As created by The Strange Names Collective's - Master Ship Builder - Les.
Finishing touches are being added, we need a name...
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Pirate Ship!
Regard the Pirate Ship/Memory Loci!
As created by The Strange Names Collective's - Master Ship Builder - Les.
Finishing touches are being added, we need a name...
As created by The Strange Names Collective's - Master Ship Builder - Les.Finishing touches are being added, we need a name...
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
What do you do with a completed/redundant text?
At the end of the the 12 hours the text produced by the performers over will be completed as a result of time running out. Question: what should we do with a text which, at the moment of completion has already achieved its performance, has become redundant as a script?
Monday, April 27, 2009
Recent gift/Mascot/Pirate Ship near completion
I received this gift on Sunday from our ship builder Les, I believe that this fellow should become our mascot:
The ship is very near completion, just a few decisions regarding crossbeams on the masts and the bowsprit.
We will need a name for the ship...
The ship is very near completion, just a few decisions regarding crossbeams on the masts and the bowsprit.
We will need a name for the ship...
Friday, April 17, 2009
Some thoughts relevant to this performance:
Open a context.
Gather the entire world in the work.
Make work without guarantee of return.
Exhaust the possibilities of a single note.
Gather the entire world in the work.
Make work without guarantee of return.
Exhaust the possibilities of a single note.
What is this show about?
Some initial thoughts:
Practically: Invention, memory, and forgetting.
Conceptually: Oral history and the written word.
Thematically: Amnesia, dementia, decay, and aging.
Practically: Invention, memory, and forgetting.
Conceptually: Oral history and the written word.
Thematically: Amnesia, dementia, decay, and aging.
A Ship...
During the creation of a performance, some former students of mine would joke that they had not yet completed the scene in which a Pirate Ship would arrive on stage. This scene would have no bearing on the performance they were actually making.
However, a Pirate ship is actually being constructed for the performance, to act as a Mnemonic Loci.
Phil.
Mnemonic Loci
In ancient advice, loci were physical locations, usually in a familiar large public building, such as a market or a temple. To utilize this method, one walked through the building several times, viewing distinct places within it, in the same order each time. After a few repetitions of this, one should be able to remember and visualize each of the places in order reliably. To memorize a speech, one breaks it up into pieces, each of which is symbolized by vividly imagined objects or symbols. In the mind's eye, one then places each of these images into different loci. They can then be recalled in order by imagining that one is walking through the building again, visiting each of the loci in order, and viewing each of the images that were placed in the loci, thereby recalling each piece of memory or speech in order.
In all mnemonic arts, advice is given that the mental places should be well lit, clearly set out in a particular order, at moderate intervals apart. The more architectural elaborations of rooms, passages and niches it has the better — in the sixteenth century, the sequence of architectural loci was sometimes called a "Memory Palace." But the loci were also to be grouped or "chunked" in "brief" sets of items, no more than what the mind's eye can encompass in one glance: this is the medieval equivalent of what we now call a "working memory" (Carruthers, 1990, Dudai 2002). Loci can actually be used to remember more than one set of ordered things. The images may be replaced by new ones--the loci are the "wax tablet" or "page" on which one writes the images, as one can write with a stylus onto a more permanent surface. The characteristics of the images one uses are very important. They should be unusual, vivid and striking, and it is good if they have emotional content as well. Humorous, obscene or sacrilegious ones (as they may seem to us) are often used. The goal is to make a uniquely memorable picture (Frances Yates 1966, Small 1997).
Because one can readily imagine moving through a memory structure starting at some arbitrary point, one can easily recall the list starting from any point in it, and even recall it easily in reverse order. Prodigious memory feats have been attributed to this method. The art of memory is an aid to composition and rhetoric, not an aid to rote memorization. In the Middle Ages, it was carefully distinguished from rote, for with rote memory, one must always go in the same order. The use of loci within a system produced a sort of memory which one can enter from an infinite number of places, and thus one can work with it-- change it about, shuffle, go backwards or forwards or jump around (Carruthers 1990; Carruthers, Ziolkowski 2002).
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
In all mnemonic arts, advice is given that the mental places should be well lit, clearly set out in a particular order, at moderate intervals apart. The more architectural elaborations of rooms, passages and niches it has the better — in the sixteenth century, the sequence of architectural loci was sometimes called a "Memory Palace." But the loci were also to be grouped or "chunked" in "brief" sets of items, no more than what the mind's eye can encompass in one glance: this is the medieval equivalent of what we now call a "working memory" (Carruthers, 1990, Dudai 2002). Loci can actually be used to remember more than one set of ordered things. The images may be replaced by new ones--the loci are the "wax tablet" or "page" on which one writes the images, as one can write with a stylus onto a more permanent surface. The characteristics of the images one uses are very important. They should be unusual, vivid and striking, and it is good if they have emotional content as well. Humorous, obscene or sacrilegious ones (as they may seem to us) are often used. The goal is to make a uniquely memorable picture (Frances Yates 1966, Small 1997).
Because one can readily imagine moving through a memory structure starting at some arbitrary point, one can easily recall the list starting from any point in it, and even recall it easily in reverse order. Prodigious memory feats have been attributed to this method. The art of memory is an aid to composition and rhetoric, not an aid to rote memorization. In the Middle Ages, it was carefully distinguished from rote, for with rote memory, one must always go in the same order. The use of loci within a system produced a sort of memory which one can enter from an infinite number of places, and thus one can work with it-- change it about, shuffle, go backwards or forwards or jump around (Carruthers 1990; Carruthers, Ziolkowski 2002).
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Mnemonic Link System
A mnemonic link system is a method of remembering lists, based on creating an association between the elements of that list. For example, if one wished to remember the list (dog, envelope, thirteen, yarn, window), one could create a link system, such as a story about a "dog stuck in an envelope, mailed to an unlucky black cat playing with yarn by the window". It is then argued that the story would be easier to remember than the list itself.
A probably more effective method rather than creating a story is to actually link each element of the list with the following, seeing in one's mind's eye an image that includes two elements in the list that are next to each other. For example, if we wanted to easily memorize the last list one would imagine his or her dog inside of a giant envelope, then one would "see" an unlucky black cat (or whatever that reminds the user 'thirteen') eating a huge envelope. The same logic should be used with the rest of the items.
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
A probably more effective method rather than creating a story is to actually link each element of the list with the following, seeing in one's mind's eye an image that includes two elements in the list that are next to each other. For example, if we wanted to easily memorize the last list one would imagine his or her dog inside of a giant envelope, then one would "see" an unlucky black cat (or whatever that reminds the user 'thirteen') eating a huge envelope. The same logic should be used with the rest of the items.
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Gathering Storm
‘It was a dark and stormy night and the First Mate turned to the Captain and said “Captain tell us a story” and the Captain said ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’
The Gathering Storm is a 12-hour durational performance exploring the pleasure of invention, the work of memory, and the destruction of forgetting. Inspired by a never-ending circular joke, three performers will work to create, tell, and attempt to remember an increasingly gigantic story, that their memory cannot retain as time goes on.
How will the show work:
Two candlelit performers at the front of the space, dressed as pirates, will take turns telling a story that gains a new sentence each time it is told, all of which the two pirates must faithfully remember. As the story increases in size and the performers’ minds come under the strain of exhaustion, their memory will begin to fail and characters and events will begin to disappear from the story as quickly as they are introduced.
The third performer, lit by laptop and projector light, will work ceaselessly to type up an accurate version of the story, projected onto the back of the space for the audience, but not the other performers, to see. The third performer will also keep time and record the number of times the story is told, but crucially will act as a last resort replacement for the forgetful pirate performers. As the performance proceeds the third performer will become increasingly vocal as the exhausted performers become silent.
Or at least this is how the show is currently planned to operate, but this may change as new ideas and rehearsals influence the piece...
The process of moving from an idea to a performance will be documented here.
The Gathering Storm is a 12-hour durational performance exploring the pleasure of invention, the work of memory, and the destruction of forgetting. Inspired by a never-ending circular joke, three performers will work to create, tell, and attempt to remember an increasingly gigantic story, that their memory cannot retain as time goes on.
How will the show work:
Two candlelit performers at the front of the space, dressed as pirates, will take turns telling a story that gains a new sentence each time it is told, all of which the two pirates must faithfully remember. As the story increases in size and the performers’ minds come under the strain of exhaustion, their memory will begin to fail and characters and events will begin to disappear from the story as quickly as they are introduced.
The third performer, lit by laptop and projector light, will work ceaselessly to type up an accurate version of the story, projected onto the back of the space for the audience, but not the other performers, to see. The third performer will also keep time and record the number of times the story is told, but crucially will act as a last resort replacement for the forgetful pirate performers. As the performance proceeds the third performer will become increasingly vocal as the exhausted performers become silent.
Or at least this is how the show is currently planned to operate, but this may change as new ideas and rehearsals influence the piece...
The process of moving from an idea to a performance will be documented here.
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