#exploringstyle

[toniexpstyle]

Expressionism

Expressionism, as a style, takes a different approach to inspiring feelings in an audience. Rather than searching for sympathy using a more realistic depiction of life, he style focuses on guttural feelings that make the audience uncomfortable, but they can't hep but feel. It highlights the use of shadows, obscure sets and props usually the 'wrong' size and shape, and nondescript characters who often represent people or circumstances as a whole.

This expressionist installation was inspired by the shadow-work often associated with the expressionism style. I used a projector and screen to create the shadows, as inspired by Pilobolus which always is a large inspiration in my work. When seeing what is placed in front of the projector, you would expect a different image to show on the screen, however just like in expressionism it shows up as a much larger size and a less rescript shape.

[toniexpstyle]

Art Imitates Life; Living, Dying, Dead.

This installation represents realism by expressing the realistic truth of the life cycle. All things, human or otherwise, exist in this order... living, dying, then dead. What happens in between is different for each life, but the order stays the same. The installation highlights the lives of 3 different plants, in this case parsley, lettuce, and cockscomb flower. For each plant the cycle of life is the same, no matter how common or exotic. The living parsley, dying lettuce, and dead cockscomb flower live in bottles that once housed cheap alcohol, exposing a common middle class indulgence. But there is more to even this than meets the eye. If this were a permanent installation it would look very different by the end of the week. The plants, all living without water, would all have completed their life cycles, and all by dead.

[toniexpstyle]

[toniexpstyle]

Realism

Realism began in the last half of the 19th century as an experiment, for the purpose of making theater more useful to society. It was influenced by Comte's ideas of causes and effects through nature and the encouragement of understanding, Darwin's study of evolution highlighting survival of the fittest, and Marx's political philosophy supporting a more equal distribution of wealth. With the historically important theories of these three men, along with the revolutions in Europe sparking desire for social and political change, realism was born. It was popularized by the work of Stanislavski, who wanted to move away from the melodramatic acting styles that were constantly on stage, and into a more realistic and believable style; realism. It highlights the belief that art should better us as people, focusing on the middle class and their real, relatable, perceivable problems.

[toniexpstyle]

[toniexpstyle]

My Personal Style

Raw. Unfinished. Functional.

My personal style includes things that are utility, necessity. It is less about how something looks and more about how it will be used. I don't believe in adding 'extras' within a set or props for a play unless that extra is written in the text. I believe a work should be able to speak for itself, and as far as anything I create on my own, the only thing 'extra' will be the lighting. I find that things often get in the way of an audience's focus on a piece. Eliminating anything that might pull someone out of the head space they should be in is a risk I am always willing to take.

[toniexpstyle]

Favorite for the Feeling

Love in Hate Nation, a Joe Iconis rock romance musical performed at the Two River Theater, has stuck out to me ever since I first saw it a few years ago as a forever favorite. My school's acting program took my class to see the production right before the closing weekend, and I went back a few days later to see it again with my mom. It was something special, I couldn't think about anything else, I couldn't get the songs out of my head. It was one of those plays that I felt like I needed to be a part of in some way, I would dream of playing a role, or calling the show, or designing the lighting, anything... I just wished more than anything to be a part of it. At the end of the night it wasn't the acting or the music or the storyline or the designing that I brought home with me, (even though all of the above were simultaneously heart wrenching and breathtaking) it was the way the experience made me feel.

[solomon-ism]

Welcome back to Solomon’s Super Cool Style Blog!

This is my installation on Magical Realism. 

Fun fact: The unicorn in this picture is named Stain. I took him in from a broken home and gave him a slightly less broken one.

Magical realism shares lots of themes with realism. The characters have agency, they overcome things, they have deep inner lives and worlds, and the topics often focus on politics and gender. Where magical realism differs though is that something unrealistic and magical can happen in these worlds. The setting may be completely normal, except the one element that makes it magical in some way. The audience must then suspend their disbelief.

My installation captures magical realism because while the Unicorn is a symbol of magic, it is being choked and strangled by the colorful lights of reality. Something magical is happening, but it is dying and being crushed by the gritty realism that life is often known to remind us it has when we start to dream too much. 

Don't worry, Stain was not hurt during the shooting of this picture. He has been hurt by far worse in his past. 

@fadiskeiker