I am currently investigating incongruous, luck and loneliness within public spaces, Gulliver looks through tunnel vision at the world but the presence of the uncanny explores the Incongruous, which soon changes into loneliness. My use of props teeters on the edge of Incongruous and Luck. The uncanny nature of the objects used out of context, fall and move in any way I can possibly manoeuvre them
Rock Paper Scissors – The figure interacts with the audience, giving out a total of 30 umbrellas, followed by 30 bottles of plain water, the third prop a paper head which is concealed in a black bag, which the figure then puts on and sits on the ground. The incongruous act soon transforms into loneliness, a man wearing a head within a head. A modern detached outlook has the potential to rupture with a surprising act from an audience member. The figure sits motionless until the performance is broken or interrupted, begging the question whether someone pours the water onto the paper head.
The Idea of the paper head in these two performances came from my visual research, I watched Frank (2014), I noted a quote from the film, ‘what goes on inside that head… inside that head?’ the feeling of loneliness and unknown incongruous of what is beneath. I have also used other films as a visual research, A Clockwork Orange and Metropolis (1927). Prior to watching A Clockwork Orange I read the book, upon realising that Alex had no choice in life he narrates ‘Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever’ A Clockwork Orange (1962) I found the passage one of the loneliest I have ever read, especially within the context, hopeless and having no way of changing the cards your dealt.
Rock Paper Scissors had influences in the films A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Metropolis (1927). I looked at the horrific scene where Alex Dances to singing in the rain, I felt it had a element of the incongruous, as the scene itself is horrific and but singing in the rain is the opposite in it being happy not matter what, it’s a very lonely scene, for me anyway. Absurd. I started to think how lonely it is when you see someone walking in the rain on their own with an umbrella and how one may think of the umbrella being lonely and not actually think of the person underneath it, but when you see many people with umbrellas it almost seems like they are happy and they belong. Metropolis influenced the manner in which I distributed the Umbrellas in a circular motion, watching moments in the film, such as the use of time and visions of clock like structures throughout the film, the one machine has almost random distribution of lighting this is how I distributed the umbrellas and water.
