In Search of the Gesamtkunstwerk Experience:
Ernesto Neto creates interactive multisensorial installations which completely immerse the viewer into a spiritual womb of conciousness and being. This immersion of the viewer into his work, to me, is an important part of creating a total artwork experience.
In Search of the Gesamtkunstwerk Experience: Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson‘s ‘United States’ book tells the narrative of the total artwork experience that was ‘United States Live’ in a way that informs me of the multiple medias used. As I journey through the pages I take in photographs of the stage sets, performances, instruments, video projections and animations all narrated by the poetry written along side them. It leads me to understand that many medias and art forms are needed to produce a total artwork experience.
This video recording of ‘Home of the Brave’, below, gives me the closest encounter of the experience I could get without being present at the show. Thus the video answers my question of how a total artwork is perceived as I can hear the live audiences’ reaction to the utilization of several different medias at any one time. I can also gauge my own feelings towards the experience, which wasn’t dissimilar to the audiences, one of astonishment and excitement.
Laurie Anderson, Home of the Brave, Zero and One:
In Search of the Gesamtkunstwekr Experience: The Vienna Actionists
This book answers my question of who, where and when total artworks have been done before. It is well known that total artwork related experiences ignited in the 60s around the globe. This book tells me of the total artwork experiences mainly in Austria and Germany throughout that decade. The artists situation in this movement dictated the total artwork experiences they created: a concoction of spontaneous, blasphemous, sexual and violent shock-art. This leads me to think about how my situation here in Edinburgh at this time effects the total artwork experiences I create. Especially when a Vienna Actionists exhibition in Edinburgh, 1988 was cancelled because some suspected it was considered too shocking for the people of Scotland.
The Action Art of Hermann Nitsche’video shows how these shocking creations also lead onto how a total artwork can be perceived by an audience: “They invade the spectator’s defence mechanism and value systems in a manner comparable perhaps only to the slitting of the woman’s eyeball in Bunuel’s Chien Andalon” (Otto Muhl)
In Search of the Gesamtkunstwekr Experience:
The book Happenings and Other Acts answers all of my questions about total artworks through performance texts, articles and interviews by and about some of the most important Fluxus artists written during the peak of the Fluxus movement.
It tells me how artists combined medias together to create total artworks. How many people and the press misconceived their work because of the way they viewed the experiences: more as entertainment or spectacle rather than a serious piece of art.
Looking at this picture, below, I ask myself the question: where have total artwork experiences been held before? I get the answer: everywhere and anywhere that the people involved could use. Street theatre is a simple but very effective way of gaining an audience.
I find Nam June Paik's Head For Zen performance of La Monte Youngs' music piece a totalartwork in itself. It starts off as a music composition, Paik took it into a form of peroformance and the painting outcome was preserved as an object.
It tells me how artists combined medias together to create total artworks. How many people and the press misconceived their work because of the way they viewed the experiences: more as entertainment or spectacle rather than a serious piece of art.
Looking at this picture, below, I ask myself the question: where have total artwork experiences been held before? I get the answer: everywhere and anywhere that the people involved could use. Street theatre is a simple but very effective way of gaining an audience.
I find Nam June Paik's Head For Zen performance of La Monte Youngs' music piece a totalartwork in itself. It starts off as a music composition, Paik took it into a form of peroformance and the painting outcome was preserved as an object.
In Search of the Gesamtkunstwerk Experience: tePOOKa
The Big Red Door is an inconstant venue run by the tePOOKa group. They run experiences which involve multiple medias and audience interaction. I am interested in the nights they hold which are more of an experience that you can become fully involved with. Whether It’s through dressing up and becoming a performer at the night or picking up an instrument and joining in on the festivities.
Research: House of COME installation, The Brand New RItual performance and Preacher Man character
A big influence on this project has mainly came from what I have seen and experience in my youth. From partying, relationships, culture, drugs, music and being an artist.
Religion is another big influence. I am an atheist who disagrees with many religious beliefs and practices. In a sense this project is going against the traditional religions and creating a new one. I have found relgious symbols and the way leaders or important people are presented. The christian cross has been of great interest to me. Especially due to its simplicity and the fact that it represents the crusifiction of Jesus. Religious buildings have been an inspiration in the making of the House of COME. Again christian churches are referenced because of the impact the bell tower and its point gives, pointing far up into the sky to God.
Jesus Christ presented with hand gestures, symbols and halo.
A Russian Church built in the 1600s
This is a picture of the modern DJs Justice and there stage sound system. They are not religious but use the christian cross during their live shows. In a sense they are saying that music is our new religion.
The Chanel 4 comedy Nathan Barley has been another influence in this project. The programme tells of youth culture in the media.
Nathan Barley played by Nicholas Burns is a webmaster, guerrilla filmmaker, screenwriter, DJ and in his own words, a "self-facilitating media node". He is convinced he is the epitome of urban cool, and therefore secretly terrified he might not be, which is why he reads Sugar Ape magazine, his bible of cool. Sugar Ape has been described as a spoof of Dazed and Confused and Vice magazine.
The humour derives from the rapid rise of both the internet and digital television, and the assumption by publishers and broadcasters that almost any such work is worthy of attention. Barley and his peers are often hired ahead of actual journalists and talented writers trying to make intelligent points, such as the earnest documentary film maker Claire Ashcroft, and her brother Dan Ashcroft, a jaded and apathetic hack who, having written an article for Sugar Ape entitled "The Rise of the Idiots", is appalled to find that "the idiots" in question – Nathan and his contemporaries – have adopted him as their spiritual leader, failing to see that they are the very people he was criticising. (excerpt from wikipedia, full article here)
Rise of the Idiots speach:
My own performance speach is based on the Our Father christian prayer but edited with my own beliefs.
I feel the COME collective and my own work can be seen to be created by the "idiots" but I hope people see there is more to the excitement and buzz. Our intent is to open up the arts for everyone to enjoy in a more relaxed setting. It just so happens that the setting can be very exciting and a natural buzz occurs.
To contrast this throw away youth culture I have looked at spiritual pieces of work, mainly by Bill Viola. Viola has influenced my videos throughout the years. I find his work to be completely emersive due to the scale and imagery. His use of the simple, natural and contrasting symbols: fire and water are very affective when evoking emotion. His use of high frame rate slow motion film captures the human emotion in depth. Allowing you to capture every movement of the body, fire and water.
Bill Viola - the Crossing:
Viola's collaboration in the Tristan Project was another big influence on this project and my work in general. Creating a Gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork has been something I have been experimenting on creating with my work and the COME events. In this project I have involved and linked many different medias along with audience interaction and multi sensory experiences. Viola's simple (yet complex) addition to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde shows how technology can evolve an idea. As Wagner said himself he was creating "the artwork of the future".
Viola's Video Projection as part of the Tristan Project:
Religion is another big influence. I am an atheist who disagrees with many religious beliefs and practices. In a sense this project is going against the traditional religions and creating a new one. I have found relgious symbols and the way leaders or important people are presented. The christian cross has been of great interest to me. Especially due to its simplicity and the fact that it represents the crusifiction of Jesus. Religious buildings have been an inspiration in the making of the House of COME. Again christian churches are referenced because of the impact the bell tower and its point gives, pointing far up into the sky to God.
Jesus Christ presented with hand gestures, symbols and halo.
A Russian Church built in the 1600s
This is a picture of the modern DJs Justice and there stage sound system. They are not religious but use the christian cross during their live shows. In a sense they are saying that music is our new religion.
The Chanel 4 comedy Nathan Barley has been another influence in this project. The programme tells of youth culture in the media.
Nathan Barley played by Nicholas Burns is a webmaster, guerrilla filmmaker, screenwriter, DJ and in his own words, a "self-facilitating media node". He is convinced he is the epitome of urban cool, and therefore secretly terrified he might not be, which is why he reads Sugar Ape magazine, his bible of cool. Sugar Ape has been described as a spoof of Dazed and Confused and Vice magazine.
The humour derives from the rapid rise of both the internet and digital television, and the assumption by publishers and broadcasters that almost any such work is worthy of attention. Barley and his peers are often hired ahead of actual journalists and talented writers trying to make intelligent points, such as the earnest documentary film maker Claire Ashcroft, and her brother Dan Ashcroft, a jaded and apathetic hack who, having written an article for Sugar Ape entitled "The Rise of the Idiots", is appalled to find that "the idiots" in question – Nathan and his contemporaries – have adopted him as their spiritual leader, failing to see that they are the very people he was criticising. (excerpt from wikipedia, full article here)
Rise of the Idiots speach:
My own performance speach is based on the Our Father christian prayer but edited with my own beliefs.
I feel the COME collective and my own work can be seen to be created by the "idiots" but I hope people see there is more to the excitement and buzz. Our intent is to open up the arts for everyone to enjoy in a more relaxed setting. It just so happens that the setting can be very exciting and a natural buzz occurs.
To contrast this throw away youth culture I have looked at spiritual pieces of work, mainly by Bill Viola. Viola has influenced my videos throughout the years. I find his work to be completely emersive due to the scale and imagery. His use of the simple, natural and contrasting symbols: fire and water are very affective when evoking emotion. His use of high frame rate slow motion film captures the human emotion in depth. Allowing you to capture every movement of the body, fire and water.
Bill Viola - the Crossing:
Viola's collaboration in the Tristan Project was another big influence on this project and my work in general. Creating a Gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork has been something I have been experimenting on creating with my work and the COME events. In this project I have involved and linked many different medias along with audience interaction and multi sensory experiences. Viola's simple (yet complex) addition to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde shows how technology can evolve an idea. As Wagner said himself he was creating "the artwork of the future".
Viola's Video Projection as part of the Tristan Project: