Photos for Project

So here are the photos that I've taken from the Porter bus stop for our Environmental-Boundaries project. Feel free to pick the ones you like and eliminate the ones you don't like.

Caution, Catherine Prato

This photo speaks to the struggle of fighting boundaries and restrictions that others put on us or that we put on ourselves.

Can Theater and Media Speak the Same Language Reading Notes Pt. 2

Aronson: Can Theater and Media Speak the Same Language?

NOTES, PART TWO:

•In the case of turning Georges Rouault’s artwork (paintings that looked like geometrically-conscious stained glass) into actual stained glass, it did not work. When translated into real stained glass artwork, Rouault’s images looked bad.

•Hence, transforming his media into a new media failed.

•In the case of Cathedral, Moorish, and Islamic architecture, a variety of media vocabularies (types of media) are present on the same stage (the enclosed structure of the building. This has worked out just fine for them.

•Those architectures have decorative and painterly embellishments. Living collage successfully created by both painted and sculpted pieces occupying same space.

•Hence, Cathedral, Moorish, and Islamic architecture successfully incorporate more than one media vocabulary.

•Wooster Group. Their work investigates special reality, temporal reality, and relation of live theater to video culture. Questions nature of “presence”. Include video in their designs as a comment on the omnipresence of video in our times. They question our various modes of seeing. However, they do not erroneously substitute video for more conventional theater design practices. They do not cross the line and falter.

•Examples of modern theater groups successfully incorporating the media of technology into stage design:

•Wooster Group very innovative in using media and technology on stage. Sometimes, a sense of media as fetish object.

•Collapsable Giraffe and Radio hole, theater groups of younger generation. Literally play with technology on stage. Have demystified video and technology as design element.

•These two younger groups have screens and monitors all over stage, nothing mystical about it. Do not treat technology as astounding miracale. Treated as chunks of plastic, not revered items.

•Oftentimes, theater creators are caught up in jamming too much mystical technology into their sets, think that this is best method. Fail to incorporate and explore a fusion of media vocabularies. Fortunately, Western theater starting to rethink use of external medias in theater.

Can Theater and Media Speak the Same Language Reading Notes Pt. 1

Aronson: Can Theater and Media Speak the Same Language?

• Since it first started in ancient Greece, theater has shown an interest in technology
• The history of scenography is, at least in part, a history of the development of new technologies so that we can create scenic wonder and amazement
• Before the twentieth century, theater technology was mostly mechanical
• The main focus back then was to create an illusion where things appeared to move on their own
• Aronson suggests that some technologies that are used on film and video does not necessarily work just as well on the stage; scenographic vocabulary
o Communication is still possible, but content is overwhelmed by form
• Reasons why projection does not work well on stage:
o Physiology (how the eye sees)
o Psychology (how the brain perceives what it is seeing)
o Philosophy (what vision is, how culture informs the way in which we see)
• All other forms of art aside, theater is the only art form that uses what is signified as the signifier of that object
• Key element of theater: space and volume  time
o Example: actors; they have volume, move through space  move through time
• If a theatrical scenography includes a projected image, then the audience experiences the disjunction of perceiving a different world
• In some cases, the illusion of a projected image works from a limited viewing angle
• Difference between stage and projection:
o Stage: we experience it here and now; we know it exists because we see it in front of our eyes and we can physically touch it
o Projection: exists in the present but the image itself is from the past (photographed or filmed prior to performing)
• Objects or people in the projection may no longer exist, time has transformed the subject while preserving the object  projected image is dead
• One exception: “mummified image” – live video feed that projects a video image as it is captured (temporal dissonance?)
• Framing is crucial to our understanding of the mechanics of perception
• Any stage, no matter how configured or how its architectural design relates to the audience always forms a frame
• Visual image within the frame = obey visual order of an extrinsic world
• One advantage of movies over theater = presents us with an infinite world
• When movies or still pictures are projected on stage, two realities come into conflict: 1) frame has changed 2) raises the pictorial question of figure and ground
• When an a moving or cinematic image is projected on a stage, confusion and dislocation ensues
o An object is more likely to move than the ground, the moving image on the stage further reinforces its function and figure
• Framed projection implies a boundless image. Therefore, tension is present between the potentially unlimited expanse of the image projected and the self-contained-ness of the physical projection
• Complication: onstage we see objects in movement against the generally static ground of the stage VS. in cinema, nothing is stable
• Stage set is almost always permanent and unchanging
• Two similar images are subject to vastly different interpretations because of the quality of the material and the context in which it is read

A copy of "Metapatterns" has been secured

"Borders function as bulwarks against forces of disruption. They cloak creatures and their internal parts against the ravages of the exterior world-the ionizing, lysing, dissolving, jolting, combusting, dispersing, bursting, rotting, eating, and crushing world. Bordders hold at bay all that the would destroy the difference between being and environment; they prevent universal homogenization."

- Tyler Volk, Metapatterns, p. 52

The Bus Stop (Environmental Design Proposal)

The Bus Stop

Would you like some tea and honey while you wait for the bus? Does that seem out of the ordinary, what do you do at a bus stop? Our group would like to explore what it means to wait for a bus. What it looks like to wait for a bus. What do you expect and encounter at a bus stop. This topic illustrates the mental boundaries we create without even the use of spoken word. Most will sit in silence while waiting to get on a bus, some will eavesdrop while others catch up with each other. We all have already had a preconceived notion of what the ordinary is because of what we observe. For our environmental our group will supplement a domestic setting at the Porter Bus Stop. This includes props such as throw pillows on a bench with a side table and a lamp and homey foods (and teas!) that connote a familial environment. This will hopefully provoke people going and leaving the bus and have them question how social interactions have been established without even realizing it. This means that our project is dependent on the community but we feel that is necessary because it is our message, how do we fit in our own community if we even do fit.

-If anyone has any suggestions for change, by all means leave a comment!

Sunday Meeting; Environmental Design Ideas

- Football game. Decorated fans sitting in wrong side of stands.

- Elementary school gate. Recess time, children out and about doing their activities within the enclosed area. Open this gate. Suddenly, this area and its inhabitants have been endangered.

- Chain link fence as art piece, metal links intertwined with string or lace. Not necessarily meddling with separated forces.

- Billboard Liberation Front. Enormous billboards; this group tampers with images or mottos. May be making a comment on the company or simply being obnoxious. Can

- Bus stop; adding something to the environment to make it different. Add small table, chair, lamp, some tea and crumpets on the table. Throw pillows on the bench. Bus stop; ultimate community space, hundreds of students filter through these stops every single day; majority of time don’t say a single word to each other. Boundary: people have the opportunity to rethink preconceived notions about bus stop etiquette.

- Businessmen on the beach, making conference calls on their laptops right at the water’s edge. Absurd setting for business call; absurd visitors on a beach. May require large table with many businessmen.

- Exploration of gender roles; direct men and women through two different doors and instruct them to sit on two separate sides of the classroom. Separate clothes?

- Slightly offensive sign prohibiting a certain race, hair color, or sexual orientation (heterosexual). Sign can read “No Heteros”. Possibly dabble with conventions of marriage. Item of companionship sitting in background. Perhaps pillow with two wedding rings. A garter. (Save this for a different design project). Sensitive material!

Collages

Here are the pictures that I've taken from the other day in class. Enjoy.

A Few Names

In regards to the name change...

Brick by Brick
Mortar
The Fleeing Masons (excuse my wordplay)

In any case, we shall settle this name business on SUNDAY'S 7 PM MEETING.

The photo of the fence looks great! I'm sure that this will give us a certain "brainstorm" to our new group name. Maybe we can find a name that relates to or is synonymous to fences? In addition, we might be able to come up with more ideas after class tomorrow once we're done with our drawings and what not with the materials Alan told us to bring. I'll post the reading notes in a couple of days.

Enviro Idea

Lace Fence!








designed by Demakersvan’s Joep Verhoeven in 2005

Name Change Brainstorm

Question: Why are we changing our name?
Answer: Because our current one has absolutely no relevance.
Question: Does anyone care that we change our name? Any suggestions?
How about "The Wall?"
*Blink blink shrug*
Maybe we need to add a word or something to "the wall." An adjective?
The Wall and ________ ?
What about another language?
What about:
Inside the Wall
The Other Side
Our Wall
This Wall
No Wall?

Another brick in the wall? ;)
The Steadfast Wall
The Temperamental Wall
The Volatile Wall (i kind of like this one)
Between Walls
Climbing The Wall
A Hole in the Wall

As it was mentioned earlier today, we should reconsider our current team name due to its absolute irrelevance to our central theme of boundaries. The current name is cute, but it seems more fitting for a pet parakeet than it is for our design team. It was proposed that each of us suggest a few team names and post them onto the blog.

"The World on Stage" States

• “All that is on the stage is a sign”
• Theater is made up of things that are what they seem to be.
o Ex: a chair on stage is a chair pretending to be another chair
• There is a meaning to everything on stage.
• Definition of art used in the article: “[Art] exists to make one feel things…to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known….Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important.” (Shklovsky)
• Art is meant for us to look at something in a new light and take away all previously existing thoughts about it.
• Art gives the world meaning, and it allows the world to express itself.
• “Phenomenological philosophy is a continual desymbolization of the world.”
• Distinction between image and sign:
o “the term sign is a sign of the semiotic attitude, which is heavily dialectical”
o “the sign is of no value unless if repeats itself”
o Signs can be read easily and is straight to the point, not extravagant.
o “Image (the more aesthetic term) is any likeness made out of the materials of the medium”
o “the image is unique and unreproducible”
• We can’t reduce plays down to their signs, otherwise Macbeth would be “the sign of a dagger with a diagonal red line across it.” There are lessons and purposes to plays; signs simply help get the message across.
• When we read, words are signs.
• Seeing Macbeth is more powerful than reading it because the actors portray emotions that simple words on a page may not be able to portray.
• Things that resist being either signs or images:
o A working clock on stage is a disturbance because time in the play could clash with real time. It also makes us aware that “theatrical time is being measured by a real clock.”
o Fire and running water work the same way as a clock.
o Child actors also distract the audience. The audience begins thinking about the child actor, as opposed to the child in the play.
o Stage animals can be trained or tranquilized, but they cannot comprehend that they are in a play, thus they are unpredictable. A stage animal’s own personality and actions can be used for an effect on the stage.
• Art uses signs to represent something the object is not and forces us to view things anew.

"Poet's Creed" Borges

- Creed: A formal statement of religious belief; a confession of faith.

- Borges doubts readers will see creed as useful; says he should be considered a reader as opposed to a writer. That which he reads is more significant than that which has written.

- Recalls memory of father. 60 years ago; father’s personal library in South America. Father reciting text from “Ode to a Nightingale”. Borges later gathered that the mortal exists because he has distinct recollection of an age before his lifetime and can foresee a future beyond his lifetime. First encounter with poetry.

- Asserts man’s great expanse of existence can be reduced to the moment when he first comprehends who he is and what destined path he will forever follow.
o Ex: Judas kisses Jesus, realizes his role as a traitor and realizes the evil in his own destiny.
o Ex: Red Badge of Courage, protagonist realizes himself to be either courageous or cowardly individual.

- At the core of Borges’ life are words; seeks to weave words into poetry. Still, the greatest happiness can only be derived from being primarily a reader.

- Arabian Nights important to Borges; conjures feelings of great freedom.
- Huckleberry Finn; simple framework is agreeable to the imagination, therefore pleasing.

- Recalls memory of being an intentionally unhappy young man who stumbled upon an extremely happy writer; Walt Whitman. Whitman’s writings made Borges ashamed of his unhappiness.
o Also came across works of Thomas Carlyle. Inspired to study German, thereby encountering many revered German writers.

- Don Quixote and Sherlock Holmes; Borges believes in the characters but cannot bring himself to believe in their adventures and dialogue.

- Also came across Old English; its harshness seemed to contain a certain beauty and depth. Borges says perhaps there really was no beauty and literary depth, but “if the feeling comes through to you, it should be sufficient”.

- Poe, Wilde, Baudelaire were substantial writers of his boyhood; very much impressed by their writings as a young boy. But an aged, graying reader would be discomforted by these same writings.

- Finds profundity in metaphors, including those of Robert Frost. “For I have promises to keep” passage and “O luminary Clock against the sky” passage.

- Moby-Dick; Borges believes in the parable, but not Captain Ahab or his clash with the great whale. The parable itself is obscure though, may be about the struggle against evil or wrong way of fighting evil. Still, the book was highly pleasing.

- Recalls Gnostics saying the only way to rid oneself of the sin is to commit it, because of the repentance. Likens this to writing. May produce 5 pages of pleasurable literature only after he produces 15 intolerable volumes. Years of deliberation and trial/error in the meantime.

- Free verse and prose more challenging than regular/classic poetic forms in that there is not pre-determined pattern. Yet the human mind still has expectations of the text form.
o Failing to meet these textural expectations is failing to deliver satisfaction. Patterned forms have pre-determined end and rhymes are finite. Free verse, however, can potentially be infinite.

- Recalls mistakes he made as young, aspiring writer.
o Failed to see that Carlyle and Whitman had attained the perfection of prose and verse; simply decided that their styles were the only acceptable styles.
o Initially strove to come off as 17th century Spanish writer, knowledgeable in Latin; only out for literature awards.
o Initially strove to be noticeably modern. Realizes “We are modern by the very simple fact that we live in the present”. One can never harness the art of living in the past, nor harness the art of being a futurist in a time which has yet to be invented.

- Acknowledges himself to be a writers; this just means he is being true to his imagination.

- Marvels at histories of Indian philosophy; they treat even the most dated works as contemporary pieces, translating with contemporary terms/jargon. Hence, they truly believe in philosophy and poetry; “that things beautiful once can go on being beautiful still”.

- In writing, desires to be loyal to the dream rather than the circumstances. All true stories require a bit of untruth when put onto paper. Otherwise, the writer is a journalist rather than an artist. And if the writer lacks true knowledge of the circumstances, that is fine.
o Ex: Gibbon’s telling f the fall of the Roman Empire. May include a bit of fabrication, but no other telling could have been so pleasing.

- When writing, both the writer and reader are fictional. Only that which the writer conveys is significant.
o As a young writer, Borges believed in expression. Now aged, he believes in allusion.
o Writers can only allude, only prompt the reader to imagine and expand on the text.

- When writing, he does not seek to understand his work. Attempting to come off as intelligent spoils work. Being self-conscious and attempting to identify oneself as a writer spoils work.

- When writing, he forgets about himself and his personal circumstances. Someone may produce a piece and deem it insignificant. But to a particular reader, it may be astounding.
o Hence, it is the audience that enriches books and lectures. Without the audience, these books and lectures are perhaps useless.

"Directors and Designers" Pamela Howard

-  Architect Adolphe Appala interpreted creation as “the synthesis of space, light and performance achieved by one total personal vision.” P.25

-    Robert Edmond Jones commented that “the excitement that should be in theatres is found only in baseball parks, arenas, stadiums, and racecourses.” P.25

- Director and designer must work collaboratively to carry out unique vision. However, working together is not so easy. Directors and designers have very different views of collaboration; designer does not want to express too much of his opinion, lest he upset the director.Director seems to think that the relationship with designer is agreeable.

 -Designer does more than the job requirement, “Above all, it emerged that a designer had to be like a wife-supportive, a friend and a partner, ready to co-operate at all times and on all occasions…” 

- Prowse states “the best conversation I ever had with a director was with myself in bed at night.” P. 25

-          Designers only able to work through directors. Designers work for directors,  An unbalanced or unequal relationship. Designer may long to work with a particular play, but must render to the choice of the director

-          Theater designer Joe Mielziner described members of his profession as servants. Logically, must seek to serve the play. Simultaneously, must seek to serve the director.

-     Usually, harmony between the director and designer is a matter of co-operation, rather than collaboration. Director as the employer, and designer as the employee. Director as the master, and designer as the obedient/obsequious servant.

- This theater hierarchy can be likened to the architectural structure in which the team occupies. Degrees of separation have intensified throughout 20^th century.

-  Producers and management on upper floors; well-lit, perspective views. Artisans in basement workshops, near heating plant and boiler room. Poorly lit in comparison, no natural light. Director occupies center axis of building, the stage. During rehearsal, sits behind desk in center of auditorium, much like monarch in the Royal Box. Designer has no designated area to himself. Treks around the stage with his materials, goes where necessary. During rehearsal, no designated viewing spot like Director; simply uses vacant chair in back of room.

-          Master/servant relationship must be revised. Collaboration, as opposed to co-operation on behalf of the designer, must be sought.

-          Some inclined towards spatial imagination, some inclined towards literary imagination. Distinction has become Designer and Director, respectively.

-          Sometimes, however, designers are the central authority and assume the power of a director. Declare themselves to be more bold and more daring in executing certain ideas; courage to be innovative. Not held down by higher power.

-          When the vast, empty stage space is taken into consideration before all else, necessary that the designer become an architect of the imagination. Designer is no longer decorator of directorial concepts; has a higher purpose. Explore all spatial possibilities to exploit.

-For theater creation to move in different direction, familiar mantra must be followed. “Let us therefore move away from the labels, stereotypes and definitions and focus our attention on what we can do, individually, on the ground.”

Behind the Screen Door: A Quote

“…the door establishes a boundary; it establishes a demarcation between the cramped, confined space of the cabin and the much larger world of the ship. It also makes order between order and chaos, between a world of rules and a world of alogical action. To go through the door is to pass from one state of being, or one world, to another.” Arnold Aronson Behind the Screen Door p. 53

boundary

1. something that indicates bounds or limits; a limiting or bounding line

2. also called frontier. Mathematics. the collection of all points of a given set having the property that every neighborhood of each point contains points in the set and in the complement of the set.

3. Cricket. a hit in which the ball reaches or crosses the boundary line of the field on one or more bounces, counting four runs for the batsman.