Puppet Mechanism Experiment

As i had done some designs for a puppet for the horse for parade i then decided to try out one of the puppet mechanisms i had looked into. I made it using simple material, i used wood for the structure, made a hinge out of cardboard then using part of a rubber band to act as a spring to keep the mouth closed. I then used a piece of string to use to open the mouth. This mechanism work well for a puppet as is simple to make an still effective the only thing is that instead of using a piece of cardboard i could have use a hinge or something more durable as i don't think that cardboard would last very long when been used.

Parade Horse

After accidentally doing an automatic design for a hours i then decided to do a few quick designs for the horse that is in parade.

Collage

After doing research in to the 1960's, pop art and Richard Hamilton, so i then tried to create my own college using cut up pictures from magazines. I tried to work in a similar way to Richard Hamilton by using the images to create a scene. I don't think that it worked very well as it didn't turn out as i imagined, i think that it may have worked better if all the images were of a similar scale to what it should be and if there were more images to help complete the scene. 

Automatic Drawing

Whilst doing one of the automatic drawing session i created this image whilst i wasn't thinking what i was doing but just drawing. I created it by just drawing shapes and then adding on to it with different shapes then end result reminded me of a horse or some other similar animal.

1960 what i know so far

From the research that I did about the 1960's and pop art I know... that in the 1960's there was a series of major changes both political and social. Things changes social as things were starting to become more acceptable with the changes in fashion and music hence the name "the swinging sixties". Things changed for women's with the introduction of the pill which was supposed to liberate women as it was no longer the responsibility of the man to be in control of contraceptive.

Automatic Painting

After doing research in to abstract expressionism and the 1950's i then did some automatic painting base on the research that i had done. The automatic paintings that i did were based on the works of Jackson Pollock, the automatic paintings that i did worked well as they look similar to Jackson Pollock's work. But for doing designs creating automatic paintings like this didn't work that well as i didn't have much control over where the paint was going and is hard to create any designs using this style.   

I then tried to control the paint more to try and create some costume designs for parade, trying to control the paint worked okay as the piece that i produce look interesting but as for designs they don't work very well as i still didn't have enough control over the paint.

1950's

Abstract Expressionism

Abstract expressionism is an art movement from the 1950 which started in the 1940. Abstract expressionism is similar to its predecessor with its automatic an subconscious, abstract expressionism paintings tended to be on a larger scale as it allowed the painter to be "in the painting".

Life in the 1950's

Life in the 1950's was good for the white straight male, as peoples views on sex, race and homosexuality were not as accepting as they are now. People view on women was that they were to stay at home and be housewife's. The 1950's was also a time of new technology and designs that were created to make life easier. Life in Britain was one of trying to rebuild after the destruction of the second world war, with rationing still in place for a period of time at the beginning of the 1950's.   

Basil Twist

Basil Twist is a puppeteer who is based in New York, he is best known for his underwater puppet show "Symphonie Fantastique"

Costume Marquette

I want to try out some of the designs that i had done for costumes for parade but without making a full scale costume. So i decided to make so small models to try out the ideas that i had. I made the marquette with simple materials so i could quickly make them just to see if they worked. I made them form wire which i then covered with fabric using glue and then just simply clipped the maquette to a Lindsey Lohan doll. The first one didn't work that well as the pattern that i was trying to recreate from the design didn't work very well in a physical form. The second one worked a lot better as the design was much simpler and the size of the costume was a lot more ambitious which makes the costume look better and impressive.

Automatic drawings 2

After looking at degenerate art i then started to do some more automatic drawings slightly inspired by degenerate art and artist. Instead of being totally automatic i decided to try and focus my designs on character from parade, first focusing on the american girl. Doing the designs like this worked okay but most of the designs tended to be slightly similar and aren't quite as good as some of the designs that i was producing when they were totally automatic. So i then decided to do my designs almost totally automatic as i was still focusing the designs to ward producing a costume for parade. Doing the designs like this worked well as they are more focused but are still very automatic, expressive and have lots of life to them. 

Degenerate Art

Degenerate art was a term that was used by the Nazi's for all modern art, it applied to all art that dint try to depict the natural form or was of nature. All art that was deemed degenerate was banned by the Nazi party as it was seen as a threat and was seen a Jewish or communist and were therefor banned from teaching or painting.

Degenerate art was also the name of an exhibition that was put on by the Nazi party, the purpose of the exhibition was to show the art and the artist as degenerates and for people to laugh at there art and to show how crazy they all were. The art was all so show with text that was show with the art to show how crazy and "degenerate" the art was.

 

Hitler's hatred of modern art seemed to come from his struggle to become an artist in the years before the first world war. Hitler's style of art one that was popular of that time one that was of paintings that were taken from nature and the physical for. Where as modern art depicted images from the subconscious and the mind which was seen unnatural and unskilled.

 

I don't agree with what was happening at the time as It not right to ban something because it is not in line with tradition or your views. I think that there are many reasons for Hitler's hatred for art i.e Hitler's rejection in the art world, his one of and pure race and modern art didn't fall inline with this world and the way the Nazis had a controlled state.

Automatic Drawings

After doing some contextual research into Bauhaus and artists that were involved in the movement i then did some automatic drawings taking inspiration from the research that i  did. I found it very hard to work in an automatic way at first as i couldn't switch of and not think about the thinks that i was drawing. But i then started to switch of and just get in to drawing, which i think show in the later designs as they are a lot more expressive and more interesting designs. The designs that i did once i had switch off and stopped thinking about what i was doing work really well as they could work as costumes for parade. Doing automatic drawings has work as it has given me quite a few strong design within a short space of time and most of the designs work well within the theme of the project parade. 

Bauhaus Artists

Joseph Albers

Albers enrolled as a student in the preliminary course (Vorkurs) of Johannes Itten at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1920. Although Albers had studied painting, it was as a maker of stained glass that he joined the faculty of the Bauhaus in 1922, approaching his chosen medium as a component of architecture and as a stand-alone art form. The director and founder of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, asked him in 1923 to teach in the preliminary course ‘Werklehre' of the department of design to introduce newcomers to the principles of handicrafts, because Albers came from that background and had appropriate practice and knowledge. He was known to meticulously list the specific manufacturer's colours and varnishes he used on the back of his works, as if the colours were catalogued components of an optical experiment. His work represents a transition between traditional European art and the new American art. It incorporated European influences from the Constructivists and the Bauhaus movement, and its intensity and smallness of scale were typically European, but his influence fell heavily on American artists of the late 1950s and the 1960s. "Hard-edge" abstract painters drew on his use of patterns and intense colours, while Op artists and conceptual artists further explored his interest in perception.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus was an art school that was set up in 1919 in the German city of Weimar. The school radically changed the way design was taught in schools as teaching was focused more on the individual that teaching set things as a group. Rather than teaching design basic skills were taught whilst working in studios. Theatre was and important part in how students were taught as theatre productions brought several art forums together. Women were also allow to study at the Bauhaus, at first were they were allow to study anything they wished but later led in to more stereotypical roles as there was a high demand of women who wanted to work there. As the school was publicly funded a exhibition was put on in 1923 to show the work that was being produced. The school had to move in 1925 due to a more right wing political views of the people due to economical problems in Germany at the time and the Bauhaus having a more left wing politics. The Bauhaus then moved to Dessau which was less right wing as it was an industrial area which suited the Bauhaus and the way it worked trying to redesign every day objects and mass produce them. The school then moved again in 1932 to berlin. The school closed in 1933 as there was increasing pressure for it to close form the Nazi party as they claimed that it was the centre of communism.

     

My Orbit Dress and Headpiece

I then used the tutorials to create my own costume based on lady gaga's orbit dress. They are made just out of cardboard and small bits of wire that hold the rings together but still allow the rings to move freely. The costume works well as it moves as i intended it to, i tried to create a harness to make the costume easier to were but found that making one made it harder for the rings to move around the body. I feel that the costume stays on the body well enough without a harness.

The Orbit Dress (how to)

After doing some research and finding lady gags's orbit dress i then found a how to tutorial video on youtube showing how to make both the orbit dress and the orbit head piece. I found the videos really useful as it shows a simple way of recreating them with just simple techniques and material.

Lady Gaga - The Orbit

The Orbit

The orbit was a collaboration between the Haus of Gaga & Nasir Mazhar, Gaga debuted the body sized version on Saturday Night Live. It was also used in the music video for "Bad Romance". Each individual ring can move in either direction. A giant version was also used for the monster ball tour.

The orbit dress kind reminds me of the miss universe costume that i tried to create but i the way the orbit dress works as it is created in a way that allows it to move.