Monday 31 January 2011

a hot date with the TATE

Some of us started a collaboration with the TATE and other major international museums and schools today as part of the 'Turbine Generation' initiative. WOW. It was actually amazing fun! No where near the slog of research I expected it to be. Every task we were set was so visual and interactive I loved it!

First we were asked to design, make a model, and pitch a concept to fill TATE modern's turbine hall. Like the unilever artists who have exhibited there we needed to consider the use of space, light, acoustics, interaction, visual impact, physical impact, inclusion of a mezzanine deck...phew! As a group of four (Toni, Tedi, Rob and I) we came up with the idea of filling the space with typewriters on old-fashioned school-room/ exam desks. Each typewriter would have a huge spool of paper attached and throughout the day people could come and sit and type their thoughts, at the end of the day the papers would be gathered and filed in archives on the mezzanine along with a selection of the days news papers and visitors could read through people thoughts and reactions.

The next project however was really the best, each group decided on tasks or instructions and wrote them on a piece of paper which was then picked at random from a box by another group. We set the task of stopping in a moving crowd and lying down to then capture peoples reactions. The task we picked however was to film us following strangers making humming noises. This soon grew to harmonies and eventually songs with some fantastic accompanying dance moves from Toni ;) We literally didn't have a single shot which didn't end in us all just collapsing in hysterics! The best bit though was as soon as you got a funny look you could just shrug your shoulders and say "it's art".

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