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assignments turned in

Keep it leave it want it

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Keep it:

I want to keep the idea of mediation between performers and audience (excluding the commonplace mediation of the proscenium). For example: the Sryia piece, the false memory piece, the coca flower piece, Bailey’s box, Kimmy’s silhouette.

 

Leave it:

I want to leave the inconsistency, both of having our individual artworks combined in one room, and of not having unified them into a theme or narrative, or any kind of comprehensible linear(ish) experience. I think that we should narrow down our interests to 2-4 central themes (or coherent groupings of themes) and temporarily split into groups to create more focused material. We spent the first third of the class generating a lot of material in an arbitrary way, and I think that what we have so far is not in any way “the show” because there is no real intention behind it yet. While many of the performances have promise to be expanded, revised, and connected to each other, the other objects are more like tools that don’t stand on their own in a performance context.

 

Want it: Track-Based Immersive Theater

I want us to consider creating a unified audience experience. Even if each individual spectator has a totally unique experience in the sense of seeing separate performances in different orders, every single one would fit into the same “world”. As I mentioned on the first day I’m interested in immersive theater, but I can’t really add this in this section because we’ve already been creating immersive theater! But to be more specific, I would like us to consider creating a piece in which the audience is split up and has unique experiences–we could picture these as puzzle pieces that they can cognitively build into the world of the performance, even if they don’t finish the whole puzzle! Those of you who were in or saw Fefu has some idea what I’m talking about with regard to separating the audience, but that was a VERY tame example. I’m thinking more of an immersive performance called Then She Fell, in which each audience member takes a different pre-defined track and spends a lot of time 1-on-1 with the performers. To give some examples, I brushed someone’s hair, I had to put together pieces of a letter, I had to take dictation, and there were small amounts of food and drink offered.
This kind of diversity and separation would give each person a lot of autonomy in crafting their character/portion of the world/interaction with the audience. Anything we do with the audience, with that much attention devoted to them, would turn out to be really interesting. I think that a formal challenge in this vein would go very well with the work we have already created. Please take this suggestion in the broadest way possible, I think the underlying idea is for us to center the spectator (individual and/or intimate groups) in the entire performance. We (or likely DGM) can make a more specific challenge if we want.

assignments turned in

Keep it Leave it Want it

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  1. KEEP IT – Failure.

I swear this first one isn’t coming from a selfish or narcissistic place.

Failure has guided a number of our productions thus far and yet I still feel as though we have only scratched the surface of its thematic potential.  Failure comes in so many shapes and sizes – authentic, accidental, rehearsed, narrative, personal, romantic… there are too many to count.  Failure can be a powerful narrative element, or a powerful performance technique, but more than that, failure is something that people at Williams barely ever discuss.   I think that for this reason alone we owe it to ourselves and our community to keep coming back to failure in one way or another. 

2. LEAVE IT – Food.

I like eating.  Everyone likes eating.  It’s how we’re still alive.

But as part of an audience’s experience of a performance, I think we never took it past the “Five Senses” assignment where we started shoving food in each other’s mouths.  I don’t think all this food came from a place of legitimate creative inspiration, and while that isn’t a requirement, I feel that since food was so closely tied to that prompt that it has been cheapened as a tool.

Food can also be a logistical nightmare.  Allergies, choking hazards, crumbs, crunching sounds, food prep, food storage, bad smells, ANTS, etc.

3. WANT IT – Choice.

I think we’ve talked around choice as a concept in a number of our discussions and assignments.  But I think that choice is a powerful tool that we have yet to fully implement as an element of design.  The Raph Koster book is all about designing systems of player choice – creating rules to effectively limit and guide player choice.   I think that choice is sufficiently different from interactivity – I think that interactivity necessarily involves choice and that choice can be applied at an audience level (participation, etc.) or a performer level (improvisation, perhaps) or especially at a design/creative level (when we’re making the stupid thing!).  Choice is a powerful idea that we have not explored all the way.   We would benefit from doing so.

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WIP #1 Response

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My friends’ impressions:

Friend A (Stayed for the entire event)

He was unsure of how to act during the free-roaming “gallery” portions. He was expecting a much more straightforward theatrical performance with an audience bank and a narrative-based piece of sorts.

Similar to some of the other reflections that have been posted, my friend didn’t catch the themes/topics of many of the pieces (Carina’s Syrian refugee performance went way over his head, to name one).

He loved Omar’s performance. This isn’t a big shocker. He likes puns. It’s why we’re friends.

My friend refused to put his head in Bailey’s box. (I will never not love typing that sentence.)

I asked my friend whether he’d recommend the showing to another friend, and he said “Yeah, but they’d have to hit the bong pretty hard beforehand.”
… Frankly, I can’t argue there.

Friend B (Left at about 4:30 because he’s a philistine)

He was quite resistant to the very top of the show, especially being led down the hallway while blindfolded. “I kept thinking they were going to slam me into a wall!” That would have been a pretty powerful choice to start our showing with breaking their noses.

My friend heard most of Sophia’s story and thought it was hilarious. He asked me why she wrote that story about me. I told him, basically, that it was in response to some of my performance objects relating to my job-hunt anxieties. He said that made more sense than his original assumption, which was that she just really didn’t like me. (I hope that isn’t true, Sophia!)

Again, like other people have mentioned, my friend had trouble listening to some of the videos on the iPads.

My friend mentioned Bailey’s box (heh) but was too scared of the “glowing demon boy trapped inside” to stick his head inside.

Eventually, my friend peaced out because he received a txt from another friend about playing Super Smash Bros. in my common room. Guys, I just don’t see how we can compete with video games. We should focus on making those instead of making theatre. It’s a growth industry.

I asked him if he would recommend devised theatre to a friend as well, and he said “Maybe if some friend of mine was looking for some very specifically weird activity or for some horrendously bad first-date location.”
…Yeesh. That was a little harsh, Friend B.

My thoughts:

I think that Bailey’s box (heh) had its impact diminished by setting it in the middle of a crowded, busy room. I think that if we brought in 14 (or however many holes) people at a time to a side room with only the box in it, there would have been more buy-in from the audience and a more impactful experience for them.

As we discussed in class, we could have done a better job with considering the layout of the pieces. Even if we don’t go in a direction of more carefully crafting the audience’s exposure to the pieces, we could do some more logistical thinking to not put, say, two loud pieces right next to each other and to observe and try to predict the typical audience movement pattern around the room. — OH SHIT we should slap motion trackers on each audience member when the enter the gallery so we can analyze their movement patterns and see which pieces they gravitated towards and which they skipped as well as how long they spent near each! (Analytics is the future of devised theatre. Don’t fight it.)

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Reflect + Write (Sophia)

Emerging themes:

  • Being demanding on the “audience” was a feature (in form and content) of most of the performances from the last assignment and most performances we’ve done so far in general. Putting people in total darkness, hand-feeding them, having them read aloud, making them fill out forms, taking them up to high vantage points, etc. Tending towards “immersive theater” which I mentioned on the first day! But how demanding can we be with non-classmates participating?
  • Childhood/nostalgia, as seen in Phoebe’s juxtapositions, Omar’s ELI5 and triptych, Madeline’s “Candysand” and “AAAAA PPPPRINCESS?”, Omar’s “Land Before Time”, David’s “Three Little Pigs” and “Toy Story”, Bailey’s “Spy Kids”, Kimmy’s “Don’t Forget Your Mission (Thanks Yonce)” and “A Summer of Sisterhood”, etc.
  • Eerie atmosphere, as seen in Molly’s triptych, Bailey’s triptych, Bailey’s 5 senses, Carina’s juxtapositions and Bailey’s mask, Gabrielle’s juxtapositions, my cosmic egg (or potato as people were calling it), probably my Gnosticism triptych, etc. In general the most memorable things were either creepy or funny, or both.

 

Things made by me:

  1. “The Job Hunt of David Carter” – I think there’s a lot more to that story, and I really liked the aesthetic of the Osaka Red Light District combined with the existential dread of not being worthy of hiring. #latecapitalism
  1. “Descent/Ascent” – Again I like the aesthetic I came up with, combined with the performance history significance of the Demeter/Persephone/Hades myth as the initiation rite of the Eleusinian mystery cult… I sense an affinity with Bailey’s 5 senses here.

 

Things made by others:

  1. Bailey’s triptych – because of the strange experience of being 14 disembodied heads.
  1. Omar’s spoken word (and haiku readings) – because they were so amazingly hilarious and I want to laugh that hard again.
  1. Paige’s juxtapositions – because it engaged with this foundational (to Western culture) story in such an original and nuanced way.
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Show Don’t Tell – Gregor MacGregor

For context to this post, check out my “Explain like I’m 5” post here.

My triptych had to keep my audience far away from my objects.

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Audience perspective of start of show.
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First object: Cardboard Sign saying “Journey of the Decade” and Sign-up Sheet.
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Secondly, I “sailed across the Atlantic” to the “New World”.
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Nobody was there. Where’s Poyais?
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A number of fellow colonists perished. I mourned them with a simple grave marker.
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Finally I made it back to Europe and tried to warn the others about MacGregor’s schemes. (Wanted poster + Poyais bank note)

Objects:

“Journey of the Decade” Sign + Sign-up.

Sailing across the sea + subsequent funeral.

Coming back and warning the public about MacGregor.

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Reflect & Write

Emerging Themes

  • Writing in obscure fashions.

John’s video  “Remember Me, Please.” featuring the writing in reverse. (5/50 Assignment)

Sophia’s “Dismemberment” object (5/50, Cosmogeny story)

Sophia’s “Why Are You Crying” object (5/50, Why Are You Crying story)

Gabrielle’s objects 1-12 from “Easter, 1996” (the cut-out letters we rearranged together)

John’s “You & Me” story objects 1 (The World & Us) and 10 (Let Go)

  • Creation Myths

Molly’s 5/50 Story #3 – Adam & Eve

Molly’s 5/50 Story – The Origin of Love

Multiple Objects from Sophia’s Cosmogeny Story (ex nihilo, in the beginning, etc.)

(Bit of a stretch here) Omar’s “The Land Before Time” story just based on the name alone.

  • Music & Songs (perhaps too broad of a theme)

Carina’s bad singing performance in “Failure” (5/50)

Maddie singing “Human Again” + Carina’s juxtaposition piece involving the masks, the music, etc.

Omar’s lecture + show-don’t-tell piece on music reading (ELI5 + Show-don’t-tell)

Maddie’s lecture on chords and jazz (ELI5)

The Titanic music from Carina’s story (5/50)

Kimmy’s Beyonce-related story (5/50)

Phoebe’s 4th Story: “Sing us a Song” (5/50)

Bailey’s spooky music/chanting (Five Senses)

  • Our Self-Image Changing from Child to Adult

Maddie’s Hunger Games Story (5/50)

My Job Application Video Pieces + Sophia’s juxtaposition (5/50, juxtaposition)

Carina’s decision to research the Syrian refugee crisis (ELI5, Show-don’t-tell)

Omar’s Adventures in the Osaka Red Light District (5/50)

Kimmy’s “Ripped from the Womb”, “A Summer of Sisterhood” stories (5/50)

Gabrielle’s “Easter, 1996” story (5/50)

  • Self-Reflection/Self-Recognition (again, perhaps too broad)

My family’s history of alcoholism, my anxiety disorder (5/50)

Paige’s story about  OCD (5/50)

Molly’s story “Realizing Tourettes” (5/50)

Carina’s story “Failure” (5/50)

Maddie’s story “Dead Squirrel” (aka “Hunger Games” again) (5/50)

Bailey, “Brothers” (5/50)

Omar, “What’s in a Name? Puns, probably.” (5/50)

Kimmy’s 5 Senses Piece and her Show-don’t-tell piece.

____________________________________________________

2-3 things of mine which interest me:

My “Juxtaposition” performance piece, the letter from my dad (5/50), and my job application videos (5/50) interest me the most because they all explore what drives my anxiety and insecurity … and sharing that stuff with other people makes me feel significant.

_______________________________________________________

3-5 things of others which interest me:

Omar’s beat poetry “Juxtaposition” performance, Bailey’s “Show-don’t-tell” performance, Carina’s “Juxtaposition” piece, and Paige’s object in her “The Interestings” story entitled “Jules Jacobsen, looking back.” (5/50).

Why do these interest me? Omar’s writing and delivery are incredible and he deserves a TV show, Bailey’s placement of the audience as a vital part of his performance was really stunning, Carina’s experiential piece in the AMT blew me away, and Paige’s written piece struck a chord with me because I’ve been considering law school but I’m worried I’d become that man telling the story. (So, in short, I remember them the most vividly.)

assignments turned in

ELI5: Gnosticism

Gnosticism is an umbrella term for a variety of sects that may have predated Christianity (the exact origin, and whether it was “Western” or “Eastern”, is hotly disputed) but arose as a coherent religious movement in opposition to early Christianity, and largely faded away within a few centuries. As an esoteric (and often elitist) religion Gnosticism is connected to polytheistic mystery religions and to mystical forms of both Abrahamic monotheism and dualism (Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, etc.)

While there were many people who considered themselves Christian Gnostics (and some who still do!), the Church has always considered Gnosticism heretical, especially because it positions direct experiential knowledge of the divine (insight, enlightenment) as the key to salvation from material existence. Gnosticism and Christianity share the idea of an imperfect world caused by a “fall from grace”, but where Christianity places the blame on sinful humans, Gnosticism puts it on a flawed divine being. While there are some pretty weird things going on in every Gnostic tradition, it is an interesting twist to have humans bear no ultimate responsibility for their own suffering.

Gnostics consider the entire material world to be at least imperfect and corrupted or even evil. There was never a Garden, a perfect expression of the material world. There is a singular, supreme God/monad who does not “create” anything but rather emanates similarly immaterial beings called æons, which only descend to the material plane through a mistake, flaw, sin. While in one sense everything is an emanation of God, the plane of existence that we live on is so twisted that we can consider it completely separate from the ideal, purely spiritual and immaterial world of Pleroma (Fullness). God is then transcendent rather than immanent, and it would be a mistake to worship nature or other deities contained within this world.

The creator of the material world is called the demiurge (a term borrowed from Plato, I think), who may mistakenly believe that he is God and have servants called archons (roughly analogous to angels or demons, and linked to specific celestial bodies). Gnostics have spent a lot of time making detailed classifications of æons and archons. Æons often come in male-female pairs called syzygies–Jesus and Sophia [okay maybe I had an ulterior motive for choosing this topic] are sometimes the lowest-level syzygy, most connected to the material plane. Other times Sophia is the æon which emanated without a male partner, resulting in the demiurge.

Given its conception of the entire material world as fundamentally corrupt, Gnosticism generally does not offer rules for moral or ethical conduct, leaving this to the individual to decide for themself. Still, many Gnostics looked to Seth (the 3rd son of Adam), Jesus, or Mani as savior figures. Ultimately, release from physical existence could only be achieved after death (and reincarnation would often be the consequence of not acquiring enough insight during one’s life), by overcoming physical existence, somehow undoing the mistake of creation, and returning to the Godhead (Spirit, Fullness, Profundity).

In 1945 actual Gnostic texts were discovered in Egypt; these and other texts which have since been discovered include many additional and alternative narratives to the New Testament. One can imagine why the Church, seeking to assert a single authoritative version of Biblical myths, was so threatened by the proliferation of alternate texts, ideas, and cosmologies that sought to operate both within and without the framework of existing religions.

Sources:

“Gnosticism.” Early Christian Writings. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/info/gnosticism-cathen.html>.

“Gnosticism.” Early Christian Writings. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/info/gnosticism-wace.html>.

“Gnosticism.” Theopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://www.theopedia.com/gnosticism>.Hoeller, Stephan A. “The Gnostic World View: A Brief Summary of Gnosticism.” The Gnosis Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://gnosis.org/gnintro.htm>.

“What Is Christian Gnosticism?” GotQuestions.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-gnosticism.html>.

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Gregor MacGregor, the Unsung Hero of Con Men

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here today to tell you all the story of the life of one of the most original men with such an unoriginal name: Gregor MacGregor.

Gregor MacGregor surrounded by all of his friends.
Gregor MacGregor surrounded by all of his friends.

Gregor MacGregor was one of the greatest con men in history, amassing over £1.3 million in bond-market frauds over his lifetime (1786-1845), which would be about £3.6 billion today.

What was MacGregor’s trick to swindling so many people in the early nineteenth century? Upon returning to London in 1820 after an eight-year stint in the Americas, Gregor MacGregor invented a country.

But let’s set the story up properly with some background on our hero. When he was 16, Gregor joined the British army and was seconded (lent) to the Portuguese army where he fought
against Spain before sailing across the Atlantic in 1812 in search of adventure. He landed in Venezuela and joined with Simón Bolívar’s freedom fighters, later marrying Bolívar’s cousin. MacGregor worked his way up to the rank of brigadier general in the Venezuelan republican army after he organized a mass escape through a Spanish siege thanks to a French privateer while fighting for Colombian independence. MacGregor captured Amelia Island off the coast of Spanish Florida with a small force funded by wealthy Americans. These Indiana Jones-esque adventures are all the things he didn’t make up!

Upon his return to London with his wife in 1820, MacGregor started a whole different kind of adventure. He claimed that a Native American king had named him the “cazique” – or Prince – of “Poyais,” a land located near the Black River in modern-day Honduras. MacGregor claimed Poyais, an entirely fictional nation, covered eight million acres and was rich in natural resources but in need of development. That would require both cash and manpower. MacGregor persuaded people not only to invest their savings in the bonds of a non-existent government, but also convinced 250 people to emigrate to Poyais.

How did he accomplish this? Part of his success was due to his brilliant salesmanship. MacGregor got his interviews in the national papers, he wrote and published a book under a false name which confirmed MacGregor’s promises of friendly natives and plenty of natural resources. Another part of his success was due to the chaotic financial markets of the time, where foreign government debt offered a higher rate of return which attracted greedy investors who didn’t take the time to double-check MacGregor’s claims.

In late 1822 two ships carried around 250 settlers – including a banker, doctors, and military commanders – across the Atlantic to Poyais. On arrival, they found no port, no town and no roads. At first, they thought they must be in the wrong place. But the settlers stayed and tried to make the best of it. This didn’t work out. Six months later, a passing ship saw their camp and rescued the remaining settlers. Two-thirds of the “Poyers” (as the settlers liked to be called) had died. Word of all this reached London and the British Navy intercepted the five other boats that had already set sail. By the time that authorities tried tracking down MacGregor, he had already fled to France.

Once MacGregor landed in France, he set about constructing the exacting same scheme, raising money from rich creditors in exchange for Poyais government bonds, and convincing 60 French settlers to get on a boat to sail to the fictional country. However, the French government grew suspicious when they received 60 passport filings for travel to a fictional country. The government stopped the ship in the harbor when it was already full of would-be settlers. Once word got out that the Prince of Poyais was a fraud, MacGregor went into hiding but was caught and imprisoned. He stood trial for fraud in a French court along with his financial partners from the banks. What happened next? MacGregor was acquitted! He beat the charge!

Sensing that he’d better get the hell out of dodge, MacGregor sailed back over to Scotland where a few years later he tried to sell even more people on the idea of Poyais! It didn’t work this time. So what did Gregor do? He sailed back to Venezuela where he was made a citizen, reinstated as a general, received a military pension appropriate for an officer of his rank, and died in relative comfort.

After reading about MacGregor for a while, I actually started rooting for him. He’s a scoundrel, but he’s my scoundrel … like Han Solo but with South American independence movements instead of the Rebel Alliance. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to swindle some stuffy London aristocrats out of their money? Screw those imperialists!

But then I remembered that he conned 250 people into sailing halfway across the world on false promises and that all but 60 of the settlers died before rescue.

Alas, history has all but forgotten Gregor MacGregor. He pulled what is possibly the greatest swindle of all time, multiple times, and his story has single-handedly made me believe that anyone can accomplish great things in life with just a little imagination and no regard for human life.

SOURCES:
The Land That Never Was by David Sinclair (Da Capo Press, 2004) – Available on Amazon

http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21568583-biggest-fraud-history-warning-professional-and-amateur-investors

http://www.cracked.com/article_15892_the-5-ballsiest-con-artists-all-time.html