The Weighting Frame

18. 12. 09

Theatre Building Wimbledon College of Art.
A multi-media Performance presented by MA Visual Language of Performance.

My contribution to this piece was very minimal as it was the full time MA VLP collaboration piece. And as I’m p/t second yr, and have already done this project last year, I wasn’t involved with the realization of the concept. My contribution was to advise and source materials for the other students and I came in at the end and put the costumes together for the piece and helped with setting up the production.

The Illusive Gandalf of Sutton

This wasn't a performance or is it? I have used him as a comparison to Marcus Coates in my dissertation. And have been trying to get a picture of him for the last year to no avail until today. Conrad is his real name but all the kids call him Gandalf, he roams around Sutton. He dresses like a wizard with a cape, staff and usually a black cat on a lead. He will tell your fortune for 50 pence and has been doing this for years. In the same way, Coates is just donning a costume and performing, sensationalising himself just to be noticed. Gandalf, the present day manifestation of Coates has an audience. As a madman it is a way of life for him. On the other hand, Coates is getting at some primitive psyche that people, like it or not have deep down, that superstitious bit that everyone has ingrained in them to some extent, but is reluctant to admit. He is playing the role of the mediator. The go between. Audiences laugh because it is alien to them, as he is displacing the shamanic stereotype associated with different Cultures.

Buffalo Robe

I plan on putting together a performance which will create the robe for the costume of my performer in my final show 'Transitional Identity'. Using an age old technique of felting. I plan to make a large scale peice so will need a number of people to participate as you have to roll and kneed the raw wool between plastic, to make it felt. So I'm thinking of getting the participants to walk and tread maybe to dance to some native music on top of the wool to felt it. Documenting the process. So the result of this will be a communal piece of work that everyone has collaborated to make I am meerly the orchastrater. Once completed I will use some of the prayer flags from my other ongoing project to maybe line the inside of the robe.

Charles Ledray 'Men's Suits'

9. 09

The installation consists of three separate but thematically related tableaux, each a sort of sculptural still-life made of arrangements of hundreds of men’s garments in tiny sizes. Each of the miniature articles of clothing was designed by the artist, individually tailored in different sizes, and sewn with his own hands, right down to details so minute they are almost invisible to the naked eye.

Being a costume maker I thought OMG I do this all day long making little toiles of the costumes your going to make, and I usually chuck it after....lol what a waste never thought of it really as art before, artistic ya. Men's Tailoring being a passion of mine, I found myself scrutinising the making of the garments and It looked like a few different people have made these, as the standard of each garment was widely varied......

I found myself more interested in the ceilings of the pieces the attention to detail of the the dust balls and dirty perspex light coverings. This peice made me realise how I take what I do for a living for granted I didn't see it before really as art.

The Author by Tim Crouch

The Author
2009
9.09
Enter the Royal Court Upstairs and there is no stage, only two banks of seats facing each other. It's from here, within the heart of the audience, that Tim Crouch's latest remarkable piece emerges. It's about a writer called Tim Crouch, who has written a successful and shocking play about violent abuse that has been staged at the Court, the two actors who appeared in it, and a man who saw it. It's about us, what we see, and what we choose to see.

This was a strange performance having read about it prior to going I knew that there would be actors planted within the audience. So apprehensively taking our seats I made sure that i didn't sit near any balding men (Tim Crouch) lol. So as the conversation evolved through the play you find yourself firstly a bit paranoid who's sitting by you.

Once its established where the actors are you relax. The clever use of lighting and back ground sound made the audience be subdued or start chatting among themselves. Later In the part about the baby and pediphelia conversation, during the build up I found myself getting angry and disgusted and wanting to shout 'shut up' but to shy to do so. I wonder what would of happened if I did say something would they of had to deviate away from the script. We'll never know!!! Later outside a pregnant woman was very obviously very disturbed by the same bit and was crying. To evoke those emotions in someone is an acomplishment.