Moving on from my work on Instagram, I wanted to see how my current work could be translated into a performance that could be done live, either in-person, on a livestreaming platform or both.
In this first video, I wanted to explore how I could utilise my body in a theatrical and symbolic sense:
I was interested in the boundaries and interceptions between physical movements and shapes, and their applications in activities with a more individualistic activities (e.g. white, westernised yoga) and that of more collective thinking – I was particularly thinking of the powerful stances depicted in communist propaganda. I combined videos relating to these, along side some other clips I felt fitted the subject, including Morris and cheerleading performances. Over this, I used a video imitating some of the poses the clips featured. I quite liked the shadow that was left behind when I was more lenient with the chroma key function, and I think the colour filters I used were quite effective too, however I think I could improve my performance by putting some more consideration into the poses I was making, and finding a more suitable space to film myself in.
Following this, I wanted to try performing to a projected video, instead of editing myself in. This proved to be a lot more difficult and not so successful, partly due to the lack of equipment I had to hand, but what I’ve learnt from this will be useful moving forward.
Initially I had tried creating a costume of some sort, however I found that the dark materials didn’t work too well with the projected image (especially if the image featured a lot of a dark colours), but it would show up quite effectively on my skin, so I’ll try to focus on wearing lighter colours if I decided continue exploring costumes. Reading from the script was something I felt prohibited my movements and staging, as I didn’t want the paper to be too obvious and block the projection. One solution would be to learn the script, however this would be hard due it’s unstructured nature, or alternatively have someone or something else read it – a computer generated voice like the ones I generated using Melobytes. I think this could be in interesting path to try, as it could produce the interpretation that the computer/system is controlling the performer, and would allow for more experimentation with sound. Another option could be install the words around the room, this would invite a nonlinear reading of the text and an accompanying work that isn’t time based.
