As part of our piece we are putting together our own clock created out of 9 carpet tiles. This is representing our ‘at work’ section of our performance, linking with the sites history of clockmaking and James Ward Usher’s heritage in the trade of horology.
In order to make it look effective and stand out against the Gallery’s dark interior, we chose cream coloured carpet tiles. Each carpet tile has been cut into many pieces, so the object as a whole imitates a giant jigsaw puzzle. I then had to create stencils of every number, to measure the distance of the clock, making sure every number was roughly the same size, for the final product to look as good as possible.
We decided to use carpet tiles instead of cardboard or other materials, due to the aesthetics of our performance space. Gallery 3 is intentionally different to the other spaces around, with its carpeted floor and ceiling, so we needed to keep this effect.
I stencilled all the numbers in black permanent pen and finalised the puzzle with hands pointing at 2 o’clock. This time has been purposefully chosen as it will be the time that we should finish putting the puzzle together. The final puzzle once complete will be an interesting addition to the Gallery.
It will represent the clocks in Gallery 3 as well as fitting in with the role of The Collection and Usher Gallery in displaying contemporary art as well as historic artefacts. This is our own work of modern art!
After much discussion and plenty of thinking, our group has decided to move out of the cafe and into the courtyard space. We have done this whilst thinking of our audience and the feedback we received. We felt that we could leave the cafe so we were not limiting ourselves to audience restrictions and partly because we did not want to inconvenience anyone! But also the space is larger and it enables us to use the framed alcove seating which is something we have liked from the beginning.
From the feedback we realised that we had lost the idea of making the cafe a exhibition; our original idea. After much more experimentation and some more feedback, the key was to keep it simple. Along with this relocation, we decided that the painting ‘Bound by Love’ was no longer relevant to our piece as it did not fit in with the concept of making the cafe an exhibition.
“Exhibition involves imposition of order on objects, brought into a particular space and a specific set of relations with one another” (Rugg and Sedgwick, 2007, p 29).
We had many ideas of the different ‘exhibits’ we could have outside including the conversations/quotes written down the stairs and a collage of photos of the cafe on the wall, however after thought and experiments these did not work. This left us with our two static exhibits of a cake stand and a tea set.
We maintained our part in the performance but altered Fran’s part. The first idea was to have Fran on a platform re-enacting a person in the cafe siting at a table drinking tea and eating something however with our mimic in the Education windows was still in place we decided that it was not needed. It then came that Fran would take on the character of a worker in the cafe, as this was another type of person we had observed whilst doing our earlier experiments, and be the third part to our exhibits of people including myself and Gabriel.
A new idea that came to light was the need for explanation of our exhibition. How are we to do this? We are going to take the idea of the ‘Specials’ board in the cafe and give a brief explanation for each part of our performance. This will hopefully help others to understand the concept behind our performance and encourage our audience to see new perspectives.
Works Cited:
Rugg, Judith and Michele Sedgwick(2007) Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, Bristol: Intellect Books.
In the initial weeks we spent time exploring spaces on site. Looking round we liked the exhibitions on Time and the four seasons seemed to be a popular topic in the Usher Gallery. We later learned this was because James Ward Usher born in 1845 was a jewellery and pocket watch collector who owned shop which he displayed these goods in, in Lincoln where he took over from his father in 1874. When he died he bequeathed his collection to Lincoln City which is why it is in the gallery today. As for the four seasons, we noticed a large ring on a tree outside, a staff member told us an artist installed it there to show the bond between love and nature. In full bloom the ring was hidden but in winter when it was at its barest it would apparent. This sparked the revelation and concealment idea.
We were also keen to learn about the architecture of the building. Research showed it was founded in 1906. It was very interesting to learn that the building sits on an ancient monument. Where the gallery is situated was once sat the roman and medieval city. Excavations showed that in this area Roman, Anglo-Scandinavian and medieval archaeology would be prominent and that Victorian buildings would previously have occupied the site.
The buildings on site had so much history beneath it! Many a time there must have been the excavating of walls and the demolishing of others, I really liked the idea of our concept being like history repeating itself. Pearson and Shanks talk about the archaeology of theatre related to a space, ‘the stage becomes a place of absolute scrutiny, although it may change in nature, constantly alluding to other times, other places: it might play with notions of hiding and revealing, screening and disclosing, see or half seeing. (2001, p.23) This to me exemplified the idea that site specific performances were conditioned by their very space and should reflect its history.
4/3/13
This week we brought materials that could be used on site to help us achieve our aim of revealing space to the audience. Initially we wanted to use five spaces around The Collection Gallery and have subtle movements going on in each site. We started with the window alcove in the exhibition gallery. We liked this space because of the questions it provoked, such as why were people drawn to this space?
Our materials ranged from army figures, stacking cups and plastic ducks to marbles and balloons. We started playing around with the idea of covering up the space to be able to reveal something behind it. We tried building a wall out of the cups. From our results it proved to be a success as we found the higher we got the more interesting the piece became. However we did find they were far to light-weight and small.
We then decided we wanted to build the wall over a long period of time and in silence to create intrigue and suspense for our audience.
I was inspired by Station House Operas work which, specialize in the building and demolishing of architecture and explore the intimate relationship between people and the environment they inhibit. One of their projects, Dominoes, explores having breeze blocks standing in a line and journeying through a whole entire landscape of the country.
Although on a much bigger scale, the principles were still the same about the construction of something in a public space. I liked the way the audience followed as if on a journey with the piece.
When looking in the main gallery we found inspiration in the Roman centurion’s reconstruction. What interested us was that centuries ago this building used to inhabit the Romans. We had the idea of merging the stacking of cups and figures together to create a battle field scene. This was because we wanted to highlight the relationship between the objects and the space. It became a very intense piece which we responded to by asking questions to each other so we could get a feel for our collective experience.
We also wanted to incorporate words into our piece and in doing so develop the idea of layering and building something up and then bringing it down. This was metaphorical as words overlapping the building of the tower and the construction of the army reflected the building and deconstruction of the wall.
Spending time in the window alcove led to acknowledging the intricacies of things such as the recording on loop. We liked the idea of repetition, using singular words and phrases to create a fragmented atmosphere in the space. This fragmentation is derived from our own interpretations of the recording, writing down our responses in a stream of consciousness form and thus recording what the art provoked from us. This was most interesting for us and something we would later develop in next week’s session.
We wanted to use balloons as a way of revealing something to the audience. Our idea for this was contrived by the concept of posting secrets in balloons and leaving them in a space in the gallery for the audience to pop and hence reveal the secret. We did however decide it didn’t correlate with our theme of space all that well.
A space not often noticed by the public is below the galleries. This space was interesting as it was ultimately ‘dead space’, deserted and unknown. One thing we observed was the acoustics, they created an echoing effect, and the colour of the walls- a deep red added to the atmospherics.We decided to use the marbles and drop them down the stairs in a sequence that would build with pace. This showed how we we’re filling the space and also how we were adding to the space as one marble following another created a rush of sound which intensified rapidly.
We then repeated the action again and involved one of us acting as if running away from something. The sounds of the marbles helped create this illusion and atmosphere. We concluded this experimentation would not aid us in our development of revealing space, although it proved useful in helping us explore spaces and narrow down our focal points. Further exploration showed there was a parallel window space like the window alcove, in the opposing space which we wanted to use. Our ideas were starting to become more finalized now. We’d gone from many spaces to two where we felt we could concentrate on the idea of empty space and yet still be able to reveal something in it. Susan Bennett suggests Kirschenblatt-Gimblett argues today’s museum is a ‘theatre, memory place, a stage for the enactment of other times and places, a space of transport, fantasy, dreams’. (2013, p.4). This demonstrates the links that can be drawn between the Theatre and the Museum and that they’ve gone from two separate forms and now can interlink together in a very modernist way.
Our practical exploration proved very successful this week as we were not only able to narrow down our ideas but also develop an understanding of how we could create something in the space by the window. Our main focus would now be building a wall in the space. From our exploration we learnt that we would need something on a much larger scale, therefore our choice will now be cardboard boxes.
Word count: 1232
Works cited:
Bennett, Susan (2013) Theatre and Museums, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Pearson Mike and Michael Shanks (2001) Theatre/ Archaeology, New York: Routledge.
Station House Opera (2009) Station House Opera’s Dominoes…(part 1), Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XlEKesUDAX8 (accessed: 1st May 2013).
So as our ideas are in need of us using university owned ladders and its getting a bit late in the day we are beginning to see how unimportant the stringing of the buildings now is. We have defiantly strayed from our original ideas but I am enjoying the idea we now have.
To begin with I didn’t really like Site-Specific but now I am enjoying the freedom to create that we truly have. Maybe it would have been easier on ourselves to have started with this idea originally but I think we needed to go with the direction our previous ideas took us on to get to the end result.
We are now planning on taking the gallery outside and creating our our exhibition filling the space that is empty between the gallery and the cafe with our art. Our art is inspired by the cafe itself and is a instillation. We are hoping to do it for an extended amount of time to allow the audience to wander in at their own leisure to discover what we have to offer. We hope they will interpret our piece in their own unique way and take something away with them.
Our performance is taking place at The Collection Gallery on Danes Terrace in Lincoln. We are going to be presenting our gallery between 12pm and 2pm on Saturday the 4th of May. Feel free to come along and experience our exhibition.
Our piece has developed so much since our initial idea as we wanted to use drama masks, such as the white masks, however we have discussed and developed this idea into something a little more subtle getting the members of the public to interpretate what they see, which is very much similar to what the public do when they are in the usher gallery. Which makes our performance an exhibition. Our stimuli is still the same, which is masking. Masking reality. For instance the painting which was in the Usher gallery by John Carmichael. Due to this painting being a masked painting of Lincoln at the time, it is also stated in the text next to the painting that it is an idealized viewing of the Bradford.
Why are things masked? Why is reality changed? What is the point of this?
‘ The masking disclosure replaces the reality, as it is more compelling than reality ‘ Sjoberg, Laura (1979) Gender, Justice, And wars in Iraq: A feminist reformulation of just war theory’ it states (ed) A Reconstructive Project for Feminist Just War Theory, Little field Publishers, Pg 209. I agree with quote from this book, as it does idealize a product making something better than what it actually is. Whether that is a painting or a person. This in our piece is very something that we are wanting to portray, using make-up as the mask identifying the social factors in today’s society. The idea of masking replacing reality, reflects a dishonest portrait. Features are highlighted in a positive manner by using masking . Paintings in the usher gallery for me seem to reflect the idealistic themes that run through the room. The quote used above states that masking is more compelling than reality which in some cases are true. However in other cases or other themes reality can be a beneficial to the project creating a hard hitting message.
By using make-up in our piece both applying ( masking) and removing it (naturalistic) it forms a balanced message for our audience, showing the filtered version of ourselves the removing the making up showing the no filter and honest image of ourselves. which does allow the audience to have their own interpretation of our work, making them ask particular questions about what we are doing, whether we as a society are being masked to believe what is right what is wrong? what is beauty what is not? This links to Carmichael’s painting of masking, as his idealized picture of the Brayford connects with our interpretation of idealizing our faces by using make-up to create and look different that highlights the image which we want to look like.
