Emma

Design for Performance - Context Module

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The John Lewis Christmas Advert Experience

In recent years the John Lewis Christmas advert has been highly anticipated by a wide audience, but it would seem that this year the franchise felt the short televised film alone was not enough.  Supporting the advert, John Lewis designed a back stage experience featured in their Oxford Street store that contained fully furnished sets and allowed audiences to interact with replica costumes and objects seen in the advert.  Additionally, a large interactive floor piano was installed and, with help from Yamaha, pianos were supplied for public enjoyment in 15 of their stores.

A video further showing the experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L5ns2aKLks

Having not been able to attend the experience I can’t comment specifically on the success of the design.  However, I was surprised and very interested to hear of this physical element to the John Lewis Christmas campaign.  As technology advances and its opportunities grow, it would seem that for some there is a greater appreciation in what is tangible and actual.  I would say that I am definitely one of those people.  

Further to this, an appreciation of the design work required to produce such outcomes can be rare, and so I was pleased to see a feature dedicated to the understanding of this process.  In an article for Trend Hunter, Laura McQuarrie writes: “Although there is a ton of work that goes into the making of shiny Christmas commercials, displays, events and products, consumers are rarely presented with a glimpse of behind the scenes, which makes this seasonal in-store experience a standout.”.

Sources:

What Britain Bought in 2018. (2018). Channel 4. 2 January.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNbSgMEZ_Tw

https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/john-lewis-holiday

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/john-lewis-creates-behind-the-scenes-experience-elton-john-christmas-ad/1499104

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/christmas/john-lewis-christmas-advert-2018-elton-john-your-song-how-behind-the-scenes-a8636996.html

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Greenpeace’s Palm Oil Campaign

Recently I have been interested in analysing design work to consider how different aims are successfully achieved.  A campaign that has caught my attention is Greenpeace’s #NoPalmOilChristmas, supported by Iceland.

I first came across this when speaking with friends about Iceland’s Christmas advert, a short animation created by Mother London, now banned for being ‘too political’.  The film captures your attention so well and very simply describes the issues that need to be tackled making it an extremely accessible cause. In an article written by ‘Campaign’ agency partner of Mother London, Hermeti Balarin, described the advert as having: “… a disarming nature because it didn’t come to you to preach, scare or the usual things that charity or cause-related work tries to go for, this came about in a gentle and heart-warming way before it delivers the darker story.  It was an entertainment property above all else.” and I would completely agree.  The beautifully emotive and innocent character Rang-Tan plays on the audience's guilt with a softly spoken and unaggressive story that evokes empathy through losses we can identify with, such as the loss of her mother.  

Further to the campaign, I have seen a short film advertised on my Instagram feed that features an extremely lifelike animatronic replica of an orangutan wandering around the centre of London.  I think this is an amazing stunt - whilst the cause of a problem remains outside of your environment it can be forgotten or pushed aside.  This almost intrusive and unexpected sight in your familiar environment, so real and tangible, is a shock and not easily forgotten.  The bizarre sightings of this creature, even seen taking the tube, have successfully caught the attention of many, resulting in wide coverage of the issue.

Sources:

The story of Rang-Tan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=TQQXstNh45g

Orangutan in London: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE544iF_cMM

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/greenpeace-warns-brands-palm-oil-moving-animated-tale-orangutan/1490221

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/tv/iceland-christmas-advert-2018-banned-15391867

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Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in space and time, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.

Walter Benjamin, 1935

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Women Power Protest

An exhibition hosted by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery which explores themes of protest and identity through the work of a variety of female artists.  

Featuring a wide range of media and styles, this was a really engaging and visually stimulating exhibition to visit.  I particularly appreciated the layout of the room – how it didn’t limit you to one correct path, but gave you lots of different sections that were almost separate from each other, like little private spaces in which you could take time alone to appreciate and learn about the works.  

The way the exhibits were displayed was also a credit to the designers, with hardly any of the objects and installations being behind glass, and this level of audience accessibility  increased the power and impact of what they were viewing.  This was further enhanced by the way the artworks were arranged, complementing those around them, whilst no area was without interesting contrasts of either medium or style.

Something I felt the exhibition was missing, however, was a celebration of the artists involved and I would have liked more information about where they had come from and their experiences as women in this industry as well as day to day, to allow me to feel that I was getting to know some of the artists themselves, not just their work.  Even a photograph of each artist would, I feel,  have made a good addition to the information on each piece toshow the plethora of women involved.

Image source: Angela Kelly, Untitled (Woman's Identity), 1975 http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/women-power-protest

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Digital Detox

An immersive experience put together by an L6 Design for Performance student and meant to allow you time to detox from your phone. The experiment involved giving up your mobile and being blindfolded whilst sat in a room with others, listening to the sound of clocks and phones ringing or vibrating.  You were then taken from the room, sat down opposite another person and encouraged to talk.

I found this to be an interesting experience but I wasn’t sure how much it really allowed me to detox from my phone.  The duration of the piece was only around 20-30 minutes, not necessarily long enough to notice the absence of my phone, with only around 5 minutes left for conversation with others, which I considered quite a key part of the detox.  However I did think that if each of us had been sat in the same waiting room with our phones we would have spoken to each other less and definitely sought comfort in the ability to look busy on our devices.  I have noticed in my own habits that when I’m waiting alone for someone I tend to use my phone as a barrier to people that might interact with me; it’s not only that I’m bored but that I want to appear busy and therefore unapproachable.

Something else that I found interesting during of the performance was the ease with which everyone spoke to each other.  I’m unsure whether this is because we couldn’t see one another or whether the absurdity of the experience created something for us to have in common.  I definitely felt that my enjoyment of the experience was dependant on the interactions I had with others, which I suppose would not necessarily have come about if we had been allowed our phones.

Image source: https://usabilla.com/blog/what-social-media-can-teach-you-about-ux/

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The Taxonomy of Spatial Function

1. Social Reality: the building and all the parts within that are needed to make it work

2. Physical/ Fictional Relationship: the relationship between the actual stage space and the set created

3. Location and Fiction: the actual set and the suggested/implied set

4. Textual Space: the story, the text, the verbal information

5. Thematic Space: the meaning gained from the whole experience – from bringing all the above spaces together

(A Taxonomy of Spatial Function - From Space in Performance by Gay McAuley 2000)

For our brief, taxonomy of spatial function is really important to keep in mind, especially concerning the V&A.  The grandeur of the building itself and large glass installation hanging from the centre of the ceiling (see photo above) are what you first consider on entering the V&A and I think these features work effectively as a visual stimulant to put you in the mind-set of appreciation of aesthetics and design.  Further into the building however, it’s a maze of dark corridors and staircases and the Theatre and Performance gallery is extremely hard to find – tucked away in a far corner, only accessible through several other varied gallery spaces.  I think that walking through and considering the other galleries and their artefacts, such as the jewellery, results in a comparison and I know that for me whilst I explored the Theatre and Performance space, I was conscious of leaving enough time to go back to jewellery as it had appeared so much more exciting even from first glance.  Somehow the Theatre and Performance gallery needs to make the audience forget about everything they’ve just seen and completely immerse visitors right from the entrance to the space.

Sources:

Image: Glass Sculpture by Dale Chihuly https://annebernecker.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/inside-the-va-cromwell-road-london/

Class Lecture: A Taxonomy of Spatial Function: The Audience Experience of a Space by Lara Furniss

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Theatre is mainly in the performance; you can draw anything you like on a piece of paper, but what’s important is the actualisation.  True scenography is what happens when the curtain opens and can’t be judged in any other way.

Extract from: ‘The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography’ By Joslin McKinney and Philip Butterworth

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Punchdrunk

Punchdrunk is a British theatre company that describe themselves as having: ‘pioneered a game changing form of theatre in which roaming audiences experience epic storytelling inside sensory theatrical worlds.’ - https://www.punchdrunk.org.uk/about/

The company has worked with a wide range of audiences, seemingly managing to satisfy them all.  Having recently seen a documentary-style video of their work with school children, I became aware of how stimulating an experience like the one that Punchdrunk provide can be.  It would seem that they have discovered a great value in complete immersion for their audience and have therefore moved past the traditional theatre-going routine.  I appreciate the ability that this style of theatre has to activate more senses than simply what we see and hear.  To a certain extent, only so much of a story can be conveyed through classic theatre before it’s the interval and you disengage yourself from the performance to buy drinks and ice creams.  I would go so far as to suggest that not even technology such as VR can surpass an experience such as this as I believe there to be great importance in tangibility and the actuality or realness in this kind of presentation.

I’m really excited by the prospect of Punchdrunk working with museums such as the V&A as I’d be extremely interested in the methods they would use to bring static and less interesting artefacts to life.

Sources:

https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/a-punchdrunk-approach-to-making-theatre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmehxk37fgs

Class lectures/discussions

http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/machine-as-scenographer.html

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Robert Wilson - ‘Walking’ (2012)

‘Walking’ was an immersive theatrical experience that required audience members to take an unnaturally slow walk across a nature reserve in Norfolk, encountering large architectural installations along their route.  Completing the experience took around 3-5 hours, allowing time for the participants to completely slow down and become acutely in tune with their senses and the environment around them.

I’d love to know how I would have reacted having been given the chance to experience this piece. I hate the idea of being made to walk so slowly, I think I would just find it completely frustrating to be able to see my destination for an hour or more and not be able to hurry towards it. However, I would be really interested to know whether eventually I would lose the feeling of frustration and accept the beauty of taking time to slow down.  I wonder what kind of conversations I would have with myself and what I would think about.  The only experience that I could vaguely relate to this phenomenon is undertaking a 12 hour art exam.  I felt it was an odd experience to sit for 4 or 5 hours at a time without speaking or interreacting with anyone else although it did make me feel quite present to have a task to complete, and nothing that I should be doing instead, for such a long period of time.  I found it to be very peaceful and tended after a while to stop thinking about subjects and just be singing parts of songs to myself in my head over and over whilst I concentrated.  This is the only experience I have that could offer any insight into such a performance but the two still differ massively so unfortunately ‘Walking’ will remain a mystery to me!

Sources:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/49346602@N08/4591346301

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ih4GddMc4

Class lectures/discussion

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My responsibility as an artist is to create, not to interpret...  We create a work for the public and we must allow them the freedom to make their own interpretations and draw their own conclusions.

Robert Wilson 1993

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Designing for The Anthropocene

The Anthropocene – ‘Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.’ https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/anthropocene

In a lecture recently I was made aware of  the issues that can occur when trying to portray crisis through artwork and media.  For example in the photograph above we see hurricane Florence, a fatal disaster that ripped apart families and homes across the US East Coast.  However, in this particular image I would describe the hurricane to be a thing of beauty, a natural disaster that leaves me stunned and in awe but then my house has not just been torn down by it’s force.  

In an attempt to replicate and explain the sheer scale of such an event, The Weather Channel used their virtual reality studio to provide a simulation showing the news reader amongst the danger (see link below).  This is a truly shocking piece footage showing how defenceless anyone would be in the same situation and so it successfully conveys objectives of warning and educating appropriate for a news piece.  To think about the massive contrast between these two very different angles of the same disaster shows a seriousness in design work that is easily forgotten.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45517260

Contextual Studies Lecture for Viscom: ‘Designing for The Anthropocene’ by Fred Hubble

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Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was a major American painter, sculptor and printmaker, best known for paving the way for Pop art in the 1960s through the exploration of art in found objects and the use of non-traditional materials.

Rauschenberg’s work continually inspires me.  There’s such a plethora of genres and methods encompassed in his work and it was not until recently that I came across his work with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.  His cleverly composed collage work translates beautifully onto the stage and loses nothing as a piece of stage set.  I was also really intrigued to read about “living sets” - an idea improvised by Rauschenberg when he struggled to collect sufficient supplies for stage set designs.  This entailed live performers acting as part of the set, as a background to the dancers. In several performances at London’s Phoenix Theatre, Rauschenberg himself sat on stage and painted a piece calledStory(1964).  The way Rauschenberg finds connections in his more tangible media is echoed on stage.  Not only did his painting complement the dancer’s choreography, he enabled the costumes to be changed throughout the duration of the performance by adding a variety of garments and objects to their plain leotards.  I think this is what inspires about Rauschenberg the most – his ability to collage together all subjects whether it be a piece of choreography or an old rusty chair.

Sources:

https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/art/lightboxes/rauschenberg-and-cunningham

Tate Modern (London) Exhibition ‘Robert Rauschenberg’ 2016

https://www.biography.com/people/robert-rauschenberg-9452410

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/robert-rauschenberg-1815

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Casson Mann

‘We transform space, content and media into beautiful, engaging environments. Our clients include many of the world’s leading cultural institutions.’ -https://cassonmann.com/#!about

Started in 1984, Casson Mann is a leading design company founded by Dinah Casson and Roger Mann.  The London-based company shows no limits in its work, constantly taking on new challenges and have more recently been popular in exhibition design.  The temporary exhibition, Hollywood Costume, exhibited at the V&A, showed intriguing new ways to display costume.  Casson Mann worked closely with conservation teams to devise characterful poses that would not harm the artefacts but bring the costumes to life in a way that museum displays cannot always achieve.  Alongside the artefacts were cleverly chosen clips from the relevant film shown projected above the costumes (as shown below).  I particularly like how this simple and attractive display technique instantly brings the costume into context.

Sources:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-hollywood-costume/about-the-exhibition/

Class lecture with Garry Shelley

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VR

Virtual Reality (VR) is the use of computer technology to create a simulated environment that the viewer can  be placed in.  This is a completely immersive experience where the user can interact with 3D worlds.

This kind of technology opens up a wide new range of possibilities for the design world.  For example, exhibitions could become so much more immersive, offering instant understanding of context by placing the viewer in the environment of which they are being informed.  Furthermore, an exhibition or gallery space could be completely created in VR.  This has already been done by Dutch based company ‘Ikonspace’.  In an interview with VRFocus CEO and founder Joris Demnard ‘spoke about the platformand how he hopes cultural institutions and artists from around the world can showcase their art pieces in a beautiful environment completely created by themselves.’  This way of exhibiting would offer no conservation or accessibility limitations, allowing for endless design possibilities. However, I worry about the loss of tangibility and value of objects.  For example if artwork is replicated in VR to allow a more close up experience it cannot be appreciated as the true original canvas with which the artist had such a relationship.  Furthermore, there is value in pre-existing locations used as site specific showcases for work, a uniqueness that would be lost with VR.

sources:

https://www.marxentlabs.com/what-is-virtual-reality/

https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/03/create-and-curate-your-own-virtual-art-exhibition-with-ikonospace/

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Anthea Hamilton - The Squash

Explained by the leaflet I picked up in the Tate Britain as: “A solo performer in a squash-like costume [that] inhabits the Duveen Galleries everyday for more than six months.”, I’m not all that sure what to say about this exhibition. I have more questions than answers.

-What was the initial concept meeting like? ‘So I’ve got this vision of a person dressed as a vegetable jumping about in your gallery spaces…’.

-What training is required before you can become a squash?

-How much is The Squash paid?

More seriously, I made the effort to come to this exhibition out of curiosity and actually it was the main talking point of the train journey home. I can’t say I particularly understood the message, if there was one, but I appreciated the way the performer used and interacted with the gallery space, along with how the fluid, moving performer contrasted with the clinical, rigid space. I can now also say that a person dressed in a squash costume has pointed its big squash nose at me long enough to make me feel uncomfortable and slightly self-conscious. An unexpected talent for a vegetable.

Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/34660499@N02/41036967391

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Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up

A remarkable collection of Kahlo’s clothing and personal possessions salvaged from a locked room in the Casa Azul (Blue House) 50 years after her death.

A truly informative and intimate look into Kahlo’s life, this exhibition had me hooked.  Personally I found the plaster corsets and medical supports to be the highlight of the collection as they seemed the most tangible and genuine objects allowing you to really consider her visually. Adorning some of these were fascinating doodles and motifs painted by Kahlo, some of which covered upsetting subject matter such as her inability to bear a child.

To a certain extent I felt that the exhibition glorified Kahlo beyond her merit. She was only human and that’s what makes her such an accessible character; she made mistakes, did bad things and wasn’t untouchable. I also found that the written content was quite repetitive and actually very badly lit – quite an issue for some of the older clientele.

Image source: http://www.codex99.com/photography/frida-and-the-camera.html