Working from a distance

Some days ago I came back to Greece for a few days. This might sound as a short break but now I see that in reallity it is not... For me it is still very unusual that for some things I still find a big difficulty in London because of the language (and specificly because of the tecknical language that I am not familiar with). For a reason things here in Greece seem to be much more simple.

For weeks now I was trying to find a way to make a specific light I want to use for p001 and I could not. Happily now I can announce that it will be soon in my hands!

But the progress about p001 and p004 does not stop here. Today I had a long meeting with the person I want to cooperate with in order to create a specific software that will allow the performer to interfere with the video projections during my final piece. It seems like there is a big amount of work to be done and it will be extremely complicated but we agreed on the basic ideas and I really look forward to start working practically on this!

Maybe some things are not science fiction after all! Technology can be and is on our side!

p#001 a new sketch up as the space changes....

About the Group Project

As both of the projects I am working on right now start to become more and more real, I realize that inevitably some elements will be common, as I seem to have only one brain and personality. In the beginning this was extremely frightening for me, but as time goes by I start to think that by forcing myself to separate the one from the other will be no good.

Here are my first ideas of the basic elements of the group project. Hopefully this i sonly a draft and all these ideas will be transformed as the rehearsals will start.

• The text and the story have a linear form, which is something that I would live to see on stage. With the help of the scenography and the choreography the actor will move in the space in a straight line. There will be a starting and an ending point and the five different states of the characters consciousness will be visible as the character will move and speak.
• We have decided during the last meeting that we wanted a male presence. Connecting this idea to the mythical river gods, Charon and of course the man in the poem we use that drowns first in the river, I have started thinking of creating a mix of sounds using the actual sound of a river flowing and combine this to a male voice speaking, using  words or small phrases from Inferno and Hamlet. This voice will refer to the character on the stage and we can play with the volume and the intensity of it to create a kind of a dialogue with the female character.
• The actress (Martina) will be using the lyrics of the poem. During the rehearsals we will try to transform those words from lyrics to sound.We will be based in repetition and in the voice's expressive tone. The actual body will be in contrary to that. The use of all 3 levels of space is required at this point and I'd like to see a simple and alienated figure, free from facial expressions as if she is wearing a mask BUT without using one.
• The lights will be very simple as well. I was thinking of playing a lot with shadows and light. One light at the starting point of the actress's moving line will be enough to indicate that the character is moving from life/joy/light to death/sorrow/shadow and ends in the river. An idea of how we will represent the river is video projections that will surround the actress and illuminate as well with the colors we want.

These for now... Looking forward for our next progression meeting on Monday!

These are some sketches of the actor, the construction and the lights during the first minutes of p #001

p#001 sketches

some decisions on p#001

• It will be a live performance (I have to find a performer with dance skills).
• The performer during the performance is going to be transformed into something resembling an android. The main focus at the moment seems to be the arm the genitals. The genitals will be covered in such a way so that the sex of the performer won't be visible and that's because machines don't have a sex unless this is specified by the maker. The hand is the most important aspect of human communication. Whenever we see something new we tend to want to touch it as if we want to make sure that this is real. Also in most cultures when you meet someone you shake hands or use them in order to saw the intensity of our feelings. The fact that the arm will be transformed live into a metallic one signifies the detachment that technology causes.
• The space is going to be aesthetically unified (probably from the same material) with the performer's ''metallic'' parts of the body. It's going to be causing a kaleidoscopic effect  of the image of the performer, since it is going to be made by mirror/reflective material.

What I need to find:

The performer

Reflective material

How to make simple clothes from latex an how to apply the reflective material on it.

p001

p001 will take place somewhere in the university, I haven't decided yet. This is a draft model I made in sketch up so that I can have the space in my mind and start taking care of the details. 

Coming soon with more details!

p001/p002/p003

The time has come for me to start testing some ideas for my final project. During this term I plan to present three solo projects -I know it is a bit ambitious and I can not be sure that I will actually present all three of them. These three projects will give me the opportunity to experiment on my ideas and the way I can accomplish them and I consider each one of them a step closer to the final work.

I will briefly mention the aim of each one of those.

The first one: p001 will be a short performance dealing with the very close connection of human beings to technology/nano technology/robotics, presenting a creature not easily affected by time.

The second one: p002 will be a video installation presenting the human being in a natural environment that time matters and does affect each object in the space.

The third one: p003 will be a combination of those two, where the performer will have to interact with the video or the video interact with the performer and I will have to make my final decisions about what will happen-.

By these I will come a bit closer to find the connection between theatre and installation art as I strongly believe that the use of technology is very important and I will have the chance to experiment with the same questions that many people have already experimented before but still remain a rich field of interest as the technological inventions increase constantly.

-What choreography/performance emerges when software is your partner?

 -When virtual and actual image space share the same physics?

  -Where everything that moves on the stage is both interactive and independent?  

   -And any form, dancing or still, can be transformed into a kinetic projection surface?

*Klaus Obermaier for Apparition.