Author: Shane Humberstone

What is Art? Can I make it? What is an Artist? Am I One?

Art? Is That You?

Although a dictionary is maybe not that best place to start when trying to define something so subjective, it does provide a good starting point and something to work from. The Oxford English Dictionary defines art as:

the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing beauty of emotional power.

Traditional Theatre  along with other forms such as physical theatre, can obviously be classified as art as they are an amalgamation of all the criteria stated above. There are countless other things can be classed as arts like paintings, sculpture, dance, drawings, films and even buildings as they too coincide with the definition. So that in order to discover “What is Art?”, we must first find out “What is NOT Art?”.

Leo Tolstoy suggests ‘Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced, or is producing, the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression’ (Camp, 2006). Many argue that art has to have a purpose or an intention. The more abstract pieces  of art are able to be classified as art due to the intention behind the piece.

Damien Hurst is a prime example. In 1991 he produced The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, which was a shark in a box filled with formaldehyde. A cynical look at it may be “its just a dead shark in a tank” but the title clearly offers more that there is more to it than its physical attributes. I Believe that art should  visually be quality as technique is something that can be universally recognised as oppose to taste. Or is their is no skill, such as painting, sculpting or acting, obviously shown, like in this case of Hurst’s piece,  it must be psychologically stimulating. If an artist has an intention then an onlooker will find one, whether or not they are the same.

Taken from: http://www.damienhirst.com/the-physical-impossibility-of

Taken from: http://www.damienhirst.com/the-physical-impossibility-of

But What is an Artist?

Referring back to the dictionary, an artist is:

A person who practices or performs any of the creative arts, such as a sculptor, film-maker, actor, or dancer.

None of which particularly apply to, self proclaimed artist, Matt Chewiwie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yJPZfFOrsc

Despite this, in his statements he defines the criteria that enables him to call himself an artist. Taking that entertainment is subjective and cannot be proven, what Chewiwie produces coincides with what he claims his art is. Then he must be an artist, even if only by his own perception. But maybe this is where being an artist comes from. When you give yourself permission to think of yourself as an artist, then you become one and ultimately what you produce must be art.

Works Cited

Camp, J. (2006) “What is Art” By Leo Tolstoy. [online] California: California State University. Available from: http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r14.html [accessed March 23 2014].

Connecting lights with sound and meaning

Following the previous exercise of exploring structure and mood changes, I found that I wanted to use sound and light to dictate the flow of my performance.

I started to think what colours made me feel what feelings and what these colours meant in everyday life. I started to find songs were popping into my head.

I wanted this exercise not to say what people’s associations with colours should be, but to suggest mine, both negative and positive. To further this experience I wanted to add the element of people’s relationship with song, whether it was their most played on their iTunes or if it was the first time they ever heard it.

I figured that if I used songs that had the colours I used in the title, associations would start to already be made by others and not directly by myself.

STRUCTURE

Highlighted in the last exercise was structure. With this idea i would have it in the round and the stage plit into sections by the colours like a pie chart.

I would spend two minutes in each segment enough time to cover both positive reactions to the colours and negative. to help the whole performance flow further, I would start with positive in the red then move onto negative then start in the yellow with negative and move onto the positive, and so on for the rest.

The following is a list of the colours I used, the song which include them and associations with them;

RED – Lady in Red, Chris de Burgh

  • Positive: Love, Roses, Passion
  • Negative: Blood, Anger, Danger

Yellow – She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Russ Morgan

  • Negative: Madness, death, decay
  • Positive: Sun, Flowers, Beaches

Blue – Deeper Shade of Blue, Steps

  • Positive: Sea, Sky, Water
  • Negative: Drowning, Cold, Sick

Orange – Orange Blossom Special, The Spotnicks

  • Negative: Bitter, Superficial, Fire
  • Positive: Warmth, Optimism, Joy

Green – Green Green Grass of Home, Tom Jones

  • Positive: Fresh, Mint, Cool
  • Negative: Mould, Envy, Illness

Purple – Purple Rain, Prince

  • Negative:  Bruises, Pompous, Arrogance
  • Positive: Royalty, Imaginative, Spiritual

Rachel Rosenthal Presentation

Here is presentation on Rachel Rosenthal. Further notes are below.

Slide 2

Rachel Rosenthal was born in Paris with Russian parents; however Rosenthal’s family escaped France, moving to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, via a short stay in Portugal. In April 1941, her family left Brazil to settle in New York, where Rosenthal was brought up, where her passion of performance stemmed, and where she graduated from the high school of Music and Art and became a U.S. citizen.  She studied art, theatre and dance in Paris and N.Y. after the war with such teachers as Hans Hoffmann, Merce Cunningham, Erwin Piscator and Jean-Louis Barrault.
In 1955 she moved to California where she created the experimental Instant Theatre, performing in and guiding it for ten years. During that period, her focus split between the performing and visual art world however since 1975, Rosenthal has focused primarily on creating new works for the theatre, writing, performing and teaching.
Her personal life has had a massive influence on her performances.

This influence was about events as small as telling the story of a past lover, to ‘My Brazil’, a performance she wrote and performed in that was based on her travel between Paris and Brazil when she was younger. Here is a short excerpt from the performance that you can find online if you wish to watch it.

Slide 4

The desire she had to share her views with the world, Rosenthal created her own self named company in 1989.

Rosenthal’s work has been described as “a cross-culture, cross gender collective [that] enlivens the spirits and restores faith in imagination”. 

Slide 6

Doing by doing originally stemmed from Rosenthal’s first theatre company in 1955 named ‘Instant theatre’ which she has now renamed to TOHUBOHU! This method focusses on the here and now- and is closely linked with her idea of total theatre and improvisational methods.

Her book is based upon this ideology and gives the reader dramatic exercises that will help to rebuild the scaffolding of what theatre lies on: to learn to act wholeheartedly and without reservation.

Slide 7

As previously mentioned, Rosenthal’s Instant theatre company of the 1960’s was renamed to TOHUBOHU in 1995.

TOHUBU is an ancient Hebrew word meaning chaos and collision, which is apt for Rosenthal’s methods as she focuses on the natural chaos of our lives and instead of trying to put order to it, allows the chaos to embody her performances. Improvisation therefore played a big part in allowing freedom and lack of restraints within her work: It’s not what you do but what you go through to achieve it.

Rosenthal speaks a lot about the idea of an ‘instant ensemble’ and this also is reflected in the set/ lighting etc.

Slide 8

As stated in that last quote, Rosenthal focussed heavily on connecting with everything in the room, and therefore within her performances she includes various theatrical elements in order to achieve her goal creating a revolutionary performance technique that integrates the elements shown.

Slide 9

Rosenthal retired from performing in 1999 (aged 73). Since she has focussed on painting, animal rights movements and lecturing at various universities across the globe.

 

Works Cited

Rosenthal, R. (1997) Rachel Rosenthal. Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Rosenthal, R. (2001) Rachel’s Brain and Other Storms. London and New York: Continuum.

Rosenthal, R. (2009) Mission. [online] Los Angeles. Available from: http://www.rachelrosenthal.org/rr/mission.html [Accessed 19 February 2014]. 

Rosenthal, R. (2010) Sacred Time, Sacred Space. [online] New York: Backstage. Available from: http://www.backstage.com/advice-for-actors/editorial/sacred-time-sacred-space/ [Accessed 19 February 2014].

 

Lights & Structure

If Music...

Following an exercise to get us thinking about mood shifts and atmosphere, I have decided that I want to explore the relationship between music and feelings.

In my original idea I wanted lights to dictate the atmosphere of the room and music to guide the narrative. After a calm, mysterious voice from of stage says “You can come in now, if you wish” an accordion would start to play slowly and awkwardly creating a sense of discomfort. A bread roll would then roll into the spot-light. The silliness of the bread roll totally counteracts the awkward tension. As the accordion sped up I wanted the sharp white spot that indicates harshness and interrogation, to fade into a softer purple spot suggesting comfort and class. This would be the second shift in mood. It feels that these mood shifts are too brash and too contrasting for me and I would like to explore subtle changes in the elements of the piece, softly shifting the atmosphere. The use and implications of lights inspired me the most. It made me think of how I can dictate a mood with colour. What colours make you feel what? What sounds should accompany each colour?

As I was exploring the Twelfth Night quote ‘If music be the food of love’ I assigned different genres to various meals and drinks. For example, Pop – Champagne, R’n’B – Dessert and Classical – A roast dinner. This idea definitely made clear that music will feature in my piece but I felt it was too early to start putting my own feeling and emotion behind different types of music as this may hold back my exploration and creativity. Now I need to find a way to use music to evoke different emotions without telling the audience which emotions they should be feeling. I started to think about what colours could possibly contrast different types of music. What affect would a green colour scheme have on a love song?

Where is this going? What comes next?

These are the questions I found the hardest. This is why I had to make a U-turn and find the place where an idea was established but was still open to  different directions. I do not want my piece to make a definite clear point that the audience will take away neatly in a box. I believe that this is too easy to produce and too easy for the audience. Despite this, I want my piece to have direction and a purpose and the way my initial idea was heading was interesting but it did not have enough structure. Finding the right structure and the right direction will make the rest of the piece easier to formulate and provide more to experiment with.

 

 

Shakespeare, W. (1968) Twelfth Night. Penguin: London.

My Response to Rachel Rosenthal

Taken from : www.w3art.com

 

A typical Rachel Rosenthal performance can consist of ‘A bald woman with long, black gloves, wearing a fluttery gray-green silk tunic, raps, chants, sings, and screams to the sound of an amplified violin’ (Lampe 1998, p. 170), or anything that can symbolise and express one of her thoughts or feelings. After watching several of her clips I did not know what feelings to feel. This was an aspect of her work that would like to pay with as I believe that good art leaves you with an unclear feeling.

 

She achieved this by putting pure passion and strength behind each action, each word and even each clip she used. No matter what subject she was addressing, you knew it was her behind it and strongly believed.

 

She believes that in the process of making a performance you must ‘Take risks, psychologically and physically. Generate your own stuff. Think of everything you do as if it is the only chance in life that you have to do it: now, here, in a particular way. You will never have the chance again’ (Lampe, 1998, p. 170). I am apprehensive of indulging in an aspect of myself, because it may not be interesting, plus if the audience are like me they will not care.

 

In her performances Rachel Rosenthal has ‘explored her personal life’ for example creating a performance based on her ex- lovers. In contrast to this, she has created performances that ‘focus on social issues which are not specifically feminist (but which are clearly informed by her feminist sensibility)’ (Auslander, 2003, p. 265). I would like to play with the idea of combining the two. Perhaps expressing a feeling I have about myself, or my life, and finding a way of projecting this as an aspect of society. The difficulty will lie in finding something I am prepared to share and that I can be truthful with.

 

An aspect of Rosenthal’s performance style which I enjoy is how it is highly theatrical in effects and presentation. Aspects of her work resemble Berkoff which is a style of performing I have enjoyed in the past and would like to experiment with.

 

Performance videos worth watching

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KdleN0vtUQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtoH2RxbpZc

 

 

Auslander, P. (2003) Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. New York and Oxon: Routledge.

Lampe, E. (1988) Rachel Rosenthal Creating Her Selves. The Drama Review , 32 (Spring) 170-190.