Development – Page 2 – The Collection Of…

“The world of Film…”

Tom Baines / May 2, 2013 / Concealed Illusions, Development, Research, Video Research

Multimedia or video is being more widely used as an art form. As Lori Zippay says in Artists’ Video, “Video may be the emblematic art – making form for the late twentieth century” (1991 p3). And now in the early twenty-first century a media form that is still greatly used if not more. You need only to step from the room our performance is in, to see two video art pieces. Hopefully our video, along with our ‘Instagram’ pictures, and now our Instagram pictures of the Venus de Milo, will hopefully make this connection and enlighten the public. Would this add to the culture of Lincoln? Zippay states that the result of a video in an artistic context is “a singularly dynamic engagement with issues of subjectivity, culture and image making” (Zippay 1991 p3). This is exactly what we hope to achieve by having this video on-going through our performance.

Usually video is associated with contemporary art but would it make a difference having a video in a less contemporary environment highlighting some core art values?

All art is idealised. It is painted or drawn to make a ‘copy’ of the original, sometimes or rather more likely with artistic merit. With the Brayford painting the information by the side of the painting said that it had been idealised. So, no, the swans weren’t swimming exactly there and they may well have not been a lovely artistic mist consuming the cathedral in the distance. It may not have even been a bright day. Therefore, the reason behind the video is to transform form this image:

To this:

This will hopefully make our audience think, or make them aware of this idealistic approach to art.

However as we said before, this very painting was removed and the gallery where the performance will be based has been changed. However the replacement paintings as stated before couldn’t be more relevant. They are copies or ‘idealised drawings’ of the Venus de Milo by a local Lincolnshire artist born at around the same time as the Brayford Pool and Cathedral painting was produced.

Hopefully this collaboration between our live art and the video can enlighten the audience.

“museums are invested in challenging those heretofore unexamined principles of organization, shifting from display to experience and inviting a more collaborative process with visitors.” (Bennett p4, 2013). And indeed galleries. Especially the Usher. This point here by Bennett really grounds where our inspiration comes from. Why sit back and just enjoy art? Let’s make everyone think about what they are looking at and what it means. There is even another provocation as to what people would think by having that picture back in the gallery when it has been removed for so long.

Works cited

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

Zippay, Lori et al. (1991) Artists’ Video: An international guide, New York: Abbeville Press, Inc.

“The perfect application?…”

Kirsty Taylor / May 2, 2013May 2, 2013 / Concealed Illusions, Development, Experimentation

In our last rehearsal we put all our elements together and tried out our idea in full. Dressed in white and with our makeup and drawing pad ready we started a trial hour long performance. As we had discussed in our last rehearsal, our application of the makeup changed over time as Tom’s drawings became more and more frantic. At the start our makeup is reflective of our usual make up routine.

However, as the drawings become more frantic, so do our movements. The application becomes messier and quicker until eventually we apply without even looking at a mirror. This is turn creates a more grotesque image as the lipstick becomes smudged and our eyes are covered with messy eyeliner and mascara. This process in addition to the scattering of used makeup wipes will hopefully reinforce the concept of our piece; that masking is not necessarily perfection whether in art or society. The connections between the paintings and society (or indeed women) as art, is something we really want to express through this process and hope it will be received and understood by the audience. To add to this performance we also tried our new idea which was discussed last week. After each application and removal of makeup we would write a word describing ourselves with and without make up and stick it on each other. Words included:

-filter -no filter

-concealed -revealed

-fake -real

-beauty -different

-illusion -truth

This progressive element will mean that by the end of the performance, we will be covered with words expressing the views of objects and women with and without a mask. The fact that the drawing of Venus de Milo has been incorporated into our performance gives our actions stronger meaning for we are strongly questioning what beauty is, whether that be in art or in women.

The ball is rolling…

Daniela Scimeca / April 30, 2013May 13, 2013 / Development, Nova Inventa

Now it was improvement time!

Firstly we wanted to discuss the boxes we were using, as some of them seemed flimsy the last time we were experimenting with them. To resolve this we sourced better quality cardboard boxes. This benefited us as we could now write on the boxes without them topping over when the wall was built. We also wanted to work on the uniformity of the boxes as visually it didn’t seem to look right. We thought about covering them in paper but after much deliberation this seemed to take away from the effect and the bareness we initially liked about them. We finally decided on a compromise, that being that we would but black tape over the boxes in the style of a cross. Not only did this visually look good but it also meant when we would write on the boxes they were divided into small sections. I really liked it as it was beginning to look like a piece of artwork now.

On reflection of what our feedback audience had said about writing on the boxes with markers and that it was too noisy we decided to bring in other materials to experiment with. Firstly we tried chalks, however we felt it wasn’t vibrant enough and wasn’t particularly eye catching.

When then tried with paints, we really liked the effect it gave, especially the red paint, for us there was something about the paint brush strokes that just seemed so effective, it was artistic, it was contemporary. We stuck with it.

The positioning of boxes was important to the aesthetics of our piece. Initially we wanted the wall created to be completely filled, similar to that of a brick wall. It wasn’t until we were having a run through and started playing around with the boxes that we discovered the effect of taking away particular boxes had on the space. It started to reveal pockets of light, some big gaps, some small, and the fact the sun was beaming through the window, made for some excellent effects, creating shadows and areas of light and dark. We really liked this and decided this is how we would like to build the wall.

As mentioned before we were very interested in the parallel window space in the opposing gallery and we felt we could marry the two together in some way. Walking back and forth from either window space we realised they were quite far apart. But this didn’t necessarily mean we thought it would hinder our ideas. We decided to trial out the idea of having one area where we would have the boxes stored, we could build the wall and paint them and then walk them over to the other space and leave the boxes there. It was important to us to think about the walk to and from each window. To begin with we walked very fast paced however we felt this didn’t correspond well with the idea of the monotony of life we then practiced a rhythm to walk to so we would all look the same. There was three entrances to the other gallery so when leaving the first area we decided to each take a different entrance into the gallery, this was effective as it felt we were invading the space from different angles. We then randomly placed our boxes in the alcove to signify the deconstruction of the wall.

Taking on board what our feedback audience said about the writing on the boxes being too obvious we decided we would write roman numerals on them. This arose from our original ideas about the four seasons and the concept of time. Time is a constant the clock will always be ticking. Similarly the seasons will always stay the same. We felt roman numerals would tie this in well. Also it was acknowledging the roman city that was once there.

Another problem was it was too much having music and a voice over, to compensate for this we instead recorded the dialogue which we would have on a loop.

Finally after the wall is constructed and we’ve taken it down, and moved all the boxes to the other space we want to come back to where we initially started and be left with one box in the alcove to which we open and release four balloons.

Word Count: 723

Further Development

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / April 30, 2013May 11, 2013 / Development, People

The initial ideas didn’t all work but it was nice to experiment with them. The chalk down the stairs was tested but didn’t look as professional as we had hoped and you couldn’t really read what was said, to have taken this further it would have required using a different type of lettering. The picture idea also didn’t make it into our final exhibition, not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it didn’t really fit with everything else in the final piece.
Our final exhibition included:

Having only two people sat talking to themselves outside instead of three, three people was just too much and two people proved as much of a point as three.
We had the third person on a platform portraying our opinion of a café worker, she would greet at random times, directing this speech to no one in particular.
We still included the idea of the education room but at the last minute we moved its position because we felt like it would be better framed and could be seen by a wider audience, some of who wouldn’t know why we were up there.
A chalk board, explaining who each person was and what it was that they were doing – this was a way to introduce our piece and make it a little clearer, it also links back to the café because it was similar to that of a specials board that was inside the café at The Collection.
We want to hopefully frame one of the windows so that if you’re looking from the outside then it encourages you to look inside the café and have a proper look.
As well as these ideas we have a few that we can only really try out on the day, they are not really to key to our piece but do help set the scene. This is having a tea set and a cake stand each in their own little plinths so they become part of the exhibit with a placard similar to that which you see in The Collection galleries.

Our piece could all go wrong on the day but I think this adds to the excitement a little. We have secured the use of some of The Collections items such as the plinths, a platform which I need to go and paint and also some things that help us to block the public from going any further forward. I think we have done everything we can to prepare for the day, let’s just hope it doesn’t rain otherwise some people might get a little bit wet as when we decided to take it outside we agreed that if it was to rain on the day that it would still go ahead as planned.

More practical experimentation

Daniela Scimeca / April 29, 2013May 13, 2013 / Development, Experimentation, Nova Inventa, Research

Now that we had decided what we will be using to build the wall, we brought in a variety of cardboard boxes, all different shapes and sizes. We wanted to explore, firstly whether the wall should be built and that we should take it down or whether we should create the boxes whilst in the space and then build the wall. This process was to go with the concept of revealing and concealing the space and the deconstruction and reconstruction aspect.

We used these two ideas as our starting point. Before we started we wanted to add something to the boxes that would have meaning. We chose to write on the boxes, and discussed the significance of a person’s death and that if they died would anyone care? Or would they just be labelled as refuse. These ideas had reflected the video that played in the alcove area that was about a boat that would carry dead bodies to an island where the bodies would be dumped with no funeral service or names in relation to the body. This idea had progressed from the fact we also liked the idea that the boxes could represent coffins, so we played around with the idea of writing things on the boxes like:

#babyno.1

#boy

#oldman

We used black markers to write on the boxes and began to think of the staging of the performance we made up all the cardboard boxes and had them on the floor. We found this to be quite a long process as the boxes would need to be taped into shape. Our next step was how we were going to write on the boxes, was it going to be whilst they were on the floor or whilst we were stacking them? To overcome this we looked into doing both. Firstly we wrote on them whilst they were on the floor and then stacked them. From this more ideas became apparent for instance like writing questions on the boxes such as:

‘Why is this happening?’

Moving onto our other idea, we found the boxes we had weren’t strong enough so it wasn’t as effective. For our next session we would get better boxes!

We then spent some time thinking about what else we could incorporate into the performance to reflect our ideas into the space. We decided to script a monologue that one of us could recite as this process of building the wall was going on.

What we created from this was to be the basis for our performance. So far what we had was a routine of stacking the boxes and writing on them and a voice over. Tequila played around with how she would project her voice for the poem. We found the most effective way was when it was monotonous as we wanted to increase the idea of repetitiveness. This worked well in conjunction with the erecting of the wall. It reinforced this idea that our emotion wouldn’t come from our acting but from the words spoken and what we were representing. It wasn’t supposed to be happy so the more mundane meant the act would resemble a routine. The words used represented this idea that sometimes we take for granted the little things in life, that we should treasure the simplest acts of kindness. However the poem would also reflect this idea of the monotony of life. We were filled with imagery of our pasts and the future and this is what we wanted to incorporate into the monologue. Collectively we thought of stages in our life that meant something which we thought could reflect in the poem. From this the idea of the circle of life became apparent and what we wanted to show was from constantly using the space we were in this would also reflect and re affirm the notion of the repetitiveness that is life.

From this development in research we hoped the following week (March 18^th) to showcase our ideas to our peers and get some feedback.

Word Count: 669