Quickie #8: Make a quickie that attaches at least two people together.

Quickie # 7: Make a quickie that enhances the aesthetic quality of the movement of the body.

Human Body in Motion

There is no dream. from Laura Thompson on Vimeo.

QUICKIE #6: Make a Quckie That Enhances the Movement of the Body

SINGLE HUMAN BODY: Artist's Statement

A statuesque figure stands in a basin of water, which is being pumped through a series of tubes attached to the blank canvas of a white unitard. Red water snakes up the perimeters of the body and releases streams of color onto the white canvas, slowly turning the statue a reddish pink.

This is the visual representation of a single idea within a passage filled with vivid imagery: "I'm a fountain of blood/In the shape of a girl" ("Bachelorette," Bjork). Human beings are alive and filled with so many complex internal functions that we forget the basic elements of our own existence. This fountain releases streams of blood for the eye to absorb and for the system to recirculate while a living human being stands on display at the center of everything.

The tubes follow the sames paths as actual veins in the human body on the unitard, which is a vehicle for not only their attachment, but for visual clarity. They were fixed to the unitard while it was on the performer's body and attached to a simple system, devised with information from conversations about the technical logistics of a fountain with people in an aquarium store and a hardware store.

Conceptually, everything derived from the visual descriptions in the passage and the idea of the written piece overall. The problem is the struggle to physically represent the idea submerged in two specific lines of writing while maintaining the ideas within the larger framework of the visual landscape established throughout the passage.

There is already an existing video that goes with the writing, supplied by the artist. It depicts a story that is not clearly stated within the passage, but is instead implied in her mind. In the video she finds a book buried in the ground and it starts writing her story as she travels to the city, has it published, and the story becomes a play. The play depicts the same thing happening until the artist is trapped in a play within a play within a play. Eventually everything is swallowed up by the earth where she initially found her book. My fountain, which represents two lines of the story, encapsulates many of the same ideas about the cyclic nature of life and the identity of the person that is on display and vulnerable to the audience.

I'm a fountain of blood
In the shape of a girl
You're the bird on the brim
Hypnotised by the Whirl

Drink me, make me feel real
Wet your beak in the stream
Game we're playing is life
Love is a two way dream

Leave me now, return tonight
Tide will show you the way
If you forget my name
You will go astray
Like a killer whale
Trapped in a bay

I'm a path of cinders
Burning under your feet
You're the one who walks me
I'm your one way street

I'm a whisper in water
Secret for you to hear
You are the one who grows distant
When I beckon you near

Leave me now, return tonight
The tide will show you the way
If you forget my name
You will go astray
Like a killer whale
Trapped in a bay

I'm a tree that grows hearts
One for each that you take
You're the intruder hand
I'm the branch that you break

"Bachelorette" by Bjork

QUICKIE #5: Make a quickie that inhibits or contstrains the movement of the body

"Well, I swear that you spilled into my room last night
Oh, covering me in sheets so tight that I didn't move
I just laid around until the early afternoon"

-Tilly and the Wall

INSPIRATION FOR THE HUMAN BODY IN MOTION: Time Lapse Sleeping

I have been having a really hard time sleeping lately and it's gotten me thinking about how people interact when they sleep in the same bed and how we toss and turn. It's a very natural form of movement simply because you aren't consciously thinking about how you're moving or relating to the other person (you're asleep).

I want to create a piece that is about two people sleeping together in a shared space. First I would take actual footage of the performers sleeping and then I would create a piece of choreography based on how they specifically interact and move. I think this idea could be a really amazing series of different pairs of people sleeping, but I plan to start with just one and build from there.

Sleep Lapse Photography