Category: Experimentation

Concealing and Transforming…

Samantha Mckenzie / / Concealed Illusions, Experimentation

Here I have posted a video of myself removing and re-applying my makeup, to illustrate the process of creation and the everyday routine of masking my reality. In a way, makeup is the ‘real life’ instagram as we are exhibiting the idealised versions of ourselves. My group and I have chosen to start experimenting with the use of makeup and what is behind it.  We are creating links between that, instagram and idealised paintings as part of our performance. There is something vulnerable about removing that mask; revealing the truth. This idea is something we will expand on further as a group so keep tuned in!

The Pineapple Experiments

Stephanie Jackson / / Development, Experimentation, Possessed Time

As with all practical performances and projects, we have been experimenting with ideas to see what works and can be used in our final piece.  Trial and error is an important part of our practical development.

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We watched footage of fruit decomposing, and liked the idea of how time can effect  an object very visually, with photography and media as a means of recording time itself. The next stage of this was having to decide how we could do this ourselves in the simplest and most practical way.  We discussed leaving a pineapple in a shed or somewhere uninterrupted, where we could focus a camera on it and film its decomposition.  The significance of the pineapple is that it is a feature of our chosen performance space of Gallery 3.

However, this caused us practical concerns, and raised many questions over how long it would take to decompose and whether we could get a camera for that amount of time.

Instead we decided to cut a pineapple in half and see what would happen if we left it in a cupboard for a few days and took a few photos over the duration.

Would it change its appearance over one weekend? Or would it take weeks for any effects to take place?

This is the experiment I am recording so far. And this is the result after 3 days of a pineapple in my cupboard…….
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This is a simple stop-frame style animation I have created of the decomposition process so far.  As you can see, the pineapple has started to change texture and colour.  Something visual such as this, could be used as an aid in our final performance piece to show the effects that time can have.

Conceptual Costumes

Chloe Doherty / / Development, Experimentation, Possessed Time, Research

Initially we discussed the idea of simply dressing head-to-toe in white, this was due to the fact that we wanted to look somewhat conformed, like part of a machine. By identifying ourselves as the same through the use of costumes, we were putting forth the idea that we were all of the same practicality, becoming arguable similar to that of a clocks cogs. If we were to settle on this idea, it would not have been just for aesthetic purposes, but practicality also. Due to the fact that we have planned for a number of projections to play throughout our piece, we experimented with the idea of projecting them onto ourselves, which lead us to the colour white.

After careful consideration, we decided against this idea. Rather than projecting onto ourselves, we were given the opportunity to close off the gallery next door to the one in which we are working in, meaning we now have a solid flat surface to project our ideas onto. Unfortunately the closed door is in keeping with Gallery 3’s colour scheme, along with the carpet it is a midnight blue. This leaves us with the options of covering it and projecting onto either tracing paper or a white bed sheet/blind. As we have a reasonably large surface area to cover, it will be much more practical to use one bed sheet opposed to multiple pieces of tracing paper.

As our piece began to develop our ideas on costumes changed to accommodate the structure which we set ourselves. As many of you already know, we are doing a 6 hour duration piece (during the galleries opening hours 10-4pm), within this we will be performing a ‘micro-day.’ Each hour will represent a different part of the day in which we use repetitive actions to the ticking of a clock, to represent the key moments in everyday life (see previous post ‘A Micro Day’ for more details), this will show our process of experimentation with the use of time manipulation. Each ‘actor’ will be wearing a different level of clothing:

1. Underwear
2. Pyjamas
3. Overalls (work clothes)
4. Suit (again, work attire)
5. Casual/Lounge outfit
6. Dressed up/Going out

This choice, in itself, demonstrates an element of time. During the duration of a standard day, the average person will at some point make a transition through the clothing I have listed above. As we have also incorporated each costume with a set time of day, it will become clear to the spectators that although the actors may look out of place for the majority of the performance, they will fit perfectly into at least one set time. Our choice of performance space (gallery 3) features cases full of crockery and pocket watches, which can be considered to be domesticated applied art. By dressing ourselves in ‘domesticated’ outfits, we are attempting to transform ourselves into a part of that already present art, in keeping with both the themes of time and the domestic.

Author: Chloe Doherty

A Micro Day

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

We have decided to condense a 24-hour working day into a 6-hour performance that incorporates a typical everyday routine. We aim to highlight how time can be both an abstract and physical concept by which we are controlled. On the other hand, we cannot help but manipulate time in this piece as measurements of time are a human invention (e.g. seconds, minutes.)

The performance begins with us inert in a sleeping position for the duration of the first hour; we then are individually awoken by a series of alarms to perform our morning routines in a mechanical manner and in time to the sound of a ticking clock. Each member of the group stands in front of a section of the glass cabinets to perform their own daily routine as if the glass is a mirror. In three pairs, we reflect actions of each other brushing our teeth, washing our face and eating breakfast for 15 minutes per action, each pair performs the actions in various tempo’s but making sure to keep in time with the clock ticking sound still. We have included three videos displaying an example of the various tempos that each pair will use.

The first, shows the slowest speed whilst keeping to the ticking of the clock and the last video displays the fastest speed which still keeping to the beat.

Through the manner of miming, we display how a lot of our daily actions are mechanical and we perform them without thinking about the amount of time it consumes. By the end of the second hour, we will portray the walk to work by using an exercise we previously created as a warm-up. It incorporates using the space in Gallery 3 and moving in a mechanised style.

In the third and fourth hours, we will be aiming to represent a working day through the medium of constructing the puzzle of a clock made from carpet tiles. This serves to act as a reminder of the works of James Usher and how clocks were a key feature of both his public and private life. Between these hours, we will be including a 15 minute lunch break eating pineapple related foods, which is part of the performance, reflecting the exhibition of the ‘Pineapple Dish’ currently housed in the gallery. At the end of the fourth hour we will perform the walk through the space exercise previously used as the ‘walk to work’ but changing it to represent the walk home.

For the final hour, we will represent the evening period of a typical day which will display dinner time, relaxation or recreation time (working as a group to incorporate a game into the performance e.g. a passing ball game) and finally finishing the performance in the position by which we began, sleeping. This position will not be held as long as it was at the beginning of the performance as it is just a brief representation of the end of a typical day.

 

 

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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