BARBICAN Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown and Gordon Matta- Clarke.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition, for me the interactive and performance elements added so much to what was already a great exhibition.  Gordon Matta -Clarke is one of my favourite artists so I was really looking forward to this.

The exhibition consisted of a trio of artists who were hugely influential in 1970's New York. They explored the realm outside the ordinary, by taking work out of it's known context into the city streets for example walking up the sides of buildings. This way of bringing about new ideas by challenging what already exists and changing its' viewpoint is one of the main concerns of my work and was a theme which heavily featured in my thesis. Take this current project for example I'm taking a petrol station, an icon with strong associations and trying to make people view it and interact with it in a different way, thus opening up the city.

This trio worked in what is now SoHO in New York, they worked to transform their community through art, by making the place vibrant. But also using the existing fabric to create their work and accordingly addressing urban problems. This is what I want to develop to do as a designer work to twist the existing to create something outstanding.

In the lower part of the gallery space the performance elements for me represented 'live interaction'. I particularly enjoyed 'Planes' by Trisha Brown in which people moved across a wall whilst a projection fell on the wall. This created a series of illusions suggesting that the dancers were 'free falling and changing scale'.  This idea of projecting onto something which is moving could be an interesting idea to carry forward into my project, it definitely creates a sense of illusion, which could be interesting to work with. 

Sketch whilst watching Floor of the Forest by Trisha Brown. I found this piece really poetic, the slow careful movements of the human body through a web of clothes and ropes. hanging from clothes watching the shapes the body formed when suspended from everyday items of clothing and the shadows forms was really beautiful. It was an interesting piece which also worked as an illusion of sorts an everyday activity of getting dressed viewed vertically is nothing spectacular, yet turn it 90° and it becomes something unique and sculptural.