Is it theatre without...
Audience?
Narrative?
Actors?
Is it theatre if...
The blood is real?
The audience perform?
Nobody knows what's going on?
What is the line between Theatre and Performance Art?
What is the line between Theatre and Entertainment?
If Franko B's bleeding demonstrations are accepted as theatre, should Osama Bin Laden's execution displays also be accepted?
What is the line between Avant Garde and Unacceptable?
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Research, Process, Thoughts
what am I interested in? What do I want to pursue? What won't grow dull or onerous? Well...hm.
I like developing props. Not just arranging flowers or picking toy guns out of a drawer, but developing articulated, multi-purpose contraptions and artworks that can come to life in some way. Perhaps I should work with some puppeteers. I like hinged objects that can be flipped around to become new things. I like doors, and secret compartments, and telescoping legs and spring-loaded surprises. I like Rube Goldberg machines. (or Heath Robinson machines, if you're British.) I like umbrellas and bicycles. I like rope and pulleys and winch-driven machines. I like marble-runs and Lego.
I like building sturdy things that performers and audience members can interact with. I like making strong rigs and flying people and things in interesting ways. I like welding.
I rarely if ever come up with anything without an inspiration, either from literature or someone else's vague notion. Gimme a story, gimme a thought, and I'll run away with it. But precious little bursts forth as though spurred by the divine from my lips or mind.
----
Last week the Scenography course leader suggested that my partner and I take into consideration how the audience should view our project--a smallish box with a projection inside that attempted to blend a corner of a Victorian garden with a corner of a city bus. It was strung with vines and dotted with flowers and had a hole cut into one side shaped like broken masonry through which one could peer and watch the video. I hadn't thought about how to encourage people to experience it in the slightest, but it was such a little thing with so many nooks and crannies that I knew he was right in saying it called for more intimate observation. So we put it up at face-height and hid it from immediate sight--you quite literally had to approach it, get in close, stick your nose into it to see it at all. But what did that mean?
Later, as a class, we played with soundscapes, and studied theatrical silence--how do you make silence in a theater without losing the attention of your audience? If things linger too long with nothing to hear--without an aural placeholder, like a ticking clock or crickets--the ears wander outwards and begin to focus on shuffling feet and neighboring coughs and tics. But how do you fill in the silence--to remind the ears that it's silent--while avoiding the clichéd noise of Hollywood bullfrogs?
Further play invited us to think about audience-centric performance and how they interact and react--not just on average, but as individuals. How do they react to seeing each other? How do you encourage them to believe, or at least play along? What can you put into place to encourage their complicity, or at least keep their attention dynamic?
We hung the box in a tight corner and hid it from view with stage blacks. As we played with bottom-lighting through the box's translucent, floral bus-seat floor I noticed that, accented by a low-level par can, my partner's face was strikingly highlighted across the space. We adjusted the intensity of the light until it gave both of us a gentle, natural glow, and entertained, for a moment, the idea that audience members might look through the object and enjoy seeing whoever was on the opposite side. Might they share a smile? Look hastily away? Pretend they do not see one another? Comment on what they see? Will they realize it's intentional? We played with shadows too, to imply depth, and the angle from which observers might view the projection of the bus. Will they try and speak over the mundane noises of london transit? Will they try to make sense of the scene, or expect a story to unfold? Will they lose themselves in their own thoughts while riding, as we did? Will they write their own stories?
I tried to stop focusing on meaning but instead creating a warm, safe little world in which people could make their own experience. At the last minute I crushed a sprig of lavender and tucked it into a pocket of the box--a smell that always encourages my mind to wander toward warm spring days. I hope a few observers, at least, lost themselves in their own thoughts, and that they were pleasant.
I like developing props. Not just arranging flowers or picking toy guns out of a drawer, but developing articulated, multi-purpose contraptions and artworks that can come to life in some way. Perhaps I should work with some puppeteers. I like hinged objects that can be flipped around to become new things. I like doors, and secret compartments, and telescoping legs and spring-loaded surprises. I like Rube Goldberg machines. (or Heath Robinson machines, if you're British.) I like umbrellas and bicycles. I like rope and pulleys and winch-driven machines. I like marble-runs and Lego.
I like building sturdy things that performers and audience members can interact with. I like making strong rigs and flying people and things in interesting ways. I like welding.
I rarely if ever come up with anything without an inspiration, either from literature or someone else's vague notion. Gimme a story, gimme a thought, and I'll run away with it. But precious little bursts forth as though spurred by the divine from my lips or mind.
----
Last week the Scenography course leader suggested that my partner and I take into consideration how the audience should view our project--a smallish box with a projection inside that attempted to blend a corner of a Victorian garden with a corner of a city bus. It was strung with vines and dotted with flowers and had a hole cut into one side shaped like broken masonry through which one could peer and watch the video. I hadn't thought about how to encourage people to experience it in the slightest, but it was such a little thing with so many nooks and crannies that I knew he was right in saying it called for more intimate observation. So we put it up at face-height and hid it from immediate sight--you quite literally had to approach it, get in close, stick your nose into it to see it at all. But what did that mean?
Later, as a class, we played with soundscapes, and studied theatrical silence--how do you make silence in a theater without losing the attention of your audience? If things linger too long with nothing to hear--without an aural placeholder, like a ticking clock or crickets--the ears wander outwards and begin to focus on shuffling feet and neighboring coughs and tics. But how do you fill in the silence--to remind the ears that it's silent--while avoiding the clichéd noise of Hollywood bullfrogs?
Further play invited us to think about audience-centric performance and how they interact and react--not just on average, but as individuals. How do they react to seeing each other? How do you encourage them to believe, or at least play along? What can you put into place to encourage their complicity, or at least keep their attention dynamic?
We hung the box in a tight corner and hid it from view with stage blacks. As we played with bottom-lighting through the box's translucent, floral bus-seat floor I noticed that, accented by a low-level par can, my partner's face was strikingly highlighted across the space. We adjusted the intensity of the light until it gave both of us a gentle, natural glow, and entertained, for a moment, the idea that audience members might look through the object and enjoy seeing whoever was on the opposite side. Might they share a smile? Look hastily away? Pretend they do not see one another? Comment on what they see? Will they realize it's intentional? We played with shadows too, to imply depth, and the angle from which observers might view the projection of the bus. Will they try and speak over the mundane noises of london transit? Will they try to make sense of the scene, or expect a story to unfold? Will they lose themselves in their own thoughts while riding, as we did? Will they write their own stories?
I tried to stop focusing on meaning but instead creating a warm, safe little world in which people could make their own experience. At the last minute I crushed a sprig of lavender and tucked it into a pocket of the box--a smell that always encourages my mind to wander toward warm spring days. I hope a few observers, at least, lost themselves in their own thoughts, and that they were pleasant.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
With a Refreshing Hint of Lavender
As week 4 approaches my mental horizon I begin to begin documenting my time at CSSD. It's taken some time to get my head back into the game--reading assigned texts, visiting libraries, and not just mentally checking out when I get home at the end of the day have become quite foreign concepts after a short 3 years out of school. The work that has brought me to Central has been largely non-academic--skilled labor, but rarely anything that has called upon my intellectual faculties.
The moment I set foot on campus and saw a young lady with purple hair and a spike through her lip swipe her student ID on the door I remembered the difficulty I faced last time I encountered academic art. Oh god. Here it comes. I don't know if I can still filter the genuine art out of the bullshit stream that will surely be flowing from not only the mouths of my colleagues, but my own. It was difficult when I was thoroughly immersed, and had been for over a decade. Coming back...Am I ready for this? Should I even be here?
These past few weeks, however, have been enjoyable. Trying at times, to re-engage with the language of art, but my brain has enjoyed the challenge. It's been confusing but also refreshing, to re-awaken the areas of my mind that had lain dormant as I slogged through four years of mindless labor, sharing my days and drinks with the art world's macho side. Engaging again with discussion of not only implementation but of innovation--and the conception that leads to both--has forcibly re-shaped my thinking and reminded me to enjoy, not scoff at, artistic banter. I think my baseline level of patience has raised!
I really enjoyed developing my corner with Ms. Oh--the simple act of returning to academia has awoken so many aspects of not only my study habits but my personality that I had allowed to fall into dormancy. I took delight in playing with shadow focal lengths and perspective with our project. "Ah, but if we leave both sides open, we force the viewers to see not only the projection, but each other--and it's up to them how they respond to that, if at all...so..ooh, we better make sure the lighting is flattering to the skin."
In other news, Flying Fish look just as astonished as us when they take off. What on Earth am I doing?
The moment I set foot on campus and saw a young lady with purple hair and a spike through her lip swipe her student ID on the door I remembered the difficulty I faced last time I encountered academic art. Oh god. Here it comes. I don't know if I can still filter the genuine art out of the bullshit stream that will surely be flowing from not only the mouths of my colleagues, but my own. It was difficult when I was thoroughly immersed, and had been for over a decade. Coming back...Am I ready for this? Should I even be here?
These past few weeks, however, have been enjoyable. Trying at times, to re-engage with the language of art, but my brain has enjoyed the challenge. It's been confusing but also refreshing, to re-awaken the areas of my mind that had lain dormant as I slogged through four years of mindless labor, sharing my days and drinks with the art world's macho side. Engaging again with discussion of not only implementation but of innovation--and the conception that leads to both--has forcibly re-shaped my thinking and reminded me to enjoy, not scoff at, artistic banter. I think my baseline level of patience has raised!
I really enjoyed developing my corner with Ms. Oh--the simple act of returning to academia has awoken so many aspects of not only my study habits but my personality that I had allowed to fall into dormancy. I took delight in playing with shadow focal lengths and perspective with our project. "Ah, but if we leave both sides open, we force the viewers to see not only the projection, but each other--and it's up to them how they respond to that, if at all...so..ooh, we better make sure the lighting is flattering to the skin."
In other news, Flying Fish look just as astonished as us when they take off. What on Earth am I doing?
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