Raquel Martin Martin
This page will reflect my personal development within the group and my understanding and engagement with the module 'Actor and Object'.
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A brief introuction to the main influences in our work.
The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm Carl Grimm and Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm, were born in Germany. They were academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore during the 19th century. One of their main works was the "Grimm's Fairy Tales", which is going to be the basis of our project. In our case the fairy tale chosen is called "The Golden Key"
Tadeusz Kantor was a polish painter, artist, set designer and theatre director known for his revolutionary theatrical performances, such us "Avant-Garde", "Wielopole, Wielopole" and specially "Umarla klasa" (Dead Class).
THESE ARE MY PROCESS DRAWINGS
BIO-OBJECT
"There must be a very close, almost biological symbiosis between an actor and an object. They cannot be separated.
In the simplest case, the actor must attempt to do everything for the object to stay visible; in the most radical case the actor and the object must become one. I call this state a BIO-OBJECT"
(Tadeusz Kantor, cited in A Journey Through Other Spaces, 1944-1990)
This video represents and shows what I think and I have learned about a BIO-OBJECT so far. It is the point where I am at within the process of understanding it.
A little further down is my reflection on it.
We explore the theme of mystery and mainly memory through a forgotten memento represented by frames and a mirror. Our concept is to transmit the emptiness that we keep when we forget. This is influenced by one of Kantor's ideas from "Wilepole, Wilepole": “In a memory, there is never any action, there are only frames”.
The mirror is my object of choice. I selected it because it reflects very well the emptiness and stagnation of a person by forgetting. Moreover, heavy objects work best. The reason for this is that it helps me to conceive my object as an animated object instead of as an animated figure. It has also helped me to recover the connection between the object and me; and with it, the agency.
However, another thing that pushed me to play with the agency of the object was Kantor's idea of liveness/deadness. In the video it can be seen how the mirror dies and comes alive several times. An example is when the mirror keeps trying to get in front of my face.
“These DEAD FAÇADES come to life, become real and important through this stubborn REPETITION OF ACTION. Maybe this stubborn repetition of action, this pulsating rhythm that lasts for life, that ends in nothingness, which is futile, is an inherent part of MEMORY”(The Room, Tadeusz Kantor, p.143). This is a sentence can be related to our idea of recurrence and the never ending (throwing the object to each other) and the idea of oblivion and emptiness (empty frames and a mirror that only reflects the exterior).
The way I decided to approach the inanimate sounds exercise was separating it from the bio object video. I learned that sound can transmit by itself a lot of meaning. For example, in the audio, it can be heard how there is certain sounds that carry a lot of feelings and actions: the scratching, the crying or the voice in spanish expressing the feeling of being trapped or bounded.
In order to come up with such sounds it was crucial to explore how my body and its position could affect my voice. In addition, I mixed some of the sounds to have a different effect.
For all of the above, the concept of my exercise is to express how forgetting can leave you stagnant and empty inside. It can make you feel immobilized, either in time, inside a mirror or inside an empty frame.
Bibliography
Kiebuzinska, C., Kantor, T. and Kobialka, M., 1995. A Journey through Other Spaces: Essays and Manifestos, 1944-1990. Theatre Journal, 47(3), p.437.
Witts, N., 2010. Tadeusz Kantor. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bicât, T., 2007. Puppets And Performing Objects : A Practical Guide. Ramsbury: Crowood Press.
Francis, P., 2012. Puppetry: A Reader In Theatre Practice. Macmillan Education, pp.18-25.
Google Arts & Culture. 2020. Tadeusz Kantor - Theatre Institute In Warsaw - Google Arts & Culture. [online] Available at: <https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/tadeusz-kantor/QRJitHIb> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
BrainyQuote. 2020. Amy Poehler Quotes. [online] Available at: <https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/amy_poehler_436978> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
Goodreads.com. 2020. A Quote By Rensis Likert. [online] Available at: <https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/451410-the-greater-the-loyalty-of-a-group-toward-the-group> [Accessed 4 May 2020].
Merriam-webster.com. 2020. Definition Of MEMORY. [online] Available at: <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/memory> [Accessed 4 May 2020].