Red in Donmar

The story happened in Rothko's painting studio. American painter Mark Rothko was an abstract expressionist. he was eloquent, keen on dispute with other artists on Art. and used to pain and suffering because of his aggressive and ambitious personality. thus he always felt himself was in competition with other artists, whoever living or dead. Rothko said that his work was about the expression of human emotions with the means of colour. “I’m not an abstractionist. I’m not interested in the relationship of colour or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on … The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions … ”

In this play, Rothko always argued with a young artist who was employed as a craft assistant in his studio. the way they think about art and explain something reality to themselves had exposed the significant aspects of Art industry. I don't really know too much about the artist. but I am rather concerned about artists' social life differed in many interesting points from the normal people's social life. how could they balance advantages of chase their dreams or their business? how could they suffer from the failure and keep on being paranoid insistence?

Tis is a very traditional Donmar style performance.

Öper Öpis - Barbican Theatre

Stanislavsky point out actors have to identify the character as a possible side of the actor themselves. by contrast, physical theatre based on physical activities, play with the interaction of the body and the space. it shows on a surrealistic theatre event which different from daily life. through this nonverbal performance, actors action and behavior are hugely magnified, body language create a meaningful symbol itself. Performers usually do a serial action, but do not reveal their motives and consequences. thereby, the audience was pushed to speculate and imagine.

This time, london international mime festival gave me a lot of inspiration. The continuous development of physical theater is no longer just dancing piece. Contemporary Physical theater have increased and become more diverse. It combined with changeable stage, lively characteristic and ingenious music cooperated. it really catching the eye of audiences.

In the Barbican Centre, the performance Oper Opis completely changed my understanding of physical theater. the use of slope Stage and props were extremely skillful. on the stage everything is being an object, of course the actor's body itself. it produced a strong visual impact to me.

Pop Life: Art in a Material World

Taking Andy Warhol's notorious provocation as a starting point, "Good business is the best art." it explained the important issues raised by the exhibition. All my knowledge about pop art is its popular and commercial characteristics. It is really one of the most accessible art form historically by public. A large number of pop art works can be copied, sold easily, due to Artist's creative purposes are based on a high market acceptability. As an result, pop art raised a debating point: can Art be equated with normal life?

In the exhibition Tate Modern collected some of the well-known Pop Art artists’ work, includes Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and so on. visually, It shown a brief history of Pop Art. I got an up close and personal look at the art history and craftsmanship, there are three representative artists strongly impressed me with their works, they are Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami. To begin with, Andy Warhol as one of the most influential American artists really push pop art onto the top. He created a completely revolutionary method of making art work, directly printed photos onto the canvas such like a serious of celebrity portraits. Certainly Warhol goes on an extraordinary exploration the relationship of art and business in morden society. One of the room The Gems, which present the celebrity culture in the disco culture ages. And meanwhile, Warhol turned himself into a brand, also Filmmaker, Commercial illustrator, Music producer, Writer, Fashion model.

The next artist Jeff Koons. I have saw his Popeye series exhibition before in Serpentine Gallery. I really like his inflatable toys which typically used by children, I engaged with his works and that remind me of my childhood. Koons has explored notions of consumerism, childhood and sexuality through cartoons which is brilliant. However his Made in Heaven series displayed in Tate modern noticed me the same question ‘Could art just show true portraiture?’

the third artist is Takashi Murakami. He and his Japanese company created vast number of attractive and accessible cartoon characters. His work combines both Eastern and Western culture, entertainment and art elements. While he worked with fashion brand as a artist that succeed and attracted most of the young generation.

On reflect thinking, Pop Art is a good example, making art engage the imagination of the average person. for this purpose,It has been an important journey for me in which I have developing my independent project and research. It has, however, been challenging at times. Moreover contemporary performance changes the way in developing deeper concepts and new technologies, both of which try to arouse audience’s curiosity and interest. As a result, public tends to become more involved. In my future work I will continually develop my idea of how performance convey dramatic time experience to audience that mirror their lifetime.

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake

This was an new season for Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. I've seen it in Sadler's Wells Theatre last month.

Someone commented that the premiere in 1996 seemed to be really attract a lot of men and gay to look at the male swans. But now its obviously that a real mixture of ages and types of audiences loved this play. For me, my understanding of ballet, it is absolute not the female dancers' exclusive work. So, I do not felt surprised when I see the male version of Swan Lake. Mention of Prince and swan’s affection to each other, I dont want to define it from gender perspective.It was useless to argue with point of Bourne's homosexual creation. Its kind of feeling that ranged between real and imaginary. It conveyed a irreplaceable beauty of male dancer’s subtle strength. Bourne creating the magical worlds for the audience.

"I think you're always going to get people who think it's about a homosexual affair. They have a real problem with the fact that the Swan is a man. It's not a man. It's a swan. Whether it's male or female, who cares? It's a creature not a gender." Adam Cooper also explained.

Lez Brotherston's designs for Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake © Bill Cooper

DECODE -Digital Design Sensations

In modern society, more and more contemporary art created based on the development and the application of digital technology. It was not only gradually affect artists’ work, but also stimulate view’s sensory perception and visual experience. The exhibition Decode: Digital Design Sensations left me a deep impression on the creativity of digital arts.

This exhibition is a collection of the latest digital and interactive design work, based on screen, projection, interactive installations. most of the art work aimed to make a great breakthrough in communication with the audience by using new tech. Be different from traditional art form，in this exhibition the audience is no longer just a viewer who enjoy the art work, they are becoming the participant and even creator at the same time. As an example, interaction designer and creative technical director Ross Phillips designed an installation that allows viewers to record short videos broadcast in grids on a large screen. All the people who were invited to pose in front of the camera enjoyed themselves. He describes his work as mainly ‘real world’ interactive installations, that ‘giving people a blank slate and a tool to be creative with’. The work are directly influenced and gave viewers a good acting experience.

Moving on to the next stage, when the photography and video tools have become readily available for everyone, then it will become a new communication language. Artist allow public to participate in their works. In deed, Contemporary art are not mysterious and isolated. It will be an great opportunity for artists learn more about themselves and the public. From this side audience is not a mere passive viewer anymore.

In addition, another interactive installation named Exquisite Clock is based on the idea that time is everywhere and that people can share their own vision of time through internet. The project connects time, play and visual aesthetics, designer Joao Henrique Wilbert invited website users collect and upload images of numbers that can be found by themselves onto a website data, then he created the clock by using these number pictures. It is interesting that it combined social interaction and network technologies on the clock screen, and make sense of dynamic time conception. As a result this work remind me a question that how to enhance the relationship among arts and the public. New technologies allows information transmit and share with the public through the network. The way become more popular and easy to understand, also, this feedback loop is more changeful and free.

From then on, I will continue to develop my project research Playing with Time. The idea of create new visual transmission to examine theatrical time concept and the possibility of an interactive performance. While in terms of Decode, I improved my idea that designer and audiences both can enrich its content and method of artwork expression by using technology. These activities have been inspiring and fruitful, and have helped me.

The Weighting Frame - collaborative multimedia performance

During the first term all MA visual language of performance classmates and our course leader Douglas spent two months as a team created a multimedia performance in Wimbledon College of Art Theatre. We used the vast creations as a research base examine the idea of ‘liveness’ and ‘interactive’ limitative possibility in multimedia performance, explored the relationship of artist and audience. We named it The Weighting Frame.

The resulting one hour performance inspirited from Hitchcock’s film Rear Window. Four roles Miss Torso, Mr Thornwald, the Composer and the lady Miss Lonely heart, represent the theme of sex, death, fame, insignificance respectively. We decided each theme have a room in different ways to invite the audience participate in the performance. As a test, this idea tried to break the audience's inherent concepts of theater and gallery space, tried to blur the conventional distinctions the 'fourth wall' boundaries between the performer and the spectator.

Some of the audience were invited to enter each room and participated in events, saw what was happened in the space. but also they were become a part of the performance who were viewed by other audiences out of the room. The audience is given right to choose to see or not to see, to participate or not. This really a challenge for us.

In my work, my colleague and I as a team responsible for the theme of Sex. We spent a long time to find an alternative approach. The aim was to present sexual information in a metaphoric way during feed audience food. All the events in ‘Sex room’ are highly stylized and symbolic. for this purpose, In the performance, object often have appeared in scenes containing sexual activity within Eastern culture. We created a serious event such as preparation, invitation, feeding, and interaction. Some of my creative inspiration came from the Japanese genius photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. He gave me a very special taste of sexual impress which shooting things detailed. such as flower, fish and people’s mouth. Women are the photographer’s very important theme. Afterwards, I shoot some videos about people enjoy chewing his food, and cutting food to make sushi.

In addition, to practice idea about my research "the aesthetic of time" in performance, I was particularly thinking about how to challenge the audience experience true and false visual effect in time. The projection screen play the role of ‘time machine’ which transfer the conception of "Real time" and "performance time". From this point, I combined the live performance projection and pre-prepared video projection to created an surrealistic atmosphere.

In analyzing my work, I feel that this project compelled me to find inspiration from so many various sources, I was really pushed to think conceptually and worked with different ways. In fact, I play the role of female actor who understanding of the Eastern culture in this performance. The process has been an important journey for me which challenge my creativity. It helped me improve myself for the future work.