This was a reworking of a project I first carried out sometime between 2008 and 2010 at the Wiebke Morgan gallery. It was in response to a call for submissions from Five Years gallery for their 'Tanks' Summer School project at the Tate ((Im)Possible School Book: As Found). All who submitted work were included in the project - a concept I very much liked, as I'm a dismal failure at submitting work and getting it accepted.
This is my original proposal:
Art school
Art school invites a group of participants to explore the theatricality of being at art school through creating a group of characters and a drama to tie them together.
Materials
Participants
Large sheets of paper / affixed to wall / on table
Coloured felt tip pens / other writing/drawing instruments
Instructions
Cards of Direction
Instructions
Each large piece of paper represents one character in the drama ‘Art School’. Each character needs to have the following characteristics defined by the group:
· Name
· Appearance
· Overt personality
· Hidden personality / motivations
· Theoretical / artistic interests / encapsulation of work
· Frequently occurring dramatic situations
There is one large sheet of paper per participant. The work is made in a number of stages, which divide into two meta-stages
Meta-stage One
1. First, everyone makes up a name for a character who might play a part in the art school drama. They write this at the top middle of the paper.
2. They pass the paper to the person on the left (or, if paper is attached to wall, the participants move to next piece of paper). On this sheet, the participant draws the character (appearance) inspired by the name which has already been given. Drawings can be as sophisticated or crude as desired, but remember the next person needs to use them as a basis for character development, so some degree of representationality would be appreciated.
3. Sheets are passed on again (or participants move to a new sheet). The next task is to write down some words to capture the overt personality of the student / tutor / other participant drawn and named on the paper.
4. The sheets pass to another participant. Next, the participant looks at the available information on the sheet (name, representation of the character, overt personality) and, on the basis of this, writes down elsewhere on the sheet the hidden personality and motivations of the character.
5. The sheets are passed to the next participant. Again, taking into account everything that has been written or drawn so far, the participant writes down some notes about t the artistic work, theoretical interests and/or cultural position of that character. Here, images as well as writing might be appropriate.
6. The sheets are passed again (or participants move to the next sheet). Finally, participants look at the information on the sheet and develop 3 or 4 possible dramatic situations which would work cohesively for that character
Meta-stage Two
In this stage, the set of characters developed at stage 1 above are incorporated into a narrative / drama, authored jointly by all participants. Three new, large, sheets of paper are pinned to wall (or placed where all can see them) and a rough plot / set of storylines mapped out.
Notes
· Remember to leave space for further stages, but be bold in writing / drawing
· If there are few participants, you might end up, writing dramatic situations for someone you named. This isn’t a bad thing.
This was a 'character map' I designed to help with the process of developing characters:
Name
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Fiction Name
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Appearance
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Character
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Life situation
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Sayings / sentence structure
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Plot possibilities
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Other
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