Category: Development

The Pleasure of Treasure

Lacey Cole / / Cultural Terrorists, Development, Inspiration

With our sculpture continuing to be built, I thought I’d take some time to consider other parts of the performance. I was interested to read an article recently on the Pleasure of Treasure, a site specific piece based in London which gave people the opportunity to follow clues on a city-wide scavenger hunt. Since the piece was based in London, it was thought-provoking to read and in fact has some similar elements to the performance piece we are now creating. The Artangel group, initiated by Kathy Battista, recreated maps from 1868 merged with contemporary maps for those taking part. Our initial idea bore some relevance to this, as we discussed the idea that previously where the Usher Gallery stood it was just woodland, and the bringing together of what used to stand and what now does stand in the space was considered. We also had a chance to look at some older maps of Lincoln in the Lincolnshire Archives, which may have added an interesting element, as we discussed covering Big Ben with maps of London or Lincoln. This idea has evolved and we are now looking at incorporating both the history of the site and modern elements.

Another part we found struck a chord with us was the final effect the Artangel group wanted to produce with the walk. As we want the audience to consider their personal attachments to a city, the group wanted people to question ‘what they thought they already knew about… inner-city London’ (Battista et al. 2005, p.431). This idea of wanting people to query where they live and what they know about their roots and the city they feel comfortable in is prevalent in both site specific pieces. Along with this we also wanted to consider the ‘overlapping histories that make up urban space’ (Battista et al. 2005, p.439), in accordance with both London and Lincoln, with the idea that we’d be able to overlap both cities to create our own version. I feel this is somewhat close to what we are working towards, two intersections of historical places overlapped in order to become our own personal culture.

Although not much is documented about this particular site specific performance, other pieces by the Artangel group can be found on their website at www.artangel.org.uk.

References: Battista, Kathy et al (2005) ‘Exploring ‘an area of unnatural beauty’: a treasure hunt around King’s Cross, London’, Cultural Geographies, 12: 429-462.

Author: Lacey Cole

 

“A twist of fate…”

Kirsty Taylor / / Concealed Illusions, Development

Our group was left slightly perturbed after we discovered the recent rehanging of the collection meant that our focal painting of The Brayford had been removed. This was initially very worrying as we wondered as to whether our piece still had relevance and made sense in the space despite our original stimulus being missing. However, after this panic, we took the time to look at what had taken its place and to our relief realised the drawing hanging in its place had in fact a lot of relevance to our piece. It is a drawing of the statue, Venus de Milo. This sculpture depicts Venus, also known as Aphrodite, who is Greek Goddess of love, beauty, and fertility who also represents affection and the attraction that binds people together in marriage.

Instead of now removing our makeup in front of the painting of the Brayford, the image is that of beauty, meaning we could now be seen to be making a statement on what ‘true beauty’ really is. Considering the nature of our performance, it has allowed us and an audience to interpret our actions in a different way and by incorporating an event from the real world,

“In effect the work becomes not only the original concept or piece, but any significant public or official response to it, or any further variations which the work may take as a result of its engagement with the world at large.” (Burnham in Kaye, 2000, p194)

Here Burnham explain how by using an action which people are aware of and can relate to, like we use the application of makeup, it allows the audience to respond to it in another way which they see fit. Is it covering girls’ faces with makeup to fit with society’s vision of perfection, just like artists often mask or alter their art to please the public? Will our audience see the link between art and society masking itself to create unnatural perfection or even make a new connection of their own? Wearing makeup has become an accepted and often expected part of society for women. This natural need to wear makeup has become embedded into our daily routine, the need to put on a mask to please the people we will meet. “It was revealed that women wore significantly more makeup when they anticipated an interaction with a highly attractive target, irrespective of sex.” (Regan, 2011, p563). We will take a personal act usually done in the private of your own home and instead use it as a performative act.

Developing from this further is the visual image of a male drawing three females which is the main visual of our piece for the audience. This evokes ideas regarding the male gaze and the deeper reasoning behind females desire to cover and conceal their faces. We are currently experimenting into the different ways in which Tom can draw us and if his sketching should match our application of makeup, almost as if he is controlling our movements. We will experiment with the speed and accuracy of his drawings so the more erratic they become, the hastier and less accurate our makeup application will be. This will make a bold statement on the idea of the male gaze and hopefully make our audience question their reasoning behind their own daily beauty regime.

This change of stimulus has developed our ideas in ways we hadn’t first thought about but in turn gives our performance deeper social meanings and connections into how beauty is portrayed in art and in life.

 

Works Cited

Burnham in Kaye, Nick (2000) Site Specific Art: Performance, Place and documentation. London:Routledge

Regan, Pamela C. (2011) “CINDERELLA REVISITED: WOMEN’S APPEARANCE  MODIFICATION AS A FUNCTION OF TARGET AUDIENCE SEX AND ATTRACTIVENESS”, SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY. May: 563-576

“STOLEN!”…

Tom Baines / / Concealed Illusions, Development, Research

Shock, horror and bewilderment! The Brayford Painting, which our performance was to be based on was stolen!  Maybe not stolen, but in the room in question where it used to hang is now home to a pencil on paper drawing of the ‘Venus de Milo’.

The ‘Venus de Milo’ is a sculpture statue of the Ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite. Already we are starting to use this as an idea to incorporate into our piece. We are turning the negativity of the painting bring removed and replaced into a positive. The statue itself is a copy/interpretation of a supernatural being so its physical form could be anything. This is the artist’s copy of her. The drawings in the Usher Gallery of her are also copies. Or rather copies of a copy.

My role in the performance is to draw pencil on paper, similar to the ‘Venus de Milo’, the beauty of the girls in my group putting on and taking off their makeup. And therefore creating my own copies of the live art in front of me.

Trying it out..

Samantha Mckenzie / / Concealed Illusions, Development, Experimentation, Public Responses, Uncategorized

‘People had a real familiarity with the space that was being worked with yet they were invited to experience the environment from a new perspective due to the performance that was enacted within it.’ (Govan 2006, p.122)

On 18th March, after many weeks of experimentation and development of our ideas, we were given the opportnity to test out a section of our performance in front of members of the class and any other members of the public who happened to be visiting the Usher Gallery. It was vital for us to get some feeback from our peers so we could be assured we were moving in the right direction, see that our performance communicates as we hoped or learn where/what we were lacking. There were particular areas in which we felt may not reflect the ideas behind them accuratley. For example, during our experimentation process with makeup, we were fascinated by the appearance of a dirty make up wipe and how something which appears so perfect initially, eventually descends into a filthy rag.

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To reflect this in our performance we came up with an idea which would also decide our choice of costume. We wanted to show side by side the result we are looking for by applying makeup and also the substance that is left afterwards. This resulted in our desicion to wear white clothing during our piece and use this to remove the makeup rather than the conventional products; metaphorically becoming giant makeup wipes. What we hoped would become clear after this was our intention to reveal the negativity behind masking the real thing or becoming something idealised; which you are not. When we tried this out on the day we were pleased with the feedback we recieved and also how our audience began to think over what we hoped they would. For example they were struck by the duration of time in which it took us to apply the makeup and we were happy they picked up on this because our general approach is to show something real and everyday using the real time scale. We felt successful in delivering the message we intended to.

We are now trying to push our piece to the right standard leading up to the performance day which will mean more experimentation in the Usher Gallery ensuring we are happy with what we are revealing and where we are doing it. Ideally we would love for our audience to enjoy seeing something new and different in the art gallery but also appreciate its coherance with the rest of the art work.

 

Work cited

Govan, E., et al (2006) Making a Performance:
Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices, London and New York: Routledge

 

 

‘Putting the pieces together’

Tabitha Hilton-Berry / / Development, Experimentation, Possessed Time

As part of our final performance, we have decided to incorporate a teamwork exercise of putting together a puzzle, which will reflect the work of James Ward Usher’s clock collection and his ideas on industrialism. Our piece displays a condensed working day in to a six hour performance that will provide the experience of each significant task that we perform every day in our daily routine, highlighting the time it takes and how it is an integral part of our day-to-day lives. As Dion Boucicault remarks “Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.” We do not appreciate or realise the time in which we waste performing important but mundane tasks as it becomes second nature to us, therefore, this is one of the points we try to accentuate in the durational piece.

The reason that we have decided to include a puzzle in our performance is because we wanted a section of the performance to contain a teamwork aspect that could reflect the mechanism of the inside of a clock. All the components have a part to play in order for the clock to become fully functional in which each of our group represents.

We have decided to use 9 carpet tiles measuring a square metre each as the material for the puzzle in which we will draw a skeleton/outline of a clock onto before we cut the tiles into puzzle pieces. The carpet tiles we have chosen are a light beige colour which contrasts to the dark midnight blue flooring and walls in Gallery 3. This will make the puzzle solving stand out to the audience and will require us all to work together as if we were in a factory assembling a clock for production.

               puzzle

The process of putting the puzzle together will be the imitation of our work/job in a factory of producing clocks and will take 90 minutes to complete, including a 15 minute working lunch break in the middle.
There have been some slight difficulties with the process of cutting the carpet tiles into puzzle pieces as the base that the carpet sits on is a thick plastic which, although it will be more convenient for putting the puzzle back together, it poses the problem of cutting them out to begin with. For this, we had to purchase Stanley knives which are specifically used for cutting carpet tiles and have proved to be a much easier solution for the task.

We are still in the process of discovering if the puzzle will work in the piece as it is quite a daunting task putting together a puzzle that we have created ourselves but we feel that it is an integral part of the performance.