Well, that went alright...!

I'm very proud of us, I think we all learned so much from this experience, I have to admit I wasn't overly confident about it before hand, but i was hopeful and i was really pleased with the results. Kirstie's got some great photos on her blog, so I am just going to post some of the photos chris took along the journey (as part of his performance).



















































This collaborative project has really made me question what, specifically, it is that I love about theatre/performance. I find it interesting that as soon as the actors arrived I kind of backed out. Still not sure if that was lack of interest or lack of nerves...

I really enjoyed doing all the graphic stuff for the website etc, but i know that just doing that kind of thing is not enough for me. I felt a bit like that was all I could really offer on this project. Anyway, lots to think about.

So, thanks everyone, amazing costumes, acting, directing, projecting and seeing DJ Lushan doing her thing on the decks was a real treat!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

jingle bells jingle bells...
the performance is on friday
oh what fun it will be when its done
and we go home on holiday, hey!

feeling poetic today, it comes to me occasionally when i'm feeling pleased with myself - which i am because i just finished my soundtrack.

I thought it would be helpful if i outlined what is happening on my route on friday. Hope everyone else can blog theirs too, so we are all in the know.

1. Meeting point is black telephone box outside moorgate station, with chris inside it!
2. Performance begins when chris (tesman) receives a phonecall - we can assume from Brack - summoning him to the T-Bar
3. Chris leaves phone box in panic, tieing his tie over and over again as he can't get it right
4. As he goes through the route he takes photos on a digital camera, this idea came from chris' interpretation of tesman, he described him as desperate to achieve his 'potential', constantly working and trying to absorb/record information in order to finally become the genius he thinks is lurking inside himself somewhere, but never achieving this - in part because he is trying too hard.
5. At a point on the route where the commercial area abruptly ends and we find ourselves in the arty/crumbly area of shoreditch, chris finds the first page of lovborg's manuscript, unbuttons his jacket and hides it in an inside pocket then rebuttons his jacket. throughout the rest of the route, he keeps finding more pages and hiding them in his jacket, rebuttoning his jacket in a different way each time. The actions become more manic as he gets closer to his destination
6. On reaching the T-Bar he checks the manuscript is hidden, takes a deep breath and enters the bar

I am quite looking forward to friday now, the actors are all great and seem to be responding really well to the information we have given them.

I have got some books out for my independent project about internet art etc. I am so excited about this now, I really feel that using the internet as my 'site' is a perfect way of examining all the theoretical issues I have been looking at, to do with performativity and image consumption etc.

what day is it?

the weekend rather passed me by, i was in the theatre in richmond with kirstie, finishing off the costumes and neatening up the set (mostly my own mess from the last production). Yesterday afternoon, we went back to distribute costumes and watch a run-through of the first half to make sure everyone was wearing the right stuff, then, this morning, i went back again for the second half. The projections are working, although the projector seems to be making the images rather dark, so i may have to have fiddle with it when the technician is not looking. The costumes look great (thanks kirstie!), especially under the lights. I am in a pretty good mood now that it is all coming together, although i only managed 4 hours sleep again last night.

Am a bit confused about what we are supposed to have done in terms of our soundtrack for the collaborative project, but it can't hurt to keep working on it, especially since i have some time and a mac booked. Am really feeling the pain of working on p.c. at home. I actually dread turning it on, I'm just waiting for it to crash all the time! I was right at the end of putting together the images for the website (for the collaborative project) last night at about 1am, when the whole thing froze. I had to start two images from scratch. I know i should have saved them earlier, but still - the stupid machine shouldnt have died on me either!

I am really pleased with the character karen and amitesh have extracted from the text of hedda gabler for chris (the actor who is performing my route in the collaborative project). It suits the character of my soundtrack perfectly and has confirmed my choice of a song by ed's brother's band for inclusion the soundtrack. The song is called 'why so shy', i won't try to describe it because you can listen to it on their website: www.dakarrally.org I think it contains just the kind of balance of naivety and cynicism that my character will have. I am finding it increasingly strange that I am basically asking Chris to act in the role of himself - as interpreted by me.

my tasks for this evening are to read hedda gabler (have borrowed from karen), work on the business plan for this company i am setting up with my friend and put together the program for under milkwood... phew! better get on with it then...

yawn

hello all. i think that blogging when half asleep is probably not the best (or most interesting) way of doing things, but half-asleepness is a fairly constant state for me at the moment, so i am going to blog anyway!
i am so busy right now i have pretty much lost any objectivity about either rhe collaborative project or the one at richmond. I am just trying to get everything done now, but it all seems to be coming together so i not stressed about it, just tired. I feel bad that i can't devote myself to the collaborative project as much as everyone else, its that thing about buses and everything happening at once...

the richmond projection sequence is almost there, i am currently rendering some little animations for it and then i am going to put it all together in flash later. I am quite pleased with it, have done some rather fun images. Kirstie's costumes sound amazing, we will be finishing them off together on saturday. Dress rehearsal is on wednesday, so ed will photograph it all then and i will post some photos here.

collaborative project is kind of my second priority right now but i hope to be able to swap that around by the middle of next week. I have to finish richmond stuff by monday anyway, but there are bound to be a couple of last minute changes. I am going to put together and print the maps this evening, so we can put them up in the foyer tomorrow. Then I will read Hedda Gabler over the weekend (I promise!). I hope i am not holding anyone else up - i am trying to get stuff done if it affects other people.

ok, enough rambling...