Month: March 2015

Site Performance List-101 things to do with a library trolley!

Jake Lewis Hastings-Eldridge / / Main Page

After me, Sam, Paul and Sarah all decided on what the 101 things were. We decided to break them down into what we all wanted to do. The tasks I am going to do are:

1- Have a conversation via the trolley. This will need all 4 of us.
2- Create an obstacle course. This will need me and somebody to take a photo of the obstacle course.
3- Dining Experience. This will need all 4 of us.
4- Pac Man. This will need all 4 of us.
5- Trolley Race Inside. This will involve all 4 of us.
6- Trolley Race Outside. Again this will involve all 4 of us.
7- Take Trolley up and down the stairs. This will involve me and somebody else to take a photo.
8- Pick a trolley up and carry it instead of pushing it around. Again 2 people, me and somebody else.
9- Breakdown Trolley. This will be me on my own, until I meet with Paul.
10- Planking. This will need 2 people. Me and somebody else.
11- Sleeping. This will need just me.
12- Play Football with the trolleys as goals. This will need only me and somebody else to play against.
13- Music Trolley. This will only need just me.
14- Barricade of Trolleys. This will be me and Sam.
15- Bank. Just me on my own.
16- Create a maze in one of the group rooms. This will be me and somebody else.
17- Trolley Taxi. Just me and Sam.
18- Write a book while explaining your ride. Me and Paul will be doing this one.
19- NERF GUN SHIELD! This will be me and somebody else. Well anybody who wants to join.
20- Rehearse a play scene. Just me and somebody else.
21- Mime using a trolley. I will be on my own for this.
22- Push the trolley upside down. On my own.
23- Turn the trolley into a bin. I will just be walking around the library.
24- Stack the trolleys. I will be on my own.
25- Make the trolley into a musical instrument. I will just be walking around the ground floor of the library making music.

All of these are going to be a lot of fun but, it is going to take some organising to make it run all smoothly, but I am confident that everything will go according to plan.

Antony Gormley (Research)

Abigail Elizabeth Earlie / / Main Page

I found it interesting and useful to investigate the works and sculptures of the artist Antony Gormley. I found his statues of the human body especially interesting as it relates more to our site specific performance as we are also looking at the use of body in sculptures to create a performance related to the architecture and history of the library building.  The sculptures used by Antony Gormley take up a substantial amount of  room in the space used by the artist, however, the space is  not cluttered by the sculptures but is light and open and its clear to see that the artist had meaning to where and why he placed the sculptures in the space he did.  Each sculpture is created by different materials that I will research and look into with more detail, I believe that this will be useful to our performance as a source of inspiration as we could find other raw materials we could use to create our sculptures.

Anthony Gormleys artwork investigates the relationship of the human body to space. He asks the question, Where does the human body stand in relation to nature and cosmos. I’m interested and excited about Antony Gormley’s work and I shall  continue researching him and other artists as a source of inspiration to our performance. 53e23306653fc

 

Abigail Earlie

Sculpture Art

Rebecca Anne Lothian / / Tasks

The human body is limitless to work with. As drama students, we know this to a certain extent. Modroc is an excellent material in creating sculptures, my group and I have been experimenting with it on the body.

Making sculptures out of architectural features in the library that people may not notice will allow people to develop their understanding of the building and maybe even appreciate it more.

    

The link between the human body and architecture of this building is crucial, yet undermined. The working space has changed and adapted to suit the purpose of the building and the people who wish to use it. It’s also interesting to make the connection between how the building makes the body physically move, for example, how people walk up the stairs, or how they sit at a computer desk. These two elements integrate massively; perhaps through art we can express and even challenge this.

 

People and Buildings

Rebecca Anne Lothian / / Main Page

My group and I, after much research and discussion, have all realised the most interesting thing about the building is the people within it. Having a close relationship to the site ourselves, we understand that many other people who use it may feel a similar connection. After spending many hours studying, reading and just being in the library, alone or with others, we feel the library has become a part of us. Therefore, does that make us be a part of it? Are we changing the building with our presence? Do people and buildings share something?

The human body does share some similarities with buildings, for example, they are both physical and definitely real. However, do buildings highlight more emotional, metaphoric and spiritual elements that may not necessarily be obvious? Does a building offer something much deeper than just structure?

This led to the idea of embedding ourselves into the architecture of the building, becoming a part of it. With the possible use of sculpture art, my group and I are currently experimenting of mixing body and architecture and creating links between the two.

Repetition of the building

Rebecca Anne Lothian / / Research

The interesting thing about the Warehouse Library is not only of the building itself, but of the people who occupy the site. Without bringing people into the building, it would become and empty space. Lea Vergine (2000) discusses this in her edited book Body Art and Performance “The individual is placed at the center of a continuous process that is carried ahead with persistence’s and repetitions” (Vergine, 2000, 8).  This correlates with the repetition that flows through our site. When we look back to it being a factory, workers will have produced work through repetitious manual labor expected of them every day. This still exists today with library users, whether they use the space for work or social reasons, there are several behaviours that are expected. We can also relate this quote to the actual architecture of the building itself. Over the years, the building has remained, adapted and advanced for the changing purposes of the site. However, there are still memoirs around the library which represents its history, allowing us to see and feel the process the building has experienced. Therefore, the site is a continuous process, just like the people who are working within it.

Vergine, L. (ed.) (2000) Body Art and Performance: The Body as Language. Italy: Skira Editore S.p.A.