Development – Page 7 – The Collection Of…

“Cleansing the idea”…

Kirsty Taylor / March 17, 2013May 13, 2013 / Concealed Illusions, Development

After weeks of development and idea forming we wanted to think about how we would be involved in the performance and more specifically how we would look. Initial idea’s included ‘bring the painting to life’ and dressing as if we had come from the painting, however as our thoughts have progressed and changed this is no longer relevant. Then from discussions with the public and the realisation that our focal painting was indeed an idealised image, this brought the idea of somehow masking our faces as a reflection of the masking of reality. The obsession with beauty has become more and more important in society over time and has also been particularly important to art, “What is beautiful is felt to be perfect, exquisite, the finest, and the most harmonious; there is always a quality of the ideal with beauty” (2012, p177). There has always been a desire for perfection but who decides what is perfect or not and is it really necessary?

Although at first we thought using actual masks could be used, we soon found using other less conventional ways would work more to our advantage and complement the piece much more. To emphasise our idea’s on the development of art and how now society and people have become idealised and perfected, we decided on the idea of makeup. To incorporate this into our piece, we came up with the idea of applying and wiping away makeup throughout the process of our piece. This which would show the transgression of idealised art from hundreds of years ago to the perfection expected of people and society of the twenty-first century. Our faces will in turn become a canvas which we will repeatedly paint and then remove to reveal the reality of the human form and thereby removing the idealisation of society. Because of this process, we will be left with make-up wipes full of dirty makeup which we leave around the space to emphasise the negativity of some art which masks and conceals the reality of what was painted. Sam then came up with the idea of the makeup wipes being a basis for our costume. We will start the piece all in white and then as the piece progresses and we repeatedly remove makeup, our outfits will become progressively dirtier like that of the wipes. At some points we will even use our costume to remove the makeup from our faces as well as the wipes themselves. The result will hopefully be very striking and highlight our aims and thereby remove the ‘mask’.

End result after makeup is removed.

To end our piece, I thought it would be quite poignant to move into the opposing room which holds the model of the dead body. As a group, we all agree that despite being modern and quite shocking, it is in fact a more accurate representation of life as the actor has not tried to hide reality or idealise death. It is honest and raw and so we feel it would be appropriate at this time to remove our makeup for the last time. Often, modern art is criticized as nowadays anything displayed in the right way can be interpreted as ‘art’. It has changed drastically from the traditional paintings which the usher gallery displays and is often misunderstood. Will our performance shed a more positive light on a new age of art?

(2012) ‘Psychophantic Relations With Art: Analytic Romanticism and the Problem of Perversion’ Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies. 15, p175-208

Feeling Lost…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / March 11, 2013May 11, 2013 / Development, Experimentation, People

At this current moment in time I feel as though we have a lot of great ideas but are not really making any progress. I understand that the whole process of creating a site specific performance is in my opinion not an easy thing to do or get your head around. ‘Site Specific work has to deal with, embrace and
cohabit with existing factors…’ ((Persighetti. 2000. p,12)) and it is at this moment of our process where we have these ideas but putting them into practice seems difficult and just isn’t seeming possible. I am not sure if it is our location with it also being a business so we can’t interrupt there working day or if we are just not pushing our ideas far enough. I am currently feeling lost about our development and where to go next because so far we haven’t made any definite decisions about our direction and maybe this is our next thing to do.

To make a firm choice as to which direction we are going to go and then experiment and push ideas further. Figuring out where our piece should head will be easier once we have looked at the feedback from the surveys we created as ‘a large part of the work has to do with researching a place’ ((Pavis, P (1998). Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and
Analysis. London: University of Toronto pp337—8)). We have been doing a lot of research over the time we have been at The Collection, listening to people conversations and figuring out why they are here, looking at how people interact with each other and where people tended to sit. For example if they were on their own then they would often sit in the alcoves.

Our Mime Endurance Trial…..of brushing teeth!!

Stephanie Jackson / March 11, 2013May 12, 2013 / Development, Experimentation, Possessed Time

In todays workshop, our group put into practise our ideas on the structure and timing of our piece. The opening section of our performance will consist of us going about our daily routine, of waking up, brushing our teeth, washing our face and eating breakfast. We have chosen a simple movement that represents each of these acts, however we are doing each action for 15 minutes. This will dehumanise a simple every day action, and the audience will not be expecting us to maintain such simple movements over a durational period. As we are going to be using our bodies to portray an action, and due to the duration of our piece, it is important to research into physical theatre and mime traditions. Simon Murray and John Keefe write:

‘the physical actions of the body still remain those of the everyday body. These may be stylised or contorted or otherwise heightened but the body remains the same somatic, corporeal ‘thing’ that it can only be. The actions are mimetic of the everyday but outside the everyday or habitual.’

(Murray Simon, Keefe John, Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction,Taylor and Francis 2007)

The reason we have chosen to mime is because we feel that it fits more with the aesthetics of the space. We can’t justify having real props such as toothbrushes and doing it for real, because it would too out of place. During the sections when we mime eating, the reason for us not having real plates and cutlery is that the Gallery is filled with household crockery. They are meant for practical use but they are kept behind glass for display only. Our mime is demonstrating the essence of the action we are portraying without the materialistic element, because the material objects are prevented from our use by the glass cabinets in the Gallery.

So would our mime work and would it be effective? The only way to find out was to practically do it.

With each of us focusing and remaining in silence, with only the sound of a ticking clock to accompany us, we began to mime brushing our teeth. We each did different speeds, but maintained timing with the clock. This required so much concentration and perseverance on our part as performers, as within a few minutes our arms began to ache and the repetitive nature became quite mentally challenging to keep going.

After 15 minutes of non stop repetitive mime, an alarm dictated us to change into our next movement of face washing. This was equally as challenging and required mental strength and endurance to keep us motivated and focused. We received comments afterwards from our fellow students who had watched us. They remarked on how effective it was and the energy that the repetitive nature evoked in the room. We learnt as performers how a subtle movement can become enlarged and surreal just by repeating it, and the endurance and skill that is required to keep up a mime like that. I think we need to develop this further and perhaps experiment with different actions in the space, as the space itself can change the way an action is perceived. Will our mime be more effective if we all stood in a line, or at different levels within our space? Do we face into the cabinets or to our audience? These are questions which will become answerable as we develop our work further.

Works Cited

Murray Simon, Keefe John, Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction, (Taylor and Francis 2007)

Rehearsal Schedule

Fotini Efstathiou / March 11, 2013May 9, 2013 / Cultural Terrorists, Development

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.

The Construction Process

Lacey Cole / March 11, 2013May 9, 2013 / Cultural Terrorists, Development, Experimentation

Having attempted our first go at creating a sculptural model using polystyrene, and failing miserably, we decided to go in search of other materials. We researched the types of material commonly used for smaller scale models, such as very thin wood known as balsa wood. However, due to the size we want to attempt, balsa wood was too flimsy and brittle. We eventually ended up in B&Q, and found a product known as ‘Selitac’, thin foam sheets with metallic covering that clip together to form boxes. After buying the Selitac boards we realised it was an extremely useful material for the type of sculpture we are making. It is very easy to carve and does not flake easily like the polystyrene we experimented with previously. It is also similar to a material known as ‘grey board’ which had a considered as it is a well known modelling material with a thin layer of foam. The tools we are using to carve the sculpture are scalpels, we researched into many different tools such as craft knives and Stanley knives but we decided the scalpels were the best and cheapest option, mainly because they have a smaller and more precise blade making it easier to work with.

We have decided to make the sculpture as large as possible in order to make it stand out, we decided rather than making our Big Ben half-heartedly we wanted to make an impact in the gallery so not only people watching our performance will be shocked but the passers-by will also be intrigued. Whilst carving the sculpture we have decided to make slots in the material so it is easier to put the sculpture together. In addition to making the performance smoother and faster, this will also increase the impact upon our audience as we will (hopefully) have managed to create a impressive sculpture and place it in the Usher gallery in a small amount of time. So far with the material we have made the base of the Big Ben and it is coming together nicely and staying stable. The photos below are from the first time we have carved the material and how the sculpture has started to come together.

Author: Lacey Cole