First of all I should apologise for the late arrival of my last post, due to laziness and illness I wasn't able to get it up on Friday!, however its Monday so I am kind of back on track with the posts! (hopefully..)
Anyhow so this week What I am planning well I have the feeling it is going to be based around multi media performance works. Not to make it sound like some academic literacy criticism, I'll explain what I mean by the term 'Multi media performance works' and why they are interesting me.
The first real multi media piece I saw was by the German / UK company Gob Squad in late 2008 at the Nuffield Theatre, in this case it was a 'live' reconstruction of Pop Artist Andy Warhol's 1960's film 'The Kitchen' in which the performers of the company create or attempt to recreate the film using video cameras and a large projection screen which shielded them from the audience. It was a startling performance which really opened my eyes to what the possibilities are for incorporating a range of media and technology into the traditional theatre space. The next two performances I saw were breathtaking and have stayed with me ever since and I always refer to these two companies as two of my favourite and inspiring companies for opening up such a wonderful and inspiring set of ideas, creative innovations in the theatre space and expanding and developing the medium. Imitating the Dog's 'Kellerman' at the Nuffield Theatre in mid 2009 was truly mind blowing!. The sheer spectacle and unbelievable stage design as well as the moving between the filmed image (on large projection screens) and live actors in the space integrating themselves into the filmed images was just spectacular! (see the link at the bottom for more of an understanding of the sheer scale!) The experience of watching it in a Theatre space will always stay with me. Similarly Proto-Type Theater's 'Virtuoso' a piece about 1960's suburbia which involved the three performers constructing their world using plastic figures, video cameras, projections and live performing. Using media in a much smaller way than ITD, the performance gave me a wonderful inspiration in how to bring together lots of differing technologies and employ them in the Theatre space.
These performances were and remain a big inspiration for me, namely because they ultise different technologies in the theatre space, they keep to the traditional formats of performer / audience but in almost every other regard they take the audience on a roller coaster ride of different experiences that they may never of experienced before. It is the new and different approach to creating a performance, utilising a multitude of artistic inspirations, aesthetics and languages to deliver performances which are not only visually and viscerally astonishing but have taken the traditional rulebook and added a big spoonful of excitement and creativity.
I know its quite hard to imagine these performances in the flesh so please if you want see more have a quick look at the links at the bottom of this post!
Ever since I watched these performances I have become really fascinated in media and theatrical performance, mainly in relation to technology (whether that is screen media i.e. film, video or other technologies such as web based, mobile phones, audio technology). From this I got fascinated by the possibilities and creative potential art and technology and how technology itself in the last two decades or so has come to become the social standing by which we are judged i.e. in the last few years the dominance of Facebook and Youtube, blogging and reality television. All these ideas are all grounded in a position of reflecting and analysing the world.
So what is my main Idea I will be working on this week? Well it is quite simple:
To Record a period of 10 hours of just me in my bedroom recorded through video, photographic and sound recordings.
Why would I being doing this? It is interesting to show the effect of media documentation of a nobody, do I end up performing to the camera? Why?
This is my main idea for this week, I will report back on Friday as to whether it is successful or not!
To finish up with here's an interesting set of links to some of the companies and performances I have mentioned in this blog!:
http://www.imitatingthedog.co.uk - - The website of Imitating the Dog
http://www.proto-type.org/Proto-type_Theater/Proto-type_Theater.htmlco.uk/ - The Website of Proto-type Theater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYGwvJ_kh7o - Trailer for 'Kellerman' Which came to the Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster in May 2009 (ITD)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybuIbK2gwAg&feature=related - Trailer for 'Hotel Methuselah' by ITD, the previous show to 'Kellerman'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_C3_iUbWwc&feature=related - 'Virtuoso' by Proto-Type Theater which had its world premier at the Nuffield Theatre in April 2009.
http://www.gobsquad.com/ - The Home of Gob Squad
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