Leigh Bowery

In 1988 Leigh Bowery did a show in  Anthony D'Offay's Gallery in London in which he was dressed in varieties of his ostentatious outfits and makeup and simply spent time interacting with himself and a lounge chair. He did this behind a glass that was mirror on his side so that he didn't see the audience watching him but only saw himself. While this was going on random street sounds were playing. This gave the people watching him from the other side of the glass the feeling that they were like voyeurs watching him primp and pose for himself in the mirror, things that most people wouldn't normally do in front of an audience. Watching the videos of his performance made me wonder what he was thinking when he was doing it, wondering if he became so self absorbed that he forgot there was an audience watching him or if the fact that he was on display for others to watch him was always in his mind and influenced every move he made. I also wondered if it would have influenced him at all if instead of not being able to see the people watching him if there had been maybe a small tv on his side of the glass that would show him the people watching him and their reactions. Would he have then played to the audience and would that have changed any aspect of his performance or would he have done everything exactly the same? From the opposite perspective I wonder if he had been able to see the audience and if they had known he could see them would that have caused people to react in different ways to what he was doing? It would be interesting to me to be able to see what people's reactions were at the time. I think someone should have been video taping the people viewing the performance. Since it ran for days I would be curious to see what the average length of time was that people stayed and watched and if very many of them returned to watch more than once.