So this is the basis of my set. It was done on 12th May and was based in the alcove, with a table and chair and a basic floor light however, soon enough the whole space will become littered with paper, string and rope.
We used scaffolding as the frame for the rope. Looking back at my final design, the piece only used vertical lines to replicate bars but I decided this wasn’t going to be visionally stimulating and would look clumsy as well.
I chose to have a spider web effect which would also double up to replicate how electro neurons appear in the brain:
This shows the connection of all pieces of media and thoughts but physicalized in rope and string.
I used weaving to create the web like structure and had to teach the techies how to weave; this system was more effective than the one we used previously which was too complicated and difficult to manage. By tying the rope onto one end and threading it through made it work quicker and more efficiently; it also gave me more room to be imaginative.
The set could be likened to an art installation as I believe it evoked a similar feeling to that of the powerful and thought provoking piece by Marina Abramovic entitled Balkan Baroque. Her piece was a statement about her country of Serbia which she felt did not exist following the Yugoslavian wars. “It involved her scrubbing clean 1,500 cow bones six hours a day for four days and weeping as she sang songs and told stories from her native country” (O’Hagen, 2010). This was all visual, there was no narrative just the audience’s interpretation of her pain and agony when cleaning the horrific past she endured with her mother and father and how she was treated.
(The Guardian, 2010)
I feel my set has the same sense of drama and visual protest and imagery where it makes you stop and think but not to the same level as Balkan Baroque.
When the webbing was done we worked on the lights where a floor light was used.
This was a great source of light because it gave a harshness to the set and when a performer steps in it, it is though that are being interrogated because there is a piecing the light directly on the performer’s face. It gives great use of shadows as well when it comes to presenting a troubled worried mind as though the mind is ongoing with strings attached and nowhere to go.
When it came today the importance was the lighting which I have done earlier:
Blackout
A grey hard edge light snaps on before the sound starts
At 15 secs a pulsing light starts and gets stronger until 1:00 hits on the soundscape (or before it becomes a health issue).
Then the use of blackouts in pulse like rhythm that snaps on light until the soundscape hits 1:30.
A very slowly fade in back into a sand tone yellow lighting which will be sustained throughout the piece.
When the ‘God save our Queen’ music is over, the Cameron speech spec of blue and red comes on until 3:42
Then back to the yellow colour.
Yellow fades slowly into a flat white at 4:30
At 4:90 it starts to flicker back to the yellow shade where it sticks at 5:10
A strobe flickers into a LED white at 7:00
As the character starts to clean up the space at around 9:00 fade very slowly to blackout.
Lights fades back up at 10:00 to discover the character in the audience’s space.
Final blackout
This was set up ready for the show for tomorrow.
This is the final look until the floor becomes just paper in and around the alcove and all the other props.
Work cited:
O’Haggan, S (2010) Interview: Marina Abramović London: The Guardian. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/oct/03/interview-marina-abramovic-performance-artist [accessed 17th May 2016].