what exactly am i trying to do here?
have been doing lot of soul-searching recently! I think i have been trying to achieve too much and in the process am not really doing much at all. I keep jumping from one idea too another, i get bored really easily. Then I had a big chat with ed and another with a good friend and they both said 'why are you so keen to completely abandon architecture?' and it made me realise that i have been having this big reaction against anything architectural, to the extent that i have pared my work right back to an entirely text-based environment. So I need to re-introduce some kind of real space and act on the reason I like performance - because the body activates the space. I still want to keep working with this idea of real and virtual and constructed identities, but i need to create some kind of hypersurface (an interactive zone between the real and virtual).
I have also realised that I am being... not lazy exactly... but quite unproductive. I am thinking constantly (its driving me mad!) but whilst i am already quite clear about the why and the how, I am still completely clueless about the 'what'. So I have thought about how I work best and decided I need to create some kind of brief for myself with some specific deadlines. Even if it changes loads I need to make a decision now about what my final thing is going to be and what intermediate work I am going to produce.
So my plan of action is as follows:
1. Complete the exercise i have begun - performing in virtual (fantasy) space as my alter ego 'wandering minstrel'
follow link: http://community.channel4.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/4960006333/m/2260043983/p/13
AND work out why i decided (without any forethought) to be a man when I constructed my alter-ego!
2. Roughly plan my final piece (Sept 2007) and schedule of events/deadlines leading up to it
3. Plan first stage piece (July 2006) as a performance in its own right, but also as a stepping stone to next year
4. Build stuff around/in which to create a series of small performances (this term) which will test my ideas for the first stage performance.
5. Plan workshop to help fill the gaps in my knowledge (i.e. directing/acting) as well as further things I do know about
Ed says I am obsessive compulsive because i plan too much... he's probably right, but i'd have a nervous breakdown if i didnt!
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
embracing my inner nerd
I have really started to immerse myself in this cyber-culture stuff now, but it seems like the more i find out, the less i know! I have joined up to this cyber city game -type thing. It describes itself as follows:
CyberSphere is an RPG MOO set in a dark American future. Your virtual journey begins in New Carthage, the denizens of which range from the benign eccentric to the malicious psychotic. Shadowed alleys conceal dark secrets, and gleaming towers of urban wealth hide fantastic conspiracies.
Past the skeletal buildings of the anarchic New Carthage outskirts, beyond its armoured city wall, a vast Wasteland of post-apocalyptic Hell awaits the truly brave. Its glowing sands crawl with the horrific mutant champions of natural selection, and are stained with the blood of the weak.
Delta-winged shuttles crisscross the scarred planet as reconstruction continues under the control of emergent superpowers in a new world order: megacorporations and crime syndicates. Bangkok harbors shadowy black markets of cybernetic technology, while orbital colonies turn serenely on axes of money, power, and privelage.
As the physical landscape still smoulders from the ravages of global wars and environmental disasters, an alternate reality glows brightly in the worldwide matrix network. Deckers and console jockeys swim the depths of this data sea, knights rendered in chrome on battlefields formed in the cognitive nonspace of a collective consciousness.
The pulse-pounding excitement of our virtual world is but a keystroke away.
NOTE: Cybersphere's creators would like to caution you that its violent realism and graphic nature may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Sounds exciting doesn't it? hmmmm.....
It is completely text based so I am having arguments with myself about the importance of visual media in terms of understanding and imagining space. I also have an aching brain from trying to learn all the text commands so i can actually communicate with people, interact with objects, move through space and (perhaps most importantly) kill people.
New terms I have learnt:
MUD - Multi-User Dungeon (the originally online roleplaying game environment - based on dungeons and dragons)
MOO - MUD - Object Orientated - usually less of a game and more of a community (i think)
IC - in character
OOC - out of character
I am also trying to work out how to apply for membership of an entirely different cyber-community called MediaMOO, which was set up in the nineties at a university in america. The spaces within the MOO relate to the university itself and it acts as a forum for dicussion of media and visual arts. How come all this stuff has been going on so long and yet i have never heard of it before?
On the one hand, am feeling quite technical, on the other hand have spent 5 hours trying to burn a DVD today and am still having trouble.
I have really started to immerse myself in this cyber-culture stuff now, but it seems like the more i find out, the less i know! I have joined up to this cyber city game -type thing. It describes itself as follows:
CyberSphere is an RPG MOO set in a dark American future. Your virtual journey begins in New Carthage, the denizens of which range from the benign eccentric to the malicious psychotic. Shadowed alleys conceal dark secrets, and gleaming towers of urban wealth hide fantastic conspiracies.
Past the skeletal buildings of the anarchic New Carthage outskirts, beyond its armoured city wall, a vast Wasteland of post-apocalyptic Hell awaits the truly brave. Its glowing sands crawl with the horrific mutant champions of natural selection, and are stained with the blood of the weak.
Delta-winged shuttles crisscross the scarred planet as reconstruction continues under the control of emergent superpowers in a new world order: megacorporations and crime syndicates. Bangkok harbors shadowy black markets of cybernetic technology, while orbital colonies turn serenely on axes of money, power, and privelage.
As the physical landscape still smoulders from the ravages of global wars and environmental disasters, an alternate reality glows brightly in the worldwide matrix network. Deckers and console jockeys swim the depths of this data sea, knights rendered in chrome on battlefields formed in the cognitive nonspace of a collective consciousness.
The pulse-pounding excitement of our virtual world is but a keystroke away.
NOTE: Cybersphere's creators would like to caution you that its violent realism and graphic nature may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Sounds exciting doesn't it? hmmmm.....
It is completely text based so I am having arguments with myself about the importance of visual media in terms of understanding and imagining space. I also have an aching brain from trying to learn all the text commands so i can actually communicate with people, interact with objects, move through space and (perhaps most importantly) kill people.
New terms I have learnt:
MUD - Multi-User Dungeon (the originally online roleplaying game environment - based on dungeons and dragons)
MOO - MUD - Object Orientated - usually less of a game and more of a community (i think)
IC - in character
OOC - out of character
I am also trying to work out how to apply for membership of an entirely different cyber-community called MediaMOO, which was set up in the nineties at a university in america. The spaces within the MOO relate to the university itself and it acts as a forum for dicussion of media and visual arts. How come all this stuff has been going on so long and yet i have never heard of it before?
On the one hand, am feeling quite technical, on the other hand have spent 5 hours trying to burn a DVD today and am still having trouble.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
bits and bobs
Kirstie and Karen presented their research proposals today, so I thought I'd write a bit about them in terms of feedback and for the benefit of those who missed them.
Kirstie is looking at the aesthetics of the image, although it was really much broader than that, but I got the impression she was most interested in the concept of aesthetics, in terms of use of colour and interpretation of the image through colour. I thought it was really interesting when she talked about social perception of colour and psychological effects of it. She has been reading Barthes, amongst others, and I enjoyed the discussion about how we perform ourselves through our choice of clothes and colours. I was a bit confused, to begin with, about how it related to her practical work (insomnia etc.) but she explained that rather than being a method of justifying or triggering her practical work, she will be re-introducing it to her practical work as a kind of technical element. I.e. she will be looking more closely at her own use of colour within her work on insomnia. I really liked her choice of images and wished we had more time to find out more about her thoughts on each one, I know she wanted to put text with them initially, but I don't think it suffered at all by this omission.
Karen's research is about the stilletto. Her presentation was really structured and well performed. She discussed the stilletto as a fetishistic object, referencing Freud (the mother's penis thing), Judith Butler (gender and performativity) and others (OK I should have taken notes), and questioning our understanding of femininity and how the stilletto comes into this. She explained that she will be using the stilletto as a start point in her practical work to trigger as series of investigations into fetishism. The discussion at the end was really interesting and has really set me thinking about images of women in popular culture and how I (as a woman) respond to them.
Overall a fascinating morning, thank you very much
I just want to throw in a few things from my own reading, as I really getting into this virtual theatre thing. I have so many things in my head, I can't put them all down, so will pop in a few annotated images instead:
Paul Sermon's Telematic Dreaming
The projection (onto a bed) is the artist who is watching the performance from another room and can therefore interact with the audience (the person on the bed) creating this surreal contact between the virtual and the real
Masaki Fujihata's Beyond Pages
The book and the door are projections, you can interact with both by using a pen which turns the pages of the book. On the pages are images and text. 'Beyond the pages' are sound and visual effects, you can turn the lamp on and off by touching a light switch with the pen, listen to running water by touching an image of a pond, write on the steamed-up surface of a glass of water and open the door to reveal a small child who laughs and runs away
Interior of Fresh H2O EXPO (Fresh Water Pavilion), 1997, The Netherlands, Nox Architects
"no distinction between horizontal and vertical, between floors, walls and ceilings...the building and the exhibition have fused: a simulated geyser erupts, water splatters, projections fall directly on to the building and its visitors" (Virtual theatres by Gabriella Giannachi)
Kirstie and Karen presented their research proposals today, so I thought I'd write a bit about them in terms of feedback and for the benefit of those who missed them.
Kirstie is looking at the aesthetics of the image, although it was really much broader than that, but I got the impression she was most interested in the concept of aesthetics, in terms of use of colour and interpretation of the image through colour. I thought it was really interesting when she talked about social perception of colour and psychological effects of it. She has been reading Barthes, amongst others, and I enjoyed the discussion about how we perform ourselves through our choice of clothes and colours. I was a bit confused, to begin with, about how it related to her practical work (insomnia etc.) but she explained that rather than being a method of justifying or triggering her practical work, she will be re-introducing it to her practical work as a kind of technical element. I.e. she will be looking more closely at her own use of colour within her work on insomnia. I really liked her choice of images and wished we had more time to find out more about her thoughts on each one, I know she wanted to put text with them initially, but I don't think it suffered at all by this omission.
Karen's research is about the stilletto. Her presentation was really structured and well performed. She discussed the stilletto as a fetishistic object, referencing Freud (the mother's penis thing), Judith Butler (gender and performativity) and others (OK I should have taken notes), and questioning our understanding of femininity and how the stilletto comes into this. She explained that she will be using the stilletto as a start point in her practical work to trigger as series of investigations into fetishism. The discussion at the end was really interesting and has really set me thinking about images of women in popular culture and how I (as a woman) respond to them.
Overall a fascinating morning, thank you very much
I just want to throw in a few things from my own reading, as I really getting into this virtual theatre thing. I have so many things in my head, I can't put them all down, so will pop in a few annotated images instead:
Paul Sermon's Telematic Dreaming
The projection (onto a bed) is the artist who is watching the performance from another room and can therefore interact with the audience (the person on the bed) creating this surreal contact between the virtual and the real
Masaki Fujihata's Beyond Pages
The book and the door are projections, you can interact with both by using a pen which turns the pages of the book. On the pages are images and text. 'Beyond the pages' are sound and visual effects, you can turn the lamp on and off by touching a light switch with the pen, listen to running water by touching an image of a pond, write on the steamed-up surface of a glass of water and open the door to reveal a small child who laughs and runs away
Interior of Fresh H2O EXPO (Fresh Water Pavilion), 1997, The Netherlands, Nox Architects
"no distinction between horizontal and vertical, between floors, walls and ceilings...the building and the exhibition have fused: a simulated geyser erupts, water splatters, projections fall directly on to the building and its visitors" (Virtual theatres by Gabriella Giannachi)
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. I spent Christmas with my parents and my little brother, Laurie. It was, as usual, not half as relaxing as it should be. My mum planned a series of vast feasts starting on Christmas Eve and running through until the day after boxing day. She then proceeded to catch the mother of all colds and i had to do all the cooking... I needed a week to recover after all of that. Fortunately, she had a miraculous recovery the day before New Years Eve, so I escaped to London and after a lovely New Years Eve with a few friends in our flat, Ed and I spent the whole of the next week watching films and eating chocolate whilst tucked up under a duvet on the sofa.
I am so glad to have had a break though, I really feel ready to take on the new term now. I had a chance to really get my teeth into my individual project research. I have been reading all about computer arts and the internet as a virtual space for performance. I read 'Internet Art' by Rachel Greene as a kind of introduction and I am about halfway through 'Virtual Theatres' by Gabriella Giannachi, which is fascinating - I would recommend it to anyone. It is all making me think really hard about how I define theatre and what the difference is between theatre and performance art. So far, and this is something that often happens to me, the more I find out about current and recent practice in this field, the longer my list of what I don't like/want to do. I am still struggling to find what I do want to do. I feel like the research is about a finished/end product, whereas I am practically right at the beginning and am feeling a bit nervous about what happens in the middle. I know that I have to just get started and do something... anything really, I just have to start doing. But I always find this bit rather terrifying.
OK, see you all soon
Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. I spent Christmas with my parents and my little brother, Laurie. It was, as usual, not half as relaxing as it should be. My mum planned a series of vast feasts starting on Christmas Eve and running through until the day after boxing day. She then proceeded to catch the mother of all colds and i had to do all the cooking... I needed a week to recover after all of that. Fortunately, she had a miraculous recovery the day before New Years Eve, so I escaped to London and after a lovely New Years Eve with a few friends in our flat, Ed and I spent the whole of the next week watching films and eating chocolate whilst tucked up under a duvet on the sofa.
I am so glad to have had a break though, I really feel ready to take on the new term now. I had a chance to really get my teeth into my individual project research. I have been reading all about computer arts and the internet as a virtual space for performance. I read 'Internet Art' by Rachel Greene as a kind of introduction and I am about halfway through 'Virtual Theatres' by Gabriella Giannachi, which is fascinating - I would recommend it to anyone. It is all making me think really hard about how I define theatre and what the difference is between theatre and performance art. So far, and this is something that often happens to me, the more I find out about current and recent practice in this field, the longer my list of what I don't like/want to do. I am still struggling to find what I do want to do. I feel like the research is about a finished/end product, whereas I am practically right at the beginning and am feeling a bit nervous about what happens in the middle. I know that I have to just get started and do something... anything really, I just have to start doing. But I always find this bit rather terrifying.
OK, see you all soon
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