Category: Development

The Instagram effect

Jessica Jarvis / / Concealed Illusions, Development

In today’s discussion, we were talking about how make-up can be described as a mask. How we put make-up to hide imperfections  filtering our natural look.

Is what you see is what you get? We have seen the connection between the painting (John Carmichael) and make up, picking up that what we see isn’t necessary truthful representing a idealised place.

This particular question got the discussion going:- What do we want to achieve?

The audience question reality through art, the traditional paintings looking realistic giving the illusion which is concealing reality. The development of art through time has become concealed, people are also concealed, filtering is what you see is what you get? Creating evolution of concealment.

Audience question modern art due to the abstract/contemporary approach towards society, which can be criticized not displaying anything ‘obvious’ when actually some modern arts pieces can display real life things, than what some paintings represent linking to the ‘grim’ body that is in the usher gallery.

The connection between the two rooms will highlight and define the impact of idealism and the honesty between the two exhibitions making our message clearer and emphasizing the naturalistic look of society and the image which is perceived.

 

(Group discussion with- Kirsty Taylor, Samantha Mckenzie, Tom Baines)

Author: Jessica Jarvis

Materials

Jade Nicholls / / Cultural Terrorists, Development

After a lot of stress and worry about the material we are going to use for the sculpture of our Big Ben tower we have finally found the perfect solution. Our first initial idea of polystyrene was unsuccessful as we mentioned in our previous post. We then thought of using Paper meche, however this would have taken a lot of time and made the gallery extremely messy. After searching the internet and many craft shops around Lincoln we found in B&Q some blocks of Selitac, which is usually used for under floor heating, this seemed perfect to use to make the sculpture. After research online and speaking to various shop assistants we found that the material is very handy to bend and carve and it also slots together easily! During tomorrows lesson (5th March 2013), we are going to attempt to make the Big Ben with our new material. If this does not work however it will be back to square one with materials. Although its a good learning curve for us trying many different materials to get the perfect one to make our performance as good as it could possibly be.

 

Development/ Experiments

Jennie Chapman / / Development, Experimentation, People

Today we looked at trying some of our performance ideas out on site. From last week’s session we had some elements we needed to figure out for us to recreate the painting ‘Bound by Love’.

We decided to focus on the string as it was the key element of us wanting to join the cafe with the rest of the museum and so neglected our initial idea of recreating the painting as a whole. We were able to experiment with the string to see what it would look like. We also decided to use a coloured ribbon in the midst of the string as this would be seen, clearly linking the two sides of the building together. This became even more relevant when we decided to experiment with part of our performance taking place in the Education suite.

We came up with was to use the windows in the Education Suite and to see whether anyone in the café would notice. Holly and Shellie volunteered to carry out the experiment. First of all they simply improvised which included dancing and talking out of the window. We then began suggesting other movements that they could do such as have an argument, pretend to be in a café, climb the windows. Quite a number of the public looked up at the windows and pointed it out to the people they were with as well as people in the café noticing, people walking past the building started to wave at the windows. Through this experiment came the idea of mimicking and emphasizing the cafe by Holly and Shellie taking the characters of those we had seen in the cafe but contrasting it with child’s play. This was very effective as it would emphasize activity in the cafe and also the people we had observed.

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We also continued to carry out some experiments in the café which involved us sitting alone at a table and start talking to as if we were with someone else. We did this in order to see if people would respond or notice us. At first when Holly and Shellie tried, nobody really took notice however when Gabriel had spoke as if having an argument with someone, a few people looked up and reacted. We have been recording parts of people’s conversation in order to use it somehow in our performance. We are thinking of combining these two elements together; sitting alone whilst repeating quotes and conversations we have overheard as we have found it intriguing to hear the types of conversation people have in the cafe as well as the type of people we have seen.

This developed further when each of us performing in the cafe took on a ‘character’ of a person we had observed in the cafe, each one of us becoming an exhibit in the cafe. Such ‘characters’ as The Reader, The Working Man and The Family. We are going to sit individually around the cafe and re-enact the conversations and actions of these people. Along with this we will create placards similar to those seen by real exhibits throughout The Collection in order to further our idea of making the cafe an exhibition. The placards will have quotes on them and also the names of our exhibits like the ones in the images below.

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Pearson Site Specific Visitation

Jade Nicholls / / Cultural Terrorists, Development, Experimentation, Research, Space

Pearson wrote a book on Site Specific on how to get into the frame of mind as an actor working on a completely different site from a theatre. It entails going to many different places and asking yourself the same questions at each place, for example, ‘Who am I and what am I doing?’, ‘What are the conditions of my access’. On our very first site specific lesson we went around Lincoln and asked ourselves these numerous questions, this was relatively easy as we went to places we had been many times before. However when we first went up to the Usher gallery and done the same thing it became a lot more interesting as we were challenged with the questions and it made us explore the site we were about to spend many weeks rehearsing and finally performing in in a lot of detail. Pearson also states you should become different types of people or characters, for example when walking around a certain site turn yourself into a Tourist, someone who is new to the place. Another example is to turn yourself into a Runner; these tasks and activities really helped us explore the environment we were working in and made us notice a lot of things we previously would not have. It also meant when we chose where our performance was going to be we were definite and had done enough research and wondering around the gallery before making our final decision.

Continuum xo

Eloise Grace Henshaw / / Development, Nova Inventa

26th feb

 

Schedule for practical exploration

W/b 4/2/13

Come up with scenarios for each space, any revelations? What excites us about the space?

W/b 11/2/13

Practical experimentation- people will be watching us! Bring balloons, tin, string, pins, little cards to put messages on and put in balloons.

W/b 18/2/13

Response to feedback. Do the public like it? This is where we can amend and alter our scenarios so far.

W/b 25/2/13

Come in costume. All black. Does it work? We chose black because its a dull colour as we want people to find us hence no bright colours as our theme is subtlety. Rehearse. Check do we need anything technical?

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Love,

Authors: Ellie Henshaw

Word Count: 117