Category: Development

This time last week: Performance Reflection..

Samantha Mckenzie / / Audience, Concealed Illusions, Development, Evaluation, Uncategorized

This time last week my group and I had shortly finished our final performance piece. We were performing a piece of site specific drama in a gallery room in The Usher Gallery. Our piece aimed to highlight the similaritys betweeen idealised art and idealised people and how through the use of Instagram and makeup application we idealise ourselves.

The Performance

We were extremely pleased with the outcomes of our performance, and were happy to see the many faces who came to have a look. I found it challenging to continue doing something so repetitive for that length of time, especially because of the impact it had on my sore, stinging skin. Coming up to the performance date we did all discuss how painful our faces will be during and afterwards but felt there was nothing we could really do about this without changing the piece entirely. We did not want to change it because we thought it is such an aesthetically powerful piece which delivers a more intense atmosphere because of the gruelling and perhaps painful process. We did however choose to involve moisturiser as part of the routine between each section of makeup removal to look after our faces. I do not think this alters the aim because applying moisturiser is something that I inparticular do anyway before applying or removing makeup.

Another difficulty was staying in particular positions for a durational amount of time; it was uncomfortable to sit with crossed legs for 20 minutes but I feel it looked affective and as if we were possibly sitting on our beds applying makeup when we were young. We wanted the change of posture and position throughout to reflect how it is a routine but something we do at home in our bedrooms as part of an everyday process. Also, because we were sat in the positions that we were, spread around the bench, it gave the audience opportunity to see all of us. A lot of the audience members chose to walk around us so they could see each of our faces. However we were interested in how some of the public entered the gallery initially but once they saw us they chose to leave; perhaps they felt we were invading their space where they enjoy to look at the art work. Another interesting observation of mine was the choice some of the audience made to stand around the outside of the room or at the doors. One particular audience member spoke to me afterwards and said she did not want to come into the room because she felt as if she was invading our space, she found it odd that people were coming in and and looking so closely. It was interetsing to hear different people’s perspectives. In a way I would like to think they were intrigued enough to come a little closer but also it is pleasing to know they thought of the space as ours which was one of our aims. We wanted to recreate a space such as a bedroom where you would get ready for the day or a night out.

Our preperation began a few hours before the performance and admittedly I was nervous to set up the projector and see how the whole thing looked because we had a limited amount of time in the process to organise a practice set up. Thankfully there were no issues and the sound we had recorded also sounded great in the space and created the right atmosphere. A couple of last minute additions to our piece which I have not mentioned before are the use of an alarm clock, a bed sheet and the removal of our t-shirts.

The clock- As we were only supposed to be performing for two hours we needed an end point to our piece. We chose to use an alarm clock because it is something we perhaps have in our bedrooms, it is also an indictation of time and once more reiterates that applying makeup is a durational process which is part of a set time routine.

The sheet- We decided to use a bed sheet the lay over the centre of the benches we were performing on. This created a similar appearance of the makeup covered t-shirts which portrayed large versions of makeup wipes and also prevented any makeup spilling onto the surfaces. We also thought this created a bedroom affect.

The removal of t-shirts- The t-shirts we were wearing throughout the performance eventually appeared like the dirty makeup wipes which we had dropped on the floor. We decided that it would be an effective end point for us to remove them once the alarm clock sounded to show that they are something disposable. We removed our makeup and then our t-shirts also asking the questions- you wouldn’t go out without your makeup on, but would you go out without your clothes on? Is there a link between the covering of our bodies with clothing and the covering of our faces with makeup? Are they sometimes both as important as each other?

Overall I was extremely happy and relieved with the outcome. I felt that our piece delivered the exact message we had hoped for and also triggered some very important questions amongst our audience. The whole process has been very rewarding and also made me rethink how I present myself and how I want people to see me.

 

“And finally – putting pencil to paper…”

Tom Baines / / Concealed Illusions, Development, Evaluation, Experimentation, Research

My role in the performance was to draw the live art in front of me. I was using different shades of pencils and ordinary paper. In an extreme case it is possible that to say that I am drawing a ‘life drawing’. “The representation of a life-model – and the particular choice of a female model – generates socially and culturally specific associations” (Roberts 2012, p70). In this instant Amanda Roberts suggests that having a female model has significance in society. It certainly does in our piece. As I have said before I am the only male in my group and I am drawing a group of girls. Does this have some sort of patriarchal view on society? Or is it men’s eyes that I represent observing beauty and drawing it – similarly to what the artist did when he drew the Venus de Milo.

 

Here are the selection of drawings from past rehearsals and the final performance:

 

DSC_0061

It is clear that as the performance progressed the drawings became more erratic. These drawings are shown at the bottom of the photo. This happened as the girls became more frantic with their make-up. This could show men’s dominance over women or a power in art through live drawings or It could show elements of females able to exploit men’s need for a woman. But of course literally similarly to the artist who drew the Venus de Milo they are copies of beauty. Whether my drawings are accurate is irrelevant because it is quite possible the artist’s drawings at as accurate to the Venus de Milo statue; and of course the statue itself it a copy of the Ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite. How did the creator of the statue, Alexandros of Antioch, know that was what she looked like? The drawings themselves were they drawings of ‘true beauty’?  Or were they drawings of what was there? This of course leaves our project open as said before what is idealisation, the romantic era of paintings where it was painting for aesthetic sake, and what is true nowadays?…

 

 

Works Cited

 

Roberts, Amanda and Howard Riley (2012) ‘The social semiotic potential of gestural drawing’, Journal of Visual Art Practice, 11 (1) 63-73

“Late additions…”

Tom Baines / / Concealed Illusions, Development, Experimentation, Research

Sound was a late addition into our piece and we believed it would help with the ambience of the room and the piece overall.  It was a sound collage consisting of statements written by ‘experts’ on the application of make-up as well as experts on painting. It was interesting how the two were very similar in how they were spoken and the techniques being used.

 

This is the clip:       site voice complete (1)

 

“immersive audio techniques that are often used in artistic sound disciplines offer complex multichannel solutions to enhance the listening environment for an audience” (Lauke 2010, pg1). This point by Lauke beautifully sums up why we added sound to our piece. It gives a depth to the performance space.  As the piece progresses and the make-up application becomes less ‘perfect’ it is an interesting contrast between that and the sound clip of the ‘correct’ application of make-up. It also breaks the silence within the room and allows for the contemporary to be brought into the old fashioned art gallery. It also a nice addition to the contemporary room opposite which is also using an interesting sound collage and our clip, I think, adds to the sound of the upstairs gallery as a whole.  It also adds to the video as of course the primary image of it is a painting and it is interesting how indistinguishable both make-up and paint application is.

 

Works Cited

 

Lauke, Karen (2010) ‘The placement of sound in artistic contexts’ Body, Space & Technology, 9(1) 1-10

Post-Performance Reflection

Chloe Doherty / / Development, Possessed Time, Public Responses, Video Research

Having completed our durational piece of theatre at The Usher Gallery yesterday, it can be said that our project, for the most part, was successful. Here’s a snippet of our finished product:

The movements within the secion you see above are both relatable and inspired by dance practioner Yvonne Rainer. Rainer was known for the way in which she “threw herself into a kind of anti-dance which favoured banal movements, non-expression, randomness and disconnectedness”(Roy, 2010). She focussed on the mundane movements of everyday life, much like the concepts which we experimented with throughout our piece.

As we intended, each audience member had a different experience from one another depending on what time in the day they visited Gallery 3. Our performance ran for 6 hours, after every hour slot the mechanical movement which the actors ‘performed’ would change, whilst two projections ran consistently.

These were that of a pineapple on a constant cycle of decomposition and rebirth and the countdown of a 24 hour human clock:

photo (21) Pineapple projection in Gallery 3

Initially we decided to project a pineapple due to the fact that our gallery of choice already had two very quaint, porcelain pineapple dishes on show. As we developed this idea it became apparent that the fast paced decomposition of the pineapple made a beautiful contrast to that of the slower paced human clock. Although the image of the pineapple appeared somewhat distorted projected onto the back wall of the gallery, it helped to represent how our piece shows how misconstrued the nature of time itself can be when presented as an abstract concept. Looking back how effective our use of decomposition, while we felt that the image worked effectively, we still could have made much more this. If we were to create a projection similar to this again, I would like to decompose the pineapple over a longer period of time to show a clearer definition between the decomposition and the rebirth. It would also be interesting to see how the projection would have been percieved with the use of a fade opposed to that of a flash between images.

photo (22) Projection of Human Clock on the doors of Gallery 3

The Human Clock projection was set to countdown by one minute every 15 seconds. In order to fit 24 hours into a 6 hour day, the time period which it is set in must be warped. The white clothing used in the filming of the human clock showed up incredibly well in comparison to the midnight blue door that it was being projected onto, making the image all the more powerful. With both of our projections in mind, we effectively managed to create a multi media installation; some entered the room to look directly at the images, whilst some merely stood by the door watching from a far. (See previous blog posts ‘The Pineapple Experiment’ and ‘Human Clock’ for more details on our projection concepts).

Throughout our performance, I managed to capture snippets of audience members reactions and opinions:

“You see, that’s the thing about time, you can’t always see it” – Middle aged man, whilst showing his two daughters the projection of the human clock.

“It feels like another world, it’s alien, like a matrix” – Group of audience members regarding the atmospheric ticking of a clock had created as they debated whether to enter.

“Can you guess what they’re doing?” – A mother to her son, during the mechanic movements representing the ‘dinner’ section of our piece.

The fact that the mother tried getting her child to work out what we were doing shows us that we presented a clear enough image for her to have already worked out the message that we were trying to communicate with the audience through the use of our bodies. We adopted mechanical movements to represent everyday activities that may usually go unnoticed, the repetition of the action emphasises this. We decided to include ‘eating’ sections due to the vast amount of ceremonial crockery displayed in Gallery 3. All of the objects on show were designed to be of practical use, yet are locked away without the chance of fulfilling what they were created to do. We repeated the same gesture in hope that the audience would understand that we were presenting what the objects in the galleries casing should have been used for.

In terms of the atmosphere which we created, some people embraced it and some shied away. Once we had ‘woken up’ from the first sequence of our sleeping freeze frame, it was a real pleasure to see that some members of the audience had engaged with our piece so much that they were sitting down, waiting for the next sequence to begin. This also occurred when we started to create the clock puzzle at the climactic moment of our performance. People sat and watched, engaged by the fact that they did not know how long it would take us to complete. During a two hour period in rehearsals we would repeat the piecing together of the clock puzzle twice, but with the adrenaline of a performance and a live audience we repeated this three times, due to the speed in which we were working at. During the section where we walked across the room to the beat of the clock, audience members did enter the room, but stayed much closer to the door than we would have liked in fear of getting in the way or perhaps interrupting or concentration.

936763_10151690122297784_20260211_n The puzzle clock fully formed

In retrospect, the clock puzzle was the most powerful part of our piece, because it was the most real. Rather than performing, we were doing. If we were to experiment further with the concept touched on in our performance I would like to develop this particluar section of our piece. This would enable us to experiment with durational theatre in the traditional sense of the word. If we were to spend the 6 hours putting together a much more complex puzzle, it may have been more engaging for the audience, which would perhaps encourage the audience to interact with our performance much more than they felt comfortable doing in our previous performance.

Overall, I am happy with the experimental product which we created. If we were to perform again, I would like to create a soundscape of alarm clocks, set to go off at particular moments throughout the day, as during our performance the physical alarm clock which we were using as a prop did not go off or work as effectively as we would have hoped. Looking back at it now, I would say that we created more of an installation piece rather than a traditional ‘show’. That being said, it does not make what we presented any less of a performance. After all, can you ever really define art?

Author: Chloe Doherty

Work Cited:
– Roy, S (2010) Step-by-step guide to dance: Yvonne Rainer (Online) Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/dec/24/step-by-step-yvonne-rainer (Accessed on May 13).

Last Minute Considerations

Lacey Cole / / Cultural Terrorists, Development

As with any drama performance, we have had a few last minute things to consider in relation to our piece. Firstly, costume. Although we have organised our 1920’s costume and props, the question of shoes still remains. Having come to the conclusion that heels would probably not be feasible, we have decided that boots will be our footwear of choice. Whilst they clash with our costume, the balaclavas will also do this, and we feel make more of a statement considering the nature of our performance and the idea of ‘terrorism’.

Secondly, our means of transport. Whilst our London iconography is an obvious theme throughout the piece, it seems impractical to have a black taxi as we originally wanted. Having spoken to various taxi companies, it seems we cannot guarantee we will have a car waiting outside once our performance has finished, and we feel it is necessary to have our performance framed by the arrival and departure of a car. Therefore we will be using Fotini’s car instead. Although it is silver, we hope this will have more of an impact as we will be able to drive faster and it may have more of an element of a get-away car.

Despite these elements, it seems our performance is coming together nicely, and will hopefully have the impact we desire.

Author: Lacey Cole