Monday 24 June 2013

Afterwards

I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of a lesser Honours mark. It's not that I want it. I don't. It's just the feeling I get, and my gut doesn't lie.

That said, I've got time, not just the next twelve weeks, but time after that to work into whatever happens next. I also have a funny way of working better once I stop caring so much.

I'm talking to a friend in Norway and one in Singapore about doing some work abroad. I've got some ideas to write too and without deadlines I might just be able to do it.

This might sound depressed or defeatist, but it's quite the opposite. I'm happy that I'm doing what I'm doing (Honours, not necessarily my thesis) and I'm happy I didn't put it off or do a coursework Masters.

It's a really steep curve, but I've never liked things being too easy. What Honours has taught me (so far) more than anything else, is that there is more out there, regardless of what it is. 

We spend our time stressing about things to hand in, whether it is the best we can do, what we need to sacrifice to make it happen. This might sound a little hippybullshitesque, but it's a year of experience, a year that's eight months long, and a lot of the best things happen in the spaces between the words. The time you spend with your sibling watching inane television. The time you meet your friend for coffee you forgot about with your nose in a book. The time you got out your guitar and realised just how rusty you were - and how much you love playing it regardless.

As much as Honours dominates your existence (sleep included), it's a year and that is all. It's a crazy, confusing, hellish ride, but it's also beautiful in it's madness, like a demented Grandparent.

And like your sire's sire, you'll hate it while it's there and miss it when it isn't. 

Stop hating. Love what it is when it is and still look forward to what happens next...

...afterwards.

Saturday 22 June 2013

Back From The Dead

Okay, so I've taken one of my two weeks off. I've had more beer and sleep than my whole semester and I feel oddly at peace.

Shot my revised thesis idea to Larissa who completely rejected it. I suppose I can guess why (not being related to her field at all, and therefore tricky to find external markers) but it still hurts a little.

Oh well! Guess I'll just do the ol' Collective Immediacy bit. It's only twelve weeks so no big deal. 

What I'm really keen to do is start working in my field around the world. Anyone who has any hook-ups in theatre/performance sectors in Universities or elsewhere ANYWHERE on earth can reach me here.

I don't think I'll get the marks to go direct to PhD so a couple of years working will help me mentally and career wise.

Back to lame work for now but, yes, I'm back from the dead.

Sunday 16 June 2013

The Morning After

I woke up hangover-free. Lots of water and sleep for the win.

Bought some tech stuff (monitors and such) to make writing easier and just burned time until work.

Work? Brutal.

Supposed to see mates but by 1am, they were all pretty shitfaced so I postponed.

I'm really keen to revise my current work and make some new stuff. I think it's because nothing is DUE that I feel like I want to do it.

I'm writing a short bio for my previous Uni and until I started writing I thought I'd done bugger all in the last 18 months.

Turns out I've worked as a journalist, run theatre workshops, shot almost a dozen short films, written a play and designed a show and a game. I've also made it halfway through another degree, started a thesis, broken my first bone (amazing all things considered) and almost become a real adult (being more sober than otherwise).

Strange what a new day brings!

Friday 14 June 2013

Semester One Done!

It's all in. You know what? None of it was good enough, everything could've been better with two more days each and right now I'm just so tired I couldn't care less.

Tomorrow I'll wake up with nothing due for a month, and the first (pretty bogus) draft of a third of my thesis written.

Yes, thesis.

Just watching the artists destroying themselves through their art is horrible - let alone being one!

Plus this essay finally (I fucking hope so anyway), FINALLY put me on solid ground. I'm not doing anything radically new but I'm not just rehashing old stuff either. It also puts me right between media/comm and theatre, the place I set out to land.

But for now, to bed via a few fairly well earned beverages.

Chookas to the rest of the crew!


Thursday 13 June 2013

Off the Radar

I'm not dead, just busy!

This essay I'm writing is no prize winner, but it really has me interested, way more than any of the other $#!+ I've been looking at.

It also feels like I might be able to keep this one up for the rest of the year. Don't want to count the chickens, but I've got a good feeling.

On a side note, don't send casual emails to anyone in the Ethics department. Apparently, they're very serious about more than their jobs.

Back in a few days.

Monday 10 June 2013

PhD

Judging by my work so far it's a pipe dream, but it's good to have dreams all the same!

I read somewhere that the final year of your Bachelor counts as a third of the potential scoring, while the Honours year counts for two.

Either way I still have to make it through this year. Even if I make the cut, I think I'll take a break in between. This Honours stuff is killer on the rest of life!

But I do want a PhD. Faster way of getting the Dr than medicine!

Saturday 8 June 2013

Holiday

I was going to head off to Japan for week, but a friend said 'beach house' along with 'great crew' and I was sold.

It's kind of a retreat. We all bring our 'things', play together and bond over a few days.

I've been so solo that I couldn't pass this one up, plus it fits into my timetable without detracting from pay or the travel experience.

And f^€/( I need a holiday.

Immediacy in theatre

There it is.

I've read so much, trying to expand my horizons and get better acquainted with all things gaming and RMIT.

In the process I kind of lost sight of myself, and what I actually care about.

I don't have to find or make anything new.

I just have to enjoy the experience. I like feeling things as they happen. I like theatre. I like it when I feel theatre happening.

Pretty straightforward. 

I'm pretty sure that's enough. Please, let it be enough.

Wednesday 5 June 2013

Broken

CERES down, Danielle's to finish.

I finally got the direction down tonight. 

Intro
Working def
Case 1 - highlight the def parts
750
Site-based - history, case 2
750
Participatory - history, case 3
750
Immersive - history, case 4
750
Big Games today - def solidified
Conclusion - big games are performative first, games second
750

Done. Bed. Broken.

Tuesday 4 June 2013

Huizinga

'Summing up the formal characteristics of play we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary” life as being “not serious”, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings, which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means.' (Huizinga, from Homo Ludens, 1955, pp 13)

Back to the Football!

Monday 3 June 2013

GAMES!!!!

My brain has left immediacy behind (for now) in the pursuit of gaming!!

I've written a little today, but spent way more time reading:

http://www.avantgame.com/mcgonigal_dissertation_online_chapter4.pdf

http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/3510/2/Gleave_12_MPhil.pdf

http://gac.sagepub.com/content/1/3/231.full.pdf

http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/images/Papers/j60_avouris_yiannoutsou_jucs_2012.pdf

http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/Digital_RandD_CaseStdy_Punchdrunk.pdf

Just to name a few. I've also had my head stuck in here (http://www.amazon.com/Pervasive-Games-Theory-Design-Kaufmann/dp/0123748534)

Some themes are really emerging. I found a gaming equivalent to site-specific/site-based/site-sympathetic performance (site-specific/site-adaptable/location-free).

I'm on the audience train at the moment too.

That's all for now. Too many games and not enough sleeps.

Punchdrunk

Adrian (surprising none of those who know him) sent me a great series of articles to read. I make time out of nothing, but this guy..

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to read it yet but I'm pumped. Punchdrunk are a UK outfit that specialise in immersive theatre, and are just starting to bend into the hyper real, which seems to be a natural progression for a few of the groups. This alone is a research question (would I have said this 12 weeks ago?) but is very relevant to my own space.

Anyhow, today I sent off one assignment, finalised (I hope) a presentation and, when I thought it would take another day, almost ended another. It'll be done by afternoon, allowing me time to concentrate on the second to last.

Friday will see a new dawn, with only one to focus on and (theoretically) enough time to make it work, complete with edits.

But aside from reading and writing, Punchdrunk have me. I worked with Daniel Schlusser on another reinterpretation of MacBeth, and together (with 15 others) we made a freakishly engaging show without doing much at all. I just 'got' his aesthetic and he just 'got' my impulse: it was infuriatingly immersive. 

Actually, throughout that year I made five shows, all immersive either narratively or otherwise, with varying degrees of immediacy, long before I started writing on the idea. Screaming without sound, crawling through an audience in a hobo-bear suit, flippantly dropping 'cunt' before shooting my friend point-blank, cartwheeling into a mediated rant and making a noise that illicited tears or hideously uncomfortable laughter, there is something in the shock of the unexpected that forces immediacy, pleasant or otherwise that is common in theatre but rare otherwise.

Punchdrunk play with this consistently where other outfits get complacent. I run a company called Grey Matters, where everything we pull is unflinching, even when it seems nice. We've been slow recently because I'm the artistic director who happens to be otherwise engaged, but there is so much more to come and it involves blood, wires and fresh meat - figuratively and literally (says the vegetarian).

But for now, I'll settle for Punchdrunkeness and a hook-up from the magical Tully. And some sleep.

Saturday 1 June 2013

Extension

Asked and answered for.

Booyah!

Anyway, reworking existing stuff is way more troublesome than writing new s#!+. When you look at what you have, the flaws/gaps become so much more obvious than a blank sheet of paper that needs words on it. I'm fixing up Neal's thing (so I can totally focus on Danielle's) and it is killing me!

I can see the difference between a regular Undergraduate humanities essay and the standard involved in something more.

Adrian was talking the other day about making great work or being a great writer. Most of those reading this blog haven't had the pleasure of seeing me do my thing, and very likely won't if all we have is this year. I make great theatre, and I can say this unashamedly. You may not like it, but there is no arguing that what I do lacks impact.

What I'm trying to do is be a great writer - not a creative one, but an analytical, descriptive and innovative one. I write realistic dialogue, and my general wording is accessible and fairly fluid.

Writing for the academic disciplines is infinitely more refined, dry and cumbersome, but offers alternate rewards.

My bibliography (recorded) is around 120 things, and that is the last three months alone. I found a book that isn't yet released that I can foresee will be integral to my research.

This is nuts. I'm extending my own knowledge. I can comfortably argue about things I genuinely care about verbally, and it's starting to show on paper. I can also (still) create without destroying the inherent art.

I want to be the freak that can do both. I want to teach, to inspire and to love as much as many of my instructors have, do. I want to have coffee with Richard and work with his choir, write a chapter for something Adrian is working on, release a book, co-edit a volume with Anna, strip for Daniel, moonlight at Monash, teach at RMIT, get paid to live in Japan.

And somehow, it all feels possible. But first I need to use my extension. Cheers be to Danielle!