TV and Theatre

6. TV - Allie (videogames, video art, filmmaking)
 - Anti-TV parent

Possible Titles (lol I tried my best):
Get Rid-eo of Videos??
Television Rescission!
"You'll Melt Your Eyes Out!" (A Christmas Story anyone?)

Problem: A kid whose parents are anti-tv. There is no tv in the house because "videogames and tv shows can rot your brain!" says his mom as he sulks and goes back to twiddling his thumbs. What's the point of tv if it rots your brain? There has to be something more to it!

Possible Artists/Art:

This is something I forgot to ask you guys about. How are we representing video art and videogames in the show? We may be able to show some actual clips of really old things, but video art and videogames are a relatively new kind of art, so it's history doesn't go back far enough for us to be able to use actual art. Also, lots of video art is actually not appropriate for kids. I'm also having trouble relating video game artsits to the art world because it is so similar to animation!

In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge photographed a horse named "Occident" in fast motion using a series of 12 stereoscopic cameras. This is considered the first motion picture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrRUDS1xbNs

Life of an American Fireman (1903): The first edited film by Edwin S. Porter who worked for Thomas Edison's company. This film introduced the idea of showing the same event from mulitple points of view. But instead going back and forth between a shot of what firemen were doing on the outside and what they were doing on the inside, the whole inside scene was shown then afterwards what was going on on the outside was shown. The film is on youtube and available for download, since it was made in 1903 is there even a copyright for it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4C0gJ7BnLc

Nam June Paik is considered to be the first video art artist. In 1971 he made a cello out of 3 tv sets stacked up on each other and some cello strings, and he had a famous cellist play the "cello" (http://www.iheartmyart.com/post/536204743/nam-june-paik-tv-cello-1971-walker-art-center). This shows that what goes on the tv screen can be a part of something bigger and more hands on! Tv isn't just for sitting and watching, it can be used to express more than one idea at once!

Charlie Chaplin- Director of the silent film era!Most famous for "The Little Tramp" (1910). I think silent films would be an important part of film history to explore. We could have the imaginauts be in a mini silent film of their own with accompanying piano music.

Possible Pass Through Worlds:

silent Black and white world with piano music going in the background and everyone is sped up! They go through this world and get chased by a bandit! Maybe he could be wearing and "Imagi-NOT" tshirt to briefly introduce that concept without actually having a fight!

Smellovision world! Smell-o-vision was a system that released odor during the projection of a film so that the viewer could "smell" what was happening in a movie.

3D land! We could make a red a blue world then distort it to look a little fuzzy, as if you're watching a 3d film without your glasses, and the Imaginauts would be wearing glasses. WOAH! There's a comet coming right at them!! This segment could be in a movie theatre, much like Mystery Science Theatre 300 where the Imaginauts silhouttes could be sitting in a theater (http://dvdmedia.ign.com/dvd/image/article/105/1052344/mystery-science-theater-3000-volume-xvi-20091204115809853-000.jpg).

7. Theater - Allie (performance art, fluxus)
 - oral presentation
 - English class presentation
 - school play but not superstar - they only have two lines and they have stage fright


Possible Titles: ?

Problems: A kid has stage fright and has two lines in the class play. What's the point if he only has two lines anyways? No one will even remember his small role in the play!

Possible Artists/Art:

Dionysia: a large festival in Ancient Athens named after the god Dionysus, the central theatre event starting in 400 BC. This is where tragedy/comedy, and the greek chorus was born.

SHAKESPEARE. 16th and 17th century playwrite. Romeo and Juliet.

Performance art began in the middle ages with jesters. Mime artists in Great Britain were also considered performance art.

Allan Kaprow is a performance and fluxus artist most known for his "Happenings" of the 1960's, which directly involved his audience. In one example of a Happening he created involved bringing people into a room containing a large abundance of ice cubes, which they had to touch, causing them to melt and bringing the piece full circle.

4'33'' by John Cage was a musical/performance piece that had no music at all. The sheet music to the composition is blank. There are three movements to the "silent" piece, during which Cage sits at his piano in silence, sometimes flipping the sheet music pages. He would perform this piece in many different locations: on the streets of New York, in a small crowded room, and in a music chamber hall in front of a full audience. The piece isn't meant to be perceived as just silence, for each time it was performed, the noise in the surrounding environment was payed more attention to, because the audience's ears were open and waiting to hear something. Sometimes the piece would be noises of New York, and sometimes it would be the person in the audience who sneezed and the rain falling on the roof.

I think this shows that even the simplest of ideas can be art. The kid may not have many lines in the play, and is "silent" most of the time, but that doesn't mean his part isn't important. There could be a time were he has to portray an important "pause" moment before speaking?

Possible Pass Through Worlds:

A mime world, where nobody talks!
A Shakespearian world where everybody talks too much and uses strange old english words that the imaginauts can't understand! Everyone in this dramatic theatre world is either bearing a huge gaping smile or a tragic frown!