User:Garvan/Project Proposal
The Egg
What:
- The Egg (working title) is a narrative performance and exhibition that follows a man’s sisyphean attempts to achieve flight by absurd means including using balloons and a skateboard or trying to hatch a genetically mutated bird's egg. The Wrongs Brother is about the hubris of humans, about naivete , more subtly, this artwork seeks to satirise (space/neo) colonists and delusions of grandeur.
I am trying to deconstruct and rearrange the narrative of humanity’s discovery of flight. I want to turn it from this mythical story of human determination and turn it into a clownish cautionary tale.
The character listens to the mystic egg, hearing a soft pulsating heartbeat. He hopes that he can hatch the egg into a winged guide that may help him achieve flight. The Cuckoo bird lays its egg in the nests of other birds who incubate the egg and raise the Cuckoo's young as their own. It is known as a brood parasite.
Perhaps this character has been fooled by a brood parasite. Perhaps he thinks he is raising a giant bird but in reality it is a poisonous basilisk.
How:
- The exhibition would include a video of the quest, alongside this there would be photographic and installation works. A live performance would happen within the gallery space. This performance will be highly choreographed, interactive and musical. Within the performance the sensation of human flight is simulated through collective movement and noise making.
Within the core narrative I would like there to be a strong structural elements; crisis, struggle & resolution but perhaps I also want to try and subvert the meaning of these western narrative blocks.
Timetable
- 1.Storyboarding
- 2. Prop-building - shot prototyping - costume making - location scouting.Research by making
- 3. Kermis
Why?
- This work came to my imagination in perhaps a similar way to my previous video. It feels in my mind to be in the same wheelhouse and fits well into a larger body of work. I want to make it because I think there are interesting avenues of thought to explore while researching. I do not want to back myself into a corner with a defined ending. I want to find the ending through research, I think this image of an egg has potential to develop into something personal.
I remember my grandparents used to have a wooden chickens egg. A surrogate egg to encourage hens to lay. My grandparents were farmers in rural ireland in the 1960s.
I imagine a retelling of the Wright brothers story but instead of this flight happening in North Carolina’s Kill Devil Hills it happens in the irish midlands above a peat bog. I do not think it is possible to make this artwork in ireland right now, but this imagined alternate history is a source to draw from for this Rotterdam based artwork. +
An egg is a layered symbol. Birth, fragility, food, reptilian,
Who can help me? Camera person. Sound person maybe. Tutors. Keremis. Sometimes I need a person behind the camera who can give me direction even though I am the maker. Sometimes I need someone who has their own ideas and is willing to help me piece together a shot. My friend & designer Lorcan Rush. Tape recorders. Record Player.
Relation to previous work. Similar ambience, a fool’s errand. I seek the same emotional response as Gravy the Clown. Using musical motifs in a similar method. Evoking or playing with nostalgia. Using literary and theatrical references. A one man show. This I think will be different because there will be dialogue or narration but hey I said this last time too. Two weeks after writing the original outline for this project my research has taken me downb different avenues of thought. My
Relation to a larger context. I think I need to carve out this artworks relation to its wider context. This vaudevillian method of video and performance making I think is often demoted in status because of its absurdity or its kitchness but it has a rich and authentic history and speaks to many different cultural reference points. I am trying to say that making this kind of work matters and that you can do it, that performance art doesn’t have to be all misery and pain it can and should be performative .
Bibliography
- Youtube Ad music
- Lamisil - It's Alive (2003, USA)
- 07 Domex 'Marenge'
- SELF-ISOLATION - DAY 56
- eatcarpet 98 The Mongreloid.Dir.G.Kuchar
- Justice - Stress (Official Video) i
- 12 ways to make small talk | How to with John Wilson - BBC
- Limmy: Requiem
Inventory
Ingredients/locations/Scenarios
Kite Flyers - go somewhere windy where people fly kites
Flight simulator - is there a large to scale simulator that I could use as a test sight?
Kermis - fair ground great location for B roll and make some photos too, perhaps ride a rollercoaster that simulates flying
Sensory deprivation tank/egg?
Plastic bag/litter in the wind
Toy paratroupers
More References https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2010.263 (teaching a stone how to fly) https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/kim-beom-objects-being-taught-they-are-nothing-tools (teaching a stone how to fly)
NEWWEST ITERATION : Michael Colins' Flying Column
Project Proposal / Character Outline / Script & Notes
These performative sketches try to tackle the Irish condition from different historical standpoints. It is satirical. It is vaudeville. While the sketches and characters take place at different points in history, a common theme throughout is media. This work speaks to the visual and verbal language of Irish media and colonial media.
I don’t know how big this work will be, perhaps it will grow into many characters and timelines. There must be a greater question at stake, an Irish question. One train of thought that I am interested in is the Irish narrative, the narrative that makes up the Irish identity. Our events, our landmarks, our blunders, our disgraces. There is a disparity between Irish governmental policy and Ireland’s constructed identity. Ireland is meant to be a freedom loving, friendly, funny and artistic island, and sure these elements may be somewhat true but our governments waver between centre right and slightly more to right of centre. Perhaps through this work I am trying to create a muddier interpretation, to besmirch our national heritage. Sure we all tell ourselves that we had a family member who fought in the rising but I doubt many ever wanted to or would want to die for Ireland. Ireland’s collective consciousness is formed by colonial oppression. Terms like anti-treaty and pro-treaty created an Irish civil war but this division was created by our coloniser.
- De Mimsey
De MImsey is a mid ranking noble, he is assigned by the crown to counsel and advise Earls and Barons on the island of Ireland. De Mimsey is a self serving tool, he rarely brings good news, his solutions often are to the detriment to the serfdom. He is highly educated and warns the nobles of rebellion, cholera outbreaks and famine.
Takes place in a nobel’s hall.
- Brother Eamon
Brother Eamon is a high ranking Monk in an early christian ireland monastery. He works mostly in the scriptorium, producing holy texts that fuse Irish mythology and paganism into a new hiberno-christian narrative. He is highly superstitious, concerned with omens and prophecies. He is a pseudo-scientist. A quack. He synthesises meaning and myth from the mundane. He creates monsters in the margins of his manuscripts. He devines the health of the land by picking at bog cotton, from smelling the autumnal mushrooms. Brother Eamon is worried about vikings or messengers from Rome and a brewing noise coming from the Normans in England. Brother Eamon dictates orders to an off screen monk (perhaps will be on screen) Brother Ignatious, a lower, younger monk. Ignatious fetches Eamon’s vellum, his spirits (whiskey) and listens to brother eamons complaints. Brother Eamon and Brother Ignatious sit together in a darkened room at the top of the round tower of their monastery. Vikings raid and pillage the monastery below. Eamon looks out the window on the violent scenes and describes them to ignatious who records them though Eamon’s meaning is lost in Ignatious’ interpretation.
- E: We hid in the tower as soon as we noticed the birds flying, and the plumes of smoke rising from the direction of the estuary. They are violent, foaming at the mouth, blond-haired giants. And they are Horny
- I: Horny, Brother?
- E: Yes! Horny! Make sure you write that down, and illustrate it too, if you please Iggy
- I: But Brother, em, I’m not quite sure what you…
- E: I said write it down! You oaf! I should feed you to the norsemen, they would make a hearty stew from you, boy
- E: Alright Brother
Scene ends with an illuminated manuscript with pictures of horned vikings
This will be shot in a room with one window. The window will be masked to look like the window of a round tower. The scene takes place in a round tower.
- Mr. McGuire
Mr.McGuire is a servant employed by the aristocratic father of young william. McGuire has lost his children to poverty and famine and despite him having every reason to detest the little lord, McGuire cannot but love the innocent little toff. This plot will unfold from the perspective of William. He is awoken in the night be McGuire, the towns-folk have conspired against the landed gentry, they believe that they have poisoned the towns well with cholera. The town is half dead and half infected, they are making their way to william’s manor to seek vengeance.
This video is shot at night , in candle light, creepy atmosphere, gothic. The scene takes place in a country manor house or on a darkened country road.
References: Bram Stoker / The Heroes Quest
- No Surrender Splendour
Craig is an amateur baker from belfast, he finds himself in the semi final of the Great British Bake Off. Craig makes a multi layered cake that resembles a belfast bonfire in July. It is made with ginger, marmalade and turmeric. To represent his orange tendencies. The cake is covered with miniature irish flags and loyalist slogans such as “Michelle O’ Neil : Catholic Slag”
- The Time Traveling Revolutionary
Commandant Boyle, a low ranking member of an irish paramilitary during the Irish Civil finds himself at a shrine in the middle of nowhere. He has become separated from his flying column, he sees candle light coming from the shrine and he walks toward it hoping to gain some sense of direction. As he walks towards the shrine the light grows bigger and bigger and it envelops him. He is transported a hundred years into the future and across the irish sea. He awakens on a welsh country road. He stumbles down the road until he comes upon the Fron Goch Garden centre. A cute garden centre just miles from the infamous internment camp that imprisoned irish revolutionaries after easter rising.
- WHAT
a video work sketch show that discusses matters relating to Ireland and being Irish. Referenceing Irishi media and media about ireland. The sketch show will jump around history. Monks in early christian Ireland circa 500-800 a.d to 19th century protestant ruling class members to twentieth century revolutionaries and perhaps even further into the future. The work is both satirical and speculative. I want to play with nnational folk heroes. People like St.Patrick, William of Orange & Ned Kelly. The title is a reference to Monty Python's Flying Circus. The work will question national narratives, I will make some short sketches about museums in Ireland and how they construct a national narrative.
- How
Through short video sketches and simple sets & costume. Each sketch should not be more than five minutes and the entire exhibited body of work should not be more than 25 minutes. I need to write a script for each sketch, and design more sketches than I would actually need. I have written character outlines for several sketches and written the script for roughly two-three sketches. To develop the work I will engage in a process of improvisation as a for of character development. The process is based on play and having fun and letting my body loosen up and see where the character takes me.
- Why
This work was not a direction i intended to go but now that I have started the process I realise that this is perhaps the work I should have been making ages ago. It feels important and urgent to me and the process is rewarding and fun and I think there is great potential.
- 'Timetable
- Research more, it is an integral part of this artwork
- Write more scripts
- Low tech set and costume design
- Film Sketch - goal would be to have about three at least started before christmas
- Over the holidays I will be in ireland for 2 weeks I would like to do some filming there while I can. I am also considering going back in March for St.Patricks day
Bibliography
Documentary about the crumbling leftovers of the protestant ascendancy class in Ireland
An Irish poverty apologist attacks Frank McCourt for telling lies about Ireland
In 1985 Ireland experienced three different accounts of holy apparitions
19th Century Peasant faction fighting reenactment, I am interested in historical reenactments as this is essentially what some of my performances will be
Bone Setter, a quack for physical bodily ailments
Sean Lycnh, an Irish artist whose work I find very inspiring, though I think his work is of a drier nature, it is still quite humorous
HACKPACKT https://youtu.be/2tqfFAEKyco
Thesis Outline
My thesis will run parallel to the subject matter of my graduate research. In my artwork I am exploring and investigating characters and archetypes. I am making short sketches that satirise and speculate upon Ireland’s history and its potential future.
Media and national narratives are themes I want to explore. How do Irish museums construct our collective identity?
The form will be an essay, with perhaps the tone of an op-ed / long read article. I am telling a story of Ireland. Reference Adam Curtis/Atlanta.
My thesis and my artwork are two parallel arms that for into an interpretation of post-colonial irish media.
An example: Paddington 2 (2017) This is a film much loved by critics and audiences, it is loved for it’s cutesy british tone. There is a an arc in the plot, where paddington finds himself in prison, it’s all very funny and light hearted . however the filming location is Kilmainham Gaol, an historic prison in Dublin where serveral of our revolutionary leaders where executed by british soldiers after the Easter Rising of 1916. Did they die so a cute cgi bear can dance around with Hugh Grant?
Another example:
In Dublin Castle, a tourist attraction and landmark in the city centre is a very busy corner of the city. However in the basement of one of the old buildings is the little known Revenue Museum. The Revenue Museum has a collection ranging from postal stamps, bootleg football jerseys to a reproduction of the toilets used to examine the faeces of drug mules in Dublin Airport. Taxation, it’s an inevitability, what does The Revenue Museum omit in it’s collection if Ireland is a tax haven?
Another Example: Across Ireland there are towns with grand georgian era districts. Well preserved and handsome they are often preserved by Georgian Historical Societies. Some of these societies even go so far as to reenact aristocratic life in the georgian period. Is this love of the georgian era a fetishisation of our colonisers?
I would like to get into contact with some of these organisations and institutions and create a dialogue, which would serve as primary research for the thesis.
I would also like to investigate certain aspects of media, Irish media and media about Ireland esp British (english) media.
I do not know what the conclusion of this research will be. Though I think that the research may actually obfuscate rather than clarify, which, in a sense, illuminates how intricate and complex Britain’s colonisation of Ireland was and is. I imagine I will come across self colonial practices within these media structures and institutions.
References I need to gather some appropriate sources, ones that have similar post colonial approaches and alternative perspectives of irish statehood