felt more empowered to disarm the voice's control over him. This was very interesting to me....the various ways we think we can know the Corporate voices. We hear them constantly, and this makes us THINK we know them, but do we? We know the short message they have for us, but we don't know them. If we take the time to know them perhaps they have less power over us. Continue Report Back to Headlines Past Work