Suffragette Summary

What is performance art?  There were many stereotypes about performance art.  Most would say that it involves minorities, artists would perform naked, performers are either homosexuals or people with a problem to talk about, the artists are self-indulgent, the performances are autobiographies, or that even the props or costumes used do not relate to the performance.  But these are just stereotypes of the characteristics of performance art.  What’s special about performance art is that everything is live: the live presence of the performer and the live presence of the audience.  Performance art stands out, as it is a type of art that points out the differences between what is being performed and what is being interpreted. 

Unlike theatre, performance art is not acting, and it is not artificial.  There is also a difference between the form and content of performance art and theatre.  The form of theatre is really dependent on the content of the performance where one can say, “this play is about…” while in performance art; there are endless possibilities of the content and form of the performance.  In other words, performance art is a way of improvisation.  Performance art is also dependent on where the artist I is performing, while in theatre, there is a fixed environment or the environment doesn’t matter at all, the play will go on as planned.

In performance art, the content is very important to lead and create a form.  An example of this would be in December 1997 where disabled citizens were protesting in front of British parliament.  The protest was against the government’s proposition on cutting funds to the disabled’s benefits.  As a result, an armless and legless man painted the pavement red with his stump.  This was engraved in the memory of the public.  What this man did was a type of performance art.  He sent a strong message to the people and it was effective.

Performance art was invented by the suffragettes which created a feminist movement acknowledging the issues the women were having during the late 19th century.  These performances by these women were done as small plays to bring across messages about the issues.  As a result of the suffragettes, performance art was born and continues to live on till this day.

Purpose of Intent

A blog has many uses. Some use it to keep track of the news; others use it as a diary or a journal. For me, a blog is a way to communicate with others. I use a blog to keep track of my life, my events, and even my actions. I’ve made this blog as a way to start over a new leaf, or in this case, move into a new shell. I named the blog KK’s Nutshell because in a way I feel that a blog is like a walnut. The shell is the visual feature of the blog while the posts are the contents inside the walnut. The only reason why I chose a walnut is because walnuts are especially hard to crack open. I am similar to a walnut. I am hard to crack but once I’m open, the things I post on the blog are rewarding. The pictures in the header and the background are pictures that I took one morning outside in my backyard. It took some time for me to be able to upload them on to the blog because the image sizes were too big. As a result I took the two images and compressed them in photoshop. I chose to do my blog on blogger because I felt like I was in my comfort zone. I knew my way around on blogger and it was much easier than blog options that were given. It also seemed that I was able to be more creative on blogger as well.

Assignment #3: Audio

Audio art has the ability to narrate a story or an environment to the audience that listens.   It is to be done without any visuals at all.  This gives the audience an opportunity to use their imagination and interpret the sounds in anyway they please.  The theme of this audio assignment is the time from “Dusk to Dawn”.  In response to this theme, I’ve decided to do a combination of sounds from when one wakes up in the morning and some highly energetic music.  When the audio clip begins, it starts off with about 5 seconds of silence, which gives the audience time to wonder in anticipation about what they are about to hear.  After the silence, we can hear the sounds of the clock ticking away until the listener is awaken by an unpleasant alarm which irritates the listener enough to slam on the alarm clock in order to turn it off.  As the clip continues, we will hear sounds that almost everyone starts their morning with.  So far, all we have heard is “morning”, assuming that the audience usually wakes up in the morning.  However, we then begin to hear music in the background.  We are at a club.  In fact, this isn’t in the morning.  This is at night. The idea of my audio assignment is to give the audience something different to listen to, something we wouldn’t usually hear with the sound combination I’ve provided.  Ex.  We wouldn’t usually hear someone get up in the morning just to go somewhere with loud music and a heavy bass.  I got the idea of “coming alive” at night from the idea of a vampire.  It is said that vampires don’t like the sunlight so they tend to sleep during the day and wake up at night.  This is similar in a sense.  Some people like to rest during the day and go the clubs during the night until the break of dawn.  The music that I’ve chosen is by DJ Tiësto, “Elements of Life, Ten Seconds Before Sunrise, and Bright Morningstar”. The only reason why I chose to use music without lyrics to is to give the audience a chance to imagine the surrounding environment and the movement throughout the piece.

CLICK HERE:Listen

Assignment #2: Video

            Before assignment 2 was given to us, I had already been thinking about how my film was going to be like.  In many cases, I had to scrap the original idea and went back to the script but in the end, everything turned out great.  At first when I began filming, things were rough.  Everything was in my head and nothing was on paper so neither one of my friends knew what they were suppose to do and I was confused about how each shot was going to be taken.  Fortunately, after the first day of filming, I was able to finally get a script together and everything was smooth from then on.  There was a lot of sun during the weekend so I decided that it would be the perfect time to film.  After 2 to 3 days of filming, I had realized that there weren’t enough clips to fill up even half the song, which was 3 minutes and 40 seconds.  This resulted in scrapping the script once again and re-thinking the plot.  The original idea of the script was that both cast members would mirror each other’s actions in a split screen kind of story.  However, that didn’t use up enough time so in the end there were no “split-screen” scenes in the film.

            In the end I felt that the filming was really fun because I was with two of my friends.  Although the recommended time on the course outline was 1 minute to 3 minutes, I felt the need to go over because of the song I chose to use.  I didn’t want to leave a bit of the song out or else the film would seem awkward.  The songs I used were “By My Side” and “I Choose Happiness” by David Choi.  During the filming process, I had to go through two cameras, and in order to get the high angle shots, I stretched my tripod and held it up as high as it was needed.  When we usually see short films or videos, there would usually be credits at the end of the video, so I decided to make credits at the end of my video along with some bloopers or moments that was caught during the filming process.  

Click Here:Video

Assignment #1: The Electronic Project

Creation:  Portable Tic-Tac-Toe

            Not so long ago before there were machines like film projectors, there were stage performances.  One of many things that were older than stage performances were puppet shows through a really thin piece of paper and performed with a really bright light behind the puppeteers.  Inspired by this ancient art of story telling, I have decided to give it a little twist.  Instead of telling a story, I have decided to give it another kind of entertainment: a game.  Behold my portable tic-tac-toe machine.  However, this portable tic-tac-toe game isn’t exactly a game.  It can be used as a babies’ toy by just pressing the buttons and individual x’s or o’s would light up.  Before I began making this assignment, I pictured an arcade like machine were the x’s and o’s would be put in specific places on the screens made of normal white paper.  Below and in front of the screens would be individual buttons that would light each square that would either show an x or an o.  Materials that I have used are cardboard, heavy construction paper, LEDs, alligator clamps, electrical tape, and multiple types of batteries for testing.  

First I made a large box to create the main part where the screens are going to be.  The screen is split into nine smaller screens where the x’s and o’s will appear in front of an LED light.  Behind each screen will be a mini platform that will be used as support for the LED light that will be mounted on each platform.  The x’s and o’s will be taped onto each screen to hold them in place.  I thought about the possibility of using fishing line to hang the x’s and o’s up but I realized that the fishing line would be too hard to work with especially when working with a light material like paper.  Next step was the make the bottom half where the buttons are going to be situated.  After making the body, I began wiring the circuit, which then I ended up playing around with it too much resulting in most of the LEDs I bought to burn out. 

The major problem about making this assignment was the concept of tic-tac-toe.  When one thinks of tic-tac-toe, they usually think of a game of outsmarting your opponent by placing an x or an o in a box.  However this creation of mine does not give the choice of placing and x or o anywhere the player wants.  The x’s and o’s are in fixed positions.  Another big problem about this assignment that I have had was that the surface that the buttons were placed on was too fragile so I had to try many times to find ways to reinforce the surface so when I press the buttons, the buttons won’t sink into the box.  Another problem was about the wiring of my circuit.  I really wanted to use 3 batteries to run 3 separate circuits but was still able to turn out each LED light individually with the individual buttons.  I have had some problems with making my circuit so I decided to keep it simple and make 9 separate circuits, where each one will control only one screen.

In the end I guess I had a lot of fun doing this assignment.

Click Here: Tic-Tac-Toe

Nutshell's First Post

Welcome to the nutshell!

Welcome to my blog!
Not much to really write about right now...


Time to get cracking,
Kenneth Kwok