As I was recently walking around the National Gallery in Canberra, I overheard a woman says to her friend:-
"Damn, I think we should make a pledge tonight..."
I was taken by the possibility of the line. Should play with this as an exercise conversation starter or ending.
Showing posts with label Ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ideas. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
The Comment Book: capturing an impulse
As part of the Singapore Arts Festival, I recently hunted down an outdoor sculptural exhibit which was advertised as next door to the Raffles City shopping mall. This piece is a series of columns formed a grid of towers - an architectural and transparent maze that the audience could walk around it, look through it and even move through it.
Each column was constructed out of a wire beams approximately 3 to 4 metres high that had been wrapped in a clear plastic cord stretched around and around the column spiralling up creating a sense of tension. Between these clear columns, a black fabric tape had been seemingly randomly stretched back and forth to create another series of barriers and openings that directed the viewer into the maze.
As I spiralled around the sculptural piece, slightly disappointed that this was all it was, I became aware that a young woman was watching me. She was a festival volunteer, a guardian of the sculpture, of university age, sitting at a collapsible table next to a banner advertising the festival delights. She waved a greeting and called out informing me that “you can walk through it, you know”.
I accepted her invitaton and went to enter into the maze. She was surprised that I was actually going to do it. After I’d walked the maze and had taken a couple of photos, I approached the woman. We entered into a conversation about the piece, the artist and why / how she found herself there as a volunteer.
She asked me whether I would like to make a comment in the comment book. She showed me an artist diary with black pages and a spiral spine. She had two thick artistic markers – one silver and one gold ink. I was surprised that this public artwork has a volunteer guarding it and a comment book.
I ask the young woman who read the comments - Was it a part of the festival process, wound the artist read them or the festival directors or wound some be published or was it a way for the organisers to validate the expense of the piece to the bean counter – who would gauge the success of the piece on the nature of the comments. She was unsure whether anybody would actually ever look at the comments book after the festival
We started to read some of the other comments and drawings together, delighting in the ecletic mix of ramblings. She realised that a lot of the work has been completed by the other volunteers passing their time and boredom doodling in the book. This lead to further discussion on the reasons why people volunteer. She attended a local university where she studied economics – Volunteering was a compulsory component of her course, but she liked the arts and had chosen to volunteer for this festival.
Finally I added my own comment to the book.
We discovered that neither of us were locals but both knew where the other had come from. The last thing we did was to introduce ourselves, say hello and parted ways with a smile.
It is my conversation with this woman from Penang as a volunteer and custodian of the comments book that captured my attention for the rest of the day... Unfortunately, I’ve unforgotten her name.
A few days later I entered another small art exhibition at Sculpture Square where the artist was attending to her own enquiry desk. She initiated another conversation about her comments book. I was starting to see a pattern. An idea started to take shape. Let's see where the idea takes me.
Each column was constructed out of a wire beams approximately 3 to 4 metres high that had been wrapped in a clear plastic cord stretched around and around the column spiralling up creating a sense of tension. Between these clear columns, a black fabric tape had been seemingly randomly stretched back and forth to create another series of barriers and openings that directed the viewer into the maze.
As I spiralled around the sculptural piece, slightly disappointed that this was all it was, I became aware that a young woman was watching me. She was a festival volunteer, a guardian of the sculpture, of university age, sitting at a collapsible table next to a banner advertising the festival delights. She waved a greeting and called out informing me that “you can walk through it, you know”.
I accepted her invitaton and went to enter into the maze. She was surprised that I was actually going to do it. After I’d walked the maze and had taken a couple of photos, I approached the woman. We entered into a conversation about the piece, the artist and why / how she found herself there as a volunteer.
She asked me whether I would like to make a comment in the comment book. She showed me an artist diary with black pages and a spiral spine. She had two thick artistic markers – one silver and one gold ink. I was surprised that this public artwork has a volunteer guarding it and a comment book.
I ask the young woman who read the comments - Was it a part of the festival process, wound the artist read them or the festival directors or wound some be published or was it a way for the organisers to validate the expense of the piece to the bean counter – who would gauge the success of the piece on the nature of the comments. She was unsure whether anybody would actually ever look at the comments book after the festival
We started to read some of the other comments and drawings together, delighting in the ecletic mix of ramblings. She realised that a lot of the work has been completed by the other volunteers passing their time and boredom doodling in the book. This lead to further discussion on the reasons why people volunteer. She attended a local university where she studied economics – Volunteering was a compulsory component of her course, but she liked the arts and had chosen to volunteer for this festival.
Finally I added my own comment to the book.
We discovered that neither of us were locals but both knew where the other had come from. The last thing we did was to introduce ourselves, say hello and parted ways with a smile.
It is my conversation with this woman from Penang as a volunteer and custodian of the comments book that captured my attention for the rest of the day... Unfortunately, I’ve unforgotten her name.
A few days later I entered another small art exhibition at Sculpture Square where the artist was attending to her own enquiry desk. She initiated another conversation about her comments book. I was starting to see a pattern. An idea started to take shape. Let's see where the idea takes me.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Scavenged Fragments of Conversation: Devonshire Tunnel
It's was a Saturday morning and I was walking down Devonshire Tunnel under Central Station in Sydney. I overheard two yound guys walking directly behind me.
I didn't look back but I couldn't help being gripped by the shread of their conversation that floated my way.
1: I told the dude that I wanted a wallet that every time I opened it, there was a crisp clean $50 note - So I could take them out and stack them up in my bedroom!
2. Why only $50 notes?
1. What ?
2. $100's
1. You got to start your dreams somewhere.
2. Modest?
1. Anyhow, the guy looked at me like I'd raped his grandmother or something.
Not long afterwards, in the foyer of Belvoir Street Theatre, a woman carrying a tray of party snacks was heading somewhere - talking, encouraging, reminding herself:-
"Warmily great and effectively engage".
I didn't look back but I couldn't help being gripped by the shread of their conversation that floated my way.
1: I told the dude that I wanted a wallet that every time I opened it, there was a crisp clean $50 note - So I could take them out and stack them up in my bedroom!
2. Why only $50 notes?
1. What ?
2. $100's
1. You got to start your dreams somewhere.
2. Modest?
1. Anyhow, the guy looked at me like I'd raped his grandmother or something.
Not long afterwards, in the foyer of Belvoir Street Theatre, a woman carrying a tray of party snacks was heading somewhere - talking, encouraging, reminding herself:-
"Warmily great and effectively engage".
Monday, November 5, 2007
Playwrighting
I have always loved the term "playwright" as a description for the process of writing play scripts! The "wright" places an emphasis on the building and construction of the object as inferred in words like "cartwright" and "shipwright".
"Playwright" is evocative of this process of construction, of building a representation in some dramatic form, using an understanding a dramatic time, space and dialogue to shape character and action into theatre. The playwright is a builder of dramatic action and not just a writer.
I continue to grow a cast of threads, loose ideas, half finished scripts, scribbled notes and failed attempts. These pieces physically turn over in my head, calling, haunting like ghost beckoning to be released from the purgatory of theatrical limbo. To be finished, killed off or polished off, for better or worse
Therefore, I am taking a break for the nex year from directing other playwrights' work with the intention of developing something out of my own threads into a script that resembles a state of completion.
This decision aside, I still need to elect which idea to pursue. Each one regularly calls upon me periodically, reverberating and echoing into new connotations, reasons for revisiting. This regular of cast of working titles are fighting for attention amongst the pack, only to be occasionally overwhelmed by another, new exciting contender. Already, these projects beg, fight for notice as a I write"
"Playwright" is evocative of this process of construction, of building a representation in some dramatic form, using an understanding a dramatic time, space and dialogue to shape character and action into theatre. The playwright is a builder of dramatic action and not just a writer.
I continue to grow a cast of threads, loose ideas, half finished scripts, scribbled notes and failed attempts. These pieces physically turn over in my head, calling, haunting like ghost beckoning to be released from the purgatory of theatrical limbo. To be finished, killed off or polished off, for better or worse
Therefore, I am taking a break for the nex year from directing other playwrights' work with the intention of developing something out of my own threads into a script that resembles a state of completion.
This decision aside, I still need to elect which idea to pursue. Each one regularly calls upon me periodically, reverberating and echoing into new connotations, reasons for revisiting. This regular of cast of working titles are fighting for attention amongst the pack, only to be occasionally overwhelmed by another, new exciting contender. Already, these projects beg, fight for notice as a I write"
- Crust
- From Here
- Hideous Hours Spent
- Small Talk (and dirty knives)
- Half Way House
- Corpse on the Roadside
- The Home Front
- West to Whatever
I think I'll try to introduce a couple of the script and go from there.
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