dEaNo

painter | photographer | eternal student

www.deanobase.com

Practicalities

Location Scouting

Response to Meta Angst

Practicalities

I have acquired a 6mtr by 3mtr chroma green screen for our photographic and filming purposes. It is now safely rolled up on a scaffold pole in my studio ready and waiting our first tests and experiments of its potential. (on the wall is an anti war collage i am working on)

Location Scouting

The venerable Peter Spriggs has offered us the use of his house as a location for filming both exterior and interior shots of 'The Kremlin', he has even agreed to play a cameo role as a Russian guard and indicated that he might like to join MAMA. There are cellars, a roof top, the grand stairs and the outside that are all great.

Subversive Immersive

So the theatre event performance installation action could be held in a large hall. There could be a stage in the center of the room that the audience could stand on any side of the stage, (this could also be divided into sections divided by curtains if needed).

As the audience enter the space there is maybe some subtle action taking place on the stage and once the audience is fairly complete then the show really begins. Other areas of the space would be illuminated from time to time and some action take place in those spaces the narrative all linking between let’s say the four corners of the space.

But it is impossible to see everything that is happening at the same time, so one corner would be lit another one goes dark, perhaps its the opposite corners there’s action taking place in both, and then back to the center stage and then another corner and so on so the action moves around the room (perhaps one area actually communicates directly with another area if the narrative demands).

The experience is immersive and dense operating on many levels and it is impossible for the audience to grasp everything that takes place. This would reference Baudrillard's 'Death of the Author' in that the audience may go away understanding some of what happened but not all of it and maybe they fill in the blanks themselves; as to what may have caused something to happen in the performance, so it stimulates dialogue and argument conversation and possibly leaves the audience wanting more.

Theater Absurd

Adam and i at long last could spend a day together, and among other creative endeavors we were able go over some more mutual ideas.

One of these very strong ideas is something i have often wanted to achieve; that is to combine, performance and installation, into a fully immersive theater absurd.

We are on the same page and realise that anything we do could potentially contribute to this venture. Painting, printing, photography, film, music, lyrics, scripts, sculpture, practically everything. To this end we would like to recruit more participants to our MAMA movement, anything goes...

The original 'Theater of the Absurd' had three characteristics that comprise features used to express tragic themes with comic forms. This includes the concept of 'anti-character, anti-language, anti-drama and anti-plot'.

Meanwhile i have obtained a 3 x 6 mtr chroma green screen for us to explore possibilities of optical illusions, world building and live action in a fine art moving image and photographic context.

Art Group

We both seem to like building worlds and I have been doing something similar recently with my self portraits where I am the subject, installation, demonstration myself. I have been thinking about how to develop this and although at the moment it is all a bit personal, I think that I will want to break out if this soon.

Ropey, the figure I made was ‘bound’ and I have been thinking about bound by convention and the first steps to ‘becoming’ unbound is that you understand that you are bound. Then you can sort of unravel yourself. Now I am all up for the metaxis and finding new ways to do positive things and bad you say we are struggling to find the new ‘thing’ or toy, but maybe what we are doing is finding a new way to think? We can develop this and pass the baton like you say.

We should be in no real rush to bash something out, we have both done a lot of work and thinking and we still have a long way to go.

I am totally up for everything, MAMA is our movement and it’s a real thing and it’s anything we decide it is. It’s all good it’s all MAMA

MAMA is invisible but there like an all seeing god ?

I do like the idea of dressing up like action figures in our own worlds… creating characters and stories, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, demonstration… it’s a great mix and very open ended…

An art band like Gorillaz? I thought about the costumes, like super heroes they are this kind of hindrance, like Ropey is all tied up but becomes unbound and can do his thing, the opposite of Spider-Man etc who has to go out in their clobber to do shit…

Combine animation and live action, like in Dare? Model worlds that we can exist in as alter egos, that also exist elsewhere, metaverse?

Ropey could be filmed as stop motion, I might have a little go at that and try some animated movement in pinhole images.

If we knew some other musicians for example that could send us samples we use in the imaginary band’s tracks, all the actual members like you say kind of exist in the imagination, ‘the imagination is everything!!’

We produce video nrratives made up of imaginary worlds combining all our various mixed and multimedia skills… models, animation, live action, stop motion, Timelapse etc…

Live action and models like your conveyor belt in sculpt factory and my train set offer another way to put some visuals together. Some old camera tricks that mess with perspective and scale would go well. I will run a few screen tests over the weekend with models etc.

I have a day of print tomorrow and letterpress on Friday so I will see what that develops, I am still thinking of William Blake

Can you combine the digital animation with live action? I thought of a storm with lyrics flying about out in visual purity, disrupting…

Maybe I could record some models in live action or stop motion with a green screen behind and then combine that with the digital animation. I think slot of layering would be great like that

Have you seen Europa by Lars von Trier? Some very Interesting film techniques in there.

The main danger here is just creating a gimmicky MTV music video, we need to keep our edge. The thing about the toys is that they could actually have a positive effect on kids lives and the wider world…

https://youtu.be/pC_zffOenk8

https://youtu.be/qORYO0atB6g

https://youtu.be/uAOR6ib95kQ

Merger/ Taskmaster

I like ‘mergers’; there is something there, like supplying a kit of bits and bobs and as you say with lists of other things that might be around the house and some instructions on how to get started, possibilities, consequences, adventures, missions...

Many parents would not have the imagination to think it up themselves, but this could be an inexpensive toy set to trigger and inspire creativity?

If it did work as intended it would be open ended and fully customisable, which sort of invokes Baudrillard's 'Death of the Author', as you can make it your own, authentic, original, unique.

I'm sure its not for everyone tho, 'haven't got the time etc', but maybe its important to gently suggest that the time has to be somehow made. It has to be on a level that the parents would have as much fun with the process as the children.

So we are back at things that will also appeal to adults, so they enjoy it so much in fact that playing with the kiddies is no longer a chore, they look forward to it and cant wait to do it!!!

After describing the outline to my little family, we agreed that the concept is somewhere along the lines of the Taskmaster format;

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmaster

We even have the board game, see below:

Response to Meta Angst

Metangst.mp4

Mind Map

So i am thinking along these lines to kind of consolidate where i believe we are headed at the moment.

Toys.pdf

Cas Holman

I watched the Netflix 'Art of Design' doco and was impressed by many of Cas' ideas. What i have especially taken away though are the concepts of modular inter connectivity and oversize.

https://www.netflix.com/

In both cases i believe these are applicable to our initial abstractions and in the case of the monsters/ clown, adaptability could connect with for example Jung's theory of the archetypes.

https://medium.com/personal-growth/4-carl-jung-theories-explained-persona-shadow-anima-animus-the-self-4ab6df8f7971

This may seem bit far fetched, but introjecting philosophy into the design of toys might not be a bad thing. Essentially what i am trying to propose here is that the figures could possibly be anything and the reflection of this could indicate somehow to the child participant the potential they have to be anything or anyone they want to be.

Here the children are at the beginning of life's journey and if it is somehow suggested that this can be both terrible and beautiful but it is what they make of it, that choices and options can ultimately lead to consequences.

This of course is still not a level playing field, but knowledge is power, children may well be able to grasp much more through both the conscious and unconscious than they are given credit for. Any advantage could be beneficial, particularity as most most toys available to the mass market seem to be simply preparing children for the established dumbing down process that will attempt to default their lives.

https://casholman.com/

Cold War

I have idea for a board game. I made a game during my second year BA for the artifact, it was called ‘Don’t Get Bit in the Vipers Pit!’, I did a slide presentation to introduce it.

This new game I am thinking of is a cross between Monopoly and Risk.

I'm calling it ‘Cold War’; superpowers both trade with allies when it suits them but also batter them as opponents, economically and with strategic military strikes to secure resources and place embargoes and sanctions to finish the job… any thoughts?

Visual dictionary

"Ropey"

Kids like weird stuff spooky stuff so I’m going to look at the sublime/ eerie to begin with and maybe look at characters that have already been established in myth, history, literature, film or art and elsewhere as a basis, a starting point for developing ideas for characters further.

Aiming for either one toy that is the next big thing or even better and bigger a range of collectibles, toys that can be played with together and interact with each other but also strong enough to stand alone in themselves. Think of worlds that these toys exist in, different alternative realities or situations.

I will be looking at ancient Egyptian art, I stumbled across this during my thought experiment, it was the embalming techniques that were particularly interesting for me ‘visualising a pile of human organs’.

I need to go back to the British Museum and the V&A.

Ropey.mp4

Roping up the action man to create a kind of spooky toy ‘bound’. Like a kind of Egyptian mummy type monster with perhaps some superpowers and accessories.

Photograph in situations perhaps in coils of rope perhaps climbing a roped up tree in rope world.

Put “ropey“ into some kind of context.

Pinhole photo taken with homemade 4x5 camera, Formapan 100asa, 7 minute exposure, developed in Rodinal.

Radical Beginnings

I have never done too well with collaborations, but i am not giving up. The collaborative dialogues module showed me that it is possible to work together achieve things that individually would be far too difficult in a short space of time. I did find the module a challenge as the group i was in lacked charisma as none of us really put ourselves forward and we didn't have a clear plan. But i did notice how other teams were extremely successful and this has aroused my curiosity.

The two groups i think did the best were 5 an 9. Alice and i agreed to continue collaborating and i approached Adam who i had already discussed collaborating with.

So we are currently a team of three, working on a mutual theme of satirical toys, where will it lead us?

For my BA i used Action Men and model soldiers staged in the landscape and photographed with homemade pinhole cameras.

The narrative for my major project was based on romantic era visual imagery and the local story of the Last French Invasion 1797, right where i live outside Fishguard.

So i am not new to working with models by any means.

Something else i bring to the table is my experience as a parent; i took great interest and had much fun with my own children's toys while they were growing up. I can look back and remember the influence they had on my son and daughter.

My son Harry was really into Lego and his Bompa would patiently spend hours with him building the most complex constructions, Harry is studying engineering.

My daughter Hazel was never into dollies, she was always painting, drawing, creating and making; Hazel is studying sustainable design.

My first toy idea was a clumsy clown that falls over, squeaks, makes silly noises, has many amusing but pointless functions: party hooter, rotating bow tie, squirting flower, trousers fall down etc.