CIRCA - Season One, House Tour and Contestants

 CIRCA was born out of a recent obsession with Big Brother Australia's first season in 2001 and is in no way a real project. I built a house based on the floorplan for the 2001 season and fashioned some contestants like they could, idealistically, be the contestants of an early 2000s reality show. I was not strict about exactly fitting to an aesthetic, so no need to murder if anything doesn't actually feel *circa* 2001. I was an infant. I'm just having fun. 

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Greta: Doing this again, are we? Great. 

Greta. Whatever. 

I'm on your screens again. Or for the first time. 

Whatever. 

Greta: I thought I retired. 

Greta: Well, let's get this over with so I can go back to making out with my husband. 

At least the weather is lovely. There's like a cemetery we drove past just down the road. 

Bury me there when we're done today, my feet will have withered off my body. 

Greta: Cool, let's vibe. 

Greta: This...is Circa. Twelve contestants will be entering the doors behind me to live out twelve weeks together, in peace, in harmony, or in absolute chaos. There's irony in there somewhere. I am your host, Greta Francis. I once was on your television too often, and then not at all, and now I'm back again. 

Shall we do a tour of the house aggressively fast because of time constraints set out to me by the network? 

Greta: We walk in first into the backyard. Here, the contestants can swim around in a strangely-shaped pool that sort of looks like an eight, or a pair of goggles. There's a gazebo overlooking the pool, and if anyone is desperate to tinkle, an outhouse behind it. One of the only toilets the contestants will be sharing, so wipe the seat, please. 

Greta: In here we have the chicken coop. The houseguests will need to keep the chickens happy to reap the benefits - eggs in the morning, company in the lonely evenings, or meat if they get too peckish? 

This isn't Survivor. 

Greta: The herb garden looks bare now, but hopefully a green thumb is amongst the group to get something cultivating. Blame production, they didn't cultivate anything themselves. In truth, my sister came in here a couple of days ago and fed everything to her rabbit. 

These people wanted a challenge. 

Greta: Maybe they will like to do some yoga in the morning? 

There is no gym in the Circa house, so the houseguests will have to improvise. 

Greta: Kind of looks like someone forgot to cart something in for the patio. 

But maybe not...maybe something will come later. 

Let's head inside, shall we? I think I can smell rain. 

Greta: We come into the large open living space. Over there, the lounge, where the twelve contestants will get to know one another, squabble with each other, tell the stories of their time outside the house, and ultimately learn their fates one by one. When I cross live to them on eviction night, it will be on these couches they hear..."It's time to go...I don't know, Jocelyn?" 

Greta: There's their luggage already. The houseguests are waiting to be let inside, so we must be quick, let's pick up the pace. 

They make me exercise every time. 

Greta: You saw part of the dining room, here is the other table. So many contestants, divided across two tables. Will this form bonds or cause distance? We shall see.

Over there, too, the kitchen where the contestants will prepare their meals, including making bread, because we're sadistic. 

Greta: That door is just a pantry, by the way. We really don't have any secrets. 

Well, not in the house. 

The refrigerator has to be somewhere. 

Greta: Another corner, another door. 

Take a picture of another wall. 

Let's go through the door to...

Greta: The famed diary room. Houseguests will come here to vent their thoughts, and it is mandatory, because you should not keep your feelings private for a captive audience who wants to know what you *really* think about Bradley. Or Ted. Or whoever. 

The contestants will also come here to nominate one another, collect assorted packages, participate in the weekly poll suggested by Jennifer, and fart in private without being judged. 

Greta: Down one of the corridors...

Into the door on the right. 

Greta: The bathroom. An incredibly private space, littered with cameras and windows for the camera crew to peek through and invade. It will be this very bathroom that will no doubt cause some sort of drama when one houseguest is uncomfortable stripping completely naked, and likely a man will say, "but hey it's your house" as if usually there are so many cameras in her bathroom. 

Moving on...

Greta: The "this colour" bedroom. Teal, turquoise, light blue, almost green. 

I do not know. The nerd should know colours, sure. 

Will this bedroom be cursed now? 

Greta: Now down the other corridor from the main living space. There are those suitcases again. I wonder what illicit material is stashed inside. 

Greta: The second bedroom, the purple room. With yellow finishes, of course. 

This bedroom also has the house's only double bed. 

We either expect them to fool around, or we hope for arguments over whose feet are bound to hang off the bed otherwise. 

This is a drama tactic. 

Greta: There is also a storeroom, where we will deliver the week's groceries, which they have to complete weekly tasks for, as well as...what else is a storeroom in a reality television house good for? The contestants will only have access to this room when absolutely necessary, because...there is nothing in here. 

Greta: There is also a studio, where I will be trapped for the rest of my waking existence. We had empty, unused space on the property, and I needed somewhere to grill the contestants when they are evicted from the house. 

Greta: Don't I just pop on this yellow? 

Greta: So, there it is. The Circa House for its very first season. 

Would you, or could you, live here for twelve weeks with an assortment of random strangers? What type of person are you, and what do you bring to the dynamic? 

We're soon to meet our contestants. 

Our lovely twelve. 

Greta: Let's meet the twelve little freaks moving in today...

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AYAN, 24

He's our cheery little gay boy, Ayan works at a record store and likes playing disc golf on the weekends. He thinks he's getting better, but I'm no expert. You will have to ask the friends he plays with - one of them used to be in the witness protection program. Ayan likes to think if he embarrasses himself here he can follow suit. 

BIANCA, 32

She's the oldest contestant this season, which does not entirely bode well for the demographics. Bianca wants to be a proper mixologist but settles for now for making her brother the drinks he would otherwise buy at the club at 2am. She once subbed for a class of students who thought her name was Bee Anchor. 

COLLIN, 30

He's only recently celebrated his thirtieth birthday, which makes him feel old, burnt out, and ready to throw in the towel. Collin quit his job to be here. He really is hopeful he can find love in the house. Of his past relationships he says, "whenever I have dated women, they want to commit to me. But I don't know. I'm a boy's boy." 

DANE, 21

He's the youngest contestant in the house at twenty-one, but he doesn't feel a day over twenty. Dane works two jobs part time, just to afford the rent - by day, he oversees the patrons of a laundromat, but by night he babysits so many children he can quote The Lion King 2. 

ELLE, 27

She's a former ballerina who ran away to join the circus until she realised they wanted to utilise her talent for being poised and well-balanced. Elle now works at a themed restaurant where the theme is "desert sand dune" and she will be in that diary room complaining about it. 

HARMONY, 29

She's got a nail polish line named after her and if you type her website into your computer, you could win a free samples for a week. Harmony is a gorgeous, beautiful woman with complicated feelings and she has three brothers. When she was waiting at the airport to leave for this experience on Circa, Harmony tried to guess who was also a contestant. "I don't think they'd put a five-year-old in." 

JAKAYLA, 25

She's not immune to racism when out in public with her father, who everyone believes is the man she's sleeping with to be able to afford to stay in the country. But don't worry - Jakayla is studying taekwondo and it only takes her two standard drinks to poke someone in the eyeballs. 

MALIAH, 25

She's naughty in the bedroom - none of Maliah's friends really know which of the men she speaks of are her boyfriend, but what they don't realise is that every single one of them is. Maliah works at a radio station, which is where she learned how to have deep, meaningful conversations over the phone. 

STEPHEN, 29

He's a bit stupid, he's a little bit of an airhead, but he doesn't mind learning new things everyday he spends with his girlfriend Melanie - after all, he's spending time with the woman he loves. Will they ever get married? Stephen's answer: "I don't know what I would do with a goat and four chickens." 

TANYA-ROSE, 26. 

She's allergic to wearing a bra for more than five hours, Tanya-Rose confessed to liking hyphens when she was in the fourth grade. Rose is really just a middle name, one of the most common middle names amongst white women. Tanya-Rose does dinner theatre in a building that was once a brothel, and sometimes she thinks she communes with the deceased madam. 

VALENTINO, 28

He's got a nose piercing. Valentino likes to think he cannot be summarized in a few sentences. He is wearing a yellow sweater with some sort of design cut off by the camera. Valentino used to have four roommates, which is less than twelve, but still. 

ZAC, 22

He's the second youngest, the second littlest baby boy. Zac doesn't like when people accidentally spell his name with a 'h' at the end, although he never makes a fuss about it, because he's just a really lovable guy with a charming personality. He's secretly really into furry porn though, which hopefully doesn't turn you off. 

Greta: So, there you have it. Our twelve houseguests for Circa Season One. 

Greta: And I am your host, Greta Francis. 

Tune in god knows when for actual chaos. 

For passionate love-making. 

For unhinged weekly tasks like transporting a bee colony bee-by-bee from one side of the backyard to the other, for some reason, and somehow. And watch the houseguests try to guess each other's childhood traumas from well-intentioned clues hidden in the soil of the herb garden. 

Greta: Goodnight and good luck. 

Okay, I'm going back to bingeing Big Brother Australia.