Introduction Task - Research project

25.09.2021

I have had my introduction to my Masters Degree, which was online due to on going Covid restrictions.

During a part of this introduction where I completely unintentionally blanked out for a good ten minutes, at least. We were given a task, which I'm calling 'introduction task'. Off the top of my memory the task is aimed to get us back into the swing of research, and to introduce us to our first module which will be called 'The thought Experiment', it links well due to this task being a research task where we have to find an artist or an artists work that is 1. out of our comfort zone, as in, different to what our own practice is, and 2. be Mundane.

So I've got to find an artist who works within the realms of the mundane, who doesn't work in the same style or discipline as myself, looking to stretch my knowledge and think outside the box a bit.

I find it a difficult task to get started on. I'm interested in what I'm interested in. I can't help that, my whole practice over the last couple of years has been questioning and exploring this. To be able to do a decent job of researching something I must first have some sort of connection with it, be inspired in some way, and there's two issues with this particular task that prevent me from gaining this connection. 1. we have to find something that is not related to our own practice, and 2. It has to be mundane.

I'm pretty sure I'm overthinking at this stage, and I'm only writing now because I've had a few drinks, But I just can't seem to be able to start this project. I thought about starting with a simple google search 'mudane artists' and simple finding an artist who doesn't make fictional narratives around their sculptural practice...

But I keep thinking about a short film I watched recently... A class mate of mine who has come from the same undergrad degree college as me got in touch during the introduction online. He talked about Peter Greenaway, a film Director from back in the day. I had never heard of this director, but had heard of one or two of his films. Anyway, I got to watching a film of his called 'Splash'.

The student who recommended the artist told me that Peter was his favourite director. Each to their own, I thought this particular short film was incredibly dry. Mundane even.

And this is what I can't get out of my head. As soon as mundane was mentioned I thought..

Peter Greenaway. Now I'm not judging his career as a whole, just on this one film, I thought was incredibly mundane, almost pointless. Maybe that's the point.

Anyway, this classmate is researching Peter Greenaway too, I know this as he told us exactly what he was up to. So I thought about not researching Peter Greenaway, then I thought well this classmate loves Greenaway, me, not soo much.. So whatever happens were sure to have different, maybe opposite thoughts on the subject.

And I think this is really what I want to take from this task, is I am a Masters student now, and I'm here to push myself. Researching this subject will force conversations that I have in the past been too scared, or have found too difficult to force on myself.

The same goes for the subject itself. Greenaway was a moving image artist, and I'm here doing a moving image degree, yet I feel that I am very much focused on narrative in my practice, and don't consider myself a filmmaker as such, on an opposite approach Greenaway dislikes writers in film, and believes that film should be much more visual based, non - narrative. So even though we both occupy the same stage in some ways... it's a completely different experience.

28.09.2021

I've been incredibly busy over the last few weeks working as a production designer for a short film which I'm finishing off as we begin this course, so I haven't been able to research through books or articles, but with the nature of making props and set pieces, I've been able to watch a lot of YouTube videos, of Greenaway's work, video essays on his work and also interviews and lecturers by Greenaway himself.

I found these Lectures by Greenaway very interesting, a lot more interesting than I've found his films any way.

Greenaway's outlook on film, moving image and art in all, has got me completely rambling in my own brain about these ideas.

"Why is it Mr. Greenaway, did you start your career as a painter, and now you're a filmmaker? and I said, well I was always disappointed that paintings didn't have soundtracks".

We look at the world through the eyes of our image makers and for more than 2000 years they have almost exclusively been painters. It's now film and TV.

Painting with film.

Peter Greenaway both features and recreates 17th Century Dutch artwork in his film 'The Cook, The Thief, his Wife and her Lover'.

"Allow cinema to run free away from the enslavement of narrative".

"If you want to tell stories, don't be a filmmaker, be a novelist".

"We do not need a writers cinema, I think all film writers should be shot".

"We need an image based cinema"

"Maybe what I make is not cinema, maybe what I make is paintings with soundtracks".

Greenaway made 41 short films and documentaries.

The cook, The Thief, his Wife and her Lover was made in 1989

Prominent use of the Dutch painting 'The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia Company in 1616.

"Cinema should really be a product of the imagination, it deals in all the non- narrative, non realistic aspects, so it deals with metaphors and allegory and with symbolism".

Substance over style on purpose.

Greenaway is very outspoken, and believes his word to be the last. I find this way of thinking almost old fashioned, but incredibly entertaining! Such as Greenaway's remark on painting being the superior art form, above anything else. I think we've moved into, or at least very much beginning to move into a realm where there is no superior art form, and that art is becoming very much an interdisciplinary practice. It's interesting to listen to Greenaway's lecture 'The Cinema is Dead, Long live the Cinema', where towards the end he goes into detail about how he believes cinema will change and develop into the future, and how he wants to be a part of that development, yet doesn't believe in narrative and interdisciplinary practice, even though he's obviously very good at narrative filmmaking, and also has blended painting and cinema, creating an interdisciplinary approach to his own practice. It's almost ironic.

My own beliefs of cinema, and of the future of cinema are very much opposed to Greenaway's, yet in some ways our thinking does head in the same direction. In the same lecture as mentioned above, Greenaway screens experimental film projects that he plans to put into a new three dimensional projected cinema experience, believing that the future of cinema is to do with the screens, and more of.. Projecting onto multiple screens at the same time, almost mimicking the ideas of stage play and Opera, where there is no one good seat, the audience can view the production from all the different seats and gain a slightly different, but no lesser experience. I find this interesting, and I also believe the future of the screen will move towards multiple screen projection, yet maybe in a more personal way, with the use of smart phones and interactivity. But the personalised/ custom view of the film is interesting.

01.10.2021

One thing I can't get my head around is Greenaway's ideas on narrative, or lack of I should say. I think a lot of artists when looking at the future of art disregard the content of the art, and look more, like Greenaway at the more physical aspects like how cinema will be shared for example. I believe that story and narrative are a very important part of cinema, and are becoming increasingly more engaging. I think it goes hand in hand with fandoms too, and that fan interactiveness will become a large part of the process in the future.

I've spent the summer researching the extended universe of Star Wars, the story, and the lore stories that go along side it make it an incredibly immersive experience that is now available to gain access into the world via many different portals, the cinema screen, Disney plus in more long form story telling, we've got comics and books. There's such a large collection of content connected to the star wars universe that the narrative has become completely customised to the individual audience member. With the casual viewer only seeing the main saga films, all the way to die hard fans who have read every book, comic, animated show and also the interviews with creators such as George Lucas and Dave Feloni, where they extend lore further.. This is completely representative of Greenaway's multiple screen ideas. Yet the narrative aspect I'm sure would upset him.

but this all links me to a video I watched recently with Martin Scorsese, an old time cinema based movie maker, who caused controversy recently with his statements on Marvel movies being theme park movies, saying that they aren't Cinema. This riled up a lot of franchise movie fans, viewing the word cinema as derogative, but Scorsese meant this in a completely different way, explaining later that he once thought that long form tv series narrative might have been cinema, before he realised that it's not, it is its own art form, and the way series narratives are going now, it will only develop into its own style completely. What Scorsese meant by saying that franchises like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they're not cinema, they're there own form of narrative story telling, that is different from his known form of cinema, the stand alone movie that is made to be viewed in a cinema with an audience.

07.10.2021

Anyway, despite all this, I felt it was relevant to make a short piece that begins to explore the idea's the Greenaway plays with in his work, in terms of style. I have always been very narrative based, when applying for my original degree I applied for both animation and film BA's, and the question they asked in interviews was why, and my reply was that I am a story teller, and the form in which that story is told is a tool for me to tell that story, be it film, animation, music etc.. Since my little obsession with Greenaway, I'm not going to say that I'm a changed artist and that I've discovered non-narrative cinema, I still find most of it very dull and mostly repetitive, but I want to explore non-narrative moving image, I'm here on this MA to do exactly that.

I've taken one of my factory workers called 'DAI' and I set up a very basic set, that doesn't reflect the production design of the factory, as I have recently moved house, and plan on creating new sets for the next part of the narrative.. But I don't want to have to wait, this is something I've done my whole life, the Sculpt Factory has taught me to be less precious, and just creating work and explore.

I've been working as the production designer and set builder on a short film, which turned into me making fake cardboard tiles for the set floor (it worked, but it was a big mistake..)

The tile making process was incredibly mundane, cutting cardboard, glossing, and pva gluing over the top, it was dull and repetitive. So it fit perfectly with the themes of this introduction task. And I didn't want to do it, so I handed the job to Dai..

I tried to centre the action, relating to Greenaway's stylistic framing. and I built the speed of the action and the cuts such as Greenaway's short film 'Making a Splash' 1984.

https://youtu.be/oegYs-YuIzk

Sources:

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/460978/index.html

https://youtu.be/2DQdVkSYX44

https://youtu.be/behptQEtmSc

https://youtu.be/BluXxpF3OP4