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PROJECT / RESEARCH

title>
CONCRETE AND LIGHTNING
authors> Ruth Buchanan and Ruth Legg

We decided to work together on the project, as there were some interesting meeting points within our work. We both use language within our own practice however in the form of a script it provides a relatively new territory.

The starting point was to mobilise language as a form, this was attempted through a series of excises. We began by creating new names for objects, by editing together words. (See example). We then continued to make lists of mobile and immobile words (See example). The next stage was to select a mobile and immobile word from each other’s lists, which provided the starting point for the scripts. The idea to create scripts through placing together of these contrasting words was that the script it’s self would become mobile in a similar approach to how we tried to mobilise words in the first excise.

Through a process of writing a number of scripts we are currently using mobile and immobile words to create cinematic scripts

Idealism and Confusion

“Don’t just sit there, say something”

Under the fluorescent lights their skin looks less than perfect.
The 4 of them sit still in the room; there is no sound except the soft flitting of paper turning as they leaf through the magazines left for their enjoyment by the facilities staff. There are 3 stacks, they are not organized but they are not disheveled. Blocks of pink, yellow, black, words and bodies randomly piled on top of each other.
The 4 slowly leaf through the pages, admiring the beauties depicted.
An adolescent is holding a tray of “Good Time Cookies”
A man is pointing at “rainproof garden equipment”

Each of the 4 in the room holds a small Dictaphone, barley visible, barely audible. All that can be heard is the rustling of the magazine page, flipping.

He is in his mid forties, wearing a plain red knitted jumper. It has V –neck, he is balding. He is interested in yachting on the weekends but finds it hard to find the time. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a glasses case, which he opens slowly; he moves his left arm up and places the thick black-rimmed frames carefully on the bridge of his nose.
“I like surprises”

He is in his fifties wearing a plain brownish green knitted jumper. He has a collar emerging from the neckline. He lies back in his chair with his legs splayed infront of him. Opening them, offering an opening. His hair is receding but not quite balding. He has barely visible smile on his face.
“I love my wife”

She is in her mid forties wearing a lemony yellow sweater, with a monogram of two jumping animals embroidered into the corner. if you pay close attention you realise they are antelopes. Her nails are perfectly manicured, she has chosen a colour that appears to be salmon but on the bottle it said “Mango Whimsy”. She holds her face tightly closed as she taps her manicured nails on her leg.
“Something is coming”

She is her early twenties wearing a black button up shirt, you might describe her as pseudo intellectual, although she prefers the term silently intellectual. She is willful. She attempts to look disinterestred as she scans the pages of the hi-gloss magazines, as she does she fiddles with her hair.
“I can imagine another place”

Out the window the sky is overcast and heavy, the silhouettes of branches brush against the window of the room. The 4 look up in unison and watch the trees moving, they stand and start to mimic them,they slowly dance and sway, tapping a not yet born rhythm.

The red knitted jumper stands and moves to the centre of the room, parallel with the magazine table. He turns his head firstly toward the others then towards the window, toward the narrowing lilt of the copse.
“If I could wax lyrical”


Thread and Dense

The setting is blue with green edging people stand there. There is music and movement and voices. Sometimes the music changes, sometimes the light changes. Objects are past between people, the tone of voices rise as the objects leave one set of hands and turn into another set. Sometimes people move.

Voice (prominent over the others) –

Please remember the following;
Do not speak to one another
Do not make eye contact with one another
Do keep in rhythm
Do not use your arms
Do not use your fingers
Do not use your toes
Do not show your teeth
Do not raise your elbows
Do not clash your knees
Do not let your hands rise above your shoulders
Do raise your eyebrows
Do move your nose
Do roll your tongue
But do not suck in your stomach
And do not tighten the muscles in your face

Sometimes people leave completely.

Concrete and Silence


In a small room on the top floor of a 3-story ramshackled wooden building sits a silent museum. It is miniature and holding its first show of conceptual art. Hung discreetly on the walls of the museum are small text pieces which read TECHNIQUE, AESTHETICS, and AMBITION. it is the opening night but noone comes.

(Black walls, window s with the vista made hazy by artificial rain. The light is cold, simple, flat; empty no gels, just white. In the room there is a checkered floor, the tiles contain letters that make words. Its a bit like a crossword only an artist made it so in this way it is more aesthetic less puzzling. The text reads 'AESTHETICS', followed by arrows pointing towards 'TECHNIQUE’. There is a white board in the corner with white paper hung with magnets, on the paper you can make out a 'brarinstorm'.
The spotlight becomes pink, soft focused and moves to a pair sitting at an empty table except one glass of water.)


1. Don’t get me wrong; I'm probably the most interested person you'll meet
2.I can tell
(2 looks over the shoulder of 1,towards the door. Engaging in meaningful conversation is transportable; we can see this in the eyes of 2)
2.Yeah, it's great; I'm very interested in this. We're very busy right now

Silence

1.I'm working on concrete acts which aren't. There is a huge difference between offering an alternative view and actually attempting to breach it, dissolve it. Dont you think? I wonder if it is possible?

Silence

2. Hmmmmmmm.
1. It's interesting to do this when you're working inside a closed system, like a filing cabinet. Like an idea of knowledge lets say.
2.You think information, knowledge, is a closed system?
1. I think so. I think its static as a notion. I think it’s against confusion.
2. You don’t think knowledge is the way to access all things, to realise your agenda?


Silence

1. Its concrete.
(Lights go out and the whole stage is black)

Precision and Quicksand

The opening shot is of a lecture theatre, which could be dated towards the end of the 18th century. The smart contained benches that prompt the room are made from a dark wood. Surprisingly the wood portrays no markings left by a wondering biro or compass, instead a recent re-finished leaves layers of gloss varnish. A compliment to this are the sand blasted sandstone walls of the old building, rubbed down to a fresh baby skin. Through the use of the latest interior technologies all past lectures have been erased from the room. The audience are spread evenly across the lecture theatre, many have notes books in front of them opened on new white pages, coats are folded neatly and placed on tightly packed knees and bags sit discreetly beneath legs. These gestures are all in respect of the evening’s speaker.

A women scuttles onto the stage carrying a glass bottle of highly expensive mineral water, this she places next to a clean glass. She then leaves to return moment later followed by the evening’s Speaker.

Speaker- I have been invited here today to talk about my new paper; you will be the first to receive it.
(The casual words land with precision on the audience, as they move forward in their seats on cure, the speaker indifferent to such orchestration.)

Speaker- This paper is the result of several years worth of intense research and for me (pause) a personal obsession.

Speaker- So let me begin at the very beginning...
(The Speaker coughs and takes a sip of water)

Speaker- Yes the beginning, What I have called the … (The speaker looks confused with the silence)

Speaker- The… (Pause), The…

The words have completed slipped away.

The Pens continue to scribble, recording each uncomfortable cough and hesitation that the Speaker utters.



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