Word of Mouse is a Powerful Tool, And the Pen is Mightier than the Swordfish, Painting and Sawing makes You Feel Like a Fool, So be Careful for just what You Wish.
Censored Sensibility has been a long and difficult process, but one that was hugely exciting. We have not had a single instalation without its problems, but everything is a work in progress, and that’s something we resigned ourselves to from the very beginning. No matter the difficulties, working with a dear friend on a hugely creative project that focussed entirely on something we are both passionate about – language – made every second worthwhile. We also received some incredible feedback (yes, friends, we are considering taking CS to another city and letting it grow), and – despite skin-of-our-teeth moments and change-of-plan situations – we are hugely proud of the work we created. We feel we put together a piece which effectively explored the nature and power of language, and which came across in a professional, creative and (most importantly, as noted in another post) hugely original way. English, Art, and Drama have come together, and everything came together in the end too. Trial and error is a strangely wonderful thing, and nothing we do is an exact science. We have made it through the process scathed but proud. Victory.
‘If you create values and ethos around what you do, people will relate to that’ – Kate Kendall, speaking at CreativeMornings.com
Spoken Word Poets:
The work of these veritable artists acted as a huge driver for my creativity and passion during this process. I stumbled upon Andrea Gibson a while ago and had loved the few videos I’d seen of her performing her SWP. Through talking with Cassie we continued to find others and I have learned a lot about this particular interest and passion of mine. Work like AG’s and her counterparts like Anis Mojgani and the glorious Jackie Hill is reflective, intelligent, and insightful – it can even sometimes be quite hard-hitting. I think it is this combination of commentary or critique with the beauty of performative delivery and skillfully crafted language that draws me to it, and is the reason our 10 Day Poetry Challenge (seen, in our gallery, on the divider which faced ‘Expression’ – the desk installation) was able to be so successful. I am not usually one for creative writing; I can write essays, and can perform, but the two never seem to come together as such. SWP inspired me to push myself and the 10DPC was a hugely enjoyable (and difficult) challenge; we have found a line by which we are connected to poetry, just as Acconci is connected by his background in with the medium. The poetry, initially shared only between myself and Cassie was hugely personal and intense in most instances, but received positive feedback when seen by our peers during the gallery. It is also nice to feel that we have somewhat repaid our ‘Worst Words’ contributors for their bravery, by being brave ourselves; we have made our piece a conversation between trusting friends, and what better way to creatively exist in a piece all about the power of words.
Creative Mornings:
CM are ‘free monthly breakfast lectures for creative types’, as they so call themselves (www.creativemornings.tumblr.com). They talk about the process of creation, design, marketing, failing, and everything else, and their tumblr is a great outlet through which to see the points which they feel are paramount from each lecture (and also to gain some sense of their company’s interests). They and their work seem so full of passion and knowledge and, most importantly for me, the wisdom to inspire creatives. It is often noted in their lectures that effort and willingness is key (as Shane Koyczan puts it, ‘effort is the siamese twin of success’), and as Censored Sensibility, I feel perhaps a truer word was never spoken. The attitudes and ideas they convery are encouraging and inspiring and notes like ‘Your creative imagination will always be greater than the technology at your disposal’ (from a CreativeMornings.com [www.creativemornings.com] lecture) sing to CS – our experiences, ideas, attitudes, issues, and so on – as if it was actually written for us. We prefer creative afternoons (mornings were made for sleep, friends) but CM was instrumental in driving me forward.
People:
A simple one. The willingness of our peers and friends to provide encouragement, feedback and questions has been a really useful thing. It has also been wondervul to see people so fully investing in each other’s work – it’s been the final countdown, our final pieces of work coming into being, and everyone’s heart is not just in their own projects but in everyone else’s. The support and assisstance, too, of outsiders like Lauren Barnett Kemp and the LPAC tech team has been staggering and haas had a considerable effect on our success – in fact, on our ability to be creative at all in the first place. Lastly, gallery visitors and professional feedback was extremely positive and it is so rewarding to know that the hard work has paid off.
Something which, in our study and consideration of language, strikes us as an interesting point, is the value (or lack of value) we place on some words, and indeed the positive (and negative) attitudes we have towards some words. Some words are less enjoyed, or are indeed abhorred; profanities, for example – think, ‘everyone’ has the same most hated – are just a series of letters as much as any other word, but our valuation of the word, proportional, it seems, to our use of it, has made it so much more severe. Stephen Fry provides some ridicule of the Watershed by noting that in everyday life we (rather overdramatically) place negative terms where they are not best used – ‘the traffic was murder this morning’, ‘this lecture is torture’, ‘the highstreet is dead today’ – and do not see the nonsense in this. Morover, we don’t feel any need for censorship in this – but, wait, we are talking about death, torture, murder, so… What’s more, Fry notes that even in doing this, we feel the need to wait until the dark of night to say, for example, ‘fuck’ (in a sexual context or otherwise) when the use of this and its brothers expresses genuine passion and intensity. How can we censor passion but not the thoughtless use of serious terms?
Statistics Mark One:
Thinking from here about the nature of potentially destructive language, and having discussed our favourite words and, perhaps more reluctantly, our hated ones, we considered language somewhat in relation to identity, asking the
question ‘What is the Worst Word someone could use to describe you?’ Setting out a black box (calling to our aesthetic desires and designs, as ever – something referred to as ‘the insistence on the image’ in Theatre of Images Revisited by Klich and Scheer) we allowed people to write that which they consider to be the worst description someone could use for them and place it in the box. 107 responses came, bravely, from our peers adnwe chose to categorise them in order to move towards a format through which we could represent the statistics. Arguably, it would have been better to allow a cross-section of our peers to categorise the results themselves because they would then be reflecting on their contribution, rather than we as theatre-makers ma
nipulating something which we were only facilitating. Regardless of this, though, the piece – particularly the categorisation – was rather insightful.
Statistics Mark Two:
St&tistics – Worst Words
From the collection of the data we experimented with various ways of representing the statistics – perhaps a slightly crude way of considering people’s feelings about these words (and, by extension, themselves) but arguably all the more effective because the coldness of statistical representation is in such sharp contrast with the deeper meanings that the critique and message of the piece is all the more significant. Taking inspiration from visual representations of rape statistics which I came across via Tumblr (and which can be seen in original location here – http://www.circlesoffireproductions.com/2013/01/the-facts-about-rape-are-bad-enough/) I began to experiment with various ways to achieve the end goal – an attractive and clear presentation of the information which was still unusual enough to fit with the character of our piece. Our final presentation – red and black against a stark white background, and with ‘&’ as a frequent image (all of which is a continuous thread in Censored Sensibility) came together clearly and visually attractively, yet another contrast to the negativity of the work’s implications.
Statistics Mark Two-Point-Oh-No-Actually-Never-Mind:
After the collation of the first sets of data, we changed our box to read ‘What is your favourite word?’ While this was an interesting task and one which received many responses, to change to a positive idea, we felt, decreased the value of the first ‘Worst Word’ idea. An exploration of positive language tells us less about ourselves and our use of language and does not have the critical edge which we very much desired and which features in all of our installations. Perhaps a shame to waste it, but we feel it was better left alone. Nothing we do is an exact science, everything is Trial & Error, and if you don’t try you’ll never know.
‘They say you should never judge a man before you have walked a mile in his shoes. Almost everything in life is a matter of perspective – affected by context, by experience, by understanding. We should learn to see things from others’ perspectives, to learn, to not be ignorant. This installation highlights the effect of perspective, a visual representation of a social commentary and a matter which we no doubt take for granted, indeed perhaps do not consider not at all, insular beings as we are.’ – Censored Sensibility.
Much of our understanding, opinion, and use of language is effected by matters of perspective. Social, cultural and experiential differences influence the employment of language, and it is worth thinking about this. We are reluctant as a blame-culture, as self-absorbed society, to see things from other people’s perspectives. Selfish and determinted and ever-opinionated, we rarely put ourselves on others’ shoes.
Perspective Mark One:
The original ‘Perspective’ context started life as ‘THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORDFISH’ – a phrase which sings to our love of language and writing, but a subversion of the the phrase as we understand it. This subversion takes away some of the severity of the phrase and its commentary on the power of language and communication over action and violence. It is also a moment for us to [not] be funny, and to draw in people’s attention. Upon passing the original installation of ‘Perspective’ – placed upon an indoor window by way of ensuring frequent traffic (a veritable marketing ploy) and subtly hinting at the importance of clarity in language use and understanding – the subversion of the phrase causes people to stop and look at it again because it is not what they had quite expected. We have a love of the unusual and an enjoyment of intrigue, and this was an opportunity to draw upon this (as were many of our installations).
Perspective Mark Two:
‘Perspective’ developed alongside the aesthetic and artistic demands of the gallery format (and our own particular style) into a fully-formed installation. The work was originally intended to be a series of 3-dimensional letters which housed a projection of a given phrase to be sketched on, the projection then removed, and the image entirely and clearly visible from a particular position in the room. Demands of time and workload (which, yes, we felt we could easily combat and which we did, though with a struggle – hindsight is a wonderful thing) meant a move to a more simplistic format. 3D letters created, we chose the phrases ‘TAKE CARE’ and ‘BE KIND’ which would be visible from a point in the room. Of different sizes and typographical styles, the letters were arrange on various (a little mismatched) pieces of furniture, which created an eclectic character which we as theatre-makers felt was both appropriate and beautiful.
Considering the implications of positive and negative words/messages, alongside the value of aesthetics, Censored Sensibility spent two hours writing out the message ‘HAVE A NICE DAY’ in detailed and attractive font. The time it took to create and the length of time it remained reflects our whole piece – durational, gallery-like, installation-based – effectively and proved an encouraging place to start. Placed in a thoroughfare area of the LPAC, the piece became known as ‘Degredation’, and our primary concern: will people be precious about stepping upon a work of art, and one that has a positive message? or will the work degrade, with passers-by not considering their effect on the work?
Degredation – an experiment.
It was well-noted that we had spent a considerable amount of time working on creating the piece, so the breakdown of the work was interesting to see. People’s concern is showing disrespect to the piece while it is still being worked upon, or while its artists are still present. However, given the steady Degredation of the work over a week and a half shows that this concern does not translate to the every day. It proved interesting to see the gradual change and, given that Censored Sensibility is largely concerned with the power of language, that a positive message does not necessarily encourage great thoughfulness.
Degradation Mark Two:
Large-scale re-formats seem to be something about which we’re quite keen, but perhaps Mark Two was a step further than necessary. A durational and large-scale recording of ‘HAVE A NICE DAY’ was taken in the outside courtyard of the LPAC, our second home and a place of frequent people traffic. Though a good opportunith, it did not experience enough degradation to truly and effectively represent the message and implications of the installation. Loss of a memory card may have been a blessing in disguise, because we moved back to a simpler and more effective format.
Degradation Mark Three (or, Mark One Revisited):
Returning to our original format, ‘HAVE A NICE DAY’ became a gradually degrading chalk message of which pictures were taken to document its breakdown. These images were compiled into a presentation which was projected in the Censored Sensibility gallery and in front of which people were invited to sit and look at the degradation of the piece. As theatre-makers it is important to be flexible, open, and creative. Nothing we do is an exact science, and not everything will go perfectly to plan. We felt this here and in every installation (none were without their problems) but it was certainly worth it for every moment of learning, every opportunity (or, arguably, need) for new ideas, and as a test (and therefore testament) to our commitment to the work, something which we feel certainly came across.
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