Motion Capture

Cunningham furnished dancers with the necessary triggers to begin their performances. They would then improvise through their knowledge of techniques in their dance discipline and the repetition of such that was experienced and performed to the music. It is then transfigured to the voyeur enabling them to enter the performance.

The only solid structure that Cunningham applies is in the duration of the performance. In his final interview, shortly before his death, Nancy Dalva comments on his work stating how no one ever knows where the performance is going; Cunningham believes this is a lot to do with how life is now. I think this reflects on his work at large in which the performers perform time. This is similar to Cage’s music in that he allows the music to submit itself to the present, the live experience.

"(Combination of) music, dance, and image multiplication to create a film that enhances our perception of motion."

Merce Cunningham

The influence of Ballet

Sergai Diaghilev
Bolshoi Ballet
Ballet Russes
Maya Deren
Martha Graham

Revisiting the past

In working with models I am learning to allow development in thinking and allowing the process to naturally unfold conceptually. One of the things I enjoy most is working and manipulating the camera to create a raw and time-filled photograph or film piece. Currently my images are very static. Representative movement is shown though could be greatly enhanced. I aim to look further into the role of the shadow as illustrated in the current imagery. It is interesting how other artists use the shadow in their work and to achieve the language they created  to get their concept across. Tim Noble and Sue Webster from England create seemingly useless art installations that surprisingly come to life when directional lighting is used. The use of scraps, taxidermy creatures and discarded waste, adds to the impressive transformation of the art pieces from pieces of garbage to creative and fancy projected images.

Looking at the use of light within a shadow and its important role, it's direction and angle of which a light is shown upon a figure can immediately cause the mood and interpretation of the piece.

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

Eamonn B. Shanahan - 2012

Seminar review

Last Monday we had the first official group seminiar of the semester. Engaging in constructive critical debate proved very positive and helpful to all of us participating. Our evolving concepts were assessed to consider the voyeurs interpretation and response to the individual art works initially without references or otherwise from the artist and thereafter realised from the artist.

Seminar Review

1. Short statement: what is it you want the work to address? Identify the core elements/concerns that reoccur in the work?

Currently my work looks at personality and human behaviour that is both physically identified and the inner persona that is sometimes ignorantly hidden. Using the language of the body, the camera and the relationship between both I explore the development of ones thinking. I am currently working with other individuals in the work. The general aim is to allow the individuals to adapt a pathway to their inner mind and thereafter their expressive emotive responsive interpretation implied using interpretatve movement. Responses to ones alter ego, past discomfort or relationships are discovered and represented ambiguously allowing further interpretation as well as participation in the experience.

2. How were these core elements touched on in the discussion I.e. To what extent did the work convey your intentions?
 
I presented two elements of my work that I think caused confusion without explanation. To the left and right of the central piece featured a documentation of the meditative part of the workshop of which illustrated a grouping of people and the contrast observations were made between theses and individual shots in that they interpreted the interactive behaviour of people within groups and on their own. However the viewers then acknowledged the representation of identity in the work especially in the central work which was clear.

3. Pick out the elements that you feel are working at the moment - be specific.

Conceptually I believe that the psychology of the inner mind and its representation is something that is working for me. I want to continue to evolve this concept. With respect to the family structure I believe that it will more than likely be used as an aspect or building stone in character and will be used as a trigger in the emotional response for an individual.  I really think that the medium of the lens currently speaks the language that I want illustrated however I would like to develop the opportunities available from using the camera in that the manipulation and percieved outcome can be built to create a strong dialogue between the camera, performer and voyeur. I also feel that the use of the shaddow is working, although I again, think it can evolve, I enjoy the sense of identification it portrays or the there lack of!

4. What are the areas that need improvement? Was there an area of the work that the group did not pick up on? If so, what can be done to give the area more focus?
 
I think everyone brimmed the surface of what I was trying to get accross however I hope hone in on the concept to get a more in depth and strenghted image. I want to explore futher the methodologies that the camera can provide endeavouring a more substantial language.  I will continue working with others for now as I want to see how far I can go with another individual and how my triggerative language can open up the expressive movement of the body. In saying that I also want to look at the symbolism of the expressive body and how that can be represented in a fashion that is as raw as possible by the performer. Finallty I will develop the presentation of the work as I believe particular focus has to be put in place from initial observation.

William Ellis

Jazz Photographer

Manchester man. Recognised by the American Jazz Museum and other international organisations. Works for magazines and commercial work. Experience on music and performance photography. Lighting pose expression are all things that fascinate him.

Started shooting Jazz in the late 80s. Miles Davis amongst the most influential jazz musicians of the genre. He 'needed' to get a photograph of him.

Perfomance imagery and their development. The pictures over time were like live portraits of the artist.

Still life imagery.

Patricia Morrissey

Began her photography career as an archiver at the Irish Independent.  Influence of Diana Arbon. First work was a series of twins. The idea of motif,  something continuous in her work. Looked at classical art forms,  Durer's Christlike portrait causing controversy. She thereafter began taking photographs of women with facial hair - quiet a taboo aesthetic.  She put an article requesting models with a humorous approach. A wanted ad turned into a feature on the paper. 40 models and used 12. Using anovijet she printed poster sized print.

After a short career in commercial photography she underwent an MA. She wanted to escape the commercial world although she learned a lot from it. She was interested in the family unit as a construction. Photo therapy for Patricia. Her parents would have bent over backwards for her. She would create a scenario and then she would change it s little to suit.

Doors shutting in and out. Relation to family in some real or realistic form.

Organising photograph's of her family from her grandparents using the knowledge of their dress.

Gertrude Stein. Photographs constructed to the poetry. Semi camouflage. ...hiding identity.

7 year's. Sibling experience.  As a family the parents impose an identity on their children. . Not matter what you do in your adult life you return to the family into those roles. Family album provides a rich version of the families life. Subconscious often leaks onto the photograph. Snaps follow culture. To prevent the usual. Fake family album depicting the sisters as all the roles. Hidden gestures.

Romanticism of young girls dressing up in their mothers clothing..the fantasy of the future.

Film. The boundaries of photography and the lack.  Moving photographs as opposed to film footage. Drab surroundings and the typical animosity.

Body language and the physical and natural state. A moment in time rather than a place.  'FRONT' Idea of motherhood. 

Between four and six years old...a child has a flawed understanding of the particular objects and forms.

www.trishmorrissey.com

Workshop 2 reflection

The aim of the second workshop was to evolve my approach and deepen the level of enquiry, triggering sensitive emotions to discover the inner psyche.

This weeks meditation began as the previous ensuring a vine of continuation. However due to the very expressive emotions in the dialogue, I ensured only one situation was explored. This week I wanted to look at the introduction of a person feared into the dialogue. Allowing an internal conversation with a persona that we hate causes distress and using this distress to illustrate and combine this with that of another alternative yet individually personal persona. This adapted into the interpreted representation enforces or at least helps the raw physical representation on camera.

After the meditation I began to work on illustrating this through perfomance interaction. Paired up, I used a partician between the two models. The model behind the partician was represented soley by shadow. I have a number of reasons for this. This first being the the camouflaging of the figure, removing the identity of the model. A reason for this was to

TO BE CONTINUED

Understanding mentality

ADDICTION, ADDICTION

PAST, BEFORE PRESENT, FUTURE AFTER PAST

CONSTANT INTERSECTION & REPETITION

LIFE CONTINUES

Sigmund Freud 1.1

'A twenty-four-year-old man preserved the following picture from the fifth year of his life: In the garden

of a summer-house he sat on a stool next to his aunt, who was engaged in teaching him the alphabet. He

found difficulty in distinguishing the letter m from n, and he begged his aunt to tell him how to tell one

from the other. His aunt called his attention to the fact that the letter m had one whole portion (a stroke)

more than the letter n. There was no reason to dispute the reliability of this childhood recollection; its

meaning, however, was discovered only later, when it showed itself to be the symbolic representation of

another boyish inquisitiveness. For just as he wanted to know [p. 66] the difference between m and n at that

time so he concerned himself later about the difference between boy and girl, and he would have willing

that just this aunt should be his teacher. He also discovered that the difference similar one; that the boy

again had one portion more than the girl, and at the time of this recognition his memory awoke to the

responding childish inquisitiveness.'

Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud (1901)

Workshop 1 Report

My first workshop took place yesterday, Monday the 8th of October at Crawford College of Art and Design main campus in the Photography Studio. There was six participants present including four females and two males.

Prior to the beginning of the workshop I had prepared a process method schedule, a short choreographed warm up, meditation dialogue and calm music. The reasoning for this was to ensure the smooth running of the workshop. All lights were set up in a very comfortable way. The room was very quiet and all that could be heard is the piano music playing softly in the background. This was playing before people entered the room. Six chairs were laid out in an equal positioning allowing space for the movement exercise and also allowing each participant to be present in the frame of the camera.

Participants arrived at different intervals between 6.50pm and 7.05pm. In the future, I will wait for everyone to arrive before they can enter the performance space.

I began the workshop with a little introduction whilst keeping the grounds as vague as possible. Each participant signed a release form. I described the schedule of events up to the end of the dialogue meditation.

I then continued with the exercise. The goal of this was to relax the body and its muscles and zone the minds of the models into a comfortable and blank canvas focusing them for the following exercise.

I found that as I was speaking in the same tone from the very beginning, the music was uniform and the lighting didn't change, concentration was kept and the progression was smooth and effective.

During the course of the dialogue there was very little movement and even less sound. Through the distressing parts of the dialogue reaction was minimal however I will inspect this further with the recording.

On awakening the models all gave me the impression that they were totally zoned out. The time went comfortably and reached about 7.35 at this point.

I then gave out a blank sheet with a crayon of their choice to every participant and gave them a few minutes to draw anything that came into their mind. After doing the exercise I asked participants to turn them face down and passed them along to the end.

Thereafter I cleared the room and began the improvisation part of the workshop. Everyone left the room and individually I gave characters to the participants concluding in a family structure. I began with small scenarios to get the building of the characters and it developed greatly with the evolution of time.

Maud Cotter's - ' ..solution in the room'

Upon entering Maud Cotter's 'A Solution in the Room', though it was raining heavily outside, I felt like I was walking into spring. The installations created by Cotter are very delicate looking sculptures that were built to encapsulate the space of the Wandesford Quay Gallery, Cork. The main feature of the 'Sieve' stood in the centre of the space lying on the floor. To the naked eye it looked as though it was an object of that nature in that is gathered material however for me it retained the beauty just like that of an actual sieve; it sieved away the badness. Without looking at the notebooks, the works spoke simply to me with a smile.

Tutorial development 1

IAfter a very positive and constructive tutorial with Jessie Jones last week, I went off to get something cohesive on paper. After disaster with the booking of rooms in college, my scheduling went up in a heap but all I can say is that everything happens for a reason. I now have scripted a concise dialogue for my first meditation workshop. The aim is to develop the dialogue throughout the workshop in acknowledgement to the ongoing motion and body language of the participants. The workshop will be recorded - the camera will remain static at all times with the lens open to allow a full focus of the entire body.

After this workshop I want to experiment with the dialogue and see if it worked well. I want to eventually experiment with the combination of the scenarios in actuality and the silent response brought forward by the participants at the workshop.

Thematically I will be dealing with the concept of family relationships. The language of the script will be very ambiguous. It will be driven by emotional triggers.

Having has a follow through tutorial with Tony McClure, I am now in a good position to go forward with my first experiment and look forward to having something visual by next week!