http://kck.st/cOuSjZ
oh look, it's my idea but better... er...
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
the desperate velobici
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgreen/5108490260/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgreen/5087471320/in/faves-53917370@N08/
les velobici at the festival of desperation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgreen/5087471320/in/faves-53917370@N08/
les velobici at the festival of desperation
paul green photography
http://www.paulgreenphotography.com/
lovely colours!!!! he must be really observant to spot the opportunities. I think i like abstract photography. I'd use him if i needed character shots i think. It's hard to get the balance between glossy and too clean. dont' want to stray into the territory of desktop backgrounds.
lovely colours!!!! he must be really observant to spot the opportunities. I think i like abstract photography. I'd use him if i needed character shots i think. It's hard to get the balance between glossy and too clean. dont' want to stray into the territory of desktop backgrounds.
male instrumenty, russian pole, crochet etc
so much.
It's taking a while to take the tandemonium apart and tidy up, been up there several times and makeing progress. I have to be sensibly ruthless about binning stuff. then i need to get the rest down to the cellar.
the crochet jacket is also taking a while, gonna do a bit more on it tonight. in some ways i don't want to finish it, i'd like to be at the gallery now, crocheting as 'performative art'. why tho? Because i know it facinates people. Because people aren't usually invited to watch. coz it takes so long and it's very linked to time (four fold time)... because i'd like to play the punk music in the gallery at the same time for the contradiction of crochet and punk... it's in west wales though, they may not appreciate it. so, if the car's fixed i might head down there tomorrow.
managed two turns on the slack rope - one a bit of a fluke, the second much more controlled. also have taken a few short videos while slack roping - from the palm, not 'of me'. interesting shots, you wouldn't really be able to fake it, it;s a bit like when someone has accidentally phoned you from their pocket. took a few in the park, a few down 'the island' and a few in the pro-cathedral. there's a spot near stapleton road station that looks good. four locations should be enough. I also want to strap the camera to my sternum, see how that affects the shot and maybe my ankle. chop it all up, put it to music. but which music? and black and white or color? Better maybe to view this as a practice - i'd rather do a more controlled thing in grainy sepia and do somethink in super8 in colour.
I think it'd be good if I made all the music for one version - junk instruments, the saw, the flute (the fiddle?), singing etc could even use the feral choir. Also there's the gramaphone songs. Also there's clogs. also there's Male Instrumenty.
Male Instrumenty - saw them at the arnolfini and oh my god i loved them. such a fantastic sound. it's funny how if you have an idea and then look around, then you'll find people doing the same. I wanted to be a one woman band using kids toy instruments as a big reaction to being a mum and thus unable to attend rehearsals/otherwise make work with other people. This was blended with the automata on bikes idea, no longer sure in which order. The double bill at the arnolfini was musicians with kids instruments and someone making automata music. the only thing missing is the bikes! They were fab tho, absolutely amazing. wow. such diverse musicians, tight as anything,, all using lots of different instruments. a gorgeous slightly out of tune sound, all clashing and with unusual tones. I found it really easy to listen to and enjoy, lots of different moods within the set. just amazing. the automata was fantastic and interesting and different but a bit dull. easily the most exciting thing i've seen this week, or even in ages. so glad i went and that they let me take my son in!
http://smallinstruments.com/media.php
And the visit to the arnolfini. well i was expecting more really, i suppose i didn't realise it was only 1 hour. and for an hour it was good. I guess it had to be broad as it was for students who although on a creative degree course, might not actually think the arnolfini's relevant to them. But surely for fine art students there should be a longer more indepth tour? I don't feel like i know any more about it now than i did through being an engaged individual and that's not the educational facilitators (or whatever Nic's job title is) fault. In an hour you can't really find much out about anything, an hour wasn't even enough time to experience the exhibits. I found some things interesting, i liked the copper tape/noise installation, reminded me of the graphite/noise project that was described to me recently. I 'liked' the expanding lungs or found them facinating and was saddened by the photos of the strikes, also thought about the role of arts to explore and disseminate 'messages'. Coal's a subject i'm concerned with but i'd not heard about the particular rescourse being mined in Nigera (?). I heard about it first in the arnolfini. I would have cared had i come accross it elsewhere, will it stick in my mind more for the artistic interpretation? Probably. It may even have linked it more to myself and my phone and my secondhand guilt. I enjoyed the computer generated love letters but as a general rule, i'm not a technology lover and don't enjoy gadget heavy exhibits. a little dissapointed to hear that the arnolfini likes programming that sort of thing. I liked the concept of the digital dance peice but frankly it was dull to watch and that matters. it just looked like a screen saver. The maps were interesting, i could have spent longer in there. there was such a lot of info collated! amazing/disgusting. I returned to the reading room after the group had left. I looked through a history of performance art, good to have done so. Still not sure what the reading rooms function is, maybe it's just to distract the research assisstants...
Also today we tried to tie my slack rope between two bikes but that didn't work as it required to much strength to hold the bikes apart. So then we got a scaffold tower bar and hooked that between two bikes and that was great! Not entirely successful but you wouldn't expect it to be, first time. It seemed more successful cycling in circles, we all were differently successful with the bar - i stood still, sylvie walked forwards, Lois walked sideways. Cycling straight ahead didnt work so well as if you fell you had to try'n catch up and you run out of room. silly silly. what a nice contrast to thinking about what makes 'art'. I wish i didn't drift into 'serious' territory, being a popular entertainer sounds much easyer or at least less pretentious but it's just how my mind works.
I painted the town as part of my specialist path way this week. orange paint all over the roads. comes off as soon as a car goes over it. need it to be much stronger for it to be effective. but not so strong that it causes trouble. Next time I'm in i'll have to do it stronger still.I wonder how it'll be when it's dry outside. I'm glad my mum got to see the silly stuff i get up to. Loved the drawing to film as well, especially the dance. I might take that idea out into the world. I like the strength of my non-representational (is that an accurate description?) drawings, it's hard to break away from 'seeing' but i do love it when i do.
I am getting really, really hacked off with the library being shut everytime I try to use it - like at lunch time. surely they could have their lunch at a different time to the students so we can actually use it as a resource instead of just seeing a locked door time and time again. So i saw some Lousie Bourgeois obituaries, one in selvedge or some other fabric based journal and one in art news or something. I might compare them. they at least are of the same event... i find i want to read many of the articles but that they don't relate to the others.
It's taking a while to take the tandemonium apart and tidy up, been up there several times and makeing progress. I have to be sensibly ruthless about binning stuff. then i need to get the rest down to the cellar.
the crochet jacket is also taking a while, gonna do a bit more on it tonight. in some ways i don't want to finish it, i'd like to be at the gallery now, crocheting as 'performative art'. why tho? Because i know it facinates people. Because people aren't usually invited to watch. coz it takes so long and it's very linked to time (four fold time)... because i'd like to play the punk music in the gallery at the same time for the contradiction of crochet and punk... it's in west wales though, they may not appreciate it. so, if the car's fixed i might head down there tomorrow.
managed two turns on the slack rope - one a bit of a fluke, the second much more controlled. also have taken a few short videos while slack roping - from the palm, not 'of me'. interesting shots, you wouldn't really be able to fake it, it;s a bit like when someone has accidentally phoned you from their pocket. took a few in the park, a few down 'the island' and a few in the pro-cathedral. there's a spot near stapleton road station that looks good. four locations should be enough. I also want to strap the camera to my sternum, see how that affects the shot and maybe my ankle. chop it all up, put it to music. but which music? and black and white or color? Better maybe to view this as a practice - i'd rather do a more controlled thing in grainy sepia and do somethink in super8 in colour.
I think it'd be good if I made all the music for one version - junk instruments, the saw, the flute (the fiddle?), singing etc could even use the feral choir. Also there's the gramaphone songs. Also there's clogs. also there's Male Instrumenty.
Male Instrumenty - saw them at the arnolfini and oh my god i loved them. such a fantastic sound. it's funny how if you have an idea and then look around, then you'll find people doing the same. I wanted to be a one woman band using kids toy instruments as a big reaction to being a mum and thus unable to attend rehearsals/otherwise make work with other people. This was blended with the automata on bikes idea, no longer sure in which order. The double bill at the arnolfini was musicians with kids instruments and someone making automata music. the only thing missing is the bikes! They were fab tho, absolutely amazing. wow. such diverse musicians, tight as anything,, all using lots of different instruments. a gorgeous slightly out of tune sound, all clashing and with unusual tones. I found it really easy to listen to and enjoy, lots of different moods within the set. just amazing. the automata was fantastic and interesting and different but a bit dull. easily the most exciting thing i've seen this week, or even in ages. so glad i went and that they let me take my son in!
http://smallinstruments.com/media.php
And the visit to the arnolfini. well i was expecting more really, i suppose i didn't realise it was only 1 hour. and for an hour it was good. I guess it had to be broad as it was for students who although on a creative degree course, might not actually think the arnolfini's relevant to them. But surely for fine art students there should be a longer more indepth tour? I don't feel like i know any more about it now than i did through being an engaged individual and that's not the educational facilitators (or whatever Nic's job title is) fault. In an hour you can't really find much out about anything, an hour wasn't even enough time to experience the exhibits. I found some things interesting, i liked the copper tape/noise installation, reminded me of the graphite/noise project that was described to me recently. I 'liked' the expanding lungs or found them facinating and was saddened by the photos of the strikes, also thought about the role of arts to explore and disseminate 'messages'. Coal's a subject i'm concerned with but i'd not heard about the particular rescourse being mined in Nigera (?). I heard about it first in the arnolfini. I would have cared had i come accross it elsewhere, will it stick in my mind more for the artistic interpretation? Probably. It may even have linked it more to myself and my phone and my secondhand guilt. I enjoyed the computer generated love letters but as a general rule, i'm not a technology lover and don't enjoy gadget heavy exhibits. a little dissapointed to hear that the arnolfini likes programming that sort of thing. I liked the concept of the digital dance peice but frankly it was dull to watch and that matters. it just looked like a screen saver. The maps were interesting, i could have spent longer in there. there was such a lot of info collated! amazing/disgusting. I returned to the reading room after the group had left. I looked through a history of performance art, good to have done so. Still not sure what the reading rooms function is, maybe it's just to distract the research assisstants...
Also today we tried to tie my slack rope between two bikes but that didn't work as it required to much strength to hold the bikes apart. So then we got a scaffold tower bar and hooked that between two bikes and that was great! Not entirely successful but you wouldn't expect it to be, first time. It seemed more successful cycling in circles, we all were differently successful with the bar - i stood still, sylvie walked forwards, Lois walked sideways. Cycling straight ahead didnt work so well as if you fell you had to try'n catch up and you run out of room. silly silly. what a nice contrast to thinking about what makes 'art'. I wish i didn't drift into 'serious' territory, being a popular entertainer sounds much easyer or at least less pretentious but it's just how my mind works.
I painted the town as part of my specialist path way this week. orange paint all over the roads. comes off as soon as a car goes over it. need it to be much stronger for it to be effective. but not so strong that it causes trouble. Next time I'm in i'll have to do it stronger still.I wonder how it'll be when it's dry outside. I'm glad my mum got to see the silly stuff i get up to. Loved the drawing to film as well, especially the dance. I might take that idea out into the world. I like the strength of my non-representational (is that an accurate description?) drawings, it's hard to break away from 'seeing' but i do love it when i do.
I am getting really, really hacked off with the library being shut everytime I try to use it - like at lunch time. surely they could have their lunch at a different time to the students so we can actually use it as a resource instead of just seeing a locked door time and time again. So i saw some Lousie Bourgeois obituaries, one in selvedge or some other fabric based journal and one in art news or something. I might compare them. they at least are of the same event... i find i want to read many of the articles but that they don't relate to the others.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
24 hours of creativity spotting.
Creative practitioners.
They are everywhere. From the table I sit at to the road outside my house. From the style of the plant beds outside to the seats on the train, from the carpet to my hair cut. The sound of my phone alerting me to a message or call, they were chosen by someone, even my accent shows choices made over generations. Every choice made shows thought processes, be it communication, ergonomics or aesthetics.
Only that which is untouched by human is free from our artistic choices and in Britain you could argue that there is nothing which hasn't been influenced in some way. Our landscapes are all human made, maybe the remotest areas of wales or scotland have less but even the wilds of wales, which to an untrained eye may look 'natural', they have had years of bracken and gorse being burnt or walls built or sheep grazing. It's all shaped our landscape. Even the plants which we have allowed to grow, or which we have imported for their looks and let loose(e.g. japanese knotweed, famously invasive), even these show our influence. We grow plants which suit our sense of aesthetics, we breed vegetable varieties until they suit supermarket marketing.
You ask me for 24 hours of spotting evidence of creative practitioners at work. I look around me and even the weeds have been chosen.
They are everywhere. From the table I sit at to the road outside my house. From the style of the plant beds outside to the seats on the train, from the carpet to my hair cut. The sound of my phone alerting me to a message or call, they were chosen by someone, even my accent shows choices made over generations. Every choice made shows thought processes, be it communication, ergonomics or aesthetics.
Only that which is untouched by human is free from our artistic choices and in Britain you could argue that there is nothing which hasn't been influenced in some way. Our landscapes are all human made, maybe the remotest areas of wales or scotland have less but even the wilds of wales, which to an untrained eye may look 'natural', they have had years of bracken and gorse being burnt or walls built or sheep grazing. It's all shaped our landscape. Even the plants which we have allowed to grow, or which we have imported for their looks and let loose(e.g. japanese knotweed, famously invasive), even these show our influence. We grow plants which suit our sense of aesthetics, we breed vegetable varieties until they suit supermarket marketing.
You ask me for 24 hours of spotting evidence of creative practitioners at work. I look around me and even the weeds have been chosen.
Dance Space review
dance space weekend performance programme
sat 16th october 2010
Down a back alley on the less expensive side of the city centre is The Island. Managed by Artspace Lifespace, this disused police station and fire station is becoming a haven for the arts. There is a large venue there, home to The Invisible Circus, and the Boneyard Bar which hosts a variety of entertainment throughtout the week plus their famous extravaganzas such as Carny Ville. There are several floors of art studios plus a gallery, home to much of the most energised artistic talent in Bristol today. There are circus training spaces with rigging for aerial work, points for ground to air diciplines and mats for everything else. The latest addition to this creative family is a dedicated dance space. The Dance Space boasts a separate entrance to the building, avoiding the maze like interior of the police station and making it more accessible for evening classes and performances.
The Dance Space launched this weekend with two full days of workshops and an evening performance on saturday night. The workshops - improvisation, contemporary dance, dance for camera and tango - were held in a blank room approximately 12 meters by 12 meters, there is no decoration to the room and the only fixed features are rigging points for aerial work. It is workably shabby, not so glossy that you’re afraid to touch the walls and yet not in an uncomfortable state of dis-repair. The building, disused until Artspace Lifespace took it over, is leased for another 2 years - maybe more and has room for improvement - heating would be a bonus for example. Heaters were brought in for the workshops and they heated the space perfectly well but it woudn’t be sustainable long term. This is a space to work in, to train in, not to pose and ‘patronise the arts’. The weekend launch had the exciteable air of dance enthusiasts getting together to discuss the thing they love best. Dance for practitioners, a friendly cognocenti.
The programme for the evening event was delightfully put together, showing remarkably different pieces of both live dance and dance for camera. Tarn Scully showed an aerial dance piece, rarely seen outside the US, aerial dance blurs the lines between ground based work and aerial diciplines normally seen in circus. Seeking to link the ground with the air, Tarn throws herself repeatedly at a seemingly unassailable opponent, the chinese pole. Breath is audible as the floor supports her between meetings. There’s no doubt that aerial dance is a dicipline which is in a state of rapid growth.
Julia Thorneycroft’s choreography is crisp and classic formal contemporary dance. Her trio were simply clad in black and moved as one body. The signature of this piece, Surface, was a repeated return to forward bend jumps. I love contemporary dance and I found this excellent but so are most pieces of formal contemporary dance, there were no suprises here.
Rewiring is a remarkably assured debut from a first year dance student. Industrial and dark it combined small, precise intense movements with larger robotic movements but taken away from the dance floor and given a new context this piece was poetic and very focused.
A playful attitude is something that is often lacking in serious art but it can be accessed to great effect in improvisation. Noel Perkins, an established Cornwall based practitioner, and Kathleen Downie, one of Bristol’s foremost improvisation facilitators gave us a piece which unlocked joyful emotions hard to recreate through choreography. They moved fluidly through emotions, knowingly mocking themselves and embracing ridiculous and dark elements. One had the sense that they would be happy to break dance conventions although the closest they came was to break out onto the walls.
The performances spread across the geanres, across age ranges and from amateur to professional. The local tango class was a break from the contemporary and it was strangely shocking to see people wearing colour (!) and shoes (!) in a space which was gaining that reverential atmosphere so associated with ‘serious art’. It shook me away from any false notion that dance is the preserve of the young, the monied or the artist. It reminded me that dance is one of the most enjoyable and accessible activities, enjoyed by people of almost all ages, cultures, classes and physical abilites, long may it remain so.
Live dance:
Glimmer
Tarn Scully: aeriel dance www.tanyascully.com
surface
movement collective
dancers: adele proctor, hayley adams, laura street, murilo leite d’imperio & roxane zara
choreographed by julia thorneycroft
rewiring
solo by madii shann
footpring
julia thorneycroft trio
dancers: Murilo Leite D’Impurio, Isabel Cressey, Clare Billington
I really must stop falling from trees
Improvisation - a spontaneous discovery. Dancers: Noel Perkins, Kathleen Downie & Itta
Dance for Camera:
La La
Jessie Percival in association with Welsh Independant Dance
Insomnia
Isabel Rocamora and Jo Cammack, www.isabel rocamora.org 4 Dance, 2005. Commissioned by Arts Council England and Channel 4
Stronger
Champloo (excerpt from White Caps)
The Visitor
Brenda Wait & Kyra Norman (made for Ponderosa Tanzland Festival)
sat 16th october 2010
Down a back alley on the less expensive side of the city centre is The Island. Managed by Artspace Lifespace, this disused police station and fire station is becoming a haven for the arts. There is a large venue there, home to The Invisible Circus, and the Boneyard Bar which hosts a variety of entertainment throughtout the week plus their famous extravaganzas such as Carny Ville. There are several floors of art studios plus a gallery, home to much of the most energised artistic talent in Bristol today. There are circus training spaces with rigging for aerial work, points for ground to air diciplines and mats for everything else. The latest addition to this creative family is a dedicated dance space. The Dance Space boasts a separate entrance to the building, avoiding the maze like interior of the police station and making it more accessible for evening classes and performances.
The Dance Space launched this weekend with two full days of workshops and an evening performance on saturday night. The workshops - improvisation, contemporary dance, dance for camera and tango - were held in a blank room approximately 12 meters by 12 meters, there is no decoration to the room and the only fixed features are rigging points for aerial work. It is workably shabby, not so glossy that you’re afraid to touch the walls and yet not in an uncomfortable state of dis-repair. The building, disused until Artspace Lifespace took it over, is leased for another 2 years - maybe more and has room for improvement - heating would be a bonus for example. Heaters were brought in for the workshops and they heated the space perfectly well but it woudn’t be sustainable long term. This is a space to work in, to train in, not to pose and ‘patronise the arts’. The weekend launch had the exciteable air of dance enthusiasts getting together to discuss the thing they love best. Dance for practitioners, a friendly cognocenti.
The programme for the evening event was delightfully put together, showing remarkably different pieces of both live dance and dance for camera. Tarn Scully showed an aerial dance piece, rarely seen outside the US, aerial dance blurs the lines between ground based work and aerial diciplines normally seen in circus. Seeking to link the ground with the air, Tarn throws herself repeatedly at a seemingly unassailable opponent, the chinese pole. Breath is audible as the floor supports her between meetings. There’s no doubt that aerial dance is a dicipline which is in a state of rapid growth.
Julia Thorneycroft’s choreography is crisp and classic formal contemporary dance. Her trio were simply clad in black and moved as one body. The signature of this piece, Surface, was a repeated return to forward bend jumps. I love contemporary dance and I found this excellent but so are most pieces of formal contemporary dance, there were no suprises here.
Rewiring is a remarkably assured debut from a first year dance student. Industrial and dark it combined small, precise intense movements with larger robotic movements but taken away from the dance floor and given a new context this piece was poetic and very focused.
A playful attitude is something that is often lacking in serious art but it can be accessed to great effect in improvisation. Noel Perkins, an established Cornwall based practitioner, and Kathleen Downie, one of Bristol’s foremost improvisation facilitators gave us a piece which unlocked joyful emotions hard to recreate through choreography. They moved fluidly through emotions, knowingly mocking themselves and embracing ridiculous and dark elements. One had the sense that they would be happy to break dance conventions although the closest they came was to break out onto the walls.
The performances spread across the geanres, across age ranges and from amateur to professional. The local tango class was a break from the contemporary and it was strangely shocking to see people wearing colour (!) and shoes (!) in a space which was gaining that reverential atmosphere so associated with ‘serious art’. It shook me away from any false notion that dance is the preserve of the young, the monied or the artist. It reminded me that dance is one of the most enjoyable and accessible activities, enjoyed by people of almost all ages, cultures, classes and physical abilites, long may it remain so.
Live dance:
Glimmer
Tarn Scully: aeriel dance www.tanyascully.com
surface
movement collective
dancers: adele proctor, hayley adams, laura street, murilo leite d’imperio & roxane zara
choreographed by julia thorneycroft
rewiring
solo by madii shann
footpring
julia thorneycroft trio
dancers: Murilo Leite D’Impurio, Isabel Cressey, Clare Billington
I really must stop falling from trees
Improvisation - a spontaneous discovery. Dancers: Noel Perkins, Kathleen Downie & Itta
Dance for Camera:
La La
Jessie Percival in association with Welsh Independant Dance
Insomnia
Isabel Rocamora and Jo Cammack, www.isabel rocamora.org 4 Dance, 2005. Commissioned by Arts Council England and Channel 4
Stronger
Champloo (excerpt from White Caps)
The Visitor
Brenda Wait & Kyra Norman (made for Ponderosa Tanzland Festival)
Monday, October 18, 2010
more stuff i did today.
also had a rehearsal for the singing walkabout that's coming up. and saw a choir sing in st stephens. The ferals performed, it's a shame there's not more commitment but i didn't perform either as i felt a bit ill - tired probably! I liked it, laughed a lot. but maybe it's more fun to do rather than to watch. the other choir had actually reherased and knew what they were doing! it was lovely. a bit dull doing the same stuff all the time tho.
the other thing that dulled the atmosphere for me was that it was a people sitting down in front of the performers type gig. and in a church with i'm sure makes people subconciously shut up.
the other thing that dulled the atmosphere for me was that it was a people sitting down in front of the performers type gig. and in a church with i'm sure makes people subconciously shut up.
circus for camera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gqKPzekHTU
this is inbetween a promotional video and a film. it's getting near to what i want to make.
My ideas are developing. I could take lots of pics and do it digital story style, with lots of similar shots of nature bits to give the flickery leaves/water impression. Or film. Certainly take the pics as it'll help reduce the amount of editing if we do film. could ask cube people... will run it past kyra as it develops... will talk to anita more tomorrow. Could take the photos and then remove it from the digitisation by making pictures and scrolling it through a picture window - like a puppet theatre or an old tv. Currently thinking I don't have to be in the fillm at all, just my shadow, bits of feet and arms. So not necessary to have a whole body shot. Not vital not to either! I like the idea of shadow. Maybe make it look like I'm high up or in dangerous location... not vital. It's not about fakeing it.
I cut the pole for the a-frames today - soon I'll be able to walk where ever I choose! How about in the fountain! In the underpass! Bristol rope and twine tomorrow... Also today i practiced a bit more and though it's become harder to stand from sitting (lack of practice) it was also nearly possible to turn around for the first time. slowly slowly.
RIP tandemonium. I started taking the beast apart today. There'll be a lot of tidying up. I should be clearing space for the bits i'm salvaging in the basement really, not blogging! I should also be crocheting as it has to go soon... Also got a text back from Ned who's still keen on saw playing for faulty optic. I should set up a website as a CV. Maybe not tonight tho, maybe after i've crochet'd this jacket.
hmm.
this is inbetween a promotional video and a film. it's getting near to what i want to make.
My ideas are developing. I could take lots of pics and do it digital story style, with lots of similar shots of nature bits to give the flickery leaves/water impression. Or film. Certainly take the pics as it'll help reduce the amount of editing if we do film. could ask cube people... will run it past kyra as it develops... will talk to anita more tomorrow. Could take the photos and then remove it from the digitisation by making pictures and scrolling it through a picture window - like a puppet theatre or an old tv. Currently thinking I don't have to be in the fillm at all, just my shadow, bits of feet and arms. So not necessary to have a whole body shot. Not vital not to either! I like the idea of shadow. Maybe make it look like I'm high up or in dangerous location... not vital. It's not about fakeing it.
I cut the pole for the a-frames today - soon I'll be able to walk where ever I choose! How about in the fountain! In the underpass! Bristol rope and twine tomorrow... Also today i practiced a bit more and though it's become harder to stand from sitting (lack of practice) it was also nearly possible to turn around for the first time. slowly slowly.
RIP tandemonium. I started taking the beast apart today. There'll be a lot of tidying up. I should be clearing space for the bits i'm salvaging in the basement really, not blogging! I should also be crocheting as it has to go soon... Also got a text back from Ned who's still keen on saw playing for faulty optic. I should set up a website as a CV. Maybe not tonight tho, maybe after i've crochet'd this jacket.
hmm.
desperate men
http://www.desperatemen.com/
so... the desperate men festival. i had so much fun. I want to do more street shows. we did the bike dance, lots of fun, reherasals pay off! I saw a few acts but was busy doing our thing really.
We did the tandemonium - it's last outing. It was good working with the feral choir, it would be much much better if the tandemonium was more automated tho - so pedalling really makes a variety of sound. esp if you can pedal backwards and forwards. Maybe even that pedaling forwards makes distance and peddaling backwards makes noise? Not so much a walk about sound as a noise when we get there? Or maybe best if you can choose - definitely good to be able to switch bits off.
I have a bit of a diary of the day here:
Plan the day - costume changes, times to be places, time to eat?
Do a bit of dancing & warming up.
Meet the others, dress - up, make - up, warm up. No room or time for a run through so cycle up the road talking through the routine.
To the DM's shop, meet them etc... try the grass in the chosen location - too difficult! Choose a new spot. Do routine, enjoy it so much we decide to do it again. Do a lap of honour with Lois on my shoulders. Attempt to immitate the scateboarders. they're much better than me!
Have a go on the desperate drummers box drum - a little box on a string round his neck. also admire his stripey all-in-one fleece lined suit, i want one! Got card from photographer who took loads of photos, Laurie also filmed it, must get copies.
Saw Vreni's Berni the Buzzard show - good classic street theatre, hilarious, involved vreni getting a good cold dunking in the fountains and her side kick transforming into a baywatch pamela anderson to rescue her. Most of the show - most of most shows? - is about being a bit crap? Berni certainly couldn't be shot from a cannon, we're certainly better at posing that at bike tricks, the fire show lady was really showing off her poor fire skills and even the fire hoop and playing soprano sax isn't that hard to pull off. It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it.
I didn't see the puppets show but i enjoyed a little chat with them. I liked the origami boats, you made a boat, filled it with symbolic goodies from developing nations and shipped it to europe and the US. The direction of the fountains slowly shunted them across. Just on their own they're lovely and with the political slant as a backdrop I think it's a lovely way to share info and keep ideas alive in peoples minds. I commented that agit-prop is dead and political theatre isn't so common (so vital?) at the moment. Somehow we got to discussing how Brecht used comedy and other devices to stop people getting carried away with the piece. This was intended as a way of keeping them focussed on the message and the need to think issues through themselves.
I rushed back to the house to grab the instruments I'd forgotten... and rushed up to clifton to get the tandemonium. all a rush but Mel was late too so no problem. Got the tandemonium down to the Full Moon and met the Feralistas, got dressed up again. Put on my facepaint and deliberately smeared it all over my face. Trying not to look to 'joker' like, I want to be messy and uncontrollable looking, not like any particular character.
The Ambling Band were still down the bear pit when we arrived, Me, Mel, Steve, Becky and Richard. We had a bit of a join in with them - hard when you can't really tune yourself. We took the tendemonium into the tunnel to get the acoustics - harder to hear the singing otherwise. It was a very close fit. The tandemonium looked a little odd, not being ridden or played - the choir were focussed on the singing, i was kinda caught between two - three things even as i'd brought lots of instruments - kids instruments, junk instruments, real instruments... just stuff to make noise with. so i was caught between bowing bike wheels, bowing my saw, singing and making the most of the tandemonium. It's still a splendid thing tho.
We moved outside to do some 'yoiking' which i hadn't done before. I missed the begginging as i was tidying up the instrumetnts but it seemed to be passing exagerated noises over distances, with a physical 'mime' of the noise being passed - in anyway you fancied. I found it like a hilarious drama game, loved. it. One point to note is that the resident street drinkers were really unhappy about having their territory invaded by wacko artists and did give us, and other performers, verbal abuse and actually grabbed the wig off my head at one point. I got it back easily but none the less, it was a step beyond heckling. I felt I didn't want to just leave because we were being hassled. We did a different following game of eliciting lyrics from passers by and singing them in various ways.
Back at base camp- the pub, i met a woman who is doing a facinating project... you draw all over a piece of paper - it has to be a certain type of paper - with a graphite pencil - not all pencils have enough graphite - then pass an arm with a pick up on it over the paper. whenever it meets the drawing it completes a circuit (graphite conducts electricity) and a sound is made! Amazing. reminds me of the occilators that were made as part of the noisy bike project. Also reminds me of the DRAW project which dorkbot are doing - they want to explore mechanised (?) drawing, removing the person from the drawing in some way. It was partly this idea which lead me to the 'Colour Wheels' project which i've just started on - mapping the city from a bike perspective, seeing where the bikes intereact with eachother, street furniture, roads etc. The project involves mounting a paint reservoir on to a bike so it releases paint onto the wheel with controlled flow. Then off we go! traces of our passing will be left in waterbased paint, that will be the 'art' that people can see, long after the action has moved on. I want to document it photographically, maybe shots of everywhere the paths meet, maybe series's of no trails, one trail, multiple trails.... maybe comments from viewers? maybe time laps film... maybe follow the trails and map them on an actual map? Maybe take the routes and have different layers of where each bike went, overlay them with no map beneath or show them over a different background - of what tho? Of a bike? Of a wheel? Of a photo of the confluence of colour trails? Over a much larger or smaller map of bristol? Over and over themselves? Over and over themselves at different sizes? A very very drawn out way of making a pattern.
One of the other acts I saw was a site specific circus piece, tumbling, physical theatre... Nice to watch... slick, funny... explored schitzophrenia, not sure how seriously. Basically, very good and clever but professional but missing something for me. The older I get the more I seem to separate narative from other skills. It's not that I want dance, circus etc to have no narative, or skills to be done in isolation, and I love characterisation and story and narative... I think I prefer to either be taken into someone's narrative world (storytelling via whichever medium, books, theatre, street theatre, comedy, film, puppets etc) or not! And if not then just let me put a narrative on top of whatever your're showing me with your skills be it dance, art, acrobatics etc
another conversation I had was arround 'applied art' - if i understand it right then I am not an applied artist at all, maybe i'm 'conceptual' the most pretentious type around! I like the idea of being a popular entertainer,, just make people laugh! that appeals to my wanting to strip away pretention but I always lean the other way... So i'm not an applied artist, even if what i'm doing takes ages and is really fiddly - take the cassette crochet for example, great idea, might make people think, be amazed or intreagued by the textures or any number of reactions but what it isn't is great crochet! Great for me, a great material, a painstaking process etc etc but it's not a highly skilled process. And i probably never will do stuff that is finely crafted. I make lovely baskets but, lovely as they are, they're not exemplary basketry, they're made from herbs, wild plants, they're records of a place and an echo of time.
I took the tandem home to the cathedral then hung around the full moon helping and checking out some other stuff - the mighty jungulator - improised prog rock possibly? With a VJ, not her images apparetly. I love impro, this wasn't really my thing but they were enjoying themselves. The thing that i'm taking away with me from this is that i need to get better at technology or to make some friends who are... now where are those lovely dorkbot guy's? I also liked the contrast of the loud prog rock and the tiny yurt it was in. maybe that's coz i like yurts. They didn't need much help but I set the fire wok up and primed it, tidyed up a little and promissed to come back to hand out sparklers.
I went to see the dance performance - which i intend to review so see a late blog post I hope!
after the dance I went back to the full moon again... Indulged in FairShare banquet, yum! Missed what might have been really inspiring for me - i'll have to take inspiration from the idea instead - there was a band... they had fairy lights on a rope that was slung quite low - looks like a slack rope,, but too worn and a bit frayed I though - but low and behold, it was a slack rope. The band played a bit, sung some songs then he got up on the rope walked a bit and sung? All I saw was him swinging on the rope before doing a roll off it. wonder who that was and if theyr'e on you tube. So yeah, i was already thinking of singing on the rope if i get good enough, maybe i could have a whole band!!! How can i thread playing the saw, singing possibly? flute or whistle, slack rope... it'll be a mission.
I played the saw there a bit and met various ideas - a harp would be a good instrument to have a saw jam with... mic'ing up and putting effects on it would be a good plan. so many ideas, so little time.
so... the desperate men festival. i had so much fun. I want to do more street shows. we did the bike dance, lots of fun, reherasals pay off! I saw a few acts but was busy doing our thing really.
We did the tandemonium - it's last outing. It was good working with the feral choir, it would be much much better if the tandemonium was more automated tho - so pedalling really makes a variety of sound. esp if you can pedal backwards and forwards. Maybe even that pedaling forwards makes distance and peddaling backwards makes noise? Not so much a walk about sound as a noise when we get there? Or maybe best if you can choose - definitely good to be able to switch bits off.
I have a bit of a diary of the day here:
Plan the day - costume changes, times to be places, time to eat?
Do a bit of dancing & warming up.
Meet the others, dress - up, make - up, warm up. No room or time for a run through so cycle up the road talking through the routine.
To the DM's shop, meet them etc... try the grass in the chosen location - too difficult! Choose a new spot. Do routine, enjoy it so much we decide to do it again. Do a lap of honour with Lois on my shoulders. Attempt to immitate the scateboarders. they're much better than me!
Have a go on the desperate drummers box drum - a little box on a string round his neck. also admire his stripey all-in-one fleece lined suit, i want one! Got card from photographer who took loads of photos, Laurie also filmed it, must get copies.
Saw Vreni's Berni the Buzzard show - good classic street theatre, hilarious, involved vreni getting a good cold dunking in the fountains and her side kick transforming into a baywatch pamela anderson to rescue her. Most of the show - most of most shows? - is about being a bit crap? Berni certainly couldn't be shot from a cannon, we're certainly better at posing that at bike tricks, the fire show lady was really showing off her poor fire skills and even the fire hoop and playing soprano sax isn't that hard to pull off. It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it.
I didn't see the puppets show but i enjoyed a little chat with them. I liked the origami boats, you made a boat, filled it with symbolic goodies from developing nations and shipped it to europe and the US. The direction of the fountains slowly shunted them across. Just on their own they're lovely and with the political slant as a backdrop I think it's a lovely way to share info and keep ideas alive in peoples minds. I commented that agit-prop is dead and political theatre isn't so common (so vital?) at the moment. Somehow we got to discussing how Brecht used comedy and other devices to stop people getting carried away with the piece. This was intended as a way of keeping them focussed on the message and the need to think issues through themselves.
I rushed back to the house to grab the instruments I'd forgotten... and rushed up to clifton to get the tandemonium. all a rush but Mel was late too so no problem. Got the tandemonium down to the Full Moon and met the Feralistas, got dressed up again. Put on my facepaint and deliberately smeared it all over my face. Trying not to look to 'joker' like, I want to be messy and uncontrollable looking, not like any particular character.
The Ambling Band were still down the bear pit when we arrived, Me, Mel, Steve, Becky and Richard. We had a bit of a join in with them - hard when you can't really tune yourself. We took the tendemonium into the tunnel to get the acoustics - harder to hear the singing otherwise. It was a very close fit. The tandemonium looked a little odd, not being ridden or played - the choir were focussed on the singing, i was kinda caught between two - three things even as i'd brought lots of instruments - kids instruments, junk instruments, real instruments... just stuff to make noise with. so i was caught between bowing bike wheels, bowing my saw, singing and making the most of the tandemonium. It's still a splendid thing tho.
We moved outside to do some 'yoiking' which i hadn't done before. I missed the begginging as i was tidying up the instrumetnts but it seemed to be passing exagerated noises over distances, with a physical 'mime' of the noise being passed - in anyway you fancied. I found it like a hilarious drama game, loved. it. One point to note is that the resident street drinkers were really unhappy about having their territory invaded by wacko artists and did give us, and other performers, verbal abuse and actually grabbed the wig off my head at one point. I got it back easily but none the less, it was a step beyond heckling. I felt I didn't want to just leave because we were being hassled. We did a different following game of eliciting lyrics from passers by and singing them in various ways.
Back at base camp- the pub, i met a woman who is doing a facinating project... you draw all over a piece of paper - it has to be a certain type of paper - with a graphite pencil - not all pencils have enough graphite - then pass an arm with a pick up on it over the paper. whenever it meets the drawing it completes a circuit (graphite conducts electricity) and a sound is made! Amazing. reminds me of the occilators that were made as part of the noisy bike project. Also reminds me of the DRAW project which dorkbot are doing - they want to explore mechanised (?) drawing, removing the person from the drawing in some way. It was partly this idea which lead me to the 'Colour Wheels' project which i've just started on - mapping the city from a bike perspective, seeing where the bikes intereact with eachother, street furniture, roads etc. The project involves mounting a paint reservoir on to a bike so it releases paint onto the wheel with controlled flow. Then off we go! traces of our passing will be left in waterbased paint, that will be the 'art' that people can see, long after the action has moved on. I want to document it photographically, maybe shots of everywhere the paths meet, maybe series's of no trails, one trail, multiple trails.... maybe comments from viewers? maybe time laps film... maybe follow the trails and map them on an actual map? Maybe take the routes and have different layers of where each bike went, overlay them with no map beneath or show them over a different background - of what tho? Of a bike? Of a wheel? Of a photo of the confluence of colour trails? Over a much larger or smaller map of bristol? Over and over themselves? Over and over themselves at different sizes? A very very drawn out way of making a pattern.
One of the other acts I saw was a site specific circus piece, tumbling, physical theatre... Nice to watch... slick, funny... explored schitzophrenia, not sure how seriously. Basically, very good and clever but professional but missing something for me. The older I get the more I seem to separate narative from other skills. It's not that I want dance, circus etc to have no narative, or skills to be done in isolation, and I love characterisation and story and narative... I think I prefer to either be taken into someone's narrative world (storytelling via whichever medium, books, theatre, street theatre, comedy, film, puppets etc) or not! And if not then just let me put a narrative on top of whatever your're showing me with your skills be it dance, art, acrobatics etc
another conversation I had was arround 'applied art' - if i understand it right then I am not an applied artist at all, maybe i'm 'conceptual' the most pretentious type around! I like the idea of being a popular entertainer,, just make people laugh! that appeals to my wanting to strip away pretention but I always lean the other way... So i'm not an applied artist, even if what i'm doing takes ages and is really fiddly - take the cassette crochet for example, great idea, might make people think, be amazed or intreagued by the textures or any number of reactions but what it isn't is great crochet! Great for me, a great material, a painstaking process etc etc but it's not a highly skilled process. And i probably never will do stuff that is finely crafted. I make lovely baskets but, lovely as they are, they're not exemplary basketry, they're made from herbs, wild plants, they're records of a place and an echo of time.
I took the tandem home to the cathedral then hung around the full moon helping and checking out some other stuff - the mighty jungulator - improised prog rock possibly? With a VJ, not her images apparetly. I love impro, this wasn't really my thing but they were enjoying themselves. The thing that i'm taking away with me from this is that i need to get better at technology or to make some friends who are... now where are those lovely dorkbot guy's? I also liked the contrast of the loud prog rock and the tiny yurt it was in. maybe that's coz i like yurts. They didn't need much help but I set the fire wok up and primed it, tidyed up a little and promissed to come back to hand out sparklers.
I went to see the dance performance - which i intend to review so see a late blog post I hope!
after the dance I went back to the full moon again... Indulged in FairShare banquet, yum! Missed what might have been really inspiring for me - i'll have to take inspiration from the idea instead - there was a band... they had fairy lights on a rope that was slung quite low - looks like a slack rope,, but too worn and a bit frayed I though - but low and behold, it was a slack rope. The band played a bit, sung some songs then he got up on the rope walked a bit and sung? All I saw was him swinging on the rope before doing a roll off it. wonder who that was and if theyr'e on you tube. So yeah, i was already thinking of singing on the rope if i get good enough, maybe i could have a whole band!!! How can i thread playing the saw, singing possibly? flute or whistle, slack rope... it'll be a mission.
I played the saw there a bit and met various ideas - a harp would be a good instrument to have a saw jam with... mic'ing up and putting effects on it would be a good plan. so many ideas, so little time.
puppets for grown ups
http://www.faultyoptic.co.uk/
I took my saw along to the Desperate Men party and sat by the fire playing it. I met a woman called Ned who rather liked it and had a little go herself. She declared it very difficult and was duely impressed. She told me she was working with Faulty Optic on their show and that she thought a saw might be the perfect live accopaniment. We swapped numbers. I might call her...
I had a little chat with some puppets during the festival. I almost forgot they weren't real people...
The faulty optic style seems to fit with the slightly odd - macarbe?- sensibility that I like so much, which fits with the saw in looks and sound, traditional black faded grandeur & white face clown. It is also right on my 'growing edge' of automata that I've become so interested in recetnly.
I took my saw along to the Desperate Men party and sat by the fire playing it. I met a woman called Ned who rather liked it and had a little go herself. She declared it very difficult and was duely impressed. She told me she was working with Faulty Optic on their show and that she thought a saw might be the perfect live accopaniment. We swapped numbers. I might call her...
I had a little chat with some puppets during the festival. I almost forgot they weren't real people...
The faulty optic style seems to fit with the slightly odd - macarbe?- sensibility that I like so much, which fits with the saw in looks and sound, traditional black faded grandeur & white face clown. It is also right on my 'growing edge' of automata that I've become so interested in recetnly.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Sam's questions
What was the last image/object/artefact that excited you? How, why & where did you encounter it?
I come across exciting images frequently. I very much liked the first video clip I posted - the Polish singer. A musician friend posted it on their facebook page. See that blog comment for my thoughts on it.
I come across exciting images frequently. I very much liked the first video clip I posted - the Polish singer. A musician friend posted it on their facebook page. See that blog comment for my thoughts on it.
• What excites you about your chosen area of Creative Practice? Why have you chosen to study it further? I chose Fine Art as it won't restrict my creativity. I'm interested in many things, sometimes 3D, occasionally 2D, often live, often concerned with movement, sound and performance. I have approached my art from a performance perspective and also from a theatre design perspective. I'm also from a family of 2D artists. With these multiple influences I feel that I need the freedom to access any dicipline, from the arts and beyond. I chose to do a degree as I want to have people listen to my ideas for 3 days a week and be payed to discuss my ideas enthusiastically and critically. Meeting other creatively diverse people - fellow students - is also important.
• What do you hope to achieve at the end of these 2 years? What would you like to be doing?
I can imagine wanting to pursue this to a BA honours, if I can afford it. What I'm keen to avoid is missing work opportunities through having college commitments - I do already seek and sometimes get work as a creative practitioner. I am part of three (or two and a half) producions for the 'festival of desperation' this weekend, tho not paid I'm keen to get to know the Desperate Men and find out if there's more I can do with them in future. This is a strong area of interest for me. I'd like to continue with performance based and site specific art work. I'm currently thinking mostly about clowning in various guises and want to do a solo street show. I'm interested in where popular performance might meet Fine Art amongst other things.
• What sorts of things have you written about and/or researched specfically before? E.g are you particularly interested in a specific area, issue, theme, genre, subculture, type of design etc? As above! Performance, performance art, live art, site specific art, community art, interactive art/performance, circus - specifically slack rope at present, street theatre, busking, theatre design, mask work, dance, bike tricks/dance, bicycle decorating, mapping, environmental issues, gender issues, social issues... I'm also very interested in food politics, wild food, herbal medicine, seeds, hybrid seeds, heritage plants and related issues. I worked a lot on these subjects, setting up a community group and putting on events - gaining national coverage on prime time telly! It wouldn't be a suprise to me if I try to link art and seeds at some point.
• What excites you now? What sorts of arts, design, performance, media, spectacles etc do you go & see/take part in? What do you read? What feeds your interests?
I am part of a mini-bike dance troupe, I'm learning slack rope, I've been helping out with the scenography at the Invisible Circus, also helping in other ways (I was part of a human arcade machine at their last spectacular). I was one of the lead artists for the cycle carnival. I conceived and built 'The Increadible Tandemonium' and lead the Noisy Bike Parade.The Tandemonium was intended to be automata - using the force generated by the pedals (or wind, pressure on the seat and handlebars or revolutions of the wheels etc) to make music by automated means. A one woman bike band. As a prototype it was absolutely excellent, now I need to make the automata part a lot stronger. I received the dubious honour of winning gold and silver in the 'most impractical bike' category at the carnival for the tandemonium and for the elvises - four acrobats on a bike - the front acrobat had moving legs! I also love seeing visual art and am interested in the posibility's afforded by working with light and colour. I am looking forward to starting my mapping project - attaching paint to a bike and cycling it around town, I would like to see many people with colour bikes showing us where bikes interact with the world, how different people use the built environment and where they come together and part again. This would ideally be a temporary piece, documented by photographs and it should involve as many members of the public as possible. My recent bedside reading has included a text book on the language of humour, an academic study of street performance, a very basic book on conjouring and sleight of hand, Vicram Seth's travellog of china and tibet - I'm a big fan of his work, texts on eco-feminsm (if I really can't sleep then a chapter of this normally does the trick...), Audren Niffenegers latest novel - not as good as 'The time travellers wife', and lots of childrens books. I have also just read an article about Marina Abramovic and she's the person I most want to research right now.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Les Velobici shadow dance 2
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1198442977081&ref=mfhttp://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1198442977081&ref=mf
Monday, October 11, 2010
cycle carnival returns
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4i2OtfWIk4I?fs=1&hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4i2OtfWIk4I?fs=1&hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
Friday, October 8, 2010
Quentin Blake's bike pic
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)