Friday, 10 February 2012
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Drawing in Performance
 
Rehearsal and Memory - drawings of Macbeth rehearsals by Jonathan Polkest
Michel Foucault ; The Archaeology of Knowledge
“Tradition itself, in times of dogmatism and dogmatic revolution, is a revolutionary force which must be safeguarded.”
Peter Brook
Theatre and Tradition
The continuous investigation of the meaning of theatre, which
underpins all of Peter Brook’s work, has inevitably led him to an
investigation of Tradition. If theatre springs from life, then life
itself must be questioned. Understanding theatrical reality also
entails understanding the agents of that reality, the participants in
any theatrical event: actors, director, spectators. For a man who
rejects all dogma and closed systems of thought, Tradition offers the
ideal characteristic of unity in contradiction. Although it asserts its
immutable nature, nevertheless it appears in forms of an immense
heterogeneity: while devoting itself to the understanding of unity, it
does so by focusing its concerns on the infinite diversity of reality.
Finally, Tradition conceives of understanding as being something
originally engendered by experience, beyond all explanation and
theoretical generalisation. Isn’t the theatrical event itself
‘experience,’ above all else?
Even on the most superficial of levels, Brook’s interest in Tradition
is self-evident: one thinks of his theatre adaptation of one of the
jewels of Sufi art, Attar’s Conference of the Birds, of his film taken from Gurdjieff’s book Meetings with Remarkable Men, and of the subsequent work on The Mahabharata.
Clearly an investigation of the points of convergence between Brook’s
theatre work and traditional thought is not devoid of purpose.
An important point needs to be made at the very outset: the word
‘tradition’ (from the Latin ‘tradere,’ meaning ‘to restore,’ ‘to
transmit’) carries within it a contradiction charged with repercussions.
In its primary familiar usage, the word ‘tradition’ signifies ‘a way
of thinking or acting inherited from the past’1:
it is therefore linked with the words ‘custom’ and ‘habit.’ In this
sense, one might refer to ‘academic tradition,’ to a ‘Comédie Française
tradition’ or to ‘Shakespearean tradition.’ In theatre, tradition
represents an attempt at mummification, the preservation of
external forms at all costs—inevitably concealing a corpse within, for
any vital correspondence with the present moment is entirely absent.
Therefore, according to this first use of ‘tradition,’ Brook’s theatre
work seems to be anti-traditional, or, to be more precise, a-traditional. Brook himself has said:
Even if it’s ancient, by its very nature theatre is always an art of modernity. A phoenix that has to be constantly brought back to life. Because the image that communicates in the world in which we live, the right effect which creates a direct link between performance and audience, dies very quickly. In five years a production is out of date. So we must entirely abandon any notion of theatrical tradition…2
A second, less familiar meaning of ‘Tradition’—and one
that will be used throughout this essay—is ‘a set of doctrines and
religious or moral practices, transmitted from century to century,
originally by word of mouth or by example’ or ‘a body of more or less
legendary information, related to the past, primarily transmitted orally
from generation to generation.’3
According to this definition, ‘Tradition’ encapsulates different
‘traditions’—Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Sufi etc. (To avoid
any confusion between these two accepted uses of the same word, a
capital letter will be employed throughout when referring to this latter
use).
Mapping a Dream
Dream frames were frequently used in medieval allegory to justify the narrative; The Book of the Duchess and Piers Plowman are two such dream visions.
They have also featured in fantasy and speculative fiction since the 19th century. One of the best-known dream worlds is Wonderland from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as well as Looking-Glass Land from its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Unlike many dream worlds, Carroll's logic is like that of actual dreams, with transitions and flexible causality. Other fictional dream worlds include the Dreamlands of H. P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle and The Neverending Story's
world of Fantasia, which includes places like the Desert of Lost
Dreams, the Sea of Possibilities and the Swamps of Sadness. Dreamworlds,
shared hallucinations and other alternate realities feature in a number
of works by Phillip K. Dick, such as The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik. Similar themes were explored by Jorge Luis Borges, for instance in The Circular Ruins.The threshold between reality and dreams posses no standardized characteristic with the exception of contrast, on one side the alien world contrasting with the second familiar example, either world could fulfill both classifications but for the individual's perception. For example the concepts of Negative and Positive carry no logic without some knowledge of each characteristic. The individual is an actor, director, stage manager, designer, audience and critic the individual can only become connected: a cinema audience, auditoria or a story teller by articulating what they see, sharing those words and pictures with common vocabularies, particular meanings and specific reactions. The theatrical experience is somewhat similar to the dream in that disbelief is usually suspended for the duration of the performance, personally, even when the performance is "bad" the spectator is gripped, they have been entrapped by their own curiosity as much as by their disaffection from the performance, disaffection is a reaction that requires involvement and collaboration. Disbelief on the one hand Disappointment on the other. Acceptance and Approval. Revelation and Belief. Collectively rehearsing in a shared imagined landscape is certainly an act of faith from an external point of view, the layers of fiction inherent in small pieces of coloured tape on the floor indicating the edge of some scenery, scenery that will also represent a representation of a possible reality. Coloured marking out systems used by stage managers in rehearsal representing a space that is then altered by scale and proportion although the actor is just as life scale as any example of vitruvian man and must take smaller steps to traverse the imagined scenic landscape or use some device to foreshorten the distance between himself and the exit.
 Archetype as AtmosphereAtmosphere is an acting device formulated by Michael Chekhov (1991: 34). In this technique, the actors imagine an atmosphere filling the space, then move in harmony with that imaginary atmosphere so that it is strengthened and becomes experientially real for audience and actors alike. {Once the archetypes of the ancient gods had been fully experienced in the neutral mask, it was easy to imagine their particular quality of presence filling the space}. I connect with the reasoning of this idea through my experience of watching actors in various modes in rehearsal for Macbeth, noting the attitude of their presence, their sense of space and their sense of their own proximity to each other, to the ground and the walls and their assumptions about the projected staging. It was as if their Psychosis had become limnal, partly immersed and partly corporeal.
Suspended in Rehearsal
It is difficult for me to recall my genuine reason for wanting to make drawings in the rehearsals of Macbeth in Bristol, there was more than the usual level of pre production excitement because the play featured the actor Pete Postlethwaite who had by then gained public acclaim for his film and theatre. Pete Postlethwaite had gone from being a much loved, authentic but less well known actor in Bristol to a global phenomena with a human face. That production of Macbeth was also a moment when Pete Postlethwaite was returning to Bristol Old Vic, the theatre and the theatre school to fulfill his requite of passage, he had turned down the film role of Private Ryan and was sorrounded by a team focused around the production company Rebbeck Penny Productions who would thereafter produce Scaramouche for a world tour.
Both Steve Rebbeck and Dick Penny had previously worked at the Bristol Old Vic with Pete Postlethwaite during a particularly formative period for many at Bristol Old Vic as well as for Pete Postlethwaite. The Technical support at that time included some very innovative individuals, who appeared larger than life. Going back to my initial question, I think I wanted to be a part of that creative alignment in a different capacity, to see what goes on in the rehearsal room and have the luxury to respond to what I saw there rather than being immersed in the production of the set or some other collaborative craft undertaking. I found the experience difficult to contextualize within my reasoning, I found my presence awkward at times, although the actors were all welcoming, because I was looking for things which simply do not exist outside of the minds internal frame of reference. I also found myself "directing" what I saw, especially outside the rehearsal room where memory and ambition conspire on the page. The figurative nature of my drawing put limitations on what I was saying, I wanted to see displays of memory being used as a compass and I wanted to see formations arriving. The rehearsal room is a totally separate perfomative space and the rehearsal is something far more complex than a blow by blow memorizing of a gargantuan script like that of Shakespeare. That literary density evokes some saturated areas of confusion which tended to provide justification for almost anything but concealed the essential linear counterpoint between character, actor, text and space. Now I want to do it again.
    Towards the end of the ‘dagger’ soliloquy, Bao Guo’an — the actor playing Macbeth — goes down on his hands and knees when addressing the ‘sure and firm-set earth’. In an article on the production, Bao explains the evolution of this moment from his use of the Stanislavskian technique of emotion memory during the rehearsal. Macbeth was the first foreign role Bao had ever played. The Stanislavski exercises gradually made him more at home in the character. But, as Xu had explained to his performers: 
There is a curious irony in current attitudes to heterogeneity in the theatre whereby one who would question its use in a contemporary work would nevertheless revel in its operation in Shakespeare. We accept Shakespeare because his achievement is a given condition of his appeal, his work a manifest denial of the objections we must nevertheless continue to level at works as yet unborn, as yet unproven, as yet unable self-evidently to refute our claims.
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stage managing the rehearsal.Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Melioramentum at Carn Rosemoran: Looking Eastwards to Margate.
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| The Cairn at Rosemorran In 1987 three Gold Arm Rings were discovered at Rosemorran. Flax Canvas, Wool Yarns, Acrylic Gesso |
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| Sennara Lebanon Gold Lamé,Shot Silk,Acrylic Gesso Phonoecian Shipwrights developed ships with keels which took them through the Mediterranean to Galicia on the North Atlantic coast and further north to Brittany and Cornwall where they traded with tin smelters. Eastwards to Margate in search of Matter July 15th until August Dog Days; The Dog Star rising coincidentally with the Sun, which was believed to be the hottest and therefore the most unwholesome, time of year.It was regarded as an evil time, when malign influences were abroad, dogs ran mad, and people became ill. The actual dates are hard to determine as they are calculated upon Sirius or Procyon (both Dog Stars) differing according to the latitude. matter Moonbow Jakes is the name of a cafe/bar/venue which moved around South London in several incarnations before becoming victim of the global Banking Disasters. In its latest guise Moonbow Jakes and John McKiernan have popped up in Cliftonville, Margate among the detritus of an ailing old cafe premises on the busy main road at 18 Cliff Road, Margate, Matter is an exhibition curated by John McKiernan, part of a busy schedule of performance, poetry, music and action in this somewhat neglected part of Margate. The venue is rapidly forming a vital link in the regeneration and community resuscitation that such areas urgently need.  nylon,brocade and gesso  | |
Auteur and Happener Mr John McKiernan on the threshold.
Community Art could be loosely defined as a way of creating art in which professional artists collaborate more or less intensively with people who don't normally actively engage in the arts. Community arts, also sometimes known as "dialogical art", "community-engaged" or "community-based art," refers to artistic activity based in a community setting. Works from this genre can be of any art forms and is characterized by interaction or dialogue with the community. The term was defined in the late-1960s and spawned a movement which grew in the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Australia.
Often community art is based in deprived areas, with a community oriented, grassroots approach. Members of a local community will come together to express concerns or issues through an artistic process, sometimes this may involve professional artists or actors. These communal artistic processes act as a catalyst to trigger events or changes within a community or even at a national or international level.
In English-speaking countries community art is often seen as the work of community arts centre. Visual arts (fine art, video, new media art), music, and theater are common mediums in community art centers. Many arts companies in the UK do some community-based work, which typically involves developing participation by non-professional members of local communities.
Community art and public art
The term community art refers also to field of community, neighborhood and public art practice with roots in social justice and popular and informal education methods. In the art world, community art signifies a particular art making practice, emphasizing community involvement and collaboration. Community art is most often art for social change and involves some empowerment of the community members who come together to create artwork/s with artists. This is a growing national, international, regional and local field. Recently community arts and sustainability work or environmental action have begun to interface, including urban revitalization projects creating artwork at a neighbourhood level.
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Non Fiction in partial immersion - Jonathan Polkest
Jonathan Polkest
Non-Fiction
&
Lines and Strata
Exhibitions and Events
Scillonian Pilot Gig 210mm x 305 mm wool yarns, silk brocade with acrylic gesso on panel.
Back to the Old House. (3 in Exh) (Carn Cottage)
An ChycothJanuary 4th 2011 The Ripley Art Centre Gallery - Non-Fiction www.bromleyarts.com/
NON-FICTION
Two dimensional paintings which are intended as objects: artifices relating to the nature of non fiction via the craft materials linked to the reality of their real existence. Avoidance of materials associated with fine arts practice, Oil Painting the legacy of a Golden Age of discovery, introduced an idealized veneer, a glamourous version of reality. This affected super reality extended into history, science and politics and is continuously referenced to validate theories about the past.
Crafts on the other hand are considered low-art or as archaic remnants of an industrialized societies working practice and yet this is where the "reality" of non-fiction lies for me.
The incorporation of Gesso Paint and craft materials or techniques (for example; embroidery), interferes with the notion of deceiving the eye via sleight of brush or trompe l'eaux. The work remains linear, arguably figurative but the techniques and materials are prioritized towards my own associations in a frame that acknowledges the true quality of things from an objective yet highly individualized perspective.
Non Fiction takes ideas that may seem slight or obscure and extends their influence as if the whole of existence might rely upon them, that they are not a detail but an overwhelming influence - in a different context perhaps.
Mythology, opinion, pragmatic rituals, processes, crafts, decoration and interpretations derive histories: stories, these works are stories.
The Book of Epona. 255mm x 190mm Latin Dictionary, Oil Impasto, Candlewick twine.
limed oak glazed frame
The Runnelstone Beacon.(13th in exH) 620mm x 900 mm black new spun wool yarns, gesso & flax panel.
A30 Rose-An-Grouse 69. (12) 440mm x 470mm Black yarn, embossed synthetic material & gesso.
Always Crashing in the same car
Let There Be Light (Fiat Lux)
Corpus Christy Fair.(6) 850mm x 1200mm. gesso, brocade & woollen yarns
Non-Fiction; an exhibition of paintings by
Jonathan Polkest at Ripley Arts Centre
1. Bass Diffusion.
The Bass diffusion model was developed by Frank Bass and describes the process of how new products get adopted as an interaction between users and potential users. It has been described as one of the most famous empirical generalisations in marketing, along with the Dirichlet model of repeat buying and brand choice.[1] The model is widely used in forecasting, especially product forecasting and technology forecasting. Mathematically, the basic Bass diffusion is a Riccati equation with constant coefficients. This work features the bass guitarist of the Prescilla’s band.
2. Morvah Cairn
Six gold bracelets were found in 1884 during quarrying for building materials at Morvah, on the north-western coast of the Penwith peninsula in Cornwall.
In design, the bracelets bring together two traditions of Bronze Age ornament. The three with 'cupped', or hollowed terminals are distinctly Irish in style; over thirty examples of this type are known from Ireland, while only ten come from Britain. These examples, like many of this type, have a hollow band with a join along the inner curve. They are also decorated with finely executed incised lines. In two cases it is confined to the terminals, but the third has neat geometric panels at intervals around the band.
3. Back to the Old House.
Prior to the World War 2, West Cornwall generated a number of occult stories Foremost among them was that the Great Beast, Aleister Crowley, stayed at Zennor and founded a cult who alledgedly danced naked around stone circles, and held orgies This was spread by word of mouth and by numerous 'horror' fictions penned by writers like A.L. Rowse, Denys Val Baker, Mary Williams and Frank Baker. Some maintained this decadent coven was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of Katherine Arnold Forster, the former sweetheart of the poet, Rupert Brooke, who died in mysterious circumstances at an allegedly 'haunted' cottage near Zennor Carn in 1938. The location is also close to the studio and former home of Bryan Wynter, an extraordinary and often overlooked St.Ives Artist. The title refers to the vast Cornish diaspora, economic migrants to the tin mines of the “new world” and the Smiths haunting song.
4.Caer Gybi-Holy Mountain, Holy Island. A splendid panorama can be enjoyed from Holyhead Mountain (710ft/216m), on the top of which are a fort and the remains of a small chapel (the only survivor of six or seven which originally stood here). These chapels are said to have earned the island its name of "Holy"; but this interpretation could refer to a type of pagan sacred status in earlier times the local people were and continue to be proudly Welsh speaking,.An exceptional effect of scale is imposed upon the visitor to this magical site.
5.Pendeen Rain A large natural cave named 'Pendeen Vau', the entrance of which is to be found on a cliff. Apparently this cave is vast, going far below & into the sea but its existence is disputed. Below Boscaswell is an area known as 'The Craft' which is mostly overgrown by gorse, fern and brambles, although many pathways exist. Here can be found abandoned mine buildings dating from the 19th century (including wash houses, engine houses and arsenic baths).
Pendeen boasts three beaches although some are more accessible than others. The largest of them was for many years the home of a wrecked ship until the army decided to clear the wreck as a ballistic exercize. Below Pendeen Lighthouse cliffs can be found the wreck of 'The Liberty', although most of it has now been eroded away but the sea parts of the wreck are still visible at low tide on 'Liberty Rock' which is a favourite fishing spot.
6. Corpus Christy Fair. The Feast Day of Corpus Christi is celebrated in Penzance and elsewhere. The Corpus Christi fair has been a long standing event in the town, and retains a timeless circus-like atmosphere . The whirling carousels mirroring the cyclic fortunes of us all.
7.Eastern Green Horseman. After the Dacian Wars, Dacians were recruited into the Roman Army, and were employed in the construction and guarding of Hadrian's Wall in Britannia, or elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Several Cohors Primae Dacorum ("First cohort of Dacians") and Alae Dacorum fighting in the ranks of the Legion were stationed at Deva (Chester), Vindolanda (on the Stanegate) and Camboglanna (Birdoswald Fort or Castlesteads), in Britannia. The image is about the migration of cultural aspects in our daily lives coming from divergent origins.
8.Tangyes Bicycle Richard Tangye was born at Illogan, near Redruth, Cornwall, the son of a farmer, young Tangye was sent to the Quaker Sidcot School in the Mendip Hills near the village of Winscombe, Somerset, The big break for him and his brothers came in 1857 when renowned engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel required special machinery to help launch his enormous SS Great Britain – the largest ship ever constructed at the time.
Brunel had great difficulty solving the problem of how to launch the vessel, but in the end, Tangye launched the Great Eastern and the Great Eastern launched Tangye (so the saying goes).
The Tangye brothers came to Brunel’s aid with powerful hydraulic jacks, and the company flourished. Tangye machinery was later used to install Cleopatra’s Needle in London (1878)
Tangye equipment was also used to construct Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia (1932), sections of Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction motorway interchange (1972) and the London Thames Barrier . The Tangye Bicycle is now in Truro Museum.
9. SS 19 Ripple
Ripple's story started in 1896 in St Ives where she was first registered after Henry Trevorrow had completed building her on the beach in St Ives harbour. The virtually unique historical boat is a project to create a working sailing lugger and to introduce generations to this almost forgotten activity, the restoration work – from which this image features – is now complete .
10. Paris 1977.
Relation in Movement is based on a challenge, although, unlike a lot of previous performances by Marina Abromovic this challenge was about stamina. In Relation in Movement, Ulay and Abramovic drive round and round in a circle inside a city square in Paris. Ulay is behind the wheel, while through the open window Abramovic is shouting out the number of completed laps through a megaphone The van keeps on driving. In the meantime it has become pitch black, and only the light from the headlamps is still visible. When the sun comes up again a black circle of tyre marks has appeared. They consistently keep to the same circle. In contrast to most of their other performances, there is no designated audience to witness the event, only the camera and the casual passer-by.
10. Cott Valley Carn. Cornish stone has been an important resource since the earliest times. Six thousand years ago during the Neolithic period axes were being made from high quality greenstone dug from Cornish quarries. These axes were exported from Cornwall and have been found as far away as East Anglia. Prehistoric stone circles and megalithic chambered tombs were built from massive granite stones found lying on the moors. Bronze Age farmers in the Cornish uplands used moorstone taken from the surface to build their homes and to divide up the land into fields.
12. A30 Rose-An-Grouse.
The A30 was a compact car produced by Austin Motor Company in the 1950s. Introduced in 1951 as the "New Austin Seven", it was Austin's answer to the Morris Minor. At launch the car cost £507, undercutting the Minor by £62.00. The A30 is also the road that leads from Cornwall to London passing through the village of Rose-An-Grouse, this was to be the location where the two distinct attributes; car and road were to collide with me involved.
13. The Runnelstone Beacon
There are a pair of cone-shaped navigation markers on Gwennap Head, in line with the Runnelstone buoy. These are day markers warning vessels of the hazard of the Runnel Stone. The cone to the seaward side is painted red and the inland one is black and white. When at sea the black and white one should always be kept in sight in order to avoid the submerged rocks nearer the shore. If the black and white cone is completely obscured by the red cone then the vessel would be directly on top of the Runnel Stone. The black and white landmark was erected by the Corporation of Trinity House in 1821 - an event recorded on a plaque on the back of the marker. At 3pm, 8 October 1923 the 6,000 ton SS City of Westminster bound from Belfast to Rotterdam with a cargo of South African maize knocked the top of the reef clean off. A total of 72 people were taken off by the Sennen and Penlee lifeboats. Today the remains lie in 30m of water, jammed into a gully on the eastern side of the stone
The works in this exhibition are generally craft based although they are paintings, and their quality is unpainterly. The images are of objects and real locations or situations, some of them quite domestic.
The idea behind embroidering the linear motifs through the painting was born from an idea to attempt making an ordinary line into a more urgent mark penetrating beyond the surface of the painting.
The stitched line casts a shadow as well as being imbued with less kinetic qualities which react to varying light sources
Exhibitions and Events
Here you can find information on past, present and future events at the Gwynedd Museum and Art Gallery, Bangor
Gregynog Press November 20-15 January
The private press of Gregynog are renowned for producing limited edition books of exeptional quality. Using traditional techniques of fine letterpress printing, hand-binding and hand-made papers the books are illustrated by leading artists and engravers. Recent publications will be displayed and limited edition prints by Colin See-Paynton, Rigby Graham and Hilary Paynter will be for sale.
The private press of Gregynog are renowned for producing limited edition books of exeptional quality. Using traditional techniques of fine letterpress printing, hand-binding and hand-made papers the books are illustrated by leading artists and engravers. Recent publications will be displayed and limited edition prints by Colin See-Paynton, Rigby Graham and Hilary Paynter will be for sale.
Artists’ Books November 20- 15 January
Unique hand-made books by artists Becky Adams, Emma Hobbins and Alison Mercer. Each artist combines text, images, ephemera and memories to create one-off or small limited edition books. These are items that will captivate and are to treasure.
Lines and Strata January 22-5 MarchUnique hand-made books by artists Becky Adams, Emma Hobbins and Alison Mercer. Each artist combines text, images, ephemera and memories to create one-off or small limited edition books. These are items that will captivate and are to treasure.
Lines and Strata presents a cross-section of contemporary drawing practice from artists born in, living or working in Wales. From open submission, works of every medium were selected by artists Carole King, Diane Walkey and Glenn Ibbitson
Cwm Bychen, Nant Mor a part of the Lines and Strata Exhibition at Bangor
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