Thursday 31 January 2008

I hate video monitors!

Yesterday Doug posed the question to me "am I working with technology because it is an alternative to how I have worked before?"...unfortunately the answer is yes! I don't know what kind of art I was trying to make but have come to my senses and begun to remember what I like and don't like.

I am interested in how people read, in creating different viewing positions to be an springboard for discussion. I like it when an audience don't all see the same thing, when there is room for interpretation - this means that people have to talk to each other to obtain the full picture of the work. My work was never complete until after the act when a discussion / debate was occurring between viewers. Perhaps then a fuller picture is formed.

I really don't like art work (to make it anyway) that forces a viewer to sit back and critique...I'm back to making shows! I like scripts and actors and narratives (no matter how fragmented).

I'm still interested in technology in the sense that I think that it can help me create multiple viewing positions (more so than I can create on my own without it anyway). I think it is interesting how it does or can affect the 'liveness' of what is happening. Technology, or the use of it, can isolate a viewer and perhaps stop them creating the dialogues that I want.

I really like (in the Kantorian sense) forgotten people in forgotten rooms with found objects. I like things to be fleeting and left to memory, as memory plays tricks and is not real. I am interested in traces and ghostings...I think that technology has an interesting impact on these things. The creation of a collective memory and ubiquitous archiving (as in Pierre Levy's writing) stop things being forgotten, or being left to our own memories, however, it doesn't make it any 'truer'. Will this ever create a collective view point in the extreme?

I know this is all a bit of a babble but woke up with it all in my head to had to get it out before it slipped away again.

Oh yeah - I also did my devising yesterday and found out that I hate video monitors so won't be using those! hahaha

If anybody has any thoughts on any of this, questions, or good things to look at please let me know. The more help and debate the better!

5 comments:

Mz. Noodle said...

It's interesting to read this. When we spoke earlier today you said that you were probably taking things in a totally new direction from your research proposal, but I don't agree.

I think you've just gotten clearer and more focussed on what you're interested in within the debate you outlined in the first couple paragraphs of your proposal.

What you've written here in this post makes alot more sense to me than your proposal. But maybe I'm biased because I'm looking at similar stuff. I'm still really interested to see how our work counterpoints each other.

Mz. Noodle said...

oh, and I too hate video monitors. bet you didn't see that coming!

But it's going to manifest itself very differently in my work than it will in yours.

Laura Bean said...

Hey Lena,

Thank you so much for your comments...I do believe that you are the first one to comment on my blog so congratulations!!

It was funny that I just checked my blog. I have been sat here all night researching around the internet and just returned to my research proposal, and funnily enough came up with a similar conclusion to you!

I think that time is perhaps what I was also getting at with the 'liveness' argument. How performance happens in real time and space and is therefore linear, but I think that this can now be disrupted. This would open up performance for me to consider ghostings more thoroughly. Am I going off on tangents?

I'm still having problems knowing whether to focus on viewing positions, how we read, or time in performance! I'm trying to leave technology out of the mix for now and bring it back in to aid me rather than lead my work.

I am taking documentation out of my research for sure - you are totally right, it is the first two paragraphs where my interests are!

Thanks again, keep the comments and feed back coming. I think I need it now more than ever!

Oh yeah - and no did not see you hating monitors too! hehe
X

DOC said...

Can I be put down officially as hating monitors too!! However flat screen lcd are still sexy.

Laura it's good to see a bit of light peaking through the roof. I think i'ts a good solution not to think "technology" now--as I'm a firm believer that ideas should always come first-- which will then dictate what material can express the idea best.

With that said the idea of multiple angles is an interesting concept. It reminds me of the opening of Salman Rushdie's "Midnight Children". The main character Saleem recalls how his grandfather a doctor meets his wife. As she was Muslim -he could only examine her through a 7 inch hole cut in a sheet. Over three years he falls in love with her part by part. It's a nice construct that has always stayed with me

Laura Bean said...

Haha! Yes you can also be put down as officially hating monitors... it's good that we all have taste!

That sounds really interesting I will have to look it up. There is definitely light beginning to come through thank god - I was beginning to panic at the lack of work or enthusiasm to do any!

I've sorted out what I'm interested in and what should just be a natural part of my practice but am still working on it and will blog it all down.

Best of all - I'm excited about working again! Can't be bad :o)