The next project for class should follow the brief for The Free Project - this should be a very exciting undertaking as it allows me to explore ideas and mediums outside what I would normally create. On first thoughts I am tempted to create a performance piece and use sound for this piece. I would need to ensure here I have a very strong concept as this will need to really push the boundaries creatively. I started to think about performance sound that I have enjoyed and one of these was Pippi Lotti Rist. Her videos explore the the feminine, gender, the body and sensuality. IO lay on the gallery floor of The Hayward Gallery and her film engulfed you as you lay there; 'Down on the floor there is a projection of a woman's body. The camera homes in, turning as it delves into her lipsticked mouth. Unexpectedly, the next thing we see – just for a second – is the woman's puckered anus' (Searle, 2011)
Rists' images merge together and flow and you as the viewer become part of the performance this interactive and overwhelming feeling is something that I would love to be able to do on a large scale, obviously we are rather confined here to something a little bit smaller scale. I can't necessarily have people lying on cushions in a gallery like Rist; 'Up on the mezzanine, I lounged on body-shaped cushions, pairs of stuffed jeans and headless upholstered torsos, plumping them up in vaguely orgiastic piles. It was soothing to lie there, amid a labyrinth of diaphanous curtains' (Searle, 2011) so perhaps I need to think how else I can engage the viewer in the performance. In terms of concept for performance I do want to really do want to look to something that is different and so this time I do think I would like to perhaps move away from gender and womanhood and into something perhaps more existential. Something more about life and death and the nature of existence as lately I have been reading Nietzsche again and Zizek and the important questions of life need to be addressed within art. This reminds me of the neo expressionism of David Bowie...
This artwork was used for the Outside album however I like the idea of neo expressionism used within the film/performance work as this might express ideas of existence and following in Burroughs and Bowie's footsteps using the cut up techniques to really start to explore ideas could be interesting as a starting point, perhaps the resulting work will be a dithyramb of some beauty. Burroughs technique involved; 'The cutup is a mechanical method of juxtaposition in which Burroughs literally cuts up passages of prose by himself and other writers and then pastes them back together at random. This literary version of the collage technique is also supplemented by literary use of other media. Burroughs transcribes taped cutups (several tapes spliced into each other), film cutups (montage), and mixed media experiments (results of combining tapes with television, movies, or actual events).' ( Burroughs Cut Ups 2001) I like this as this technique was not confined to just words but to film and sound. This is something I would like to explore as recently I had stared to consider the moving image and how I might use this within my work, I had ideas of layers of days upon each other and this existence and the repetitive nature of life. Below is Burrough's film that does use a series of cut up clips to create an Avant Garde film which does use repetitive sound and movement and has its roots in Dada and Surrealism; 'It almost has the same air as a drug trip or a severe fever dream. Even the most esoteric of film students would have trouble arguing that this does' (Kahn, 2022)
"The Cut Ups," (1966) William S. Burroughs
The idea that it is almost like a fevered dream does appeal as I do think my own best ideas come in the night in a fevered dream! The Dadist and Surrealists were keen on the unconscious and using this as a source of inspiration and with rise of Freud and Jung and psychoanalysis this method exploration in art is still used to today and many artists look to their unconcious for inspiration. Like automatic writing perhaps almost this could be an 'automatic film'
Here I am just exploring ideas and thoughts in my next post I will start to bring together final ideas that I would like to develop for this small project.
References
Searle, A. (2011) Pipilotti rist: Big time sensuality, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/sep/26/pipilotti-rist-hayward-gallery-review (Accessed: February 20, 2023).
Rutten, M. (2023) David Bowie: From popstar to neo-expressionist painter, DailyArt Magazine. Available at: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/david-bowie-from-popstar-to-neo-expressionist-painter/ (Accessed: February 20, 2023).
William S Burroughs Cut Ups (2001) LanguageIsAVirus.com. Available at: https://www.languageisavirus.com/creative-writing-techniques/william-s-burroughs-cut-ups.php (Accessed: February 20, 2023).
Kahn, J. (2022) Watch William S. Burroughs' 1966 avant-garde movie 'The Cut Ups', Far Out Magazine. Available at: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/watch-william-s-burroughs-1966-avant-garde-movie-the-cut-ups/ (Accessed: February 20, 2023).
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