The technology that is now readily available to us on a day to day basis in constantly improving. Each month a new phone is coming out or a new laptop with the latest gadgets and its difficult to keep up, well I certainly find that it is. However, with this in mind, technology has now become a large part of all performances, particularly installation pieces.
The idea’s I had were simply that, ideas, as I wasn’t sure if they would be possible. Luckily, there were some extremely helpful and very knowledgeable technicians around to make my vision a reality.
I find that when you go somewhere, anywhere: the doctors, to town, a friends house, there are magazines and newspapers everywhere. We cannot get away from what the media want to show us, which is why we are so unaware of the impact the ‘celeb’ culture has on us. Therefore I wanted to re-create this during my performance. The LPAC foyer has television screens which advertise various shows etc, I wanted to use these screens and have a live feed of the performance in the studio streamed downstairs. This meant that people who didn’t know about the performance or weren’t going to watch it, could still be a part of it. I wanted to be as accessible to as many people as possible.
I had re-thought my first ideas which was to have a projection outside on the LPAC, as there were lighting difficulties due to it being lighter at night. However, I felt that using the television screens would have the same affect just on a slightly smaller scale.
Not only did I want the live stream to appear downstairs but also as a projection in my exhibition. This was achieved through a 3-way Skype call, something I had never even attempted to do.
My exhibition also included another projection with the title of my piece ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. This was high on the wall just before entering the magazined area.
As I have previously mentioned, I set up a Twitter account specifically for my performance. I wanted this to be a live feed so my audience could tweet about the experience they had. This was placed at the end of the exhibition so the audience were able to experience everything. I decided to use an Ipad for this as it was smaller than a laptop and showed the variety of technology that is available.
The only light I wanted for the exhibition was the natural light that streamed in from outside. My reasoning for not having any artificial light, especially on the magazines, is that I didn’t want to glorify them anymore than they already had been.
The only lighting in the studio I needed is a white wash in the area where I will be sitting. As the studio is quite large, there will be two areas of dimmed lighting which appear like stepping stones to guide the audience to the end of the studio where I will be sat.
Below is the exhibition in order: Projection-Quotes-Marquardt Mask-Performance Title-Media/Magazine Centre
The development of the exhibition represents how the real progresses into the fake.
