flux 28.10.05

flux costumes

flux sucks

no it doesn't really, but wasn't sure sure if i'd get thrown off the site for publishing karen's version.

well... what can i say? I'm really glad we did it, I am even more glad its over. I have no idea how it went but to be honest, i don't think that really matters. I got a lot out of putting this thing together, I think it will make so much difference to our collaborative piece in december. had a brief chat with amitesh and karen, who are keen to do another small performance in november sometime. i think its a great idea, it will keep the ball rolling. I don't think i need to say that i won't be performing this time (my hands are still shaking as i type this) but i think i can contribute more by not being in it anyway.

the most valuable thing i am taking away from this is a better understanding of how everyone works and thinks individually and i hope we can find a better way to make that work together next time. Some of us seem to work better by just going in and doing it, whilst others (myself included) need time to take things away individually before bringing them back into a group environment. my cigarette breaks do serve a purpose - they give my brain time to catch up!

well thanks everyone, it was so worthwhile, I learnt something from everybody and feel i know you much better now.

frieze art fair etc.
I have recovered from my over-exposure to beautiful people at last. I was a bit scared to leave the house for the first couple of days, but a trip to Asda in Clapham (seriously lacking in beautiful people) was equivalent to a week in the Priory and I am now back to my old self again.
It was all a bit bewildering wasn't it? I have never seen art displayed (and consumed) in such a soulless way. I think that is probably how I would describe most of what I saw in there - soulless. I think that is why I was drawn to the pieces with some kind of narrative, in that environment I felt like they were easier to get lost in. This is first for me - the shiny, beautiful objects are normally the ones that draw me in, I usually hate anything home-made looking. Still haven't quite digested the experience fully, but the pieces that stand out for me are the storyboard piece called "Estate", which created a narrative about the lives of the people behind a series of closed curtains and a little sculpture about a piece of bone the artist had found by the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

My research topic is beginning to get clearer since following lengthy discussions with Doug, I am focussing on the domestic interior as a starting point and plan to try out a few ideas over the next couple of months, so watch this space...

I'm going to keep it short this time... well, shorter

I think today's trip to waterloo was really valuable and it has made me think quite hard about my research topic again. I went to a thing at BAC this evening called 'The Space between Us'. It was all pretty obvious stuff, i was a bit disappointed. You had to follow a route round clapham that was marked out with red ribbons and various (annoyingly non-speaking) actors in red shoes or hats came and did something random like tie string around your finger. It succeeded for me only because it made me the performer, which made me distinctly uncomfortable. Anyway, it also made me realise that perhaps my research topic is already really tired. I'm trying to attack exactly the same subject they were and it was just so... boring.

i hope someone reads this soon, starting to feel a little crazy, talking to myself

p.s. in reference to my previous post - I went with starting point 1 in the end

my first post
so we have to prepare a proposal for our research project, i am glad we are getting stuck in so soon, but it has thrown me into a bit of a quandry. i need to get on and write this thing, but i am stuck between two different starting points. One is pretty safe for me, as it is something I started to explore years ago and will involve developing on ideas that i have already started to formulate. the other is something that has really just cropped up for me in the last couple of weeks, but i think it has potential. on the other hand, they are both quite broad subjects and perhaps need narrowing down....
so let me elaborate:
starting point 1: performativity - how our social and physical environments dictate the way we act. in an effort to understand this for myself and put it in the context of "theatre", I am looking at a notion of 'acting' in three stages, the first is a base state, when we are at our most comfortable and are not put on any pretences; the second is the performance of everyday life, the show we put on for the people we pass in the street; the third is when we consciously create a performance - public speaking, acting in a play etc. obviously, there are loads of layers in between, but just for now i need to simplify.
i would begin by attempting to isolate that second stage and look at ways of shaping that subconscious performance, investigate the nature of the audience (after all we are always being watched aren't we?) and then see where it took me from there.
starting point 2: image - coming from a background of design, i am very conscious of image and graphic. i only really noticed this recently, but i think it almost verges on obsession! i buy books and cds because they have a nice front cover, i spent ages looking at all the different templates for this blog before i picked this one, i could go on.... i guess that really the significance of the image is something i have looked at in my work before without really doing so consciously, but i would like to take a more deliberate approach to it. what does it mean to think in images? is it like thinking in french? this is an image-driven society - how do we understand/interpret images?
i'm also interested in the reproduction and deconstruction of images and the relationship between the image and the written/spoken word. Can these things co-exist? hmmm

any thoughts?

cherry