Term has ended and wanted to take the chance to do a quick update as to what I'm thinking and where I'm at.
The last couple of weeks before the end of term were hectic, but really great as I now feel set to organise myself over the break and hit the ground running next term... with more practical work and not so many notes!
Starting with David Gale's workshops; it was fantastic to do some practical work, no matter how quickly put together. I realised that I had had enough of talking and thinking about my practice and am set on getting it off the ground ( about bloody time I hear my tutor and class cry!).
With this notion in mind I set out on my practical workshop with my class. As I am investigating Liveness in Performance I have decided that I want to start working with projections of myself. Taking inspiration from Caroline Smith's Spank I want to investigate what happens when I converse with myself in the form of projections. What is this doing to time and space in performance? What is this doing to the live body on stage? Is the live aspect highlighted and made more explicit due to the fact my own mediated body is next to me creating a dialogue between me and myself? The latter question is really where my focus is at the moment.
The workshop that I did with my class was fantastic as I not only learnt how to use and technology needed to achieve what I wanted, but saw and felt what it was like to have a dialogue with a projection of myself... which I have to say was strange. I am used to working with live actors and being able to bounce off each other - no such luck with a pre-recorded projection! I realised that the practicalities and techniques needed in order to make this a great show will be tough, but looking forward to learning them.
So what now? Keep on the practical front! During the break Harriet will be helping me to redo one of my previous pieces of work that was a collaboration with Lucy Taylor. In the previous work there were two of us on stage swapping identities. I am now going to see what happens when I play both of the parts, one live and one as a pre-recorded projection. As it was a collaborative work I have no intention of using it publically, however, will post it on the blog so you can all help me to unpick some of the issues that I am thinking about.
Oh yeah - and I don't know whether any of you have guessed, but working with different projections of myself has brought back my love in identity politics! Whoop!
2 comments:
hey lady
so good to see you in this virtual world of your blog again having been colluding with you on my blog recently lets collude on here too!
you have raised an interesting point about how we research that suits us best- i have moleskins which are full of notes i carry round which end up being in part translated to my blog to organise them better as the most important areas of interest to me and to share with others for their ideas; your endless folders suits you (but does not suit me as a means of research)and now seeing your recent key thoughts on here is great (and talking too!)- am also glad to see you are also getting PRACTICAL and cool to explore this with you. my problem has always been the THEORY! but i'm getting there..bit by bit.. looking forward to trying out your old work next week. exploring site of projection in relation to real body, scale, surface, sound levels,how real and mediated self interact verbally and/or non-verbally etc could be fun.
i think the david gale practical part was really useful for me too- your work raised a useful point about relationship between sound and action, and subversive use of the beauty of a carefully presented bouquet of flowers being destroyed methodically and the sadness in this action. although i initially didnt think a 'workshop on repetition' was going to be useful, i have found the stories workshop i ran for half hour to be very useful, probably more so than the one the next day- probably cos we concentrated on the image and the paraphenalia of gadgetry didnt take over our attention.
i think that last couple of weeks have been useful for us all although packed in meant it was impossible to get digestion time which i am now trying to sift though everything and process.
i think it would be useful to talk to caroline about her live and mediated self,particularly as her background is in media.
your workshop was brilliant with us all so you could experience how it felt to work with live and mediated self and see others reacting as well, siting self in different places. i find it bloody hard writing stuff (i didn't finish my script and the bits i did write didnt flow as a dialogue properly) so exercise in this could be very useful as i always think visually and need to think text too.
xx
Hey,
Thanks for your comments, discussions and debate are always important and lots of fun... esp if I get drunk and irrational! haha
College has been a shock as I have found that my process of working didn't fit in too well to the college ethos at first. I may have folders upon folders of hard work at home but if I don't materialise it practically, and nobody wants to sift through my notes lets face it, it looks like I'm not working.
I have begun to realise that I need to blog on here as proof that I am not a lazy bum! lol! and to be able to get feed back from people on what I am doing.
Think you're right about Caroline, esp since I am using her work as inspiration it would be great to have a natter with her. We'll have to sort that out soon.
I have been thinking a lot about projections in terms of time, space and body. They are beginning to fascinate me. I am still stuck on content but will blog about it al in the next day or two.
I'm glad that you enjoyed the workshop, it was really helpful to me. Text is tough and I find it really hard... I find that I am embarrassed by most of what I write!
xx
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