PoD - Lesson 13 - Iphegenia in Splott

Iphigenia in Splott

*All images of the implementation phase and actual project come from Autumn after I repeatedly managed to let my phone lose all battery life. If I were to repeat the project I would not do this again.

Analysis
We began our task by reading the script once, twice with some notes and then a third time with more detailed analysis.
Research
During our research period we all went off seperately to look at the different aspects of the play we found most interesting.

Iphigenia in Splott

Cardiff, Living on the Streets

Gary Owen
Suffered from depression
A bit of a recluse - hardly left his room
Lived in Splott
Iphigenia in Splott inspired by Kate Tempest - Fight against Austerity

Other Works
Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco
The Drowned World
20 suicides of young people from 2007 - 2010
"permanent fog surrounds splott"

Baby P
Cause of Death - Child Abuse
50 injuries over an 8 month period, seen repeatedly by child protection services, the NHS
Nationwide review of social service care launched
Repeatedly taken away from his mother only to be returned to her at a later date.


Burning Monk
This is the image of Quang Duc setting himself on fire in order to fight the oppression of the Vietnamese government against the Buddhist population of Vietnam, It received world wide noteriaty

Tomb of the unknown Soldier
Letter to the unknown soldier

How to Train your Dragon - No change without sacrifice


Kate Tempest - Wasted play
Kate Tempest - Europe is doomed


Stevie Smith
- Not waving but drowning

I have always been a fan of Stevie Smith's poems and found this one particularly relevant to the play due to the themes of misidentification and

"3. Plant a tree to remember a life lived
A popular way of celebrating a birth is to plant a tree.
where you can plant a tree and leave a message,

4. Turn their favourite piece of clothing into a teddy bear
If the person in your life was known for their colourful ties or perhaps for a signature colour, then how about remembering them in the form of a teddy bear?
Memory bears are designed as keepsakes and are crafted from the material you provide from clothing that belonged to your loved one.

Alternatively, the clothing could also be transformed into a cushion cover or a lap quilt, depending how you would best like to keep their memory alive." - https://www.centralengland.coop/blog/funerals/20-unique-ways-to-remember-a-lost-loved-one [Accessed 9 Apr. 2017].


This selection of images are from an exhibition I attended at the Oriel Myrddin Gallery in Carmarthen.
The exhibition was a collection of installations created by various people as part of a competition to depict a variety of mental health issues. I felt that this was particularly relevant to Iphigenia due to Effie's mental state, and the connection between mental health and drug/alcohol abuse. To the left is the collection of pieces that I found most reflected the play and its themes.


Different forms of commemoration - Mood Board

Incubation
I initally struggled with the incubation stage because I couldn't properly differentiate it from the research period. I had considered research to be purely research while the incubation stage was the creation and development of ideas. I see now that all of the ideas should have come during the research phase, while incubation is merely the expansion of them. Statues
Shrines
Strobe lights (club) -> Music -> Fade out -> candles
Black clothing

Cloth, candles, flowers - tissue, poem, plaque, music, make little flowers, flowers
Blankets
Poem - Female actors




Selection


Implementation
During

My main role for the implementation of the installation was the creation of the plaque, the collection of real flowers and the assistance in the set up. 

As our group lacked anyone with much background in theatrical tech work we decided to keep the technical elements fairly simple, limiting ourselves to simple moving lights and lasers, and the built in sound system. I think that this worked quite well as we were able to operate the entire installation easily and in the real world it wouldn't have required a large budget. 

Evaluation

General

I would immediately like to take a moment to highlight Autumn's role on the project, without whom we would have had none of the paper flowers and far fewer lights. Her research was also incredibly interesting and not a route I had considered going down. A general criticism I have of myself is that I found I blurred the lines between the different stages far too much, particularly the research and incubation phases. I think this stemmed from my confusion on what each section focused on. I had initially considered the incubation stage to be the forming of ideas when it should have been the expanding of them. This is the task I find has been the most useful in fully understanding the steps of design

Read Script

I read the script once on it's own before rereading it so I could begin to add some notes. The third reading was spent with my group. I found this incredibly useful as it made me look at the play under a new light. After my own reading I had a fairly rigid view of what I thought of the play was about and going through it with others helped me pick up on things that I hadn't previously considered. For example, I had initially considered the play to be equal parts revenge and sacrifice. This is most evident with Effie's relationship with Lee as I only looked at it from a vengeful point of view but no revenge actually took place. This was largely down to me overlooking the scene and it helped having another pair of eyes to catch the things I had missed. 

Analysis

This is probably the step I am least happy with my approach to as I do not think I spent enough time analyzing the themes/characters of the play in comparison to some of the other projects. I think that this immediately hindered the research phase as I did not have as much source material to draw from. However, despite my short comings I believe I was able to grasp the main themes and ideas of the play as well as getting a clear idea of the characters' beliefs and motivations. One thing I found particularly useful was going through the play with the rest of my group as I found that we were able to branch off each other's ideas and I was able to approach the text and certain characters in ways that I wouldn't have done if I was alone. I do think I was very fortunate to have the group I did because I did struggle more with the analysis for the project. If I were to redo everything from scratch I would definitely dedicate much more time to this stage. 

Research

One area I am slightly disappointed not to have explored further is the idea of creating a small teddy bear out of an article of clothing as this would have been able to link to both the commemoration in general and more specifically the loss of a child. In hindsight I also should have looked at the real life implications that the play had on society. Although I had looked at the play itself I had failed to research any impacts it had upon the world. This was especially noticeable in the final presentation when we were asked about the effects the play had on society and I was unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. However, I thought the rest of my team gave it a valiant effort.

Incubation 

In comparison to the other projects I found the incubation stage for this project to be the most useful as I believe that it was here that we truly made it a group project and we were able to expand greatly on the initial idea. In this case, two heads were undoubtedly better than one. 

Selection

Implementation

I would say that although I am fairly happy with how we worked as a group I could have done far more to help out with some of the more time consuming sections, namely the creation of the paper flowers and the gathering of flowers.

Presentation
Although this presentation was a definite improvement to previous projects, I feel that the other group was decidedly superior in their presentation and we could have done more prep work. I
Define the groups

References

Centralengland.coop. (2017). 20 unique ways to remember a lost loved one - Part 1 - Central England Co-operative: food stores, funeral, travel and optical services in the Midlands and East Anglia. [online] Available at: https://www.centralengland.coop/blog/funerals/20-unique-ways-to-remember-a-lost-loved-one [Accessed 9 Apr. 2017].

"The Burning Monk, 1963". Rare Historical Photos. N.p., 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.