Category: Concealed Illusions

Our Artistic Statement

Samantha Mckenzie / / Concealed Illusions, Development

Inspired by the painting of  ‘The Brayford Pool and Lincoln Cathedral’ (1858), hanging in The Usher Gallery, we intend to challenge the boundaries between traditional and contemporary art to convey a deeper meaning of the painting. An idealistic approach has been used in the creation of the painting and we wish to remove this mask to explore the differences in the audiences reaction. We question whether they will appreciate our honesty and understand our aim to unveil the ‘pre-photoshopped’ version of the painting.

We intend to use technology such as: projections, voice recordings, music and picture images to succeed in our vision. We will also require the use of traditional costume, masks and various props to bring to life the busyness inside the painting and also express our new found interpretation of the piece of art.

Through our performance we intend to leave a lasting imprint of the actuality of the painting and the city in the minds of our audience. We hope to alter peoples perceptions and views on the initial look of a painting.

 

“An hour and a half”…

Kirsty Taylor / / Concealed Illusions, Space

Throughout our time in the Usher Gallery, our focus has continuously returned to one of the gallery rooms upstairs and in particular, the painting, ‘The Brayford Pool and Lincoln Cathedral 1858’.

As citizens of Lincoln we were immediately drawn to how the painting illustrated the vast changes between the city we know and the city that once was. We found it interesting to compare the people of the ‘then’ and ‘now’ and how this could be used in our performace. We sat in the gallery for an hour and a half and documented the views and reactions of other visitors, interested as to whether our views were shared with others. There was a commonality between students and the older generation who would both study the painting intently, possibly trying to identify what has changed or familiarising themselves with what used to be.

An important architecutural point that we noticed is the purposful way in which the room was designed so that the influences from the contemporary art gallery parallel are clearly visable from the room in which the traditional paintings are hung. This is a clear passageway from the old to new. This stimulated further ideas on the subject of the progression of art, with the possiblity of hanging a matching image of the Brayford Pool in the twenty first century. What impact would this have on the vistors of the art gallery and would they appreciate the comparison between both images? The clashing of the two different styles of art is something we are becoming interested in exploring rather than blending them together. In context of a site specific performance, a way in which we could achieve this could even be as simple as the use of speech in the Usher Gallery which would break the traditional silence. This is a subtle beginning of our exploration into how we can challenge the boundaries between traditional and contemporary art.

 

‘First Impressions’…

Tom Baines / / Concealed Illusions, Research, Space

From our first impressions of ‘The Collection’ it is apparent that there are a large number of spaces, both large and small, that a “Professional stranger” (Govan 2007, p122) can interact with and view with a fresh outsiders perspective.

We began to look at conventional ‘spaces’ from the site such as:

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and

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However we found these to be too stereotypical of an actual theatre space, although their architecture was intricate, interesting and very abstract. We then decided to look at the places within ‘The Collection’ which were less obvious:

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Here we can see even the structure of the building itself poses abstract and interesting thoughts to us as performers. The architecture of the walls continue past the window, instead of the window framing the building. Also the display cabinet is not pushed up against the window which in turn creates an unnoticed and empty space. (modeled beautifully by Sam!).

We sat in this space and listened to the environment around us which was surprisingly loud and vibrant considering a museum is a space for thinking and observing. This small space was filled with the echos of conversations, footsteps and even voices coming from the wall itself. The sound wall stretched across the width of the building with speakers positioned along it; however some of the speakers were hidden in the small, apparently unused space that we occupied behind the cabinet. Which poses the question, why are there speakers placed in an area unused and unnoticed by the public?

From this we are starting to look at the museum’s potential as a performing space and the usual places that are unknown to a stranger’s eye and are asking ourselves, what could happen there?…

 

Works Cited

Govan, Emma and Helen Nicholson and Katie Normington (2007) Making A Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practise. Routledge: London