devising reseach paper
Three Numbers Upon receiving the stimulus, my initial reaction was how difficult it would be to create a piece which had no boundaries and could be anything we wanted it to be. Soon however we discovered how many interesting ways we could work with to find ‘our’ themes. Number 1 : 360 Number 2 : 1 Number 3 : 25 Many initial ideas arose, especially with the number which was ‘our free’ choice. My idea was to use the number to reference a colour an art shop to indicate a paint shade, then using it as a palette, in the piece, for example; set wise. Another idea was to use it as a room number in a hotel, hospital or office. A more interesting way to work was to use total freedom and to use video clips to give us more inspiration. We therefore chose to use the 360 as a directional/geographical reading in the video section of the library. We chose a specific section and worked 3 across, 6 down and 0 across. And used the video that this reading picked. This video was titled, Magnificent obsession. Our other initial ideas were using 360 as degrees, being a full circle. This was chosen in video form, ‘Full moon in Paris’. Stemming from these ideas we thought about a room number being a possibility and looked at films which could have interesting scenes containing an interesting room. Including this, we chose ‘One flew over a cuckoos nest’, and Rohl Dahl’s, ‘The witches’. We watched all these films at 36 minutes (using our 360 number again) and compared the themes of the scenes featured. ‘Keeping these good deeds a secret is like insulation the power of your personality’ (Magnificent Obsession) All the scenes we watched at 36 minutes seemed to have a common streak with each other, which was about perfecting oneself against others. This included, jealousy ‘Full moon in Paris’, concealment of one true self ‘The Witches’, and being ‘normal’ to social opinion, ‘One flew over the cuckoos nest’. All these ideas linked well with the idea of 360° also being a perfect circle. ‘Perfection is one dimensional’ (Jacek Scarso, during a C20th class) Our page reference number was 1 which is usually a contents or introduction page in any book. Looking at the first page of ‘360 degree feedback’, by Peter Ward, (chosen because of our 360 number), we found an interesting quote; ‘[Horses] have always understood a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult to be sat on every day by some creature without forming an opinion of them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have slightest thought about them whatsoever.’ (Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) This quote was to be used in our piece. Among other interesting quotes, we also found; ‘Seeing ourselves as others see us would probably confirm our worst suspicions about them’ (Franklin P. Johns, 360 degree feedback- Peter Ward) Our date reference was 25. We therefore decided to look at two different centuries; 1825 and 1925 to see which one had more scope to work with. We decided to work with years as many more interesting ‘situations’, from these centuries would be found, rather than the 25th of a certain month. We found that 1925 gave us a greater and more interesting topic. It was decided to concentrate at the Scopes Monkey trail from 1925. Which was an important issue about the teaching of Darwin’s theories, evolution in Tennessee, USA. It provoked such a big case which to this day evolution is illegal to teach in Alabama. While discussing Darwin’s theory and its link to humanity, Nina mentioned Mrs Darwin a poem by Carol Ann Duffy: Mrs Darwin- 7 April 1852 Went to the zoo I said to him- Something about that chimpanzee over there reminds me of you. The world’s wife ’99 Picador, UK This poem is similar to the song which is sung by cheeky children to their friends: Happy birthday to you, I went to the zoo, I saw a fat monkey, And I thought it was you. As we were discussing this I had an idea of how we could start the piece. Starting in pitch darkness was agreed by everyone and we thought it would be interesting to have someone in the corner singing the birthday song while playing with a sparkler. Our initial idea for this came from the idea of a circle and how visually pleasing it would look for a sparkler to be circled in the air in darkness. For obvious safety reasons we were not allowed to do this and so changed our idea, to using a brightly coloured glow stick, the type used in clubs.