Piecing together the most interesting bits and bob of my work and ideas... VERY WORK IN PROGRESS!!

georgina starr image from- ikon gallery book- 1998

as the diploma stage assessment starts to loom upon me- need to start to draw connections from the space-in-between performance and nunnery show towards ideas for the final MA show presentation...gulp..here goes.....


so.....just flicking through my blog and free flow thought into the laptop... just posing a few notes to self about current loves/ likes/ exciting connections to keep a floating around;


in rummaging round my bookshelf found an old interest of mine- georgina starr (does this image above draw together my practice ideas ?)- i feel this image could be very emblematic for my work- many people have both talked about the chaos of thought i live in ('hyper harry world' or 'hurry harry' being names i have given been on occasions) and amount of kitsch and ornamental, old camera type bits and pieces which surround and define me in my flat.

perhaps its all becoming a mish mash of mine/participants stories articulated through personal objects (toy cameras, etc) photographic processes and imagery (projected, printed)??

maybe my performance is a series of chaotic, subversive, participatory, real/fictional stories? in a staged darkroom of sorts at WCA or site-specific (attic, den, shed, office, tent, makeshift kids dens wth a sheet between sofas, closet type space- maybe at participants home??!!) All the technology-the darkroom pieces and toys etc could all come out of a nostalgic box/suitcase and all go back into it, leaving not a trace behind, keeping it site-specific temporal and also am liking the idea- of a portable performance...mmmm....

so here's the rough rambling list;

• georgina starr- animation, musical, installation, personal stories- theatre/art blurring

• nic green- cloud piece BAC, feb 08- playful, surreal use of objects in storytelling, loss of innocence references, projection

• julia bardsley- exhibition installation and performance-pinhole photography, boxes, self and mini-self, toy animals, non-verbal live self (where in trans-acts- mediated self narrates, use of chalk to write words)
  

• uninvited guests- from nrla- working with participants material gathered via email then they take part?
  

• martin parr- favourite photographer- visual wit, subversions, irony, makes me laugh out loud- look at this for selection of imagery
  

• douglas coupland- inextricable detail to the pointless, mundane and everyday, use of humour, look at this style for storytelling
  

• tratchenberg family slide show players- new identities to strangers lives through found slides- calamity, non-sensical, vintage
  

• spalding gray- hyper self, richard pryor, stand up- intensely personal into the public

• playback theatre- although not interested in the therapy emphasis- the performance structure in the re-telling of stories
  

• mini-me, miniature world toy ideas (ways to explore the non-verbal?)
  

• about personal stories or presented as personal- authentic/inauthentic. are the stories intended to be humourous?
  

• telling stories using my toy cameras, old slide projector and digital cameras, digital projector- some kind of traditional/digital face-off akin to the cd/vinyl arguments.Or maybe present and re-present the same story using different technologies, how the technology alters the story? maybe the arkos player is one way to tell it?
  

• photography as process- darkroom processes to carry out the storytelling and found slides/others photos to initiate it- venture into toys as pinhole cameras?
  

• possibly me 'becoming' the camera in a story like a child does with their toys?
  

• use the girl guide story again for this performance? but try out with photogramming the mini-me model, find a model sized tree, park bench and the matchbox? non-verbal??
  

• intimacy- unsure whether the work is continuing to go in the one-on-one direction or for a small number?

i am wondering about the participation element which is really important to me for ideas of exchange- is this through dialogue/action in the performance or my material partly comes from others' photographs? maybe its like i re-tell the story in the participants family photo? and then they tell their version? or vice versa? mmm i quite like that .....without me ever being told about the original story (concerned about this with people i know...) who are the audience? how do i find them? mailing lists?

in the uninvited guests they ran the same structure performance containing a different set of participants stories each time which came from a group of those present- not everyones stories were used. idea to consider- extend the audience capacity? or people are invited to watch an exchange? hmmmm...not sure about that.

last point. i like the way georgina starr is sat surrounding by the objects in the above. enough now.

and yes, doug, i do need to edit ;)

more contextual- julia bardsley at spill festival,shunt vaults

in thinking for a while about the relationship between photography and performance i went to see julia bardsley for her trans-act performance in the shunt vaults. the performance was very interdisciplinary and used herself in many derivitive forms- through self-imitating puppets/props (ventriloquist), dolls (mini -me ), actress (in a tv set) and also delighted as i was to discover, like a kid in a sweet shop, used herself in pinhole photography. The many forms and representations of self was incredible. she was engaged in a live act of self as director, engaged in dialogue with contained self playing from a dvd in a tv set, self as actor. the mini-me doll bardsley used here was self in the same green tailored suit holding a video camera, and became real self videoing mini-self and vice versa. i liked the fact that we could view the real live footage of the doll being filmed but that it would have also been interesting to investigate a way of the doll actually filming back.....who is watching who? ...the doll inspired my in the film- sound art collaboration i did with Ash Sargant for Wormhole Saloon at Whitechaopel Art Gallery using a mini me customised dolls house doll of self as an artist making work.

the use of pinhole photography in this work used this form of photographys incredibly ghostly, haunting qualities of very long exposures, giving an air of menace/nostalgia/the presence of absence. i liked the fact that you viewed the work as you entered the first of the 3 phases of the performance like a gallery, that as you progressed through the space, you came to witness through spyholes the work again, but this time in the world locked beyond in the wall. in this trapped world was suffocating fractures of the organised , precise gallery world, this tiny space was disrupted, abandoned, ransacked. minature pinhole photos were lying on the floor of the worlds' beyond space. this reduction in scale was also fascinating and peering into the behind the scenes, it was like the junk room at my parents house where eveything was thrown if there was an impending visit from my granny, giving the illusion of we always live like this;).... from this i have considered use of the relationship between the real live act and then the toys/dolls/scale model derivitive and how ghostly pinhole can begin an experience tracing shifting identities.