Notes From Interface, 2006-11-01

  • Homework
    • Develop and present
      • non-linear narrative of your journey from home to school
  • New Project
    • Five or Six Weeks
    • Step 1
      • Requirements
        • Identify a common space
          • an environment that you encounter regularly
          • space must be familiar enough to be comfortable
          • and small enough to walk across in 5 seconds
        • Observe This Space
          • for at least 20 hours
          • group total of 20 hours, that is
          • though more is better
          • don't skimp on this
          • look for:
            • who's there
            • what do they do
            • why do they do it?
            • how do they do it?
          • identify two groups
          • how do they relate to each other
          • present after this (11/15)
        • Scenario/system
          • to change their relationships
          • present (11/27)
          • how do you change the relationships toward one goal
            • goal can be anything
          • important!
            • imp When you start, just change the relationships
            • then worry about the goal
    • Step 2
      • Present it to Adam and other critics 12/11 and 12/13 (or 12/18 12/20)
  • Happenings
    • Is it art?
    • Theater?
    • Art World
      • I'm awesome because I'm not in it
      • Art world says, hey, that guy's awesome!
      • Guy is soooo broke
      • Art world says, can we pay you?
      • That guy gets paid
      • Everyone is happy (?)
    • White cube gallery
    • Kaprow were much more idealists, came around before any of the art market madness
    • Drug-induced life vs. happenings
      • Something that doesn't occur naturally in the world
      • art inspires transcendence
    • happenings more closely tied to theater world
    • Influences
      • Gertrude Stein
        • language
      • Bertolt Brecht
      • Samuel Beckett
        • language
      • All come back to people's complacency about art
        • So, what then must we do?
        • Make something new
        • They wanted to shock the crap out of you
    • Using ideas of scripted scenarios and getting the audience to alter them
    • Contemporaries
      • Fluxus
      • Conceptual Art
      • etc.
    • Performance Art
      • Why does it suck?
      • Not developed to its potential
      • Needs a lot more thought and work to come off right
      • Tend to be too random
        • No way to evaluate what's good
        • no sense of success on the actor's/artist's part
        • No consequence to doing something bad or something that doesn't work
        • No possibility for failure
      • No goal
      • No craft
      • No editing
        • and editing is what it's all about
        • at least, no art of consequence
    • Without editing
      • no consequence
      • no structure
      • just boring random collection of crap
      • Don't Do This
      • random is boring
    • Aristotilean model
      • Narrative Form
        • Three Acts
        • Meet the characters
        • Conflict introduced
      • "Goonies" for example
        • Meet the kids
          • older brother
          • younger brother
          • etc
        • everyone's going to have to move (conflict)
        • Chunk finds a map
          • must find treasure
          • end Act I
        • problems they have to solve
        • find treasure
        • looks like they're going to get killed
          • Height of conflict
          • End Act II
        • sustain conflict into Act III
          • peak of tension
        • Resolved the conflict
          • sailed the boat
          • captured the gangsters
        • HEA (happily ever after)
          • denouement
      • Tristam Shandy
        • Not so much with this structure
      • Otherwise, everything is like this
      • Even in ancient Japanese literature, it's similar
        • maybe a little less hyperbolic
      • if something's been working for millenia, mmmmaybe there's a reason
    • Successful avant garde sets out very clear goals
      • sometimes they worked
      • or not
      • but at least there was a way to tell

Copyright Mike Edwards 2006-2009. All content available under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, unless otherwise noted.