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Alchemy booklet Flipbook PDF
Alchemy booklet
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ALCHEMY Cynthia Bruinsma
FIRST STAGE
MINDMAP #1
C A S E STU DY A B O UT I S A M U N O G U C H I
N O G U C H I STA G E D E S I G N HORROR
AND ROMANCE
G A R D E N , C O S T A M E S A , CA , USA
STUDIO
OSSIDIANA
S
T
A
R
T HORROR
AND ROMANCE
CYBER REALITY DANCERS ACTEURS NOT IN THE REAL WOR LD SYMBOLIC AND POETIC
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O
N
T
E
X
T R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N; THE GARDEN LOOKS LIKE A SE T DESIGN
DIFFERENT
SETS
How can architecture be used in set / stage design?
TEXT #1A How can architecture be used in set / stage design? Cave of the Heart: Noguchi’s Set for the Graham Ballet Martha Graham and Isamu Noguchi had a good friendship with an unspoken language that they shared; a rich vocabulary of symbolism. Everything Isamu said, it means something says Martha. Whatever he did in set designs, he did as a Zen garden does it, back to a fundamental of life of ritual. 1 Challenges working with these arresting, evocative sculptural designs for dancers “an intimate and complicated relationship with the sets”. Martha and Isamu work with different art forms they were both searching for the element shape, whether in movement or in sculpture, that would provide the viewer with what they like to say the shock of recognition. A phrase that they borrowed from their friend Buckminster Fuller. Martha created a revolutionary new type of dancing, that was born out of naturel gesture, out of body language. While she was doing this, Noguchi was experimenting with the same idea, the power of organic primal shapes in his sculptures. Martha said she was attracted to Noguchi’s ideas because, “he had the astringency that everything was stripped to essentials, rather than being decorative. Everything he does means something. It is not abstract, except if you think of orange juice as the abstraction of an orange”2. They both wanted their creations to be simple, poetic, and packed with meaning, but meaning expressed in formal and symbolic ways, never literal. Cave of the Heart Is about a woman who is obsessed and madden by love. An imitator of what an elephant does when he goes mad, so always since that time they realized that evils, or the glory of evil – the passion of jealousy is there. It is an old wound cut where a woman is eating her own heart. 3 1. Library of Congress. (2016). Cave of the Heart: Noguchi’s Set for the Graham Ballet [Videobestand]. Geraadpleegd van https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF5zsIP8XbA 2. Herrera, H. (2016). Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi p.217 3. Martha Graham Dance Company - CAVE OF THE HEART planetbenjamin. (2016). Martha Graham Dance Company - CAVE OF THE HEART [Videobestand]. Geraadpleegd van https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QPC2qJeFg4&t=194s
Isamu Noguchi
Martha Graham
Isamu Noguchi’s parents were a poet and a writer. They passed this on to Isamu, who first transferred his stories to drawings and later got specialized clay and sculpture. His work and life experiences that he gained in different cultural circles are reflected in his artworks. Isamu has put sculpture into dance in a great way, in the sense of scenery. An advantage is that Isamu has a sense of memorable drama that coincides well with the heavy mythological excesses of Martha Grahem. A collaboration between these two artists brings out their sets. Martha who conducts a “real” dialogue with the audience. And Isamu conducts a dialogue with the space, thus enriching Martha’s meaning. A major advantage is Isamu’s background with the knowledge of sculptures and compositions. “The relationship between dance and atmosphere is important and that is why I make decor. For me, dance is an extension of a sculptural air. - The air we’re in. It is not enough to say that dance is another form of art. Art is about more than what we look at” It looks like these two artists could lose themselves in their own world in decor in their own timeless time. In this case, a collaboration between a dialogue and visual dialogue of space reinforces the design. The process of play Herodiade, 1944 also clearly shows how forms were produced. This is a focus on the human body and therefore more focused on dynamic movements of the body; dancing.
MINDMAP #2
symbolism cheaper isamu transfers text into image
music freedom to experiment
parents; poet & writer
set up space
background
real world space
Isamu Noguchi
Architecture
Stage/Set Design
space
art deco
scale history greeks and romans
shows
film technology mass audience theater
TEXT #1B How can architecture be used in set / stage design? Isamu Noguchi has stripped everything down to the essentials, in terms of his set designs, rather than being decorative. Many of his stage and set designs have a lot of open space and are minimalistic. He tries to say as much as possible by using details. His creations are simplistic, poetic, and full of meaning. Is this meaning conveyed in clear form to his audience? I have my doubts about that. On the one hand, the story behind ‘Cave of the Heart’ is strong and after the introduction of the text it is clear to me what those sharp ends in the design represent. Could you evoke the same emotions by viewing the sculptures without an observer or without performers? Probably not; it is not made to be able to tell a story on its own. Does that mean this is a bad way of set design? It could be seen as strong, that the set design itself does not give away everything. Isamu rejects the literal and lets the audience be overwhelmed by the story without the set design already speaking for itself. After seeing the performance on Youtube, it all came together, and my conclusion is that this really plays a role together. The collaboration of the dialogue between dancer and sculptures together tell more than both installments on their own. I think the set design is strong because I keep asking myself questions during this performance. It’s important for me to actively think about a performance instead of mindlessly consuming said performance. History Stage and set design often uses exaggerated scale and dimensions to manipulate the perception of images. To be able to tell something that could never be built as architecture in real world space. Stage sets and architecture are historically closely intertwined. The Greeks, the Romans were obsessed with the architecture of the decor. The theater was a metaphor for life, but more than that, a compressed and intensified empire in which ideas about aspects of society such as politics, morals and ethics that were otherwise considered dangerous could be played with a freedom that did not exist in the real world of the town square. But since the end of the pioneering period of modernism, when the Bauhaus, German Expressionists and Russian Constructivists all used theater to promote their radical aesthetic ideas.
POSTER DRAFT
How can architecture be used in set / stage design? After seeing the performance on Youtube, it all came together, and my conclusion is that this really plays a role together. The collaboration of the dialogue between dancer and sculptures together tell more than both installments on their own. I think the set design is strong because I keep asking myself questions during this performance. It’s important for me to actively think about a performance instead of mindlessly consuming said performance.
-> Performers -> Sculpture -> Architecture -> Dynamic -> Performers -> Sculptures -> Architecture -> Dynamic -> Performers -> Sculptures -> Architecture -> Dynamic Performers -> Sculptures ->
Sculpture (set design) as performer
Noguchi set for “Judith”, 1950
Martha Graham and May O’Donnell with Noguchi set for Hériodiade, 1944
Stage set for Seraphic Dialogue, 1955
Who’s really the protagonist?
Some set designs are made as a background that disappears when dancers come on stage. In the case of “The cave of the Heart”, the set design is blended with the dancers. The sculpture is not just a background that is separate from the story, on the contrary in this piece it’s a dancer.
POSTER DRAFT
detail 1, poster 1 After seeing the performance on Youtube, it all came together, and my conclusion is that this really plays a role together. The collaboration of the dialogue between dancer and sculptures together tell more than both installments on their own. I think the set design is strong because I keep asking myself questions during this performance. It’s important for me to actively think about a performance instead of mindlessly consuming said performance.
Noguchi set for “Judith”, 1950
Martha Graham and May O’Donnell with Noguchi set for Hériodiade, 1944
Stage set for Seraphic Dialogue, 1955
POSTER DRAFT
detail 2, poster 1
-> Performers -> Sculpture -> Architecture -> Dynamic -> Performers -> Sculptures -> Architecture -> Dynamic -> Performers -> Sculptures -> Architecture -> Dynamic Performers -> Sculptures ->
POSTER DRAFT
detail 3, poster 1 Sculpture (set design) as performer
Some set designs are made as a background that disappears when dancers come on stage. In the case of “The cave of the Heart”, the set design is blended with the dancers. The sculpture is not just a background that is separate from the story, on the contrary in this piece it’s a dancer.
POSTER FINAL
MODEL DRAFT
MODEL FINAL
SECOND STAGE
MINDMAP #3
IMPOSING OBJECTS/INTIMIDATING OBSERVER OBJECT AS ACTORS
IMPACT
TRANSFORMING THE CURRENT INSTALLATION VIEW
INSTALLATION
MOTHER NATURE EVERYDAY OBJECTS
OWN PROJECT RITUAL PERSPECTIVES TRANSFORM OBJECT AS ACTORS
How can architecture be used in set / stage design?
TEXT #2
An interaction between human, object and space.
What is a garden? And what is nature?
A
n interaction between human, object and space.
- Without the body, there is no space. We would not be able to experience it. 1
- Lefebvre argues that the body is what perceives space first (with all its sensory organs, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling hot or cold, energetic or tired and so on). We become what we are, as social beings, through our bodies’ reaction to our environment. 2 - We create/ produce space by our presence. The way we look at space is often because we descended something as space. We ourselves are also formed by space.
- The more the body is restricted (by space) the more our needs to connect are suppressed.
We tend to see the objects around us as an extension of our lives. This is often the case and makes our lives more functional. An abundance of these objects and information can be dangerous to our non-physical condition; our emotional needs. People are visually oriented and today we have a visual culture. This installation is a respond on the mentioned points.
What is a garden? And what is nature?
can be expressed in space.
E
veryday objects represent us as humans. The way we dress ourselves, the way we collect objects. It identifies us.
People are part of nature, where we live in our own conceived structured gardens. These gardens can be anything. It can be your favorite meeting place, your own home, a theater play. You can create gardens within yourself, this
These objects become larger scale and it becomes a scenography. A scenography consists, in mine point of view, in a series of installations in a larger scale which people can interact with. A space where you can walk around, where the human body plays a role. Interaction doesn’t immediately mean that there needs to be an act. The viewer enters the installation, walks around and observes, continu-
ously transforming the current installation view. The composition arrangement is created in a way that the actors, the objects, the perspectives and visual aesthetics transform once the viewer moves further. The viewer can experience a sense of tribute to mother nature, where a ritual comes along. We as humans encounter rituals in our everyday lives. In our homes. On our streets. These streets, homes and buildings are made with a structural system.3 It can be quite intimidating to think about space in this way. It makes you wonder what is given and what is there to take. 1. Kirby, P. W. (2011).
Boundless worlds: an anthropological approach to movement. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 29-44. 2. Lefebvre, H., & Nicholson-Smith, D. (2009). The production of space. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 3.https://blog.ethnologie. uni-halle. Important part of her blog: “When riding my longboard in public places (especially as a girl) I get to feel that in that moment I am taking a freedom that I am not supposed to take. I suddenly realize that the streets I am using are not made for people to hang out, play and enjoy. When I pass by pedestrians I am perceived as an obstacle. Neither me nor they are to blame but the architects and those who engaged them. When I ‘reclaim the street‘ by spraying a thought-provoking or merely playful piece on a wall, bystanders call the police or threaten me. Yet when advertising boards appear around us wherever we are, nobody is asked for consent either. Yet, we seem to have come to accept that kind of involuntary visual control which is, as we by now all now, designed to convince us of spending money on products that might redeem us for long unnerving office hours but don’t really make us happy.”
MODEL Who’s really the protagonist?
POSTER DRAFT
INSTALLATION
OBJECT AS ACTORS
IMPOSING OBJECTS/INTIMIDATING
IMPACT OBSERVER RITUAL
RITUAL
PERSPECTIVES TRANSFORM
MOTHER NATURE
TRANSFORMING THE CURRENT INSTALLATION VIEW
EVERYDAY OBJECTS
POSTER FINAL
POSTER 1
MODEL 1
POSTER 2
MODEL 2