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.