Stelarc

“Stelarc is an Australian performance artist whose works focuses heavily on extending the capabilities of the human body.”

Wikipedia

Fascinated by Stelarcs notion on the body becoming obsolete and considering this notion for my project. There’s a video I came across on Youtube in which Stelarc demonstrates the use of the exoskeleton a six-legged, pneumatically mechanical walking machine. When I first watched the video I didn’t realise how big the scale of the machine was until it was showcased in front of an audience. I think the scale of the machine adds to the intimidation. The beginning of the video shows the shadow of the machine projecting against the wall. Gave me some thoughts of incorporating this into my work as well.

Running Thoughts

Sketches I took on the way to Kirkcaldy. The train journey was tranquil and I had time to jot some ideas that were running through my head.

Final Outcome.

Began looking at the word “Scatter” and took it literally so I documented glass being scattered against a wall. My initial reaction was to recreate the impact of the glass by the momentarily hit against the wall. Though I didn’t feel that much inspired by just breaking glass however the feeling of breaking the glass was somewhat liberating. I came across Plate smashing in Ancient Greek Culture in which they use to commemorate the dead. By smashing the plate this would be an act of distraction from mourning loved-ones. In modern Greece plate smashing is somewhat of a tourist attraction and is not practiced as much as it use to be. Though a ban was introduced in 1970s as it was seen as dangerous.

In today’s society plate smashing holds many implications such with the current credit crunch Japanese business men pay to smash a plate this wave has also hit San Diego. The research that I’ve collected contained no personal matter and I didn’t feel any connection. I began thinking of what plate smashing meant to me. For me smashing a plate it acted as a emotional release. The plate carrying my emotion and then smashed and scattered into pieces. I didn’t feel that compelled and didn’t know how to progress this into a final idea. I then thought of my childhood and how my mother use to smash plates with anger, usually it was the result of that time of the month or nobody helping her out in the kitchen. I began to evaluate her actions in the past and realized it was a cry for help. She was frustrated living with a man and she was never compatible with a man living under the same roof as her. So the occasional nights there was a lot of quarrels between my mum and my dad. Usually the stupidest things would spark an argument.

This is where I began looking at different ways of conveying this notion. I did a lot of development with videos and reflections. Also deviously recorded an argument between my sister and my mother. Collected sound bites from Hollywood movies of love fight scenes. I developed these by mixing up the sounds and having a male and female on separate sides of the speakers but recorded on one track. So Left speaker is female and the right speaker is male and they would argue together. I felt it was too obvious and didn’t contain the right consistency to be carried off as a complete art work. So I wanted it to be in reference to my chose word for the brief I didn’t want to go of course. So I thought of distorting the sound of the argument by stretching out the words to sound like a digital broken wav.file.  If you look at a visualization of a stretched wav sound it scatters into dots. So I’m stretching it and stretching it until it breaks into pieces. This is the result of the distortion of the argument emitted from the speakers. Also the audio replays again and again. Its like a broken recorded replaying the same argument and its going nowhere equals to a broken relationship hence the damaged speakers that once connected the two in harmony.

Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay (born 1955) is an American visual artist and composer based in New York.

Christian Marclay is a genius he works with visuals and audio and is one of the pioneers of manipulating sound by cutting up records and resembling them again in random parts. He’s interested in this technique as it produces sounds that people don’t listen to. Such as the scratches and the clicks of the surfaces of vinyls. Christians art is art of unintentional sound. I can see how my work is similar to his method of working though the key difference is that I use digital media that is easily to manipulate and distort without the material  in front you. Excluding the computer.

 

Script Test

The script is so bad that I’ve discarded the idea. I was going to re-enact a love fight scene from “Happy Together” but decided not to.

 

SCRIPT #1

LEFT	Open the door
RIGHT	What’s up
RIGHT	Come In
LEFT	Why Should I?
RIGHT	Because I need to talk to you!
LEFT	We can talk here
RIGHT	I’ve got something to say.
LEFT	So Talk.
	(Kissing Sound)
LEFT	What are you doing?
RIGHT	That’s it? Go Away.
LEFT	I’ll hit you!
RIGHT	Really?
LEFT	Leave me alone!
RIGHT	Fuck Off
LEFT	I’m broke you spent all my money!
RIGHT	Do you regret being with me?
LEFT	You bet I do!
	I had no regrets till I met you.
	Now my regrets could kill me!
	Well?
	Well?
	Are you showing off?
	I couldn’t give a shit.
	Why did you ask me to come?
RIGHT	I just want to be with you
	I really do.
	(Glass smashes)

Another Idea

Video Development

Development

The mirrors reflected the projected video of my mum playing out two roles. It was to show a domestic disturbance within a married couple.

The image above is carried on from my plan. The projector casting against the white sheet then reflecting onto the scattered mirror pieces. Very raw design here. Alot of refining.

Spawning New Idea

 

A video I created depicting my mother playing out two roles. A Father figure and mother figure.