The Presence Project

The Presence Project Collaboratory now incorporates more than a dozen extensive discussions with contributing artists now available through the Collaboratory, including:

Marianne Weems http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/831

Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/1120

Fiona Templeton http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/1101

Phillip Zarrilli http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/1143

A full directory of these discussions of presence, performance and visual art is available at our Presence research grouping, available on the Collaboratory at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/493

Our most recent posted discussion is with Tim Etchells:

I don’t know if there is such a thing as simply ‘being there,’ just being present. Being present is always a kind of construction. Perhaps we could think of presence as something that happens when one attempts to do something, and whilst attempting to do that thing you become visible; visible in not quite succeeding in doing it, visible through the cracks or the gaps. (Tim Etchells, Presence Project Interview)

Our interview with Tim is now avaliable online through the Collaboratory at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/646

Recorded by Gabriella Giannachi and Nick Kaye following Tim's Presence Project workshop, 'Presence and Absence Intertwined,' our discussion ranges over Forced Entertainment's live performance, digital and installation work, as well as the company's collaborations with the photographer Hugo Glendinning.

Throughout, Tim considers the constructions of performer presence that animate the company's work, as well as the work of other influential artists including The Wooster Group and Peter Handke.

courtesy Tim Etchells

Reflecting on the impact of new technologies on the construction and performance of presence, Tim notes:

One of the things we do as readers of signs and situations - and of all things - is that we respond to absences - and we fill absence. So, you know, the way the telephone makes us imagine the whole person, the way that in text chatting - instant messaging - in writing, you sort of spend time with other people but you are not in the same room as them. And because it’s purely in that sense, because it’s purely language, there is a huge role for you in mentally unpacking what’s written or, in the phone, unpacking what’s said, to create people.

As we look forward toward beginning year 3 of the project, we will be significantly extending the Collaboratory resource, incorporating video documentation, publishing a wide range of interviews and significantly developing our core investigations.

We welcome contributions and enquiries - details of contributing to the Presence Project Forum are at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/1095

Posted by Nick Kaye at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On 21 June, 12.30-4.30, Bella Merlin will conduct our sixth and final Presence workshop of the series here at Exeter.

Coming from a training in the Russian School which combined Stanislavsky, Michael Chekhov and Jerzy Grotowski, Bella’s particular emphasis in the exploration of performing presence will be in many ways remarkably simple: what happens between two physical bodies in the performing space?

Her investigation will try and unravel some of the complexities arising out of that simple encounter when actors undertake - in Stanislavsky’s words - to 'get each other in each other's grasp'. This process also connects Grotowski’s via negativa and how the actor strives to eliminated inner and physical blocks between action and impulse.

Putting the notions of 'radiation' or 'communion' under the metaphorical microscope, Bella will work with actor Miles Anderson, whose extensive experience in theatre, film and television has challenged his own understanding of 'presence; in the moment of performance, whether in front of the camera or in front of a live audience.

Through a series of silent etudes, in which the actors' attendance to the minutiae of each other's facial, physical and (most importantly) energetic changes prompt impulses in the moment of performance, Merlin and Anderson will work towards an analysis of text (taking a scene from Three Sisters between Vershinin and Masha and/or a scene from Anna Karenina between Anna and Vronsky). This in turn will lead to an investigation of how the spoken word alters the actor's psycho-physical state in the moment of performance: to what extent is 'the present' nudged out of the picture by memory-testing the pre-learnt lines?

Bella Merlin trained as an actor in the UK and at the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. She has worked extensively with director, Max Stafford-Clark in co-productions between Joint Stock and The Royal National Theatre, including David Hare’s The Permanent Way, She Stoops to Conquer and A Laughing Matter. Bella’s many other roles have included Masha in The Seagull, The Governess in The Turn of the Screw, and Celia in As You Like It, with numerous performances on radio and television.

Bella’s wide ranging publications include: With the Rogue’s Company: Henry IV at the National Theatre, Oberon Books, 2005; Konstantin Stanislavsky, Routledge Performance Practitioners, Routledge, 2003; and Beyond Stanislavsky: The Psycho-Physical Approach to Actor-Training, Nick Hern Books, 2001.

Bella Merlin is Lecturer at the University of Exeter.

Audience places for the workshop are free. The workshop will take place in Theatre Studio 2, in Drama's new complex, The Alexander Building, Thornlea, University of Exeter. Details of how to find us are here http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/performing-presence/How%20to%20find%20us.php

To book an audience place at the workshop please contact l.m.dowsett@exeter.ac.uk

An introduction to Bella's is available through the Presence Project Collaboratory at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/350

Images reproduced courtesy Bella Merlin..

Posted by Nick Kaye at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)