Kira O'Reilly Workshop

Last Tuesday we had the pleasure of participating in a workshop run by Kira O'Reilly. She came into Goldsmiths and took over our three hour period, to help us develop new ways of working and new methodologies that she has found successful in her career.
I will briefly explain each of the activities we did and outline what they involved and what they achieved.
Initially we began with the classical drama introduction of moving about the space, stretching our bodies and attempting to focus our thoughts on the upcoming session. after this short warm-up, we began a few workshops;

Firstly we formed a line along the far wall and were asked to face into the centre of the room, making sure we were aware of our postures and focus. we were then drawn an imaginary line around three metres away and told to walk slowly towards the line, taking around three minutes to reach it. we were asked to imagine a piece of ribbon flowing from our backs, keeping our necks long and straight and heads up. We were told to focus not necessarily on where we were going, but where we were coming from.
After the three minutes we were asked to then form two lines either side of the room, facing in at each other. We were then told to repeat the same exercise, but this time to walk towards the person opposite. This i believe was again an extension of the warm-up as a way of focusing us, and preparing us mentally for the forthcoming session.

the second part of the workshop saw us sat in a circle in the middle of the studio, with a pen and some paper in hand. this task was outlined as re-imagining our own autonomy, or recreating an alternative autonomy. this task began with being asked to draw the insides of our mouths. we were asked to use our tongue in order to locate and familiarise ourselves with the inside of our mouth then had three minutes to draw what we felt. we repeated this task two times. the first time we did the task i attempted an accurate account of the inside of my mouth, attempting to master scale, depth and texture. this however ended in a poorly constructed generic mouth, i was basing it on how i felt a mouth should lokk, and not on what i felt with my tongue. however the second time we came to doing the drawing we were asked to do it with our eyes closed. and this resulted in a more honest drawing, although not technically accurate, it was based more on feeling and impulse and helped rid the drawing of the falseness from before.

after this we were asked to inhale and exhale and to again draw internally what we felt when we did this. again we all did this task with our eyes close and although the images didn't display a biologically accurate process of inhillation (diaphragm and lungs expanding and contracting) it did have a truthfulness to it which in a funny way was more honest than the biological truth.

This task was very useful as a way of getting us to think about our bodies in alternative ways. it helped us remove the generic image of bodily parts and helped us find a truthfulness by shutting our eyes and drawing what we felt, what we saw without the use of vision.

The next task we engaged in was we made a pile of books in the centre of the room and all sat around the circumference of them. going clockwise around the circle, we would each pick up any of the books or articles before us, without thinking about which, open the text at random and start reading from where our eyes first go. we would each read a sentence or two before stopping, replacing the book and waiting for the next person to go.

I found this task, in the context of the lesson, rather unproductive and relatively tedious. There was no rhythm to the exercise and instead of creating a new text from these old texts, we were simply seeming to read random lines aloud. i think this could have been improved if before everybody was given a book at random and they would be prepared with a line before their turn. not as in they'd chose a line, but they'd place their finger without looking on a section of the text and when it was their turn would begin reading immediately. the exercise was a bit slow and lacked energy and therefore didn't make much of an impression. however, i do feel like if this was pursued individually, then the results may be far more interesting. it may be something i chose to do alone sometime even though it didn't really lend itself to the circumstance in which we used it.

The final task was to make a short, individual piece of performance, based on what we had learnt or achieved so far in the workshop. the only rules we had were that it could be no longer than one minute in duration, we had to focus on a small area of our bodies, we could use any props that happened to be in the room, and finally we had twenty minutes to experiment and create the piece. what i thought good about this exercise was that it got us thinking about our own bodies and the uniqueness and interest of certain parts of them. it helped us to channel all our focus into one small area, again highlighting that it's best to rinse one idea than explore many different ones. at the end of the session, we had a running order and one by one we would perform in the space. the atmosphere was very professional, with the artist directing where the audience must stand and there was no clapping in between pieces.

The workshop was thoroughly useful in all areas, and even in the one workshop which i found a bit tedious and pointless, i do feel like i may visit it again in the future but in a different environment. the things which i feel were most interesting and useful about this workshop was the creating an alternative autonomy and that it's best to create performance from one simple idea than a number of different ones. It also helped to set up a professional working environment with all of us taking ourselves seriously as artists and gave a useful insight into the etiquette of performance in art.

logistical questions we must ask

How long does the piece have to be or is there no time frame?
Do we have to perform on campus?
Do we have a financial budget to work with?
If we use video, do we have to do the filming or could we ask someone to film it for us?
how many times do we perform the piece?
what are the performance dates?

Synonyms of love

Okay, so one idea we came up with was this idea of recording the synonyms of love to try and show the absurdity of defining love. with these synonyms we may make a video to try to depict each one but haven't fully decided what we'd do yet.
i had an idea that instead of getting random synonyms, it might be quite nice to track the path of synonyms. for example, what i mean by this, is we'd love at the synonyms of love first. we'd chose one of these and then look at the synonyms for that word. then we'd elect one of these and so one. this gives us a pathway from love to x.
here is an example to display what i mean using http://thesaurus.com/browse/love as a starting point

1. Love -> Fondness -> Tenderness -> Sympathy -> Agreement -> Bargaining -> Trade -> Contract -> Engagement

This is just one example of choosing synonyms at random, however in the future we could write down all the possible suggestions and let chance decide which one we elect.

Threesome

We went to a few performances for this years SACRED held at Chelsea Theatre. On Thursday 24th November we saw three performances and here is a little bit about what we thought of each piece.

Martin O’Brien Mucus Factory:

This was an endurance piece which ran throughout the course of the evening, including when the spectators where in the main theatre watching one of the other pieces.
The studio space was made up of a small trampoline, a padded surgeon table and a raised platform at the back. The piece had two clear sections; a) the bouncing on the trampoline and the slapping technique performed whilst laying down which was used to clear the airways and encourage the flow of mucus, and b) the use of the mucus for purposes of vanity - styling hair and lubricating medical instruments for anus insertion. and these sections were completed in a cycle throughout the course of the evening.
what we found particularly compelling was the mirror which Martin performed beside. It stretched the length of one side wall, and every action was visible in the reflection of the mirror. this created a distancing effect as the entire piece could be watched in the reflection.
also the natural soundtrack created by the piece was compelling but to some extent painful to witness. it was made from the sounds of slapping and coughing and displayed a very visceral accompaniment to process of the performance. Also as the endurance piece wore on heavy breathing became part of the soundtrack and Martin grew in fatigue.
After clearing the airways and collecting the mucus, Martin used the collected mucus as a tool for vanity, displaying how the internal can become externalised. the mucus was collected and then used, in one sense, for pleasure. For example, the beautifying of appearance (styling hair and sticking glitter to his chest) as well as sexual pleasure using it as a lubricant.
however, in the post show discussion, Martin dismissed the idea of pleasure, saying that the despite the glitter being used as an appearance enhancer, it also became a painful addition, as when the piece wore on the glitter would get everywhere and when inserting the medical instrument into his anus, the glitter began to cut his skin.





Gillie Kleiman Ophelia is not Dead:

Joseph Mercier Giselle, or I’m too Horny to be a Prince:







The programme for the entire scared event can be found at this link
http://www.chelseatheatre.org.uk/data/downloads/SACRED%20Keeping%20the%20Faith%20Programme%20low%20res.pdf

TASK#3 extension idea

i have a friend, she is a synesthetes, as another idea for an 'expert' to interview in our idea #2 we may interview her. she was telling me about how there are some songs that she love in relation to their audio existence, however she cannot bring herself to listen to them due to the colour that they are. i asked her whether she could fall in love with a man (or woman) who concocted a nasty colour each time they spoke. she said she didn't know what she would do, but that it would be a very horrible situation. most people are yellow to her, and that is okay apparently. i would like to speak to this girl for research into the subject of the absurdity of love. if you have any questions you feel may be useful to ask, please post them in the comments section.

celi-butt

in relation to the week of celibacy: you see, what it is forcing me to do is constantly address what was before a subconscious impulse; instead of leaning down and kissing you or taking your hand inside mine, i now have to merely register that that is what i want to do but exactly what i cannot do. instead i must retract, changing the nature of this impulsive habit into a thought slash action process of dealing with and avoiding these desires. it makes me feel less like you're my girlfriend, more like the beginnings to that stage of taboo we went through eighteen months back; where we want to act on our feeling but know that we cannot (we weren't so good at that). except now it is different because today i have experienced around twelve months of constantly fulfilling these desires, at least when in your company. back then i guess i couldn't fully comprehend what i was missing. and although it pained my crotch to say no, for a while at least, i managed it. but now i have begun expecting these physical relations, they have become second nature. and in this i don't want to seem like they've become force of habit, or just something to be expected, almost endured, that isn't what i mean at all. i crave them constantly. i fuck you at night, sleep beside you and dream about fucking you then wake up and if we have time we fuck again. it hasn't become natural in the sense of being predictable, it's become natural in the sense of we both want it both so much (in amount) and so much (in regularity) that's it's just obvious that it's going to happen. but now it can't. only for a short while, but this short while is still far too long; all of a sudden, those luxuries, which were once so regular now cannot exist.