| ARTS 445: Special Topics in New Media: Performance UIUC School of Art + Design Room 334 Flagg Hall Mondays + Wednesdays, 1-3:40p Fall 2022 |
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| ASSIGNMENT 01: YOUR LIFE - due MONDAY AUG 29 (Group A) and WEDNESDAY AUG 31 (Group B) Tell the story of your life in 5 minutes or less. You could use anecdotes, songs, lectures, slides, video, sound, really amazing/shitty puppets, objects, movement, cats ... whatever it takes (oh, and by the way, these are choices/ideas/possibilities - you could use one of these, a couple of these, or none of these) ... and with the ideas that have come up for you in the reading and what we've seen so far in class ... create a 2-5 minute performance/presentation/prayer/LIVE event about your life. - Be brave. - Try something you're comfortable with ... - but (very important) include a few things that make you uncomfortable. - Be brave. This performance has gotta have you, in the flesh, living and breathing in front of us... NOT a video recording of you doing something somewhere else. Don't hide behind tech. If you do use tech, have somebody help you, be aware of how much time it takes to set up ... rehearse setting up (I'm not kidding). MAKE YOU ... YOUR BODY, YOUR VOICE, YOUR PRESENCE, YOUR LIFE ... THE CENTER OF THE PERFORMANCE. And remember, you only have 5 minutes to set-up. I am hereby encouraging you to keep the tech to a minimum. I am hereby encouraging you to not be perfect. Here are some possible, uh, strategies ... that you might use for your performance ... in no particular order ... - Metaphor. - Report on yourself in the third person. - ALL HANDMADE: Costume. Hat. Mask. Flippers. - Don't use words. - Absurdity. - Symbolism. - Gross exaggerations. - Beauty. - The good, the bad, and the ugly. - Intuition. - Ridiculous lies. - Unblinking truth. - Vulnerability. - Humor. - Unreliable narrator. - Whispering. - Screaming. - Laughing uncontrollably. - Super dramatic sobbing. - Ice. - Air. - Earth. - Water. - Sorry, please don't use fire. - Horrible baby talk. You will have 5 minutes to set up, 5 minutes to break-down (while the next person sets up). So if you're going to make a big huge mess ... come prepared with everything you need to clean up your big huge mess and make sure you can clean it up quickly. |
| PITHY QUOTE “...the essential purpose of art is to overcome the deadening effects of habit by representing familiar things in unfamiliar ways: habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war... And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stony stony.” David Lodge on Victor Shklovsky’s 1917 essay, “The Art of Fiction” |