SITE SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE – Page 11

Antony Gormley (Research)

Abigail Elizabeth Earlie / March 11, 2015 / 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.

Abigail Earlie

Sculpture Art

Rebecca Anne Lothian / March 10, 2015March 10, 2015 / 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 / March 10, 2015March 10, 2015 / 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 / March 10, 2015April 2, 2015 / 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.

Creating Sculptures

Abigail Elizabeth Earlie / March 9, 2015 / Main Page

Today, our aim was to experiemnt with new materials that we could use for the casting of body parts that will be used in our performance. As a group we went into the Art Studio and asked if we could possibly use some sort of material that would be used to create a more fuller and thicker sculpure of a body part compared to our last attempt of mod roc as we felt the mod roc sculpture was very fragile. This experimental process was in order to see if other forms of material looked more natural and realistic compared to our last attempt. The Art department was very helpful and gave us some alginate powder that we mixed with water to create a paste that was easy to spread over a moisturised hand. We then covered the pasted hand in strips of the plaster of paris bandages until we was happy that the hand was fully covered. When it began to set, we then filled the hand with a thick paste mixture and we left it to set for a hour. The result was a thick 3D cast of a human hand. I was very impressed with the result of the hand and we will be experimenting with other body parts in the futre to see if they are as succesful. I am interested to see what the casts of arms and legs, faces and feet will look like.

Abigail Earlie