Online and On Time

After designing, re-designing and re-re-designing the new FireBox Dance Theatre website with my new found Dreamweaver skills it finally online today just making my self-imposed deadline of 'the end of January'. I work best when I have deadlines.

The design was inspired by the photo shoot we had at The Arches with Derrick (Linton) at the start of December as well as the new logo, which incidentally inspired the coloured stripes across our faces in the 'naked warpaint' shots, but I was having problems finding a colour for text that would work well on both the red and the grey part of the brick background. The solution was to add a plain panel that would contain all the text, with a few exceptions just for variation, but this seemed very sterile and precise against the background. So I searched around and found a black panel with a grunge border that gave the impression that the black strip had been painted onto the wall. With this in place, everything else seemed to work together and, personally, I feel the website is a real indication of the style of the company and our dancers.

Here it is, let me know what you think.

Light Graffiti

I stumbled upon some light graffiti artists recently and it occurred to me that it'd be a really interesting way of capturing movement in a still image. There are a lot of people doing this at the moment, some of the best I've found are Lichtfaktor and this film clip (scroll to the bottom).

I happen to have some glow sticks handy and a few bike lights to experiment with this weekend so hopefully I'll have something to show next week.

Painting by Keywords

I was pointed in the direction of net.art generator by Dan and spent ages on it last night creating images from keywords. The idea is that you stipulate keywords, net.art generator searches google images for matches and collages those images into a new image.

I restricted myself to 'firebox', 'dance' and 'theatre' and was quite pleased that the majority of images included were my own (my meta tagging must be pretty accurate). Some of them are really interesting and some are awful but that's part of the fun. It seemed to me like painting by numbers but with even less skill involved but I'm sure it won't be long before someone convinces a gallery to exhibit this as their work.

First Week Back

Tutorial with Katrina

We discussed my practical work and agreed that if I am to produce a successful, accurate account of my performance for the assessment panel I must stage it in advance to give myself enough time to document it fully. I'd like to create a single screen work out of the performance piece as opposed to just a documentation of the work so will need to consider how to do this and what it will entail.

She also suggested I look at some Cunningham work to reference my theme of 'no fixed front'. It seems it's time to dig out the old books from my BA.

SDT

4-5 min promo for the Interactive programme plus documentation of their latest piece. We need extra bodies to help with filming and boom mike operating but people seem reluctant to get involved, hopefully the 4th years will be more proactive. We need to consider how to mike up Janet and how to ensure we cover all the material for maximum editing options.

DVD Pro Authoring

Fairly straightforward and probably best to try with a project in mind.

Feedback from Gair and Course Meeting

Everything seems to be on track for the year ahead. I have lots of projects planned and just want to get started. My feedback was pretty positive from both Gair and Katrina but I am conscious of not resting on my laurels and keeping the momentum going. I really want to get more practice editing and would like a proper intro to Final Cut as I missed the first one. We have the option of requesting workshops and there is money for library books so we'll need to make the most of it.

Opensource {videodance} 2007

Another week full of things to think about and consider both practically and academically. Being a scribe at the event really helped focus my mind on what I was listening to and the openspace structure allowed for a lot more involved in discussions than may have been possible in another set up.

The thing that really caught my imagination was Becky Edmunds' talk about 'in camera' editing. She explained that if you film 4 hours of footage you then need 4 hours to review it - time consuming, expensive and slightly boring. Her technique is to press record only when something really interests her and to stop when it stops being interesting. This really appealed to me as I always know the footage I'm going to use at the moment I'm filming it, yet I continue filming anyway. When it comes to capturing the footage I ignore most of it and got straight to the points that I've already recognised I'm interested in. It seems to me that the next logical step would be just to stop recording when that moment is over.

As Becky pointed out, I will inevitably miss things but there will always be something else that engages me. Over the holidays I'm going to practice this skill in everyday life using the video camera on my mobile phone. Results to follow..

Something to think about...

Anonymity & Freedom - I feel this may still be creeping into my work, the multi-screen idea may give the viewer this impression.

Multi-screen projection - How? What types of screens? What types of cameras? How to link up?

Dancer - Maximum of 3 in a large space or 1 in a small space. Emphasis on emptiness, visually.

Live film feed - Simple from static cameras, will need wireless transmitter for moving cameras.

Pre-recorded film - To be incorporated into piece, I'd like to have a presence in this as well as the dancers performing live.

Space to develop - Arches, exact details to be confirmed but likely one day a week with performance opportunity.

Installation style performance - Informal audience setting, freedom to move around screens and dancers.

Scratch night - Arches, every 2 months. Chance to show 10 mins of work in progress to audience who then give instant feedback.

Projection onto dancer - What sort of effect? What sort of costume?

Arches Space

After a meeting with LJ, one of the programmers, at the Arches, Glasgow this morning they have agreed to support my work with space to develop it on a weekly basis. I will be given use of one of the practice rooms to begin with then as the project develops I will be allowed to develop the work in one of the performance spaces. I'm really excited about this as it's a big development for me both as part of my coursework and professionally. Part of the reason LJ is supporting me is because of my growing reputation in Glasgow as a choreographer.

I aim to do a series of movement experiments in the practice space, involving a dancer as the work progresses, and trialling the technical side of the work before moving into the performance space. LJ has given me the option of developing a full performance piece with support from the Arches which I intend to do as I feel it will give me even more focus on creating a 'piece' as opposed to a series of research experiments.