Why vs Why Not - by James Clotfelter 7/04
To adequately reflect the human condition, art must evolve with the current technology and socially relevant expectations of the time. However, as radical improvements and developments are made, our sense of the “why” becomes increasingly confused with the “why not.” There are deceivingly limitless options in new equipment that allow one the ability to create highly stimulating visual “images” and more easily adapt a design to a changing or non-specific environment. There is a tendency, then, to forgo the initial intent that must develop when forced to establish a specific purpose in advance. Propelled by the media and corporately driven artistic endeavors, this lack of specific purpose has become an unfortunate tendency in our technologically advanced pop culture and is certainly not limited to the theatre. Superfluous technologies can undermine the discipline of the artist, allowing a less creative and misrepresented intent of a moment on stage or otherwise. Conversely, visual “statements” are based on choices we make that have specific purpose and are thoroughly examined before they are committed to the stage. It is important that we examine these methods and address the ideologies underlying them and the rhetoric surrounding them in order to achieve a more accurate and effective sense of what we are trying to accomplish.
Through Mlab, my experimentation with machinery and lighting in close relationship
to video will, I hope, evoke provocative imagery that will support the ideas
brought forward in the collective work at hand. Because of my frustration with
the crippling limitations of moving lights, I plan to develop techniques that
will redefine the term “moving” by experimenting with the physical
position of the source relative to its immediate environment or specific object.
My desire to use machinery represents the manipulation of our immediate reality
by cultural phenomena such as fear, coercion, and complacency propagated by,
but not limited to, the media, politics, and the entertainment industry itself.
How do we recognize and reclaim our individuality and independent perspectives?
As a general concept, I construct my design forum around the ideas of minimalism
and negative space because this is where I have found the most demanding, challenging,
yet, rewarding, circumstances for creating unobstructed and striking visual
statements. By manipulating the line between video and lighting as accepted
and expected light sources, I will explore the total relationship of theatrical
elements and challenge the relative physical relationship of the light source
and the focus object.
- James Clotfelter
"Projection must not become an intruder into the performance space, or it risks being as instrusive as an audience member wandering on stage in the midst of a performance Projection should be no different than a performer who has rehearsed from the beginning and been an integral element of the creation process. In this way all its actions are in relation to the human action on the stage, the projection must listen and engage, it must know when to take the spotlight and when to step into the shadows. never upstaging another performer, or, in its moment--being upstaged itself. It is in the accomplishment of this that the idea of human technologies enters. Because no electronics, or lens, or number of lumens can master this subtle balance.”
- TR