Abigail Elizabeth Earlie – SITE SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

Body Sculpture

Abigail Elizabeth Earlie / April 24, 2015 / Research

Artist Ken Clarke has worked in film studios creating human body sculptures for films. Life cadting is a mould created by materials mixed together and then shaped around the persons body. These moulds can be placed any where and almost instantly they create new and unusual pieces of art. By taking the mould directly from the natural body, the mould casts are extremley lifelike with every detail and every freckle is captured, this makes the casts unique and a performance a one and only. The casts of the body in these moulds create a record of the changes of the human body. A life cast can consist of a pregnant woman ranging to a childs hands. In our performance we have chosen to take inspiration from Ken Clarke and we have experiemented with the variations of body parts that can be cast.

Abigail Earlie

Art Studio Work

Abigail Elizabeth Earlie / April 24, 2015 / Tasks

22cnd April 2015.

As our performance is based on the architexture of the libary and the human body we have chosen to Mod Roc body parts and place them in interested and unusual places on and around the libary stair case. Body parts and the image of body parts have been our groups main focus this week as we have researched the architexture to an extent and now are focusing on creating a decent amound of Mod Rock casts to place all over the libary. These are images showing our group mod rocking an arm using strips of material and water and we are still waiting for the outcome of the cast. The results of our mod rocking in the past have been very good and the casts replicate real imitations of body parts. The casts when finished have alot of detail and are very interesting to look at as well as looking very unusual. We created these mod rock casts in the Art studio on the University Campus and found that we can create alot of material in the space and with the avaliable materials that are on offer. Hopefully when these casts are finished we are hoping to place them all around the stair case of the libary. It will be very interesting to see our audiences reaction when they see the casts. We are continuing creating the casts for the libary this week.

Abigail Earlie

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

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

How does the architecture change the body?

Abigail Elizabeth Earlie / March 9, 2015 / Main Page

In this weeks sessions and time spent with my group, I plan to think in more depth of how could the architecture of this particular building changes the human body within a performance. The architecture is crucial to this building and its so interesting to be given the chance to explore this by means of a physical and creative performance. The use of the bottom space at the bottom of the stair well is so interesting because I don’t think that many students really pay attention to this interesting and unusual empty space. Why is this space there? What can be done in this space? How can we capture the attention and imagination of the intended audience by using this space in a interesting way? Our main aim is to plant mod roc casts all over the stair well. I will also start to think and plan in more detail about the materials we shall be using in our performance. I will research the use of sculptures within a specific space and how they can create a huge impact to a buildings significance.

Abigail Earlie.