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…….
photo sitespecificpineapple2_zps5f59559a.gif

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.

Initial ideas, Bound

Holly Rudd / / People, Research, Uncategorized

To begin with we liked the idea of using the painting ‘Bound by Love’. I noticed that the painting itself had a similarity to the shape of The Collection gallery. This interested me as I thought about the idea of creating the painting on a larger scale on the outside walls of The Collection building.

Bound by Love

 

(Grigoriev, 1997)

I like this idea as we would be bringing the painting outside into the courtyard for people to see it as they walk by.

This led us to think about the connection of the two sides of the building at the gallery. We noticed how they are mirroring each other, the cafe and the gallery education rooms, they reminded me of the two lovers in the painting and I wanted to explore that idea further.

We then started thinking about how we could recreate the painting on the building we thought about stringing the two together like the threads in the painting to show the connection between the two buildings and we had the idea of putting up white sheets at the end of the building to show the people in the painting. These are ideas that we are hoping to try out in the next few weeks but we need to get health and safety checks first on the ladders.

Alexei Grigoriev (1997) Bound by love, painting, 52 x 43cm, Lincoln: Usher Gallery

Inhabiting the space.

Fotini Efstathiou / / Cultural Terrorists, Inspiration

Our performance is focused around smuggling London culture into Lincoln by placing a large sculpture of Big Big in the room of the Usher Gallery filled with paintings of Lincoln from different eras. We want to create quite a disruptive and energetic piece and in a sense take over the gallery for the thirty minutes we will be performing. During the construction of the Big Ben (which will be hectic) there will be a tea break where afternoon tea will be served, including scones, little cakes and sandwiches emphasising the typically English architecture of the building as well as the era it was built (1920’s). This will bring down the hectic nature of the performance and completely contrast with the constructing as the balaclavas will be removed and we will look like respectable 1920’s women enjoying a spot of tea on their lunch break.

In a sense we are creating a ‘lived-in’ space as we take over the gallery and when we leave after the performance is finished our afternoon tea will be left to show that someone has been there and lived in it. The Reckless Sleepers who were formed in Nottingham in 1989 have frequently undertaken this notion of a ‘lived-in’ space, most prominently with their performance of ‘The Last Supper’ in 2003 where thirty-nine audience members were invited to dinner. We have been inspired by this idea of getting the audience involved so therefore, during our afternoon tea we will be inviting some audience members to join us, thus emphasising this notion of a ‘lived-in’ space and hopefully increasing the entertainment value.

 

Author: Fotini Efstathiou

Works Cited:  Govan, Emma, Helen Nicholson and Katie Normington (2007) Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices, Oxon: Routledge, p. 115.

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.