Interview Ideas

1. We would like to understand more about the third year transfer students ideas of the arts program here at UCSC. We want to see from a film students perspective of scenery and what the set designers have done for him and his movies. 

Ideas For environmental Design

1. We will create a birthday party scene in the Quarry Amphitheatre. We will have balloons that will surround the table and cairs set up in the middle of the stage. We will be using complimentary colors and use very simple furniture and props.

2. We will create a fun place to wait for the bus! We will have the bus stop decked out with balloons and streamers to brighten up the place where UCSC students spend most of their time. 

Hey Everyone! I'm Stacy Miller. I'm from a little town called Pleasant Hill in the East Bay of San Francisco. This is my third year at UC Santa Cruz. I'm a Stevenson College student, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Education. I signed up for this class for 2 reasons, 1. to satisfy my IH general ed. requirement, and 2. because it looked like a fun, interesting and new area to explore. I'm excited for future projects in this class that lets us have fun and be artistic!

Part I Notes on “Can Media and Theater Speak the Same Language?” by Arnold Aronson

-digital media and film can be used in theater to enhance entertainment value or to add to the scenic design and architecture of a piece

-1920s German director Edwin Piscator used projections and film (one of the first)

-Aronson states that media(for the most part) cannot be as effective onstage as other forms of scenery and illusion b/c it has different implications, meanings, and context than theater

-creates a dislocated feeling in audience(which might be appropriate if that is the intended effect)

-problems with combining media and stage: human physiology(vision), psychology(interpreting of vision), philosophy(beliefs about the significance of vision), modernity vs ancient tradition(art forms of different eras)

-fundamental, unique quality of theater: objects are represented by themselves(human represents another human) or a simulacrum--“a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance;an effigy, image, or representation”

-the spatial aspect of a theatrical setting implies time and a linear passage, as well as the actors' existence in real time

-media has different spatial qualities

-disorients audience, takes them out of the theater

-b/c of the perspective of a 2-D scene, it must be viewed from a particular vantage point to be effective/to make sense

-pictorial scenes look inward, whereas theater may look outward and make direct connections with the audience

-theater is always in real time/the present, 2-D art can be “mummified”

-media/film/live feed are not mummified, but still disjointed

-the frame of a theatrical space focuses audience attention on action within play and what can be imagined outside of it

Member Bio

Hullo all! my name is Marissa Furey and I'm a first year student over at Porter, majoring in Theater and Lit. So far, I've volunteered as the writer of our group. Though I love everything in Theater, I am also a bookworm and enjoy creative writing, so this may turn out to be my focus :} Not sure what else to say...oh, whoever came up with our name--thank you! it fits the A Rackham Alice in Wonderland drawing perfectly:)

Hi Folks

My name is Sarah. I am a designer in the theater group "Mad Patterns" and hope I can bring a lot as well as take something valuable away from this class...that sounds criminal but it's not like that :) I am an art major and pretty much thrive on creative thought and production. So far I feel that my artistic input will be well received because of the variety of creative production that has been displayed in this class. I believe that the world will have a hard time accepting blooming artists though because of this atrocious economy, but this class should help me find either this area as a department that I'd want to invest my artistic technique in, or not at all; but that is the purpose of this class to me--to help me discover what I want to do with my life as an artist.

(Here's my collage):

Behind the Screen Door

Notes on “Behind the Screen Door” by Arnold Aronson
-In sitcoms, the conflict of each episode is introduced through a doorway
-In all performance media, doors pronounce entrances and exits, thus adding to the rhythm of the piece
-passage through a doorway represents transition of a character, both personal and relative to surrounding action
-3 aspects of the door:
1)how do doors onstage contribute to tragedy?
2)why are doors in sitcoms left unlocked?
3)is there a difference between TV doors and doors onstage?
-there were no doors used in ancient greek theatre, possibly b/c of the lack of privacy and supposed secrecy in greek civilization
-addition of doors to the stage implied an outside world and unseen actions that existed behind the door, beyond the stage
-boundaries onstage denote personal boundaries as well as limitless possibilities and the things that restrict us
-460 b.c.e., first door used onstage in Aeschylus' trilogy The Oresteia, first time that any sort of structure was called for in theater
-greek chorus provided rhythm of the play by coming in at beginning and end and during meaningful intervals in the performance (rather than the door)
-provides everything that the door can, except surprise
-w/o doors, everything must happen in real time, onstage. w/ doors, time may be telescoped
-the anticipation and imagining of horror is greater than seeing a representation of it
-doors introduced illusion to the theater (rather than simple artistic representation)
-as part of architecture, a door is theatrical; as part of the scenery, it is illusionistic
-Restoration England, there was one pair of doors on either side of the stage
-cultural practice to step over sill, bad luck to break threshold b/c there is a dangerous balance between our two worlds
-tragedy, doors are gateways for death; comedy, doors are gateway for chaos
-relevance of the symbol of the door has been threatened by faded boundary between reality and subconscious
-doors in TV are different b/c objects in situations on TV aren't fixed, unlike in theater, where there is a specific space that is limited in its ability to change
-comedy relies on the element of surprise/punchline delivered by a door
-the instability of an image on TV eliminates the aura that is created by theater's shared space
-reminds audience that what is being seen on the screen is analogous to what is being lived in

Directors and Designers

- There use to be no excitement in theatres
- There was a lot of animosity between the director and the set designers
- To make harmony there must be a merging of the director and the set designer
- 1998 a conference was held because of this conflict
- Designers were scared of being on the panal
- They would try to get away from the conflict
- It is like marriage the relationship that they need to have
- Directors would get fresh set designers from college so that they could control them
- Being selfish does not get the job done well
- Robert Edmund Jones wrote in Theatre Arts monthly and spoke about the unity of the different roles
- The better the unity the better the show is going to be
- Joe Mielziner talks about the relationship of the directors make it better for all those involved
- Rehearsals will go faster
- Set designers should come to rehearsals
- The staging of a show will help influence the set or visa versa
- In the manifesto of 2004 there was an agreement of the togetherness of the designers and directors
- Theatre has not been the same since

Hi Guys! My name is Valerie Miller and I am the director of the group The Mad Patterns. I am currently a first year at UCSC and plan to major in Theatre Arts. My plan is to become a drama teacher so that I can inspire and help the new generation of thespians. I want to help others with this healing art like I have been helped in the past. I believe that this class that I am taking (TA 10) and others for my major will help me become the person that I want to be in the future.

This is a brief little into of myself. First of my name is Charley and I'm one of the Mad Pattern members, yes its spelled with a ey and not ie. I'm just that special =D I'm form San Francisco, home to the Giant Baseball team. This is currently my 2nd year here at the University of California Santa Cruz. When I have leisure time on hand, I like to sharpen up my skills with magic and illusions. I loving performing for people because once that magical moment hits, their reactions are just priceless. Despite the fact that I'm twenty, I'm just a kid at heart so if u have candy and is willing to share, send them this way. I have a huge sweet tooth =D Below is a picture of me in Malibu Grand Prix enjoying the bumper boat ride =D

April 14th 2009 Collage

Today in class,each of us was instructed to create a collage. This is my creation, I got the inspiration when i looked up on stage seeing all my classmates. At the moment while I was looking up on stage, one of the readings flashed in my head, metapatterns. Looking up on stage while having the world metapattern stuck in my head, I found the idea i needed to create my collage. Thanks Guys!!!

"Metapatterns" Volk reading notes

• Metapatterns can serve as an approach to creative learning (culture, biology, mental).
• People need to discover the diverse forms that metapatterns reveal themselves in, particularly social structures.
  
• Evolution is a pattern-finding process (spatially and temporally).
  
• The algorithm of evolution: replication, variation, selection.
• Replication: mitotic division of single cells.
  
• Variation: occurs in the process of replication (out of pure possibility and entropy).
  
• Selection: a test to see which patterns survive well enough to carry on.
  
• Cultural evolution embodies the same elements of the algorithm, but are not as certain as far as causes go.
  
• Many aspects of culture are the subjects of this algorithm: cars, food, education, careers, ideas, words, etc get replicated.
  
• These are all subject to variation too (cover albums, art inspiration etc, )
• Selection is also a huge part in cultural evolution: university acceptations letters, job firing, consumers favoring one brand of cereal over another, etc.
  
• Metapatterns show up in both biological and cultural evolutions, ex: “columns of support” can be seen as legs, tree trunks, Eiffel tower struts. (iconography as well: corn stalk acting as a connection from underworld to our world as column, functioning as a symbol of nutrition and psychological influence of support).
• Metapatterns are particularly successful when the two categories (bio/cult) converge.
• Borders: part of a system that can isolate a system from an environment, or regulate the exchange of matter, energy, info etc.
• Biologically: borders are the membrane of a cell, culturally: national boarders play a role of filtering matter (growing and shrinking in ‘pore’ size).
• Borders then relate back to selection in evolution: to allow some elements of the outside world into your inner realm is to make one’s self vulnerable to the dangers, threatening one’s survival.

A Poet's Creed by Borges

We felt this reading was best for it's statements, the meaning of the article was embedded in them. I am going to write the statements I felt contribute most to the idea of the article. First off, the piece of writing is Borges creed for the poet. The major points are:

"poetry is ones own religion" - we write what we know, and it is our religion.
"We remember a time when we did not exist and foresee a time when we shall be dead" - present is timeless because it is what we are existing in. All we know is that we will die one day.
" We have many memories but will remember the one day we discover who we are" - self explanatory and brilliant!
WE ARE MODERN! and don't think so hard on metaphors, everything is a metaophor.

These idea's of Borges are HIS religion, hence since some of us might not agree on his ideas, it makes poetry one's own religion. I felt Borges was really trying to get us to see we are our own life. We are individuals and each have a different type of life. There are different trends we see in many "religions", but not in all. Example, Purple Patches...the idea that you do what you do just to get the recognition.

All in all... BE LOYAL TO YOURSELF, worship your life!

Manifesto

In this class, we intend to experiment with the vast limitlessness of the theatre; to stray from the normally passive concepts of everyday objects and functions in order to rethink and gain a deeper, clearer understanding of our surroundings. We will also examine the connection between our environment and ourselves, as well as the relationships that are built between audience and performer, performer and technician, technician and designer, and designer and audience during the production of collaborative work. We will also use the variety in our backgrounds and fields of study to develop more intricate projects with multiple perspectives.