I was invited to take place at the first islington mill art bonfire, aroused by the prospect of creating something to burn I made a video entitled ‘Art-school and other secrets’, This was made up of some records of me talking candidly about my past 4 years at MMU, whilst also giving a ‘recipe’ on how to survive Art school. When recording the scripted parts as seen below I kept getting distracted by the task at hand because I was not sure of which tone I should be address into the camera, because of this I began to make a lot of mistakes. On reviewing the footage I found that the ‘mistakes’, the bloopers if you will, were actually more telling than the dialouge I had scripted. The film is made up of cut scenes of me getting angry with myself and all the other embrassing stuff in between. Part 2 of the film I am talking about an ex lover I met on campus and how he made me feel, but with all the sound muted.
Today I went and had a go at the supermarket video. I roped in a friend to help me. Using my DSLR camera we got some footage of an un-suspecting shopper, I followed him around whilst directing my friend to get shots of him browsing/shopping/interacting with others, etc/
Sadly the camera bobs up and down a lot making the footage very shaky and a tad sea-sickening to view. Also, because of the bulky nature of the device it was hard to turn around whilst it just lying across ones chest. You would have to turn your body 90 degrees in a very robotic manner to turn corners, it was not a very smooth or dynamic way to shoot.
on the plus side I found the experience really enjoyable and it throw up some ideas to mind. There was an interesting balance to tow here, I had to stay somewhere between him to places. One being that he would not know I was filming him, or where he would become angry in a public place and ask me what I was doing. And then what would I say? He is in a public place, shopping is not a private affair, there is CCTV cameras doing a better job at tracking him than me, that information is seemed as free to all. Am I being intrusive? Because of the personal nature of shopping am I harassing somebody?
To get better footage that I can take myself I am ordering some cheap clip on spy cameras from China. This will mean that I no longer feature in the films which is a shame as I wanted to interact with my subjects. I will see as it goes on how I feel about that tool in the films.
I have returned to Interactive Arts. It is a bit strange looking back at my work retrospectively and trying to pursue the same ideas, ideas evolve with or without you taking notice of them. Before I had left I was drawn in by the prospect of performing in my own dance video. Now, being away from the whole project I no longer feel the same way. If I am to dance I would then be judged as a dance piece, and then this could potentially water down the piece as an ‘artwork’. I believe that to find my feet with the project I need to get to grips with video, as the initial idea behind the project was to work with multi channels, and simultaneous shooting. I wanted to experiment with space and symmetry and ‘lo-fi’ ways of editing film. To choreograph a dance sequence seems to be subtracting from the work that needs to be done behind camera whilst increasing the amount of work that needs to be done. It is not very logical. However, I am still interested by space, movement and the idea of ‘hysteria’. I just think I can continue with this theme in perhaps, a more abstracted form.
During my time away I came across some art work of Mark Mothersbaugh (singer from post-punk band Devo). I am a massive fan of his music but never really took much note of his visual work before. He uses stock images from pre-1900’s and uses basic symmetry to create new compositions and insert different meanings.
In the spirit of Devo I made some of my own mutants using symmetry below.
Throughout all my work I usually find a lo-fi way of manipulating the camera, whether that by be using multi channel, or mirrors or even basic editing, I believe this is because I am from a generation where we are visually given too much. CGI and other deemed ‘special effects’, I usually find subtract from the story or hijack it completely, humble yet special camera effects really do it for me every time. For instance the camera work in, Sam Rami’s ‘Evil Dead 2’ leaves me breathless each time I see it. ‘Citizen journalism’ also has a role to play here, the notorious 9/11 footage is pixelated and choppy, because f the desperate nature of which it was taken. These ‘lo-fi’ examples of film are organically produced, they happen in real time and because of that still have a gravitational pull today. I wouldn’t be at all surprised in forty years time we look at pixels and buffering in the same way people look at medium format photography today, it will be seen as delicate and of a time gone by. CGI and the like, cannot really improve on something that did not need improving anyway.
The man you can see with the clipboard in this photograph (the man who is closer to the center of the image) is a member of the fire service, closing Kraak down. Kraak is a rented property, the landlord has never really been interested in what the space was used for, which up until now worked to our advantage. However, turns out the one time we heard the fire alarm work was a fluke and it no longer works. Not to mention the fire escape runs outside of the building, and apparently that is and inch too small to be legitimate. This now means we cannot hold events, cannot use the recording studio (which was the main source of income for the project) and ironically enough the Fire Service have told us that it can only be used as an Art Gallery, not more than 60 people can be in the building. And everyone has to be out by 6pm, or we/landlord/or whoever is in charge can be prosecuted. This is near to impossible to happen as it costs more money than what was originally possible, if not used for studios upstairs and also running fulltime as a gallery.
This has come as a massive shame, we put in so much hard work and it has come down crashing round our ears around the time of the first exhibition. This inevitably means that my fundraiser Grimms performance event will be pushed back, or maybe canceled if we cannot get another venue suitable. Watching this incredible space rise and fall so quickly has made me wonder if I can embark on such a project myself? There are lots of unused buildings in Manchester, and with the recession still in place, property prices are low and spaces are becoming more and more available.
This is definitively food for thought and I shall be making some enquiries around commercial units and abandoned buildings this week.
In this series of experimental videos I am acting beside myself. I play two characters in this piece, one a chldbride, virgin , the other a melancholy Charlie Chaplin type figure who longs for the little lady.
This narrative came about by wanting to work two characters along side one another who would interact with one another, and with the magic of film I appear in both television screens.
This interaction with myself, I throughly enjoyed, I liked the existential quality to the piece. In whole, the thing was rather spooky and even quite Lynchian for me to review afterwards. What I didnt like about it when revising the piece was how long it was, and how lots of the smaller ideas I had worked in became invisible because of the comedic nature of the two interacting charters. I need to spend more time on the smaller ideas, pad them out a little even.
The multi-channel aspect to the film was most difficult, the slight varation to one of the cameras makes the piece less consistent, I need to invest some money in purchasing two, at the least of the same brand of camera. This way everything will be shot all nice and clear throughout, this should hopefully give the piece a quasi-realistic feel, rather than a speckly silent movie.
Xavier Le Roy is a French contemporary artist although he is more commonly named as a Choreographer. I do not really see him as a choreographer or physical theater performer as his work is more suited in the Whitworth than in the Palace Theater, by that I mean he is very visual, he is not really an athletic performer although his works have included some agile movements. He experiments with the most basic of things, a table, a chair, a piece of fabric, smaller ideas,which I find are usually the more interesting. It is nothing as grand as say watching Rambert at the Lowry. But what’s in a name, anyway?
Le Roy describes his own work as ‘purely experimental’, he tests bits and pieces out in galleries as they come to him, I find this approach to his work really interesting, as I like the premise that you chop and change every time you perform or exhibit. His work really captures my imagination as he as you can probably tell, is not a qualified dancer, he has not been trained. I find this really appealing, as because of this he interacts and moves very differently to say a dance student.
In the below video “La Sacre du Printempts” he is playing the role of a composer. Under the assumption that conductors do not actually ‘conduct’ the live music, he is moving and reacting to the music. I, personally wouldn’t know the difference between this performance and the ‘real deal’ and have similar suspicions about conductors.
Xavier Le Roy’s videos are quite dramatic and tense, and yet always solo, first person experiments. They are not lavish but still are very rich, and carry narrative, and sometimes even humor. His work with simple things such as costume or one or two props, is something I am becoming rather interested in by seeing his work. It was that I wanted to develop my work around 1930’s showstoppers, and have works entitled the same, but now I am thinking of combining simple uncomplicated moves along with my split screen format. I think this could create some stunning symmetry and could be really visually stimulating.
My initial ideas were more on the side of physical theater, not at all minimalistic, I am now looking to change that, after all this is an Art degree not a Performance Art degree.
Comments Off on Xavier Le Roy – Artist research and my own development
[move written work and diagrams off uni computers]
Here is a short part of a solo show I did last year, the photo above came into my mind when thinking out the logistics of the new film I am working on. I have always been a fan of symetry, in most of my work I try and make things symetrical, so for this film to work how I envision it I want this motif to follow through this piece of work, also.
I want to shoot the piece on three static cameras which are lined up to cause seamless shooting. See diagram below.
This method of shooting means that when I walk/dance through it will be viewed in a bitty way. I have shot a multi channel film before but not with 3 cameras, also this was shot indoors, I am to do this on a hill! My tutors think I am mad.
Comments Off on Wolfgang Tillmans and photographic manipulation
Yesterday I went to a Tarot reading and secretly recorded the events that passed.
Stream the audio by pressing the above link.
Since thinking about the dance video, depression and what-not I became more detached from my own feelings. I was watching them and weighing them up, moulding them into my work. I had become a voyeur of my own life.
The tarot reading was a gathering of information, I was not there for the details but for the experience as a whole unsure of what was about to come out of it, it seemed to really fit in what I was doing, although I find it hard to articulate why.
I had the idea when filming my Manhattan pt 2 video, as my Woody/Issac character goes to visit a palm reader in time of desperation. At first I was just going to ask if I could film there, or have a couple of shots and then build my own set, I soon lost my bottle and shot the thing in my dining room. I felt bad because people obviously belive in this as a religion of sorts or lifestyle, I didn’t want to offend anyone.
Playing back the reading I found some bits of dialogue really precious, funny, kitsch even. (the bit about my Mum was especially great)
I am a massive fan of ‘bad’ taste, and I felt this was rather cheap, I am in two minds to use some of this audio for the dance, or maybe just take out some syllabus and turn them into beats, rhythms, etc. Or just to re-enact it on stage.
The audio of the tarot reading is currently on loop at Kraak gallery.
April Showers 