Author: Fotini Efstathiou

Guerrilla Girls

Fotini Efstathiou / / Cultural Terrorists

After our performance we received feedback and it was interesting that our performance was interpreted from a feminist view and this brought a cause for thought. It seemed that we channelled a similar message to that of the Guerrilla Girls through our costume and powerful impact of our performance. The femininity of our 1920’s costume, through the use of stockings, elegant dresses, pearls and the red lipstick made it clear to our audience that we were women while the balaclavas hid our true identity. In a sense we were women disrupting a mans territory as The Usher Gallery was named and built for James Usher who was a man and a vast amount of the art displayed have been created by men, it could be said we were making a feminist statement against the over whelming amount of men who control , create and are praised for art.  The Guerrilla Girls are similar in the fact that they hide their identity through the use of gorilla masks and disrupt galleries just the way we did in our performance.

As Kathe Kollwitz explains how the Guerrilla Girls began: ‘In 1985, The Museum of Modern Art in New York opened an exhibition titled An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture. It was supposed to be an up-to-the minute summary of the most significant contemporary art in the world. Out of 169 artists, only 13 were women. All the artists were white, either from Europe or the US. That was bad enough, but the curator, Kynaston McShine, said any artist who wasn’t in the show should rethink “his” career. And that really annoyed a lot of artists because obviously the guy was completely prejudiced. Women demonstrated in front of the museum with the usual placards and picket line.’ (Guerrilla Girls 1995) It is evident from the statement that the reasoning behind the Guerrilla Girls is to protest against the lack of praise for women and the sexism in art, politics and pop culture. In a way us disrupting the gallery in the way we did and creating such an impact to the point where passers by would stop to see our performance shows how we raised a similar message through our use of costume but aggressive stature, focus and movement.

What perhaps diminished the feminist message from our performance  is the fact we smuggled in The Big Ben which could be seen as quite a phallic symbol due to it’s shape but also it’s association with Westminster which has a higher ratio of men to women. The reason behind smuggling The Big Ben into the gallery was not in relation to a feminist message but to smuggle a different cities culture into Lincoln and as The Big Ben is symbolic of London we thought it would befit the site.

If we were to do the performance again we would definitely look at it from more of a feminist point of view. The costume we had chosen and the use of sound scape were affective and had great impact on the gallery and our audience but we would have to re-think the object we would smuggle and if we’d smuggle anything in at all. I was thinking perhaps posters with a feminine message on them that could be stuck around a gallery, or perhaps a sculpture that was created by a woman of power, maybe one of Joan of Ark? It would be interesting to look into Guerrilla Girls as a source of inspiration  Even so we feel that our performance was a success and had the impact that we intended to create from the moment we sped up to the gallery in our get away car to us leaving the gallery as elegant ladies of the 1920’s.

Works Cited:

Girls,Guerilla (2011) Guerilla Girls, Online:

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/interview/index.shtml (assessed 10 May 2013).

 

The message and affect we hope to create.

Fotini Efstathiou / / Cultural Terrorists

As we have previously stated the reasoning behind our performance is to smuggle the culture and cosmopolitan nature of London in the shape of the Big Ben into Lincoln. The reason we have chosen the Big Ben is due to it’s recognisable image and an instant association with London. The clock has become a symbol of London, particularly in the visual media and this factor also incorporates our use of newspaper as it emphasises the importance of the media in such a cosmopolitan city. Another reason we have chosen the Big Ben is that it is also a clock tower and so incorporates the history of The Usher Gallery itself as James Usher was a clock maker and if you walk around the gallery there is an abundance of clocks dotted around. The Big Ben sculpture we have created is of a vast scale and the reason we have made such a large object is because we want to make a big statement, if the sculpture was small we would not capture the attention of the audience as much or make such an impact. We want people in the gallery to stop and take interest in our performance even if they were not there intentionally wanting to watch but get enticed in.

Another factor that will entice the passers by is our use of soundscape. We have asked a fellow member of our class to begin the track ten mintues before our intended arrival and we have decided this so that the impact we are intending to create has a chance to build, hopefully the audience will begin to wonder why the soundscape is playing and it’s significance. We have decided on the idea of arriving in a speeding get away car to emphasise the idea of smuggling and cultural terrorism, this as well will hopefully entice passers by to come into the gallery to see what is going on. The soundscape is busy London traffic followed by the chimes of The Big Ben…it then begins playing music from the 1920’s and this brings us to the second part of our performance.

Susan Bennet states in her book ‘Theatre and Museums’ that ‘the use of live performance by museums to provide an encounter with a past that is brought to life'(Bennett p7, 2013). and in a sense this is what is created in the second part of our performance as the balaclavas are removed. It is evident that we are women from the 1920’s due to our costume which is quite authentic with a flapper style, stockings and pearls. Our posture and style of movement will change to capture the elegant woman of the 20’s whilst reading our leather bound books and observing the art of the gallery as the 1920’s Jazz fills the room. In a way we are capturing the history of The Usher Gallery as that was built in the 1920’s and so we are reacting a typical scene expected from women from the era. This calm, elegant demeanour will continue until we leave the gallery to capture the history of The Usher Gallery but to also emphasise the contrast between the two parts of our performance.

Works Cited:

Bennett, Susan (2013) Theatre and Museums, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Author: Fotini Efstathiou

Completion of The Big Ben!

Fotini Efstathiou / / Cultural Terrorists

The Big Ben has finally been completed. After many trails and error of how to fix the newspaper to the structure we decided on double sided sticky tape and duct tape around the edges for a neater finish. We  firstly used staples but we decided it looked extremely messy and ruined the professional look we are aiming for to create the big impact we want. The use of the black duct tape around the edges frames the newspaper emphasising it’s importance and the cosmopolitan lifestyle of London. We decided on the use of The Daily Telegraph as it is published in London and has been running since 1855 only a few years before The Big Ben was built in 1858. We now need to practise constructing the tower in a timely manner, smoothly and professionally.

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Author: Fotini Efstathiou

Problem’s occurring with our performance.

Fotini Efstathiou / / Cultural Terrorists, Development

A vital part of our performance is the drinking of afternoon tea after our hectic construction of The Big Ben in the gallery, as previously stated this is showing us inhabiting the space and also entwining the galleries history within our performance and cultural smuggling of London. Unfortunately when asking for permission to eat or drink in the gallery this was denied, so now we are stuck as to what to do during this part of the performance as we feel it is important to keep it in as it adds such a contrast to the first part of our performance, thus adding another dimension. We don’t feel pretending or miming will have the same impact, we feel if we are going to do it we should do it properly.

I have thought of other ideas such as sitting down and reading a piece of literature from the twenties, simply just listening to the music and lounge or perhaps do a bit of embroidery..what are your opinions?  Any comments or ideas would be really helpful. We really feel that having this contrast within the performance will make it more interesting and dynamic to the audience.

 

Author: Fotini Efstathiou

Rehearsal Schedule

Fotini Efstathiou / / Cultural Terrorists, Development

This is our rehearsal schedule for the forthcoming weeks:

11th March 2013- We have visited B&Q to buy more of the Selitac material which is a wood flooring underlay. We have decided on this material as it is strong enough to create the sclupture as well as being easy to shape and build with. We then began to make the rest of the sculpture. Last week (4th/5th March), we made the base of the ‘Big Ben’ and we have realised we need more of the material to create the top. This week we have started to build the top of the sculpture and put it all together.

12th March 2013- We are going to visit the archive library with the rest of the class to research more into the gallery. After the visit we are going to continue building the top of the sculpture to make sure it is finished in time for next weeks lesson to show the rest of the class.

18th March 2013- We are going to show our sculpture piece which will not be finished as we need to cover it with newspaper, however we can show the actual sculpture and practise how we are going to put it altogether on the actual performance. It is important to see how much of an impact the slupture will make in the gallery as well as we want to make a big statement so it has to be big enough to catch peoples attention and interest. After showing this to the class we are then going to begin to find appropriate newspaper articles about London to either buy or print which we can use to attach to our sculpture.

19th March- We are going to start attaching the appropriate newspaper articles to our sculpture, we decided that glue would be to messy and would not hold the newspaper to the material. After speaking with Dan we came up with the idea of using a stapler, which will minimise the mess that glue would cause and we are certain it will keep the newspaper attached to the material.

Easter Holidays- as a group we have decided to visit London during the Easter holidays, although this may not be possible for us all to be there at the same time. Whilst in London we are hoping to make a soundscape of the noises happening in the busiest areas surrounding the Big Ben and maybe even ask tourists what they think of the Big Ben and what it means to them. This will help with our research into the background of the Big Ben and we maybe able to interpret some of the public’s viewpoints of the Big Ben.

8th April 2013- We are going to sort costumes out to make sure we have enough time to make adjustments if needed. The costumes we have decided on are 1920’s style dresses, such as the authentic flapper dress and the reasoning behind this is due to the building of the Usher Gallery being built in the 20’s, so therefore we want to capture the atmosphere of that era. As we are smuggling in the sclupture of the Big Ben we thought us wearing a balaclava whlist building the sclupture would be very affective and emphasise the idea of ‘cultural terrorism’.

9th april 2013- We are going to run through the whole performance, we will email the Gallery to ensure they are fine with us using the Gallery for this purpose beforehand. Also we have decided to ask members of the public who are in the Gallery at this time what they think of our idea and whether they would be interested if this was happening whilst they were in the Gallery.

The rest of the weeks leading up to the performance we will keep running through the performance and making any changes which need to be made. We want the performance to be slick and explosive to make an impact in the gallery and capture the audiences attention.

Authors: Fotini Efstathiou and Jade Nicholls.