NANDO MESSIAS
Your Work In Progress (WIP) explores the concept of “the straight line” and you have let that influence the objects you’ve included and the shapes you create. Currently, you are exploring construction materials: all objects which are natural but are shaped by man to be more of use. These are all materials artificially made straight. Is there a possibility that we could witness you “straightening” materials? Could you then explore the limitations your body when trying to create linear images?
You are playing with straight lines and things being linear, which provides a bold contrast to the concept that there are no straight lines on the human body, nor in life. Another comparison is how time is not linear but it appears to be so, therefore suggesting that time exists as well as does not exists; we have an awareness of it as well as a lack of awareness of it. I think the repetitive metronome and how easily one can be lost in the sound enhances this concept. That being said, some questions to consider are: how and when does it end? What final image do you want to leave the audience with, and how do you get there?
The soundscape you played definitely complimented and added to the piece. The metronome kept the rigidity and precision of it. It shaped an attentive atmosphere thus elucidating the meticulous environment you created for your installation, which effectively focused your audience. The exploration of the pace of the metronome and how that affects your work might be rewarding. The repetition of the constant, rigid, structured metronome frames the piece. As you are culminating in a durational performance to last over a longer period of time with it being pulsed by this rigid metronome, I think you could juxtapose this by playing with the concept that perhaps the objects (also rigid) aren’t fixed. Once you use the objects to create an image (as you did in the WIP), you can then repeat the process to create new images with the materials.
Space-wise, I think the dance studio would work best for your piece. It has natural-lighting which I think would compliment the natural materials you are using. As the room is spacious, it allows for the audience to roam and inspect your work from different angles. The mirror would enhance this idea of perspective as it again offers the audience with an option to view your work from various viewpoints.
In your WIP, you have experimented with how your body interacts with the material demonstrated by how you allow the materials to enter the space by often manipulating (eg. you spinning the tube), dragging, pushing and balancing materials. I think you can explore this further. In your WIP you predominantly presented how to put down the material. I think now you can experiment with how you can interact with what you’ve created and test how you can transform and subvert it. You can also try stacking the material. Could you try holding all of them? I think you can also create ‘vertical images’ of these objects standing up. I encourage you to play with the space; do the objects have to be close together or could they lie at opposite sides of the space and still have the same effect?
