Static pictures, waiting to come to life. In the case of the third picture, it'll be coming to life on 25th September at the Cecil Sharp House... http://wyrdmotion.blogspot.com

Intense Communion

"Nick Drake, Kate Bush and Talk Talk did not sing old folk songs, but their music resonates with a romantic yearning for an intense communion with nature and the desire to reclaim stolen innocence. In a quest for a workable religious experience, Gustav Holst sought enlightenment in Hindu mythology, while the Incredible String Band folded psychedelia into a cocktail of visionary and beat poetry. Faerie magic and Celtic lore infused the orchestral music of Arnold Bax and John Ireland, as much as the cosmic folk-rock of Donovan and Marc Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Tudor-influenced work of Vaughan Williams and Peter Warlock, and the medieval instrumental textures employed by John Renbourn, Pentangle and Shirley and Dolly Collins, present a beguiling form of sonic time travel: silver chains that bind more than a century of music into a continuum." Rob Young, author of Electric Eden.

Guardian.co.uk. 2010. Folk music is hip again [online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jul/31/folk-music-of-people-young

The Magical Birthday Bird

William Morris-inspired birthday card with interactive animated bird.

Grandpa's Chocolate Box

Getting back to my 2D roots on an summer school illustration course at Central St Martin's.

Picture Storytelling Scroll

"Pictures are most mysterious
Without explanation they can seem quite meaningless
That is why since the beginning of time,
We've had picture storytellers as the go between..."

This is the storytelling scroll I made for a presentation to fellow Puppetry students at CSSD following the picture storytelling tradition from its origins in 6th Century India to its present day manifestation as...the television. It's made from a charmingly kitch duvet cover I found in a local charity shop.
Performance involved me singing, accompanied by the accordion.



Based on an illustration of picture storytelling in ancient India.



From an illustration of an Italian 'Cantastoria' performer.



A German "Bankelsanger", or bench singer.



Detail from an American scrolling panorama, the 'Sioux War Panorama', a propaganda piece shown to early American settlers encouraging them to settle and have children without fear of the Native American Indians, of whom many were being massacred at the time.

The Hundertwasser Haus Miniature Float

I have just returned from five weeks in Brooklyn, New York, doing an internship with the Great Small Works Toy Theatre Festival (see my other blog http://greatsmall.blogspot.com)
The festival opened with a Huge Miniature Parade (it sounds like a contradiction in terms, but actually isn't) - a procession of dozens of miniature floats through the Dumbo district of Brooklyn, accompanied by a marching brass band.
For my miniature float I decided to pay homage to a late artist who has given me endless inspiration since my teenage years - the Austrian Friedensreich Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser. Creator of vivid, vibrant paintings, passionate activist speech-maker (often preferring to make speeches in the nude)on ecological and political matters, and eventually architect and creator of fantasy dwelling spaces which never contained a single straight line or right angle, and which always provided a home for trees and nature as well as human beings.
As Hundertwasser advocated the principles of permaculture and the cyclical patterns of nature in his architectural vision, the basic construction material for my float was recycled cardboard from the streets of Dumbo - the location, interestingly, where cardboard was first manufactured and from which it was shipped across the world.



In its raw cardboard form (nb.unsustainable material used in the process = glue sticks) Ornate pillars made from sections of plastic drinks bottles.



After a few layers of papier mache to clean up cardboard's unsightly cut edges (I have a slight aversion to these and feel that to papier mache cardboard is to truly elevate it to the sculpturing material of the gods)



The finished Hundertwasser Haus, complete with rooftop 'tree holders', into which sprigs of foliage can be inserted to create the tree-filled human dwelling place that Hundertwasser spent his life dreaming of.

the CSSD Student Puppet Festival 2010

The start of May witnessed my grand debut of the Weeping Tree on the big stage! Yes, my first attempt at a full toy theatre performance, to an audience of about 60 people at Central School of Speech and Drama's 2010 Puppet Festival. The producer and I had decided to try projecting the toy theatre's proscenium arch stage via live video feed onto the wall behind me as I performed the piece, because otherwise it seemed obvious that audience members sitting further back would not be able to watch the miniature-sized piece.

As a first attempt this performance raised a few clear issues. Judging by later feedback, no one watched the live video feed - everyone tried to watch the performance as it happened in the toy theatre. Consequently some people struggled to see the piece fully, added to by the fact that shadows cast by foreground scenery obscured some areas within the theatre, and people said the characters sometimes blended in with their surroundings a little too much.
Meanwhile, my tutor told me the piece came across as very meditative but 'lacked performance'.

Hmm, interesting.....

So from this I gather that toy theatre is either performed as toy theatre, in which case it should be performed to a small enough, sufficiently intimate audience so as to be visible to everyone, or it is performed as animation/film, in which case none of that matters and the toy theatre needn't even be present. But it needs to be one or the other, I need to decide whether I am trying to make live theatre or animation.

In terms of my next perfomance of the Weeping Tree, at the Great Small Works International Toy Theater Festival in New York, I will be aiming for the former - live theatre. I will be performing a five minute version to groups of 10-12 people approximately ten times within a one hour period. I won't be meddling around with video feeds this time. And performatively I will be heading in a different direction - previously I felt very strongly about not using any dialogue and letting the haunting medieval music do the speaking...this time I will be narrating.

I'm keeping a different blog of my experience as an intern at the Great Small Works festival here:
http://greatsmall.blogspot.com

Birthday Crankie

To commemorate my brother's 30th birthday I decided to make him a 'crankie' - an animated paper performance created by stretching a scroll across two cogs and turning a handle to move the scroll along and create a performance. The theme was milk floats.....my bro's passion as a young lad, and something which perhaps influenced his subsequent career choice as a mechanical engineer.


The creation of the scroll - a combination of images and text ordered to be viewed in a particular sequence.


The fiddly bit - fixing the scroll across two 'cogs' attached to the inside of a box with a 'screen' cut out of it - shoeboxes are ideal.


The container for the crankie....in this case a retro television.


The finished product - a television displaying a five minute advertisement.

The Olive Tree window display

Well it's pretty much there....

My Theatre and I

......Somewhere along the line I appear to have acquired an alter-ego....and since then things have turned into a bit of a Vanity Fair photo shoot.

The Weeping Tree

My first proper paper theatre...
inspired by William Morris, old English woodcuts, Terry Gilliam and 1960's English folk music. I am making this into a short piece which I will hopefully put on at CSSD's 2010 Student Puppetry Festival, and I've also applied to perform it at the Great Small Works' Toy Theatre Festival in New York in June...even if I'm not accepted I'll still be going there to be an intern!

This try-out 'weeping tree' was the starting point for the idea of this piece.




The theatre is entirely made out of cardboard and stands up via countless interlocking 'joints' - no glue has been used, making it completely flat-packable. It's going to have about three further layers of mobile scenery (forest, foliage...to give impression of deep dark forest..) and a central track for the characters to move across.

Manipulation Intensive with Alissa Mello

Shop Window Paper Theatre II

The Psychedelic Peacocks.....made, as usual, out of cardboard, decorated with papier mache-d photocopied fabric samples and acrylic paint.