In the Studio with Mark and Judd III
We have divided the studio into segments corresponding to the windows of the HPAC facade and are creating a movement sequence that could either be performed live on the catwalk or displayed as video sequences in the screens. We are working from sources that emphasize labor, occupation, physicality. Books scattered on the floor include images by Eadweard Muybridge, Michael Borremans, Iring Penn and posters from the WPA federally-funded art program of the 1930’s. Tonight we are meeting with young artists André and Evan Lenox who will be resume their roles as the twin Winged Figures of the Republic in some of our planned future events.
We are about to begin translating the current digital material for initial viewing on the facade. This is a formidable task as it involves creating a web page on the scale of a building. We decided early on that the facade would not be video but a work of internet art simultaneously accessible online. This involves treating the site as a vast navigable panoramic space something like a Google map where, for example, new terrain dynamically appears as you pull the landscape towards yourself. This will take consideration and time. And the HPAC system has a very unique setup and we must work within the constraints of how it displays imagery across machines and projectors.
We are also planning for two imminent events: a re-mounting of The Living Newspapers at the MCA launching June 1 and a performance at Brown University as part of the Electronic Literature Organization annual conference and digital arts event (June 3-6). In addition to a performance of The Precession, we are also creating a new work in honor of Robert Coover. Coover is a prominent writer of fiction and was Judd’s mentor as an MFA student at Brown. The entire event is in part recognition of Coover’s legacy and his innovative approach to bringing electronic media into the practice and discourse of contemporary literature. The Coover-specific intervention involves a live and screen-based retelling of Coover’s renowned re-invention of the Pinnochio story in his novel Pinnochio in Venice. The performance combines written responses to Coover’s work with material mined and composed algorithmically from Coover’s manuscript. Judd’s father, Thomas J. Morrissey, will also participate in the performance. Tom is, among other things, a scholar of children’s literature who is an expert on Pinnochio having written extensively both critical essays and children’s plays from the Pinnochio cultural corpus. The piece, tentatively called RC_AI approaches themes of father-son/ master-apprentice relationships, and the myth of the inanimate coming to life (puppet, monster, golem, artificial intelligence). This may seem like a tangent but there is a connection with our overall Precession project — Pinocchio was one of the productions funded by the WPA theater program (that also funded many Living Newspapers) and when the Federal Theater Program was discontinued in 1939, Pinnochio’s “corpse” was paraded through the streets in a small box.
On Tuesday we are meeting Fred Sasaki from the Poetry Foundation to consider our involvement in the Printer’s Ball summer festivities with its theme of print <3s digital. On Wednesday, Mark will also be part of Power Tools 5 at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he will be on a panel called Artists Take Charge.
E-literature conference:
http://ai.eliterature.org/
Electronic Literature Organization:
http://www.eliterature.org/
Info on The Living Newspapers:
http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/exh_detail.php?id=240
Here are some notes from the studio:
BREAKING DOWN THE SEQUENCE
In the studio this week we have been breaking down the idea of the Muybridge sequence further. We have given ourselves 10 instructions for constructing a 10 minute sequence that is part choreographic and part performative. We are working with a constraint of 10 screens/10 minutes of time and we have marked this spatially on the floor and also the wall. Currently there are 8 gridded squares marked out by blue tape. In the squares are sheets of paper with an instruction to respond to with movement. Some of these instructions came from a previous residency where we asked people in our community to send us directives / instructions via their twitter accounts. We have so far developed 6 minutes of material from this exercise. Minute one is an announcement of a piece of text from the working diary of John Steinbeck, who wrote many depression-era books including the Grapes of Wrath. Minutes 2 - 5 are then specific generated movements and texts. Here are some examples:
1. Pathways of rubble, rocks: maneuver
2. And the poet thought that the power of language to shape the world was fireproof
3. The Astrologer smoked a cigarette and wore a grey T
4. Coalman, grocery boy, carpenter, shoemaker
A Chicago Fireman’s T shirt is worn, his body is placed against a wall and he makes a prediction. A feather falls from the sky and a man smells smoke on this hands. Someone picks up a child’s telescope and walking along a semicircular motion he punctures the wall at the half way mark, then putting the telescope to his nose, he rotates to face the opposite wall.
We want this week to complete the second half, or a further 6 minutes of material from the directives, so that we will have another 12 minutes of material to look over. We repeat, practice and rehearse the material over and over again as a way of understanding the sources and materials we are examining. Hopefully this allows us then to understand what it is we are making and building and also to get a clearer sense of the elements coming together and also to figure out timing, interruption, and editing.
IMAGES FROM THE STUDIO
