invisible theatre opportunity..

Quarantine in partnership with greenroom, Manchester

“How to be invisible…”

Summer School
14-19 July 2008

A six-day workshop on bringing the practice of everyday life into performance.

Over the past 10 years, Quarantine has made a series of performances in which we work with both trained and untrained performers (“experts in everyday life”) to create theatre where there is the smallest of gaps between performer and material, and between performer and audience.

From Monday 14th to Saturday 19th July 2008, Quarantine will host a summer school at greenroom, Manchester. The workshop week will share and expose some of Quarantine’s strategies for making performance and experiment with some new ideas.

The week will focus on ways in which the artist might absent themselves from their own work – perhaps creating structures, rules, provocations and tactics for an audience to respond to, rather than presenting fixed or finished material. The week also includes a series of presentations by other artists supported by and associated with greenroom. The summer school will end with a sharing of work to an invited audience.

The workshop is open to all, irrespective of artform background. We would like to work with a group that is diverse – culturally, socially and creatively, as well as in levels of experience. For more information and to download an application form please visit www.qtine.com

The deadline for applications is Monday 19 May.

unfortunately can't make it but looks great idea!

objects and atmospheres- non-verbal workshop with geraldine pilgrim (part 7)

george segal




body in space exercise- out of visual create a narrative- reference-george segal sculptures


exercise- text as a visual landscape- not developing character (although appearances yes, feelings not so) but body in a site. physical placement of the body of one person by another within the space- floor/wall, (addition of an object in my turn.) the person in position once set has 30 seconds to think about how their body is placed and a possible site it could be in....then the rest of the group asks questions to which the placed person responds to begin to tell a story.

my photograph above of the position i was placed in- (you can't quite see my thumb is extended upright from my beyond hand) i was asked to look at a chair beyond and then another person in the group placed the camera in my site line- at first, intriguingly with the camera lens pointing towards me and then with me looking through the viewfinder.

rough recollection of the questions posed to be and my responses....

• where are you? i'm in the attic
• where's the attic? my parents house in croydon
  
• why are you on the floor? i'm listening
  
• to what? my parents arguing. i'm waiting for them to stop.
  
• what re they arguing about? me- mum has grounded me and dad disagrees
• whats in the attic? dusty old trunk locked full of my secrets, bare boards
• where's the key? in my pocket as always
  
• what are the walls like? old peeling floral paper one side, breeze block the other
• whats the temperature like? its cold, breezy
• what are you looking at? through the lens at the boy in the house next door. he's undressing.
• is there a window in the attic then? yes
• what's the boys name? orlando
• what's your name? harriet
• how old are you? 16
• what are you wearing? my escape outfit
• what's your escape outfit? pink shoes, jeans
• why are you escaping? i've had enough
• what happens next? i'm giving the signal to my brother who is next to me that the arguing has stopped and they have left the room for us to escape.i'm going to take one last photo of orlando before i leave.

this exercise i found a very insightful way to consider where you can visualise being taken to through placement of body and engaging in conversation to build a narrative. you imagine that everything is moving around this frozen body.questions were to centre not on the feelings but on the sights, sounds, smells. the gaze was crucial to the narrative. elements on this may verge on past life regression(!) which the activity was not intended too- i suppose the choice of being in croydon(not sure why i said this) made me want to take an exotic sounding name for the boy next door- orlando which was the name my brother was almost given and was the name that popped into my head. one person in the group after they did their story said 'where the hell did all that come from?'

in relation to my current investigations- generating stories through visuals- centering on the sensory elements and the what happened next - this was very useful exercise. i also was struck by the use of the camera- the story would have been completely different with the camera lens placed towards me (who was to photograph me, why etc)

thinking about it now- i feel a little confused about separation of character from landscape- although not centering on description of feelings clothing, age shapes an identity? as well as the fact that i was wearing my escape outfit....

objects and atmospheres- non-verbal workshop with geraldine pilgrim (part 3)

second lot of photos of body sculpture expressing an emotion (?!).....

objects and atmospheres- non-verbal workshop with geraldine pilgrim (part 1)

this site-specific workshop at toynbee studios on saturday 29th-sunday 30th march (two full days) was bloody brilliant for many reasons- tutor, participants, activities all worked well together with purpose and series of learning outcomes. It also massively developed my understanding of non-verbal performance, use of doing nothing, pause, gaze, exploring relationship between photographic tableau and theatre tableau, creating visual landscapes concerned with the body in space and less about character, and most importantly gave me confidence and feedback on the use of my own body in relation to site.

i have pages of notes on this workshop and so am thinking about the most relevant parts to me to put on here.

geraldine pilgrim workshop leader and artistic director of corridor performance company,(where photo above is taken from) started off talking about her career path, influences, her relationship between art and theatre heavily influenced by Edgar Gordon Craigs 1890s book, on the art of theatre discussing how should be able to do everything in a piece of theatre or at least have attempted and understand it as no one part is more important- everything equal. i guess this is the route i am on now- a far cry form where i thought i would be on this course at the start- the total theatre/live art experience maker rather than the multi-media designer that collaborates that i had thought i would be. geraldine has undertaken courses across both theatre and art- from foundation art course (taken twice- the first she was expected to be experimental and freaked- second time she became organically experimental- a phrase i like as i do think i forget about the easing on through the traditional especially in my teaching and expect students to just be up for it) geraldine talked in detail about her projects- from more ange taggart commentary on public norms of behaviour (20 people buying the guardian form the same newsagent one after another and entering a station very precisely repeating each others stannding reading actions in a station) to use of different entry points for two audiences (that don't know about the other one) with different characters as tour guides in her site-specific work and how they meet across a glass hallway. geraldine also talked a lot about working as a lecturer, plus also theatre designer and how she calls artefacts used in performance very much objects rather than props, saying how actors need to rehearse and devise actions with everything from the start of a show which invariably doesn't happen as the design and the rest of the show work independently until the tech rehearsals start where the two often collide.(rough gist of what was said only)

work then set about for a series of exercises in pairs;

1 express anger through objects without speaking
2 express loss through objects without speaking
3 express joy through objects without speaking

the activities involved 2 or 3 people and one person being in a room and another out of a side door. first person sets the table, 4 chairs, cups, saucers, cutlery, tray as wishes, person two then enters with a suitcase and you improvise with each other.

1. my first time on ANGER was hard- using pointing at the tea cup to try to get the other person to sit, and feeling uncomfortable with being stared at for long periods of time, avoiding gaze and busying myself doing too much. i sited the telephone i was given not in clear view of the audience who had no idea i was repeatedly staring at it.

2.the LOSS exercise i felt much better with. i sited myself on the phone in the room head buried in hands at the table which i'd half laid. when the 2 others burst through the door with their suitcases i had set the scene of something that had already happened, we persued a series of long gazes at each other, head holding, looking down, until i handed the phone to one of them, leaving the other person still not knowing and still baffled. when the phone went back on the receiver i then busied myself finishing the table, as though in denial of the phone conversation, cracking in dropping the tray and then again holding gaze with the person who had just replaced the receiver, before mistakingly busying myself reading the paper and then getting up and finally leaving with the two people just left holding each others gaze.

you had to be there to fully understand, but i learnt quickly the importance of doing nothing and the gaze, body language are crucial, way objects are handled, where placed, etc.

3. i only watched this but it was cringeworthy as there's only so much joker style smiling and hugging you can do without words! point proved- negative emotions easier for non-verbal communication.

consideration of the stimulus (what about silent disco) and narrative that's expressed.

enough now- onto the photos from the next workshops....

Image manipulation workshop- images PART THREE

lots to think about here- the disembodiment of head from body, making an image become a picture postcard, bringing together personal and anonymous strangers photos and inventing connections, bringing together different eras and generations, different ages of projector- ancient and modern

Image manipulation workshop- reflections and images PART ONE

just a few things to comment on how i felt my workshop went and what i learnt from it....

whose workshop was this? what was achieved? how could i have worked with this better? the main thing i felt was that technology dominated the experiences and that my attempts to have worked with concepts with technology should have followed a tech-know how workshop which everyone really needs- from image resolution to outlining hardware and software and what they do. lauras workshop in the afternoon brilliant tackled one easy use of technology and I want to do more of this. For example, i got very interested in the how isadora software works myself and sidetracked away (but i should have intervened more) from my group working on their own stories for example resulting in some fair attempts to explore projection through stories told in photos- I lost focus on what I was trying to achieve seduced by the technology- doh!.

However, i liked the idea of invisible friend as a virtual projection which lena inadvertently came up with very much. sally's performative lecture requiring a still image she pointed at met with doug persisting in moving the image around;) playing with the software demonstrating what isadora can do, when in her story a powerpoint slide would have been enough.

so what does this teach me...um, that i've led many many workshops before and that this wasn't all that successful for conflict of interests in it being carried out , as well as putting too much in to it myself, and the suggested introduction of text into the workshop part way through which contradicted the intended nature of my workshop....the story text was to come from the images. however I have some interesting images from VLPers to explore related techniques and really want to bring in isadora in my experiments with projections.

Image manipulation workshop

Sarah Pucill- You be mother

Ok- so to start to think about a possible departure from traditional photographic darkroom process as performance into other ways of playign with photography- outline for a workshop to do tomorrow with fellow VLPers....

Image manipulation workshop 27.3.08

Aim: To look at ideas on working with dual narratives- marrying or challenging the language of photography with storytelling

Through;
- addressing the aesthetics/meaning in images
- looking to the voice of the image/ the noise of the image
- developing a performative relationship with the image

This exploring is to suggest real or fictional stories or narratives through ways of using placement (image performing v backdrop) and different kinds of technology and surfaces to project onto or view images in; old slide projector, laptop, digital projector, flickr, modul8, photo album, cloth, cotton wool buds, postcard, screens, …etc. You can draw/create your own surfaces too and technology in its broadest sense extends from vjing imagery via digital projector to scissors, glue, ink manipulating imagery by hand.

I will be writing on a sheet of paper these key words i am interested in for the group to see and respond to through image manipulation and narrative/ storytelling

disposable
universal
temporal
exchange
authentic/inauthentic
public/private
intimacy
hyperreal
nostalgia
traces
interactivity
participation
live v mediated

Task :

Using any of the available resources devise actions/sequences/narratives/stories through manipulation of the imagery in playing with technology, surfaces and the above words. Maybe only work with one word or a combination. Try out different kinds of technology with the same imagery.

To try out;

Analyse an image/imagery in connection to a word(s)

What technology can I explore to represent this? How does technology heighten or challenge intended meaning?

What technology works best to communicate the chosen word?

(If projecting) Where will I project, onto what, how- is it static in a performative exercise or moving or developing?

What scale am I working at- why? Does this change?

How can the performance body be manipulated with the image?

What story/narrative am I sharing? How do I do best this?

Where are the audience sited in relation to the outcomes?

second workshop run through for nunnery 19th february

ok, so this time decided to explore the ideas in the following way;

1. just use matchbox story and slow down
2. projector onto me only (how does this affect the quality of the piece-imbalance too odd?)
3. project onto self-inside pocket (push the temporal)
4. new box with key
5. make it more symmetrical so no one has to move
6. explore siting of the tripod for the camera- less awkward
7. use pinboard, pins, singing onto it for the photographic relics presentation
8. try to relax, be more self, keep focused
9. be more chatty- were you a boy scout/girl guide?
10. question more in feedback the different levels of participation giving different experiences
11. try out new tray for holding images- less darkroom aesthetic
12. both images die in box before displaying
13. talk to participants about environment, outfit, use of satin/velvet
14. test full strength dilution-ok? how does this length of development/death of image feel to the participants?

testing in smaller fine art darkroom with 2 MA, 1 BA, and Jordan McKenzie

my reflections on feedback from first nunnery workshop- 5th february

today went much better than i hoped and the sense of intimacy was realised i felt well. really need to make decisions about using technology to match the idea and not just because i am exploring traditional and digital within my research proposal- i think there is a way but need to think it through. projector more than arkos player. the main area for attention is simplifying the set up, and story telling.

the main problem as with everything on this course and my relation to it is the zero confidence i have in myself being a performer. i now feel very confident about my concepts and use of the visual arts practice and pushing the work performatively, but...me in it will make or break it in the end, or should it be someone else? am i more of a artist-director? still can't get my head round who i should be in the work, be yourself  is told to me repeatedly but i get so nervous and can't relax this feels an impossibility. outwardly and in everyday life  (including presentations, standing in front of headteachers, parents and such in my other life) and my appearance i feel comfortable,  but frame it as performance as i dry up, freeze, panic. need to think more on this.

second workshop run through- set for 2 weeks time, BA/MA participants.

lena's feedback from first nunnery workshop- 5th february

notes from discussions with lena post workshop;

1. really liked the intimate nature
2. liked matchbox and ear plugs stories best, things you might actually find in your pocket
3. human stories anyone could have
4. thought matchbox was so sweet, so simple, liked the keepsake idea
5. fun to paint developer on rather than box
6. didn't like changing seats to take part
7. liked torch light- again more everyday
8. understood the temporal nature of the piece
9. using the projector- bit busy
10. liked capturing image but it didn't work overall, competing for attention watching image develop and watching projection
11. thought light from camera and projector were creepy made it seem an eerie experience
12. didn't like the simultaneous recording of action and then projection-is the video camera light enough to solarise the image?
13. box plastic?
14. don't be too natural-just get on with it
15. make the storytelling more sacred- i want to share something with you
16. do i need the projection? processing image enough?
17. simplify projection idea if using it