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Ok- so here goes;
1 Aims ( outline the purpose, scope, visions and ambition of your plan of work)
What’s the relationship between photography and performance?
As process, maybe outcome and as documentation? How can the many forms of photography be manipulated in the performance context to add visual interplay, narrative, collage to performative events?
What’s the relationship between traditional and digital photography, when to select what? the collapsing of audience-performer boundaries through perhaps joint participation, social engagement out on the street where both are sharing and creatively engaged towards outcome. Or the auditorium based approach exploring the experience of the process of forming a photographic image as a performative event in a staged darkroom.
Taking my visuals for performance screen based work to a much more interactive and less illustrative level within performance, where photography can become more about subject, performer, action, and less backdrop, decorative object.
Exploring through collaborations what performance can mean to photography and vice versa so neither is an ‘add on’ after thought.- moving away from the idea of vj
Testing the water at this exploratory stage by creating a series of experiments around these themes both individually and in collaboration with others.
Developing greater knowledge and expertise about performance theory and ideas to make more purposeful connections with my photographic and moving image practice.
2 Objectives (The expected objectives leading towards the learning outcomes of the unit)
Carrying out a series of experiments. To look at what’s possible in photo-performance relationships and work with other’s whose practice has perhaps been more live art/theatre based to this point so that project work is mutually beneficial.
1. PHOTOGRAPHY AS PROCESS
a) Developing extracts of Laura Smiths (VLP student) 'Anonymity' previous performance-using footprints created by the audience stepping in paint through process of traditional darkroom based special effect- photo-batik. This may be where the audience steps into moisturising cream and leaves footprints on photographic paper developed as photographic prints in an auditorium as darkroom environment.
Contextual references- Julia Bardsley, Man Ray, ?? others?
b) Exploring Processing using photographic imagery as a device where technology and performer/spectator interact directly. Possibly making work using simple techniques towards the group show in December.
Contextual references- OFF 2006+7, Zach Lieberman, Golan Levin, Theodore Watson (open source software developed for artists), Yahoo Hackday Nigel Crawley, Casey Reas, Ben Fry, (re)actor2- performers
2. PHOTOGRAPHY AS DOCUMENTATION OF EVENT. Review the status of my cameras through developing experiments- action man doll, DSLR, holga, pinhole, camera phone. Explore the idea of surveillance through photography- high and low tech.
a) Exploring pinhole cameras as hidden cameras- e.g. suitcase camera and an invisible performance in an everyday happening. Try this in the old school butchers in Morden Hall road? Or radiators as cameras?? Contextual references-Barabara Ess, Adam Fuss, Stephen Pippin, Justin Quinnell
b) Exploring hidden camera in camcorder headset linked to portable multi media player, and camera phone- looking like texting for example. Try this in Laura’s Tube performance. Look at online performance possibilities. Contextual references- Surveillance manuals, Merry Alpern, ?? others?
c) Photography within Participation project- how do others behave and react to cameras, process of making work as the work itself, removal of author, collapsing of audience-performer boundaries, democratising performance? How can the work be created Contextual refs- Marysa Dowling, French and Mottershead, Spencer Tunik, Ann-Marie Lequesne, Gillian Wearing??
3. Read and gain more knowledge about theory of performance work, go to shows exploring site-specific / technological approaches- Masque of Red Death, Water, A Disappearing Number, Matthew Barney.
Books- e.g. Camera Lucida by Barthes, Ways of seeing, Berger, Participation by Whitechapel Gallery, Processing A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists book, Casey Reas, Ben Fry. Responsive Environments: Architecture, Art and Design (V&A Contemporaries) by Lucy Bullivant.
3 The Plan of Work describing the principal stages and timescale of the work
1. PHOTOGRAPHY AS PROCESS
a) Devise series of workshops sharing photo-batik process with Laura, trying out processes over period 22-10-07 to 9-11-07. Testing ideas on member of the VLP group, using the Observatory space?
b) Read and begin to learn processing language and devices- review Michel Gondry piece, Drawing piece, make contact with Zach/Theodore? How can the ideas in processing develop more theatre based performative practice? Maybe test out existing pieces? Find others working in similar practice if possible in London- contact Nigel Crawley again? Over period until Xmas.
2. PHOTOGRAPHY AS DOCUMENTATION OF EVENT
a) Making objects into cameras-devising performances in relation to the nature of the object over period 22-10-07 to 16-11-07.
b Co-ordinate with Laura and others over this. Monday or Tuesdays?
c) Every Thursday til Xmas
3. Read in relation to supporting performances explored.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Friday, 2 November 2007
Contextual reference- about Plan B performances
Taken entirely from this site; artists that work with toys, cameras, stories- something to come back to. i have highlighted bits of immediate interest.
Some things we have been thinking about lately…
questions we ask ourselves
Q: What is plan b?
A: Plan b can stand for Balham, Brighton, Bristol, and now Berlin and it can stand for all those who want to start again try another way.
We often talk of things not being ‘the Plan b way' we use this to make the other feel bad if they are mean, unkind, thoughtless, cruel, bitchy. I thought about an unwritten manifesto once in bed it went a bit like...
Plan b will not shout in performances, they will endeavour to make you comfortable, they will have open hearts and be honest at all times, Plan b is about you and me - you are free to come and go as you please.
And now if Plan b were to be visible it would just be traces of places that have affected us or stopped us in our tracks - obsessions with clouds, writing in sand, scary fish, airports, shop displays, a winter wonderland and a ghostly house.
I would like to say that Plan b could also stand for ‘being here’ (in a kind of dreadfully punning way, but seriously). What is it to really be in the moment, at this very location? Sitting in our studio, side by side, while I type this and Soph types some other notes for a proposal… The very things that are purposefully edited out of touring theatre work so that it can go anywhere, pretending that the black walls of studio theatres are all the same. Our work strives to respond to where we are now. That’s why we spend our summers sweating inside a building making 1:100 scale models of the art institution we were in. In that piece Me the City we wanted to shrink the world around us in order to try and understand it and examine it. Research and stories that sprung from that place were then projected large again alongside our live manipulation of the model and miniatures – a world that from the digital images stuck on model buildings was nearly believable. From our 3 camera angles we tried to create a film that used the low tech aesthetic to make what we hoped would be urban voodoo: by playing on our carpet with our model could we in fact make it snow outside? Could we entice strangers to meet and kiss outside the registry office?
Q: And as a ‘duo’ who inevitably work with dialogue why do we say that we work with ‘Spontaneous text’ instead of Improvised text?
A: Because Improvisation has all the wrong connotations and nuances from a completely different world, we’re artists, for god sake and these things are important to us. Improvisation is a tool actor’s use and it stays as a workshop technique within the framework of narrative theatre tradition. Spontaneous text as we mean it is something quite different – it usually involves the very careful defining of context and concept way before a word is spoken. It hates rehearsal and repetition. It is the utterances of people trying to be in the moment and in the context and here and now with as much of themselves as they can manage. It tries to answer the hardest question an audience member can ask of contemporary performance practice – why have you asked us here?
But to answer this question straight away is also a mistake and perhaps the mistake of dogmatic, narrative theatre making.
The art, as it were, is not to answer the question right away but to stay with the uncomfortable-ness and impossibility of the question because that is where the interesting territories are to be found.
Spontaneous text is a way of challenging The Text or previously constructed/crafted dramaturgy - rather one that responds to a 'nowness' of performing.
Q: How do you set up situations for Spontaneous Text?
A: we began with How do you keep on talking even though you have said everything you thought possible? In that piece we became the Girl and Clown from the infamous television test card F, which began in 1967 and has been shown more than any other program over 70,000 hours. We wanted to use this iconic, nostalgic and with the increase of viewing hours increasingly rare image as a way to talk about people stuck together. It was at times Kafkaesque and Beckettian and other times funny, banal, ridiculous and sad. We asked each other questions like; what is fluff? Do you think we are no longer needed? Are you real? What else could we do for a job? Do you think anyone is watching? And were interrupted by the muzak of test cards reminding us to retake our original position of being in an eternal game of nougats and crosses.
In a way Bed full of songs was also a spontaneous text but of song. In bed we set ourselves the task of singing all the songs we could remember and writing them down on a duvet till it was full. In both these pieces the audience were made comfortable as if in a domestic space with carpet, cushions, inflatable chairs – anything that would be a contrast to the hardness of a theatre seat, which required you to stay. As they were both long pieces, between 4 – 5 hours, the audience was free to come and go as they pleased.
As a task The Last Hour wanted to limit this endless time experienced in these works and put pressure on our ‘spontaneous text’. We were to say to each other truthfully what we would want to say to each other in the last hour – our confessions, affirmations and anger timed by a chess clock. As the statement was finished the other was forced to respond or move on, really listening was imperative and inescapable. Dressed as if this were a conference and directing the text to the audience and the listeners who were receiving the piece live on radio it was an intense experience for all. The end of the hour was not a clear state; was it the end of us, of the world or just the performance?
Q: What is the difference between the spontaneous text pieces and the more set pieces such as Me the City or your recent work in progress Wonderworld?
The more set pieces have always had a desire to continue the spontaneous text yet in making the works they have necessitated a framework, which gets nearer a ‘show’. Therefore a structure is put in place and a rough outline is made but no lines are learnt and an openness is still required. Because both pieces are about trying to condense experiences in the world; one is the scale of buildings such as in Me the City and in Wonderworld it was about trying to condense a 133 km journey. On our tandem we set off for a castle where we had a residency and made the journey to the venue the focal point. The arduous task of working together on this joint venture of physical stamina and co-operation made the end point, our destination, foremost in our minds. It quietened us. Yet we thought a lot about human power, inventors, efficiency, and coupledom. We were public and were we choose to position ourselves (front or back) played a large part in how we were viewed as in charge or not – yet our unusual tandem with brakes and gears at the back meant a finer more sophisticated set of negotiations had to be made. The performance took seven stages of this journey as opportunities to represent these experiences in different ways. Added by Kraftwerk’s Tour de France and R. Kelly’s I Believe I can fly we peddled our way through journeys that we take daily, make especially and the one that will end: life.
Some things we have been thinking about lately…
questions we ask ourselves
Q: What is plan b?
A: Plan b can stand for Balham, Brighton, Bristol, and now Berlin and it can stand for all those who want to start again try another way.
We often talk of things not being ‘the Plan b way' we use this to make the other feel bad if they are mean, unkind, thoughtless, cruel, bitchy. I thought about an unwritten manifesto once in bed it went a bit like...
Plan b will not shout in performances, they will endeavour to make you comfortable, they will have open hearts and be honest at all times, Plan b is about you and me - you are free to come and go as you please.
And now if Plan b were to be visible it would just be traces of places that have affected us or stopped us in our tracks - obsessions with clouds, writing in sand, scary fish, airports, shop displays, a winter wonderland and a ghostly house.
I would like to say that Plan b could also stand for ‘being here’ (in a kind of dreadfully punning way, but seriously). What is it to really be in the moment, at this very location? Sitting in our studio, side by side, while I type this and Soph types some other notes for a proposal… The very things that are purposefully edited out of touring theatre work so that it can go anywhere, pretending that the black walls of studio theatres are all the same. Our work strives to respond to where we are now. That’s why we spend our summers sweating inside a building making 1:100 scale models of the art institution we were in. In that piece Me the City we wanted to shrink the world around us in order to try and understand it and examine it. Research and stories that sprung from that place were then projected large again alongside our live manipulation of the model and miniatures – a world that from the digital images stuck on model buildings was nearly believable. From our 3 camera angles we tried to create a film that used the low tech aesthetic to make what we hoped would be urban voodoo: by playing on our carpet with our model could we in fact make it snow outside? Could we entice strangers to meet and kiss outside the registry office?
Q: And as a ‘duo’ who inevitably work with dialogue why do we say that we work with ‘Spontaneous text’ instead of Improvised text?
A: Because Improvisation has all the wrong connotations and nuances from a completely different world, we’re artists, for god sake and these things are important to us. Improvisation is a tool actor’s use and it stays as a workshop technique within the framework of narrative theatre tradition. Spontaneous text as we mean it is something quite different – it usually involves the very careful defining of context and concept way before a word is spoken. It hates rehearsal and repetition. It is the utterances of people trying to be in the moment and in the context and here and now with as much of themselves as they can manage. It tries to answer the hardest question an audience member can ask of contemporary performance practice – why have you asked us here?
But to answer this question straight away is also a mistake and perhaps the mistake of dogmatic, narrative theatre making.
The art, as it were, is not to answer the question right away but to stay with the uncomfortable-ness and impossibility of the question because that is where the interesting territories are to be found.
Spontaneous text is a way of challenging The Text or previously constructed/crafted dramaturgy - rather one that responds to a 'nowness' of performing.
Q: How do you set up situations for Spontaneous Text?
A: we began with How do you keep on talking even though you have said everything you thought possible? In that piece we became the Girl and Clown from the infamous television test card F, which began in 1967 and has been shown more than any other program over 70,000 hours. We wanted to use this iconic, nostalgic and with the increase of viewing hours increasingly rare image as a way to talk about people stuck together. It was at times Kafkaesque and Beckettian and other times funny, banal, ridiculous and sad. We asked each other questions like; what is fluff? Do you think we are no longer needed? Are you real? What else could we do for a job? Do you think anyone is watching? And were interrupted by the muzak of test cards reminding us to retake our original position of being in an eternal game of nougats and crosses.
In a way Bed full of songs was also a spontaneous text but of song. In bed we set ourselves the task of singing all the songs we could remember and writing them down on a duvet till it was full. In both these pieces the audience were made comfortable as if in a domestic space with carpet, cushions, inflatable chairs – anything that would be a contrast to the hardness of a theatre seat, which required you to stay. As they were both long pieces, between 4 – 5 hours, the audience was free to come and go as they pleased.
As a task The Last Hour wanted to limit this endless time experienced in these works and put pressure on our ‘spontaneous text’. We were to say to each other truthfully what we would want to say to each other in the last hour – our confessions, affirmations and anger timed by a chess clock. As the statement was finished the other was forced to respond or move on, really listening was imperative and inescapable. Dressed as if this were a conference and directing the text to the audience and the listeners who were receiving the piece live on radio it was an intense experience for all. The end of the hour was not a clear state; was it the end of us, of the world or just the performance?
Q: What is the difference between the spontaneous text pieces and the more set pieces such as Me the City or your recent work in progress Wonderworld?
The more set pieces have always had a desire to continue the spontaneous text yet in making the works they have necessitated a framework, which gets nearer a ‘show’. Therefore a structure is put in place and a rough outline is made but no lines are learnt and an openness is still required. Because both pieces are about trying to condense experiences in the world; one is the scale of buildings such as in Me the City and in Wonderworld it was about trying to condense a 133 km journey. On our tandem we set off for a castle where we had a residency and made the journey to the venue the focal point. The arduous task of working together on this joint venture of physical stamina and co-operation made the end point, our destination, foremost in our minds. It quietened us. Yet we thought a lot about human power, inventors, efficiency, and coupledom. We were public and were we choose to position ourselves (front or back) played a large part in how we were viewed as in charge or not – yet our unusual tandem with brakes and gears at the back meant a finer more sophisticated set of negotiations had to be made. The performance took seven stages of this journey as opportunities to represent these experiences in different ways. Added by Kraftwerk’s Tour de France and R. Kelly’s I Believe I can fly we peddled our way through journeys that we take daily, make especially and the one that will end: life.
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
telling stories, exploring a sense of bewilderment.....
ok, so a few notes, to come back to, from tutorial today;
need a sense of clarity in learning agreement and vision for my practice this term. need to get on with trialing ideas, making stuff. define through a theme? drawing into the pinhole/hidden camera
i enjoy telling stories, sharing stories through objects, especially recounting the tale of my invisible performance piece, recounting the experience and then showing the little visual pop up of me in the changing rooms. make me think about whats the give me a new look experience of my work? the event- the shop assistants who thought i was a little bit sad or crazy/ the recounting it/ the pop up/ the projection....etc
drew links to the hyperactive world of lee evans...maybe thriving on the sense of chaos and urgency in me, presenting a series of surprises, shocks, absurd maybe in action man as a camera, pinhole toys....
developing scenarios- maybe looking back at julia bardsley, cindy sherman.
using participation engagement of toy camera in taking 'serious' photos eg at wedding, news worthy event
considering how people behave differently when they see suddenly see a camera- and how differently this is from unthreatening toy camera/disposable (amateur, feel sorry for you can't you afford a digital?) to a DSLR (professional, serious, means business, photo-journalism connotations) at what point do you reveal the camera if at first hidden? do you reveal the camera or juts its images? how public/ integrated is the camera and the process itself in an event? who control the camera- me/participant? how does the camera link to story telling?
anyway...to be continued....
the paper cinema i missed at masque of the red death!!
ok, so laura said these guys were her favourite bit of the whole masque of the red death punchdrunk show at BAC, neither myself of lena on our separate visits went into this room...damn!! the issues of such a large scale promenade piece allowing people to meander off on their own, no one has the same experiences but the telling of stories of different encounters brings to life a performance that lives beyond the event itself....they describe their paper puppet screen based practice on their website;
'What happens at the accidental meeting of
inkblots, photocopies, cardboard, angle-poise lamps,
the occasional table, video technology, a laptop and
a banana box?
A cast of hand-drawn marionettes are
magically brought to life by the Paper Cinema.'
Love to see them! sound a more illustrative approach to no-domain, maybe more like my playful feline friends gal and carim from band psapp??
Through googling around, found that paper cinema have a gig!
Don't you wonder sometimes @ The Luminaire
feat. Perico and the Paper Cinema + Lautrec + DJ TooLoose
307 - 311 Kilburn High Road
London NW6 7JR
8pm - 12am £5
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
water at the lyric theatre, hammersmith
hmmm, a fantastic show, seemed a simpler, less layered version of the complicite a disappearing number? it opens with a lecture, use of hotel rooms, OHP, dual narratives, lost child...for starters. it was good that with all the quirky low fi sound effects performed on stage with a mic (eg water dripping through roof into saucepan) that they didn't go for a full visual multi-media effect on top of this- allowed the experience to breathe more on stage (am i writing this, who as my music-collaborator friend kerry once blogged,any tiny excuse and harrys there projecting visuals- i even did this for her wedding speech at wedfest on a farm this year) on this occasion it would have killed it, less is more. i liked the small screen based visual link up with using skype live on stage. my favourite bit was the ending- simulation of being under the sea- with kiddie helium balloons of fish floating around and a huge shower type curtain as a stage curtain, figures on stage in their own worlds locked there.gave me lots of ideas about visibly showing the process of creating sounds- using voices and mics/ props/ loop pedals/ visuals-OHP on stage/skype and macbooks. nothing seemed to be pre recorded- but i may be wrong.
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