Puja Khurana
Exposé
Assignment 1
Assignment : To select a place and document/show what happens or doesn't happen or what could happen. Basically show what happens in that particular space and depict its spirit or give its essence
Site: An empty lane which has a factory nearby and a government school close by but is usually very emtpy, abandoned and gives everyone the creeps. The only time there is activity is when the factory works arrive or depart from the factory, when the school kids have their lunch break ( screaming and shouting ) and dogs barking in the middle of the night
Concept: The concept is to bring forward the emptiness and creepiness of the endless lane that has no activity , except for thrice in a day and the occasional barking. Through this video and recorded sounds from the site, I am trying to put forward the feeling it gives to the person who walks through this lane at any given time in the day. The sense of abandonment, loneliness, creepiness and fear that gives me, personally, a tingling sensation when I walk alone on this road. The presence of the bird flying through the empty sky depicts the occasional activity or movement on the road. Also , the video is set up as a part of an installation which happens to be a completely black box with a small slit through which viewers peeps through to catch a look of the video. This is done to portray the feeling of 'being watched' on the lane constantly
Assignment 2
Concept for the Interim Project
Working with the basic concept of using two-three places and connecting the activities with Skype and using the two-second delay as a benefit in terms of adding the point of improvisation & making the whole project even more captivating, I would like to improvise on it. The focus here would mainly be the act of improvisation and the place shall not matter much. Any three locations can be chosen, say, Old campus’ Amphitheatre being one, Yelahanka Market being another one and the third place being Purvankara Venezia (Society/Apartments). One person could be given a theme to act upon while the second person gives sound effects/voice-over and the third person gives background music to add drama. The three will connect via Skype or FaceTime. The location will help the performers bring in more drama into the act. We can use professionals for acting and giving the background music while the person giving a voice-over/sound effects could be any person.
Film Production for main project
Manoj & Puja
Since we have two locations to document, we have decided to have Hansa and Uma assist us during the final performance. We will be dividing ourself further into two groups and going on each location. We will also need to thoroughly study both the locations but we do have a vague idea of how we could go about it. How do we start ? what are the important shots? Using establishing shot, long shots of the whole scene and close-ups of face/movement of the feet can depict the sense of rhythm achieved/interpreted by the dancer by listening to the text as well as by the continuous ‘beat’ added by the monotonous sound created by the sewing machines in the factory. Keeping the film in B&W will add to the feeling of monotony as well as to the rhythm. Also, the text being read is processed by the listeners in a linear fashion in the context of being a garland of words linked to each other and not making much sense, which in return gives an advantage to the film being shot in black and white. The recording of the reading in the campus can be done by playing with the close ups of the reader’s face, that zooms in and focuses only on half of the reader’s face, that is, from his nose to his chin.
Revised Concept for Interim Project
This experimental project includes a skype performance between a dancer and an actor. There are two separate locations : A screening room in one of the campuses where an actor will read the given text and a factory, where the dancer will dance in reaction to the text and the environment in this factory. The projection of the dancer in the factory will be made in the screening room where we expect an audience and the actor to do the reading. The agenda of this experimental project could be to find out how well and how much can the dancer absorb from the text and express the same through his or her movements. The text will be in relation to the factory.Using poetry that talks about the situation in the factory or the monotony of the factory life would be good. Something that highlights the monotonous & repetitive nature of the factory, bringing forward the black and white nature or something that talks about the life of a factory worker. Mass production, same activity, same routine, same 9 to 5s but where do we get such a poem or text from!! Or maybe we can read a couple of them, extract the points we think will be usefull and make out own poem or text? That might just work. A mood can be set, the mood of the text and the mood that the factory creates should be really be the same and shall also be reflected in the dancer’s moves. A bigger challenge would be if we add a few lines in between this text to break the mood? OR a text which might not be related to the factory, and deviates from the topic in order to break the whole mood of the monotony created by the environment in the factory
Concept note:
The reader will enact fragments from Deleuze/Guattari* at a garment factory. The reader will be dressed up like one of the factory workers and will be reading&enacting the text in a very day dream-like or surrealistic way as she drifts away into her thoughts and imagination building a secret world entangled with words that spur out from the text. As time passes and the factory workers slowly start to come back to their desks, she jumps back to reality and into the monotony of the place. The dancer , on the other hand, perceives the text, rhythm and the atmosphere of surrealism created by the actor at the factory and communicates it through her movements. The screen which is placed between the audience and the dancer becomes the fine line of distinction between reality and perception.