weekly journal
Class notes, thoughts, ideas, inspirations
Week One
Week two
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This week’s SLP tasks began with some horizontal thinking, prompting me to mind map all the various themes, ideas, and inspirations floating around in my head.
I began thinking about flowers in a more literal realm, rather than the metaphoric and gestural meanings I have been inspired by. My map thought of physical locations, in London and beyond, that intertwine with flowers - particularly in conversation with community.
Then, I sorted through my various ideas and made six further mind-maps which considered:
Form, Style, Genre, Performance Modes
Content, Themes, Ideas, Conceptual Dimensions
Audience/Spectator: Configurations, Relationship, Attitude Towards
Space, Image, Materials, Aesthetics
Sensation, Atmospherics, Effects, Affects
Methodologies, Strategies, Composition, Structures
Within this exercise, I really thought about intentionality and making active choices. Each mind-map then was made into a short video, my favourite of which flipped through an album of photos taken across the span of the past two years - showing time passing and the digitalisation of this.
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In our first in-class workshop, we were introduced to the idea of break down/falling apart, through the first exercise which required simultaneous thought and movement. The space in-between can show new ways of thinking and allow for imperfections - so important to remember.
Through perceptive exercises, such as see/notice/imagine, we explored how first sight can be expanded into closer looking, into imagination and inference.
Something that Julia said that really has stuck with me is the idea that the project doesn’t have to be about something, it simply can be that thing. And I think that’s so important and so much of what I want to create. Especially working with themes of impermanence, making sure that the moments themselves are fleeting is so important.
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After playing with interpreting our draft proposals (both spoken and with movement), we did some more horizontal thinking and created Maps of Thinking, which intersect key words and touchstones with selected objects, allowing us to see connections form between our ideas.
My map came in the form of a flower, with five petals each representing a strand of my inspirations and thoughts. Inside each petal, I wrote down all my thinking points on that specific topic - such as the CONNECTION petal also housing CONVERSATION, LOVE, CARE, STRANGERS, WORDS. I then began to, with pen and string, connect various ideas across the map until the page was full of strings, connections, and conversations between these thoughts.
There is something so beautiful in finding relatability between two initially separated ideas. Like with the earlier workshop exercise, after first seeing you can then notice further details, triggering imaginative responses.
Materially, using string was fun to both connect ideas literally, as well as metaphorically intertwining with thinking my about invisible strings and connections. I brought in a pressed rose, and removed four petals from it to incorporate into my map. I played with breaking them, sticking them down, tying them up. Taking the same thing and exploring different ways of shaping it was really fascinating in the exploration of choices and decisions - what can happen when you make a different choice from the same initial starting point?
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Some new words and thoughts that have cropped up from this week’s exercises and workshop:
Temporality
Inevitability
Beginning, Middle, End
Cycles + Patterns
Week three
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Week three *
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PERFORMATIVE PROPOSITIONS
playing with materials to make flowers - paper, blu tac, etc
making flowers that last, or don’t
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INTRODUCTION
talking through her work in its various strands and disciplines
social art
participatory/events
interest in the IN-BETWEEN spaces - her work within foyers, where people gather and wait - links into my interest in shared spaces and the middle-ground
Covet Me Care For Me - an installation work, inviting audience participation - I am fascinated in the way she invites participants into an act of destruction, but also gain, in their obtaining an object from within a glass vessel
A Restorative - participatory piece enabling participants to create their own dream pillow - themes of personal connection with the work, taking something away, building something.
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introducing through a chosen OBJECT - begin with it, then the themes come out
translating the object into… TEXT
I brought in the stem of a tulip - this morning when I left, it had four petals on that were lost along the way, probably in the park,
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living room - describing what the project would be like as a living room:
carpet of flowers
no roof or walls, so the stars can be seen
a tree in the centre, surrounded by a circular seating area, books underneath cushioned seats
lights + music, atmospheric
a blend of flowers + colours
WHY make? how do you want to live?
because nothing lasts forever!
because temporality creates significance
because making ignites
because when else?
because focus on the present moment is necessary to progress
practical research - responding to question prompts, allowing consideration into literal and metaphorical reality of the object
this exercise was SO helpful for me - made me realise the focus on the middle-ground is so central to my current thoughts and themes
what are the material properties? who made it? what does it remind you of? does it make you feel? how does it relate to the natural world? what would it say if it could speak?
this really helped me realise there are more connections than ever noticeable on first impression, and looking deeper into an object, asking questions of it, provides such unique ways of thinking
we then spent a few minutes free-writing inspired by our answers, I wrote about the tulip’s journey to the present moment. it became quite metaphoric, feeding into thinking about the commodification of nature and how separation occurs throughout the journey. how sometimes the roots and petals are gone, but the stem remains. the middle remains.
‘loss is regular. change is ever-present and on-going. interventions occur frequently, sometimes things happen too early, too late, time waits for no-one.’
deleting words, from existing text - what happens?
using One Bouquet of Fleeting Beauty, Please - from the NYT’s Modern Love column
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Things to look at:
cycles + inevitability
BEGINNING MIDDLE END
PAST PRESENT FUTUREan aesthetic of romance
Ideas to explore:
a meal, but flowers
take one, leave one
flower windows
growth + destruction - natural v with human intervention
Make and do:
print inspirations - collage words + images together
plant a flower, capture its life and death
read about life cycles
read about the meanings of flowers - victorians
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recapping Sheila’s workshop & reflecting
researching Kantor - surrealist/avant-garde artist, set designer, director
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key takeaways
manifestos as a physical manifestation of intent, values, promises
looking @ MANIFESTATION by Oscar Murillo
autonomous theatre as Kantor’s manifesto - representation and reality
Kantor as finding inspiration from the streets around him - in colour, style, line
discussion + thought points
value of art through status and reputation
abstract art - layered materials
art as actuality - performing reality
living through, and making art within, complex political + historical environments - negates the need for context, the city surroundings are the context
autonomous theatre as separate from the play text - theatre as a separate entity itself
composition
making through paying attention to form - using Bogart’s viewpoints
stepping away from text - composition through the body
playing with MONTAGE, in the composition of scenes/moments/images - idea of separate but together
using autonomous theatre as
viewpoints, Anne Bogart
tempo
duration
repetition
kinaesthetic response
architecture
topography
shape
gesture
spatial relationship
paying attention, having focus
leading on impulse!
week four
workshop with Lorenzo Montanini
‘Manifestation’, Oscar Murillo, 2019-20
Week Five
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Through Lorenzo’s SLP tasks, making performance as informed by listed ingredients, I developed a site-specific video project filmed around the QM campus, starting in Arts One, then spanning out towards the canal and student village.
I documented stills of plants and flowers in their varying degrees and stages - from plants growing in the foyer, to the allotment, to the trees along Regents Canal. The mixture of growth through both manufactured and natural means created a really beautiful array to be explored.
One of Lorenzo’s prompts was ‘something that can’t be faked’, which I brought into my clips of plants being affected by their surroundings - namely in contact with wind and external factors. The unpredictability of what will happen to them was interesting to record, allowing nature to take its course in more ways than one.
Another prompt was the ‘revelation of space’, which became clearer as I ventured outside of the building, into the wider campus. As a replication of journey, growth, and expansion - my chosen focal points within the film grew and progressed as the plants did/continue to do.
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Within Julia Bardsley’s artist workshop, we went through the processes of physicalising our projects, and channeling the energies and manifestations they produce.
Using Chekhov’s psychological gestures - we drew from written prompts we had produced in impulse response to our projects, taking inspiration and physicalising it. In moving with the internal gesture, and allowing it to consume your movements entirely, it becomes a state of being separate to the self. Through this gesture, it can be channelled into decision-making capacities, producing outcomes unimaginable from the initial starting point.
The idea of ritual enables the treatment of something as sacred and almost becomes performing a routine. Building a persona in this way allows for self-censorship to give way and generate new material.
Whilst we were using another person as a mirror, getting ‘ready’ in the reflection of another, we were informed by our own internal gestures - their desires, their impulses. Outsourcing the generation to the persona. However, in the process of serving as a mirror FOR another person, somehow their physical projection onto us still fed into our own personas. You begin to make sense of any occurrence, and apply logic to make it a part of the gestural world.
I am really interested in the process of BECOMING - the journey of transformation, the feeling that comes with the transformation. In how the internal translated itself into material reality. How finding the point of internal concentration can enable so much intrinsic potential.
In discussions post-workshop, we spoke about the value and the interesting parts being how the internal gesture is translated - rather than necessarily looking at the reference points, and where this internal concentration stems from.
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interrogation through PRACTICE
focus on the process of becoming - how does it feel?
finding the internal point of concentration, and using this to inform decisions, actions, reactions, making material
let the persona create! outsource
something about the ways the colours blend on the makeup wipes, process of unmasking, shedding the persona, the return/reverse journey of transformation
sometimes, it’s more interesting to think about the ways in which things manifest, the processes and rituals undertaken, rather than where something has come from. the stimulus, and explaining the reasons and meanings, are not always as fascinating as the essence of what is being created.
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CONTINUES
HAS NO END DATE
IS IN THE MIDDLE OF ITS PROCESS AT THE TIME OF ‘SHOWING’
IS AFFECTED BY THE WORLD AROUND IT
IS UNPREDICTABLE
CANNOT BE MANUFACTURED ENTIRELY, JUST PROMPTED
Performing Persona, Identity, Character
workshop
slp
Week Six
WEEK SEVEN - READING WEEK
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MUSIC TO ACCOMPANY
LACMA having audios attached to artworks - allows you to scan a QR code, leading to either a playlist designed to accompany the entire exhibition, or a particular exhibit
STICKERS! LAYERING
as going beyond collaging
like how museums sometimes give you a sticker as a ticket, then people add them to a lamppost or something
KUSAMA
obliteration room = sticker installation @ tate modern last year,
body festival = covering herself/others in dots - happening, political protest
SEEDS
in postcards!
JOSEPH BEUYS
social sculpture = everything is art, everything can be approached creatively
social forest = reforestation action, planting of trees as part of conservation project
‘never stop planting’ !!!!
always seeds to sow
ZOLTAR SPEAKS
fortune-telling, card dispensary
links to seed cards
MARIA MAGDALENA CAMPOS-PONS
uses flora + fauna in her art - power of nature to grow + survive, forging + repairing relationships, attending to the world with care + empathy
political dimensions - eg Butterfly Eyes for Breonna Taylor
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never stop planting !
there’s something in stickers, layering, building, adding
where do the fallen petals go?
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inspired by Sheila Ghelani’s living room research exercise:
shower, onto flowerbed
beauty + beast rose in glass case
paper flower making + burning - ritual
photomontages - with audio and video accompaniment
make a wish tree - but with a twist (idk what!)
QR codes with tracks relating to artworks
seed planting/postcards - take something away, legacy project
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temporality, through flowers
growth, through flowers
connection, through flowers
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persona making, of interviewer/curator/florist
floristry workshop
interview + consequential collage
something about stickers, leaving your mark
Click for gallery
Week Eight
WiP Brainstorms:
photomontage
photo wall
seed-planting workshop