Durability of materials

Looking at the costumes as a part of the whole production, it is imporant to consider how they would fit into the schedule of the performance.
The Nutcracker for example is usually performed only in December, arround Christmass because thats the main heme in the performance. Here, in West side story we are looking at a two year long tour.
Looking at budget of a production which is the main aspect of my project, the durability of the material can also emerge questions such as: If the materials arent durable enough to last the period of production, would it be more expensive to recreate them instead of creating more durable and more expensive costumes from the begining? Therefore, while creating my concepts I've been researching the durability of each recycled material.
 Plastic bags for example the highest durability from used objects, they are also don't fall apart and damage through different weather condition. For that reason, I've chosen plastic bags as the only material for extending layer of a skirt as eventual draging wouldn't affect the material. And also it's the only material which has a contact which the skin - in the upper layer for the work dress. Therefore, I've chosen that smaller size of the upper layer of the work dress as a bigger one can cause discofort at the dancer.
Cellophane has also good level of durability as it is also used for packaging of frozen food. That means it could resist at least an year in frozen conditions and for other types of food such as rise it lasts years. Ive chosen cellophane for the wedding veil as it also resists to different foldings without damaging the material
Camera roll tape - Like the other plastic materials it has high durability.
Drinking straws - they can be made of paper, silicon or plastic.. I've chosen plastic ones, as paper is less durable and the silicon ones are more exprensive. They also provide good durabilityy
Camera Film Roll. Glueing them to a dress could affect their durability and they might fall but sewn on, they can't easily be damaged
CD material - the cd is the more sensitive one. For that reason I've used it only for  the decoration on the top and as the doople skirt's consistant movement could easily affect the material and it will fall.

Materials most likely to be damaged through the 2 years tour:
CD material which ,however, wouldn't affect the budget as a package of CDs cost only 1£ and consists of 5 CDs enough  to be made 2 decorations like this one. As a substitude glitter can also be used which is also as the same price, but a pack contains enough material for making 3 or 4 decoration. I personaly prefer CD material because you can manipulate the size of the needed pieces and is more untypical to use in costume making.


References:
Logomasini, A. (2008) The Whole truth about plastic bags, [online] Competitive Enterprise Institute. Available at: http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/whole-truth-about-plastic-bags [Accessed September 15 2014]
McKeen, L.W., Massey, L,k. 2004. Film Properties of plastics and elastomers. [book] William Andrews

Materials and prices

1.Evening dress

• Camera film rolls for the decorations - 2£ for one pound from ebay
• Drinking straws for the decorations - in pound stores
• Transperant Plastic bags - can be found for free in Tescos and other big supermarkets. If the production requires more or different colors, I've used a plastic carrier bag from tesco with red and orange letter on it to keep the colors set for The Sharks. For this lower layer around 20 bags will be enough. If the production requires 9 (for example) costumes  like this which are too many to be collected for free at once, on ebay also could be found good deals on plastic bags in many different colors varying between 1£ for thicker ones (60 in a pack) and 2£ for thinner ones (100 in a pack). That means that in a case of creating 10 dresses like this one, to the cost of each costume will be added 0,30 p.
• Cotton fabric - 3 meters , 2,00£ per a meter

Total price:  9,00£

2. Work/home dress

• Transperant plastic bags for the upper and extending layer which can be found for free from large stores such as Tesco. There are also extremely useful for in terms of countity because you can get as many as you can using it as key element for more than one costumes.
• White sponges - a pack of which can be found in pound stores. A pack consists of 8 which can be enough for making as least 2 or 3 belts.
• Looking at second hand nightgowns on ebay I found this one which is ideal for my design. The lace piece around the decolletage will be remove and the silk fabric will be adjusted to the sillouette of the gown. The silk gown will add some romance to the design and at the same time will make it better looking on stage because there the other materials are quite simple. It costs 5,30£ (with the delivery included)
• In addition as a linning of the gown will be added an inner cotton layer on the top part in other to look as a finnished dress (Stiffer) not only a nightgown. A metter of cotton can be found in the Sneiton market in Nottingham at a price of 2.00£

Total Price: 8.00£

3.Wedding dress

• Cellophane wrape for the lace decoration - can be found on ebay in great variety of colors at a price of 0,99 p.
• A pack of recordable cd - can be found in pound stores
• Leotard fabric for the top - around 1,20£ per meter in Sneiton market - around 2 meters needed
• Netting - 1,20£ per meter in Sneiton market - around 3 meters needed
• Cotton for the linning 2 pound per meter - 1 meter needed
• Magnetic button - 1£ from ebay

Total: 11.00

Maria - wedding dress, photoshop work in progress

Thinking of the material, my first idea was to use the fabric of a second hand wedding dress and adjust it to my design but the prices on ebay start from 50£. Considering my previous practise with the ballerina costume, I desided that they would perfectly fit to my design and they will also provide the low cost I was aiming at. Additionally, the choreography of West Side Story is seriosly influenced by ballet movement which will also fit the fabric into the concept. Looking at the design, the dress is slighty shorter than the other ones which comes mostly from the netting fabric which adds puffness to the design. Another reason for that is that in the main scene with that costume the character are on thei knees. The lenght will prevent draging of the dress revealing her sillhoette. On the other hand the plastic bag layer which will be seen from tabove will add depth to the dress. The orange color is kept on the three design as a notes which relates the character to The Sharks gang following the approach in the production (There to that element responds the red belt.)

Maria - home/work dress, adjustments & photoshop work in progress

 This dress was first design on paper with puff short sleeves. However, later on these sleeves became to look unappropriate.
In general puff short sleeves aren't very desireable for dance production as the elastic at the end of them could cause discomfort in the dancer during performing different movements.
On the other hand, looking at the images of the other at the other images of the bride dresses I realised that the work dress has to fit under the wedding dress. Therefore, I removed the sleeves from the concept of the home/work dress sketch.
Another issue of the relation between the two dresses can cause the additional upper layer. For that reason, I was looking at ways to make it easy removable so Maria can remove it without interrupting the tone of the choreography. Initially, I was think of adding some buttons which to attach to layer, but every sharp movement can easily tear the plastic bags if there are button sewn on it. For that reason, I decided to create the plastic bags' decoration double layered and the elastic strips of the dress will be situated between the two layers and will hold the dress. Thus, Maria will easily remove the layer and then put the wedding dress on which will perfectly cover the work dress.
This approach is very adequate for two other reasons:

• the scenes with this dress are both romantic and do not include intense dance movements hence there is no possibility to layer to fall before the character to remove it.
• the scene after requires changes in the set as it happens in a different location. That provides the opportunity the layer to be removed with the sets. (the character can leave it on the stands with the other gowns which can be seen behind the characters)

Image from West Side Story

Now here are some work in progress sketches of the dress:

Maria - evening dress, photoshop work in progress

With all of the sketches for Maria,  for first time I've been using another photoshop technique which I hadn't using in my previous photoshop sketches. The image has not been directly outlined on the marker sketch but drawn alongside just looking at the paper image. Also I've drawn the characher in a different body position. Drawing hands on photoshop for me seems a lot easier than on paper.
Here are some work in progress images:

For the final sketch I changed the usage of casette tape to camera film roll as it's wider, which make it more noticeable. At the same time it will also strengthen the effect of the flowing unsewn down side of the stripes. The holes on the two sides of the camera film roll will add diversity to the shapes used in the gown. On the other hand, they will facilitate the sewing process.

Maria - Wedding dress, sketch and references

Image from Shutterstock

For the wedding dress I was looking at images of wedding dresses in the 1950s due to historical accuracy. I decided to base my design on the lace trend which was very popular during the 50s.

Image from Fifties Wedding

Image from Caroline Arthur

The next step was to chose shapes for a lace.  I decided to come up with a pattern which I designed reminding of a lace. For that purpose I took a very common lace curved element (see the image on the top) and combined it with a typical pattern from the 1950s - dots. And that is the result I achieved:

A technical issue about this dress can rise from the fact that it should be put above the home-work dress during the choreography. For that reason the other wedding dresses don't seem pretty much as a dresses but more like wedding shirts. Here I decided to come up with a braver desicion. My design also has a cut on the front but fits strictly to the body figure. In order to be achieve this effect of a dress instead of shirt, there will be 3 magnetic buttons on the area from under the breasts to the waist (on the narrowed area). The button will buckle at the moment which the dance put it around her body saving her any time during the choreography.

Recycled material:

The wedding dress like the first one also includes shiny materials as the first one. The decoration aroung the around the decolletage is made of tiny pieces of cd material - the glanced layer between the between two sharp disks on which the data is recorded. The lace on the skirt will be made of cellophane decoration sewn on the fabric. My desire to use cellophane referencing Jennifer Henry's work had additional impact on my choice of simpler shapes for the lace texture (because of the sensitivity of the cellophane material). the hair accessorie is also made of cellophane which will be taped on the side side of a diadem which will hold the veil to the head of the dancer.

Maria - home/work dress, sketch

This dress is worn by the character in two scenes: the balcony scene and the scene at the bridal shop The image I was looking for creating this gown was a more simple and ordinary considering the fact that at the bridal shop Maria is at work. I also followed the line creatide in the production adding some rebellion notes to the concept. In the production the these notes can be found in the extra seams on the surface of the dress. respectively in my design they can be found in the upper and the enxteding layer of the dress.

Recycled Materials:

The materials on the dress unlike on the previous one are not shiny due to the casual style I was looking for (again following the concept created from the director and the costume designer in the initial meetings)
The belt is made of washing sponges sewn on the fabric. The upper decoration layer and the extending layer on the skirt are made of plastic bags again adding to the rebellious notes in the dress. Unlike on the previous dres, here the extra layer of the skirt is made as an extension of the skirt  and is sewn on the surface of the fabric.

Maria - evening dress, sketch and references

I was looking at the silhouette of the 1950 dresses and also decided to use stripes as a pattern. The horizontal stripes as neight of the sillhouette when the horizontal stripes add more wideness. I chose the hozirontal to achieve a richer look of the skirts and points out the movement of the characher. Moreover, it will look even more beautiful during the spinning movements of the character which are important part of the choreography as it's being seriously influenced by the ballet dance. Here's a great example of the difference between the horizontal and the vertical stripes among the images I gained my influence from:

Vertical stripes, image from Pinterest

Horizontal stripes, image from Pinterest

For the decollage I chose a feminine form which to underline the maturity of the character additionally delianate by more horizontal stripes as a decoration. It refers the personality of the character given in the script and at the same time captures the tendency of the historical period of teenager dressing like more mature people. 

Additionally, as a reference I used the chaotically added layers, observered on the dresses of the Other Shark girls following the line which the director and the costume designer have already presented in the production.

Image from West side Story

Here's the sketch I created for the evening dress of Maria:

Recycled materials:
The decoration on the top is made of drinking straws sewn on the straps of the dress. The stripes pattern is made as a decoration altering a layer of vertically possesed drinking straw cut into equal pieces and sewn next to one another and a layer of cassette tapes sewn to the fabric only on their upper side. The inner exteding layer is made of plastic bags sewn on the linning of the dress.
Effect I was looking for is mature/feminine and at the same time rebellios dress. The riot in the dress can be found on the unsewn upper side of the casette tape layer and the plastic bags. On the other hand the glittering surface of the straws and the casette tape create a shinning nightdress look. 

Characher choice

For my deigns I chose to create 3 concept sketches for the lead Sharks girl, Maria. She is described in the script as "excited, enthusiastic, obedient child mixed with temper, stubborn strength and awareness of a woman". I chose that character because I found a good visual support of her presense on stage but also each concept catches a different style of gown - home/work dress, an evening dress and a wedding dress. This factor provides a diverse way to explore the character, the historical period and to test my design skills.

Image from West Side Story

Image from West Side Story

Image from Dance Tab

West side story the director's view for the production

In order to follow the director's view about the production, analysing the costumes, The director Joey McKneely's concepts follows some etiquette lines from the 50s but at the same time creates but at the same time adds some notes. I separated my observations into two cathegories - decisions which illustrate the director's approach and desicions which are implied by the script:

Director's approach:
One of the directors desicions is to keep white as a main color for Tony and Maria as a symbol of their innocence on the background of the aggresive gangs.
The Gangs are present with an color contrast - bright and warm colors for The Sharks and pale and cold colors for The Jets.
An interesting aspect of Maria's costumes on stage is that although the white is kept as a main color, there are element of the costume which are kept red to keep her Puerto Rican origin. These elements are the red belt and the flower texture and decorations.
The lenght of the shorts and skirt of the American girls which was described as a "disapointing element" of the production from Guise Magazine. Although first I didn't find any images of these costumes in the 2013/2014 and I assumed the approach was the same. Later on I found review a review of Dance Tabs which proves that my assumption was wrong:
 "I also noted that some costumes for the Jet girls didn’t seem to date appropriately to the 1950s. Again, I didn’t feel this irritation in 2013"
The review of the Guise Magazine have also been made for the production part of the 2013/2014 tour so apparently there have been some slight alterations on the lenght of the costumes but they still look edgy and questionable.


Decisions implied by the script and the historical period of it:
The lenght of the skirts which stops just above the knee.
The long lenght of the trousers of the male characters.

References:
Watts, Gr. 2013.Joey McKneely / Jerome Robbins – West Side Story – London [online] Dance Tabs. Available at: http://dancetabs.com/2013/08/joey-mckneely-jerome-robbins-west-side-story-london/ [Accessed September 14 2014]
Miari, A. 2013 West Side Story @ Sadler's Wells. [online] Available at: http://www.guisemagazine.com/theatre/west-side-story-sadler-s-wells/ [Accessed September 14 2014]

Historical research: 1950s

In order achieve historical accuracy through my designs, I made some visual and theoretical research about the clothes worn in the 50s of the 20th century.

Image from Metropolitan Museum

image from Pinterest

Image from Pinterest

Women:
Silhouette: Defined ballerina waste with poodle of pencil skirt

Colors and textures: bright colors, stripes, dots, flower textures, lace textures

materials: cotton, leather, polyester, acrylic,

Men:
Style: Costumes, Shirts, Hats

In the 1950s it also became wide spread among teenages to follow their parents style even more casual than their parents expressing thei rebellious personality. Leather jackets became very popular including vests and jeans.

Teenager in 1950, USA, image from Pinterest

Reference: http://shopruche.com/1950s-fashion.html [Accessed September 14 2014]

West Side Story Script Analysis

Before looking at the contemporary version of the show (West Side Story UK tour 2013/2014), I made some analysis of the script in order to separate the director's vision in the modern show from basic requirements which the script suggests."The more complete a designer's analysis of the script is before the collaborative process begins, the more flexible that designer can be in the process of creating the physical production"(Ingham,R., Covey, L., 1993)

Reading through the script I collected some notes which give important information about he story and added some comment:

In the begining of the script are stated the place and the period of the year. These fact gives imformation about costumes.

Notes: "The action takes place on the West side of New York City during the last day of the summer"

The Script gives precise information about the situation about the two gang. It is a rivalry between the locals, Americans, and the imigrants - Puerto Rican. Their age group also is directly mentioned but at the same time implied by definitions such as "vital, restless, sardonic"

Notes: "It is primarly a consideration of the growing rivalry between two teenage gangs, The Jets and The Sharks, each of which each of which has its own pridefull uniform. The boys - side-burned, long-haired - are vital, restless, sardonic; The Sharks are Puerto Ricans, The Jest are anthology of what is called 'American'."

The text also gives detailed information about the personality of each character.

 Notes: "Schrank is strong, always in command; he has a charming pleasant manner which he often employs to cover his venom and his fear."

Type of characters:

• Protagonist - "Leading character, the mover, the one who wants, the one who incites action"(Ingham,R., Covey, L., 1993)
• Antagonist - "Stands in the way of what the protagonist wants"(Ingham,R., Covey, L., 1993)
• Lead - "advance from ignorance to knowledge, they go somewhere, they learn, they come to understand, they rise and fall, and, by doing what they do, they move the dramatic action forward."(Ingham,R., Covey, L., 1993)
• Support - "do one thing, exert one force, or express one unchanging point of view. Their stance quite literally support the actions of the leading characters, although that support often takes the form of resistance against what leading characters want."(Ingham,R., Covey, L., 1993)

In the script can find some some examples of the following types of characters. As typical protagonists can be described the two gangs leaders Bernardo and Riff. The also some dual characters such as Tony and Maria. Tony appeares in the story first as an antagonist because although he doesn't want to return in the gang, he does is. In the begining Maria is also willing to marry Chino only because of her brother's desicions. However the meeting of these two characters turns them into Protagonists. Chino also appears as antagonist then later when his best friend dies, he turns into protagonist.

The other members of the gangs are antagonists because they are listening to the leaders. However, an important fact while deviding these characters into chategories is their age. Teenagers in life are a lot more spontaneous, willing to action and taking risks and not afraid to fail in life.

As lead characters, can be described Tony and Maria, because they turn away they ideas and while doing that they add the dramatical change of the action.

On the other hand, the other characters follow a certain line of beliefs through the story which makes them support characters
The adult characters also antagonists and support characters at the same time.

References:

Ingham, R., Covey, L. 1993. The costume designer's handbook [book]. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

West Side Story Action chart

Following the script of West Side Story I created an action chart in order to following the characters throught the story. The action/character chart is extremely useful element of a costume designer's profession because it "will provide you both practical planning facts and a means by 'which you can discover the play's rhythm stucture'." (Ingham,R., Covey, L., 1993)
The play structure was confusing the way I read it from the script because there where more of one action put in one scene so I have separated Act I and Act II into locations. The characters from The Jets are colored in blue, the characters from The Sharks are colored in red and the adult characters are in black. The action chart shows in which action each characters appear through the play. The appearances are marked with "x" in each row.

References:
Ingham, R., Covey, L. 1993. The costume designer's handbook [book]. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Griffith, R.E, Prince, H.S. 1957. West Side Story Playscript [online script]. Available at: http://chrhsdrama.wikispaces.com/file/view/WSS+script.pdf

West Side Story Uk Tour 2013/2014 - reviews

Guise magazine writes an precise review about the production focused mainly on the costumes of the show which rates as the most noticeable part of the show. Described as "vibrant" and "brash", they are stated as an ideal example which could never be worn in real life but at the same accured to the historical period and the romantic them of the story.
The magazine also focuses on the great opposition of colors and styles between the two gangs:

"Costume Designer Renate Schmitzer (read an interview with her here) uses colour to convey the rift between rival gangs the 'Sharks' (Puerto Rican immigrants) and the 'Jets' (white Americans).  'PR's' - don a kaleidoscope of colour, wildly clashing outfits of reds, oranges, purples and pinks, wearing their 'otherness' for all to see. The men wear chinos and matching blazers in a range of colours while the women wear flamboyant dresses of layered tulle and taffeta that stop just above the knee and flare dangerously as the dancers dip and spin in a flurry of colour across the stage.
The 'jets' wear  blue jeans - a symbol of their 'all-American' breeding and cream baseball jackets and caps, contrasting dramatically with their Puerto-Rican counterparts on stage. Other costume choices include beige / cream chinos and shirts and orange ties for the 'jets', referencing army-issue style US uniform."

The only critism of the review concerns the lenght of the skirts and the short of the american girls in one of the scenes. I couldn't find any images of that scene from the latest UK tour but I found one from the production in 2008. Pressumably, the creative team decided to keep the approach for this scene.

image from West side story

These costumes could be considered as a failure to achieve a historical accuracy but at the same time they could be define as contemporary notes refering to the rebelious teenagers nowadays.

On the other hand The Guardian focus their review mostly on the choreography and they way it applies classic dance form such as ballet keeping the spirit of the original movements of the production.

"The strength of this particular revival lies in the dancing. Joey McKneely seems content to reproduce Robbins's original choreography as faithfully as possible: the dream-sequence ballet is particularly well done with the idealised, white-uniformed Jets and Sharks shifting in a second from Balanchine-like beauty to knife-wielding brutality."

The York press also adds some interesting comments about the costumes:

"Renate Schmitzer's costume designs are first class too, especially the palette of colours for the Sharks, and the effect of placing lovers Tony and Maria in white is to make them stand out even more from those around them."

The white colors used for the main characters can also act as a symbol of their innocence.



References:
http://www.guisemagazine.com/theatre/west-side-story-sadler-s-wells/
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/aug/09/west-side-story-billington-review

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/theatre/11238225.review__west_side_story__leeds_grand_theatre/

West side story - UK tour

For my design, I decided to focus my attention on The UK tour of West Side Story around the UK.
As a visiting production West Side story has made two (2008/2009 and 2013/2014)UK tours with the same creative team and different dancers.

Team:
Joey McKneely - director and choreographer
Paul Gallis - set designer
Renate Schmitzer - costume designer
Donald Chan - musical supervisor and conductor
Hannelor Uhrmacher - make up designer
Rick Clarke - sound designer
Peter Halbsgut - light designer
Jill Green - casting director
Dagmar Windisch - executive producer

The costumes in the two visiting production have main similarity between the costumes.
 Some of the costumes such as the dress of Maria (the character which I chose for my designs) in the scene on her balcony, remain the same.

The scene on the balcony of Maria in 2008 UK Tour

The scene on the balcony of Maria in 2013 UK tour

There are also costumes on which have been added just additional details and layers in order to look more complete and beautiful. An example can be noticed on the dress of Maria during the song "America" where an upper red layer of decoration is added to her dress.
Another group of costumes seems to have been redesigned as a whole keeping the same style and similar colors but using different textures and additions such as the costumes of the Puertoricanian girls during the same act. The skirts have some added layers mostly around the belt area which adds accent on the waist movement of the dancers.

Puertoricanian girls singing song "America" in 2008 

Puertorican girls singing song "America" in 2013

images from West Side Story

West Side Story

For my additional practical work I've decided to design some costumes for the musical West Side Story. Here is some initial information about the musical:

Idea:
West Side story is a drama, inspired by Shakepeare's drama Romeo and Juliet, based on a tragically ending love story emerged between two teenagers related to members of rival street teenage gangs with different ethnic origins. The narration is set in New York City during the 50s of 20th century. The main characters who fall in love are Tony, an ex-member and a best friend to the current The Jets (white skin toned), Riff, and Maria, the sister of the leader of the other gang the Sharks (who are from Puerto Rico), Bernardo.

Sinopsis:
The action of the musical happens in only 2 days.
Day 1
In the opening act the audience is introduced to the rivalry of the two gangs. First on stage appears the local American gang, The Jets, and then one by one appear the member of the Sharks which are continuously invading their territory.
At the gym, where Riff has also invites his best friend and former member, Tony, the two gangs show a comparison with different dance moves. The sister of Bernardo, Maria, also attend the dance. Althought she has already been set up by his brother to marry his best friend, Chino, she meets Tony and they both fall in love at first side. The two teengers don't hide their emotions and the tension between the two gans explodes. Led by their anger, the two leaders have an argument and arrange a street fight between the two gangs.
Later Tony determined to see Maria again, finds the place where she leaves, climbs up her balcony and they set a next day meeting at the shop where she works. At the same time the details of the rumble are arranged between the two gangs.
Day 2
On the next day, Tony arrives at the bridal shop. They spend some romantic time together and start trying some wedding clothes from the shop on. Tony promises to prevent the rumble.
 Although he arrives in time for the fight, the leaders pulled out knifes and the rumble ends up with the Riff, killed first by Bernardo, and Bernardo, killed by Tony in his anger of losing his best friend.
Furious by the death of their leader, The Sharks leaded by Chino pulls out his gun and start searching for Tony.
On the other hand, Maria sends her friends Anita to warn Tony about that danger, but taunted by the other members of the Jets, she tells them that Chino has killed Maria.
Hearing the news, Tony is heart-broken and goes in the street to search for Chino and to ask him to kill him as well. Unexpectedly he runs into Maria, but while running towards her ends up being shot by Chino.
At the end, Maria sets peace into the two gangs teling them that they have all been resposible for the deaths and the body of Tony is carried away by the members of the two gangs.


Characters:

The Shark - boys:

• Bernardo
• Chino
• Pepe
• Indio
• Luis
• Juano

The Sharks - girls:

• Maria
• Anita
• Rosalia
• Consuelo
• Fransisca
• Teresita
• Estrella
• Margarita

The Jets - boys:

• Tony
• Riff
• Diesel
• Baby John
• A-Rab
• Action
• Snowboy

The Jets - girls:

• Anybody's
• Velma
• Graziella
• Minnie
• Clarice
• Pauline

Adult:

• Doc
• Lieutenant Schrank
• Officer Krupke
• Glad Hand

The influence of globalisation on contemporary art

Looking at wider contexts and factors  that have reflected on the forming of conteporary art, I found an article made by the English magazine Frieze. It presents the influence of globalisation on contemporary art by comments of great variety of art practitioners, criticts, journalists and other art related professionals through from last few decades to nowadays. I decided to focus on their view of the present (or 2005th year when the survey was made) in order to illustrate the global changes affect art tendencies. In addition, I have relate them to different aspects of my projects,

• Audience focus

"...art is no longer a separate sphere. It is now permeated by the art market, by business and political interests, and by the values of the ‘creative industries’." - Teresa Gleadowe, Director of the MA Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, London

The capturing of the audience attetion driven by the development of business has been main focus of contemporary artist. It has spread a mass branding of artists, art cathegories and art venues in order to achieve popularity among the public. While in the past, art was observed by aristocrats and people in higher social position, in the 21th century art has been developed to cover people from all social class.

"The audience for art has exploded in size, with a growing emphasis on diversity and education." - Teresa Gleadowe, Director of the MA Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, London

This change in terms of accessability has expand the borders of the term "art" and added new forms of it.

"...since the 1990s there have been many attempts to open up this enclosed territory and to diffuse art into the public arena. Daily activities have been appropriated into artistic projects that encouraged the participation of the viewer. Metaphorically speaking it could be said that newness has shifted from the content to the interface. " - Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan.

However, recycling and recycled materials have formed a tendecy of branding themselves.

A recent survey about Green Branding of University of Herdfordshire shows: 

"On the product characteristics front, an additional differentiation can be achieved by endowing the product with environmental characteristics, especially since this in itself involves supplying a service component, for example information and certification connected with the Environmental Management System (EMS) of a company. "

Or in other words a constructive relation of a product to the environment can cause a positive difference in consumers perception of it. The same statement could be put in art context as the usage of recycled and environment friendly materials in an art performance can increase the audience's willingness to attend it.

• Saturation in the art field

"Today, when new conceptual styles and forms have reached the point of saturation and are no longer expected to be fresh, the ideological newness regarding display and transmission should be taken into account." - Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan.

"Perhaps the constant recycling of styles, not only Postmodern but also ‘post-new’, is an indication of art and MFA overcrowding." Jack Hanley, gallery owner, Los Angeles

That saturation of artists and art works has been caused not only by the great presense of art venues, exhibitions and fairs and the extention of the term "art" but as well by the development of access to online platforms such as social media, personal websites, video broadcasting sites and the recent bum of blogs.

However, as a part of the outcomes these two tendencies have been observed - art based on previous art works and art illustrating the personal identity of the artist. As I've already researched great number of artists, I linked some of them to the following cathegories.

"Analysing art-historical works is now one of the best solutions to interesting and well-formulated problems" - Luis Camnitzer, New York artist

A great example of an artist and designer who is basing her work on previous art work is Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and her references to films such as Starship Troopers, Cat Woman, Star Wars,etc with which she is illustrating contemporary global problems.

“styles and personal signatures have increasingly become trademarks rather than elements of cultural communication, and the elimination of the erosion of information between conception and execution is becoming the priority.”- Luis Camnitzer, New York artist

On the other hand, in the line of artists that are basing their work on personal style can be refered Jennifer Henry who expresses her unique style covered in the extraordinary execution of her shining red carpet cellophane gowns.

• Elimination of live contact between the art work and the audience.

"Art has become a globalized field, no longer bounded by the physical presence of the work of art.” - Teresa Gleadowe, Director of the MA Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, London.

"The X-Box/iPod sense of hardware and software now applies quite efficiently to art world structures. ‘Performance’ art can be packaged and monetized as easily as collateralized and loaned collections. " -  Jack Hanley, gallery owner, Los Angeles

That lack of necessity in the audience to touch the piece has been driven by the development of internet technology. A special contribution to alienation of the observer more recently have been having the video-sharing web sites such as youtube.

"Like many other digital achievements, Youtube's and other video-sharing sites' accessability have provoked visions of a total democratization of audiovisual space, where there are no barries between producers and the audience, or between professionals and amateurs" (Vonderau, P., 2010)

Not only have video-shaing sites brought easy access to a video of artworks from all around the word but they've also had a great impact on budgeting of a production. This media channel sets equal rights for low and high budget productions leding the final product to talk for itsself.

References:
Catulli, M., Morris, K., Brown, C.Green Branding and networks: building salvaged material 
in a branded value proposition. [online] Available at: http://impgroup.org/uploads/papers/7318.pdf  [Accessed September 09 2014]
n.a., 2005. How has art changed? [online] Frieze. Available at: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/how_has_art_changed/ [Accessed September 09 2014]
Vonderau, P., 2010. The Youtube Reader [online book]. Available at: http://forskning.blogg.kb.se/files/2012/09/YouTube_Reader.pdf#page=64 [Accessed September 09 2014]

Recycled houses

An incredible enterprise by Greg Kloehn illustrates how the recycled materials could not only have a positive reaction towards nature but also could be useful for other humanbeings. The American artist builds compact mobile houses and give them away to homeless people in California. The materials the artist bought was only nails, screws and glue and the rest objects the houses were made of he collected from illegally left in the street garbage. Among the found objest were bed and wardbrode frames, mashing mashines.

The art works of Kloehn are great example of the usefullness of recycled material. Not only has he added a unique artistic approach while building them but his work also concerns global issues of the future.Although his pieces are given to only homeless people, they also provide great living conditions for every person. They illustrate an ideal optinionate future with their mobility, low cost and environment friendlyness.

References:
Watson, L., 2014. These homes are garbage! Mini-mobile houses made out of recycled trash including bed frames and washing machine doors for homeless people. [online] Daily Mail. Available at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2636084/These-homes-garbage-Mini-mobile-houses-recycled-trash.html [Accessed September 08 2014].

Definitions - environment and found object as art forms

I decided to add the definitions of these terms as I've been mentioning them very often even mostly as synonyms. They are separate art movements but there are some meeting points which are essential for my project. The found object art involves every day objects into art work. On the other hand, the environtental art covers every art form which shows relation between the artist and the environment, from obvious relation such as landscape paintings to relations in more larger sense such as the usage of recycled materials and their positive effect to the environment.
In that context, my project could be considered as a meeting point of those two terms as I'm using both untypical for garment making materials and at the same time nature friendly materials.

Found object art
"Found object originates from the French objet trouvé, describing art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects or products that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function."

Environmental art
"Environmental art is an umbrella term for a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically-motivated types of works."


References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object#cite_note-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_art

Collabor-8 Animation workshop - Promo video making

For the Collabor-8 event we had an animation workshop during which we create a video based on the idea of the event which will be running on a massive screen at The Space. It is an interesting creative low budget approach to promote an event.

The main aim of the event is to unite all young people aged 15-25 and to inspire them to create art together and express their creativity. The flyer and the logo of the event is made by 8 faces (mine and of another 7 member of Get Involved) drawn on a piece of paper with different color makers. The short video has the same idea. It consists of 3 part - one of them is the coloring of the Collabor-8 text which is also part of the logo in different colors ad prints, the secong is the profile faces and the third is a face with a sound wave coming out of its mouth. All we used is a large piece of brown paper, can also be many smaller sticked together as a background and additonal pieces of brown paper on which we made the drawings and and placed them on the large piece. As a budget it cost around 10£ - 7-8£ for brown paper and 2£ for makers.
During the making the camera was set on a certain box and we were placing and removing the images. The movement was simulated by the slow change of the position of the object we put. With the coloring of the text we sticked the letter on the background, coloured a bit of them, then moved away from the shot, took a picture, and colored a bit more, then removed again, take a picture, ect. The less the progress of the coloring is for a picture, the more natural it looks as a movement afterwards. The same procedure was with the spinning 8 and the other parts of the video. Finally the effects were added on Adobe After Effects.
Here are some stills from the video making:

Here is the final video made by Ben Arrowsuch (Also a member of Get Involved):

http://vimeo.com/105363462