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howtohero · 6 years

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Piloting a Mecha

If you can swing it, piloting a mecha is one of the most efficient ways of fighting crime. After all, if you’re a regularly sized human only about 30% of crimes can be squished with your foot, which means that putting your foot down is not a very big deterrent against crime. If you’re a giant sized person then the number of crimes you could step on grows exponentially higher but your feet can easily be injured by such actions meaning that once again, you don’t have that natural deterrent. But when you’re in a big metal robot... wow, you could step on almost any crime. Not to mention all the cool weapons and entertainment systems you can load that sucker up with. If you’re going to fight crime, get yourself a mecha.

Upon getting a mecha the first thing you need to do is give your giant robot a cool name. When it comes to naming your robot there a few schools of thought. The first one holds that you should throw a bunch of powerful sounding adjectives in front of a couple of cool adjectives. Something like: Mighty Omega Ultra Galaxy Piercer or Aquatic Bulbous Gentlemanly Canyon Splinter. Another school of thought maintains that every robot name should end in -tron, hearkening back to your robot’s animatronic nature. So think of something like Electrontron or Synchrocyclotrontron. (On a related note, if you ever need a sick burn while fighting a robot adversary try calling them Doltron. This also works if you need a sick burn while fighting someone named Ron.}) Whatever you decide to name your robot though, it should be cool as heck. Otherwise really what are you even doing with your life.

Piloting a mecha is a lot like wearing armor. You’re encased in a powerful metal shell, you’ve got lots of retractable guns and gizmos, and you look cool as heck. However there are enough differences between the two methods that different superheroes feel that one is better for them than the other. If you’re got an armor suit you can fit into most normal sized rooms and interact with other heroes on a more personal scale. When you’re in a giant robot, you don’t have to be physically strong enough to carry the armor on you. Most robot pilots actually just go to work in their pajamas. If the robot is big enough you can even just live inside of it full time. You can’t do that with armor. It would start to smell. Some heroes even choose to wear both. They have their own suit of armor which they wear while piloting a twenty story robot into battle. This allows them to successfully combat crimes on any scale. Unfortunately, both armor wearers and mech pilots are susceptible to the dangers of magnets.

Other superheroes don’t wear any costume at all whilst hanging out in their robots. They actually don’t need to. Giant robot pilots are one of the only subsets of superheroes that don’t really need any sort of secret identity at all. It’s kind of weird actually. Supervillains just don’t seem to care about the person inside the robot. Even if the identity of the pilot is public knowledge, robot operators, historically speaking, have never had to worry about the safety or protection of their loved ones. Supervillains simply focus on the giant multicolored robot that shoots fireworks whenever it walks. Go figure. Supervillains will focus all of their energy into developing ways to combat the robot and forget about the fragile fleshy human inside that they could manipulate through threats to their loved ones. <Hey, that gives me an idea...> What you’re still here. (He’ll be here as long as we continue to pay him.) We pay him????

Because of this fixation on the robots though, it would be a good idea to actually disguise your robot when it’s not in use. Supervillains will undoubtably try to track down the giant robot during downtime and try to either destroy it, sabotage it, or steal it. Giant robots are, as I’m sure you can imagine (you guys have pretty good imaginations) difficult to conceal. They’re very large. Larger than most garages. Larger than most buildings of any kind. Larger than all (bar one) pockets. Which means that, if the robot is not disguised, the bad guys will find it. So you need to invent a secret identity for your giant mech suit. If the villains can’t recognize your giant robot as the giant robot that frequently foils their plans and steps on their evil machines they’re very likely to leave it alone. No sense risking failure and making yet another giant robot enemy. Try putting a giant wig and maybe a fake mustache (of any size) on your robot. 80% of the time that should do the trick. However, if your super robot is very distinct (congrats on the unique design by the way. You really screwed yourself over on that one.) then you’ll need to take more precautions. You can try pretending that your super robot has an almost identical twin, but then you’ll have to do a very good job conjuring up an entire fake civilian identity for your robot. Make him an accountant, an ice cream man, a 16th century explorer. The skies the limit. Disguise the limit. If your robot’s cover identity is convincing enough the bad guy also won’t both with them, even though it looks exactly the same. This goes doubly so if you make them a 16th century explorer because then messing with them might mean fracturing the timeline. (That’s right, if any 16th century explorers are reading this, come to the future, nobody will bother you here!) Of course, if you’ve gotten yourself a transforming mecha then none of this matters. Your robuddy (not to be confused with Robud, the basketball playing robot dog) need only to shift gears and convert into their alternative mode when they’re not fighting crime.

Another thing you need to be cognizant of is that piloting a giant robot isn’t as easy as it sounds! There are actually a lot of laws you need to follow. While an exhaustive record of all of the robot piloting laws is a bit beyond the scope of this guide we have put together a quick cheat sheet on safely and lawfully operating your giant robot:

Giant Robot Drivers Ed:

Always signal before changing lanes: If you don’t you might accidentally get some poor sap’s station wagon stuck between your robot toes. (Do a lot of robots have individual toes? Interesting.) Or, if there’s another giant robot in the next lane you might enter into an accidental combination sequence. (If this occurs see here.)

If you are unhappy with the color the traffic light is showing take matters into your own hands: We were just as surprised as you are but this is really what the law recommends. Just project your own bright colors and do what you want. You are a giant robot.

It is illegal to operate your giant robot with a suspended or expired license: This is just for everyone’s safety. We can’t have a bunch of unlicensed robots jogging around the town. But don’t worry, we’ve come up with a couple of workarounds. The very precise wording of this law actually opens up a pretty large loophole. Like, large enough to walk an unlicensed giant robot through. The law specifies “suspended or expired” licenses, so if you’ve got one of these just chuck it in the river. Law don’t say nothing about giant robotting with no license. Alternatively, don’t build windows into the cockpit of your robot. If you can’t roll down the window, cops can’t give you a ticket. Life hack.

Children operating a giant robot must wear a seatbelt: Hard to argue with that one tbh.

It is illegal to use a mobile phone of any kind (cell, satellite, shoe, etc.) whilst operating a giant robot: Why would you even need too! Just use the robot’s speaker system. These things are big enough that they can be heard almost anywhere in your city, so as long as the person you want to talk to is nearby they should get the message.

If four giant robots arrive at an intersection at the same time the giant robot furthest to the right should go first and then so on and so forth (what?): In order to determine which of you guys is furthest to the right try engaging in a four way game of giant robot rock paper scissors (wait). In order to determine who gets precedence in this game of rock paper scissors, find an impartial fifth party to think of a random number from 1-4 and then each of you should guess. Whoever gets the closest (wait, meaning not exactly right?) to the person’s number then pits their rock, paper, or scissor hand against that of the giant robot to their right. Whoever wins that battle will then face the next person and so on and so forth. Should two of you guess the closest to the correct answer you should have a quick all out brawl in the middle of the intersection and whomever shall survive that is the winner of the number guessing game (what in the world). Hey, I don’t make the rules!

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riting · 5 years

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Samara Kaplan on congrats and condolences by Barnett Cohen

Samara Kaplan writes about the development of congrats and condolences, a piece by Barnett Cohen that she curated to be performed at the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences. Performances are April 27 and 28, at 6:15 PM. More information and tickets can be found here.

INTRODUCTION

I am writing from somewhere in the middle of the process. The initial ideas have materialized into a script, the actors have become a cast, the costume design is nearing complete. We are now in the thick of the collaborative and unpredictable work of performance.

I have compiled this piece from conversations with Barnett and text and images from his collaborators to shed light on what this piece is about and why it’s being made.

As Curator, I have woven in my own perspective of the work as I’ve observed and contributed to its development.

Richard Neutra’s iconic VDL Studio and Residence sits on a lush and winding street across from a meadow overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir. I drove past it for years without noticing it - a testament to its harmony within the surrounding landscape and the persisting style it has bred into the neighborhood.

Neutra VDL Studio and Residence, Silver Lake

I first went to the house a couple years ago to work on a homeLA performance. What I learned while being inside rehearsing for many hours over many days are the particular ways in which the home opens and closes to its inhabitants. With its iconic glass walls and moveable interior dividers, there is a sense of porosity between each space, inside and out. For better or worse, you can see into the bathroom from the balcony, you can hear a conversation in the courtyard from upstairs, you might happen to look up when standing at the bottom of the stairwell and catch your reflection in a discreet, built-in mirror. You find a retractable curtain, instead of a wall, dividing the living room from the dining room. You are both the onlooker and the displayed, even from within.

Images of living room to dining room (above) and kitchen to dining room (below), by Samara Kaplan

The endless possibilities for surprising and multiple perspectives make this site appealing for performance. In my experience, the house can even be a catalyst for audience members who may not have an entry into experimental performance because it so effectively encourages a sense of curiosity.

congrats and condolences is a site-specific work, meaning Barnett created the piece specifically for the Neutra House. In discussing his previous work developed in response to architecture, Barnett explains:

Earlier this year, I organized a series of performances at the House of the Book in Simi Valley in/around my friend Dan Levenson's installation of paintings. There was something magical about presenting work within a very particular architectural space; the House of the Book is this weird Brutalist building that has been featured in many music videos and sci-fi films. I wanted to attempt again and so I began working on a piece for the VDL House.

So, why VDL? Barnett began his process by exploring the relationship between himself and the house. From the very inception of this piece, Barnett situated his own artistic inquiries in relation to Neutra’s architecture:

Coherence is a strange demand. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves to ensure we remain who we tell ourselves to be. For example, like Richard Neutra, I am Jewish and an immigrant, and the platitudinous narratives embedded within and about these identities affect my thinking and behavior. Perhaps, as a Jew, I am neurotic and anxious. Perhaps, as an immigrant, I work hard at achieving the mythic American dream. Stories about the Self keep us whole, keep us coherent, prevent us from fracturing. Yet they are entirely fantastical. They are fictions. The intersection between our collective performance of the Self and our interiority is where these tropes often collide and rupture. The topography of the mind is without narrative or structure as raw thought forms are fundamentally chaotic in their arrival, pacing, and departure. How we present or perform publicly, however, often falsely communicates, even if temporarily, a unity of Self. Neutra’s use of theatrical curtains and floor-to-ceiling windows simultaneously nod to separation and presentation, that we at once live hidden from and directly in front of others.

The site is not just a stage for his performance but a framework for excavating ideas of public and private space, both physically and philosophically. For Barnett, the challenge is to draw out the private, interior, unmasked self that only he experiences. Practicing non-judgement, he attempts to see his thoughts through the daily practice of stream-of-consciousness writing.

Excerpts from Barnett’s daily writing practice

Interview Question #1: TECHNIQUE

SAMARA: We’ve discussed stream-of-consciousness writing as your process for generating material. Despite being unedited, your writing sounds remarkably articulate and poignant. You showed me notebooks full of texts that read nothing like a diary or what one might associate with stream-of-consciousness.

For someone like myself, whose first drafts of writing often sound jumbled or overly simplistic, your ability to translate thought and feeling so immediately to the paper is a unique talent in and of itself.

Can you give a glimpse into what you feel is the relationship between spontaneity and technique (and perhaps even the cultivation of personal style) as it is exists for you as an artist across mediums?

BARNETT: Technique, as I understand it, is about repetition; it's about achieving an unconscious competence for something, an informed intuition. The relationship to being informed is a difficult one I suppose. Knowing too much or letting that knowledge infiltrate the work is dangerous. I decidedly and defiantly turn off history when I am writing, in the studio, or making performances. By virtue of being curious and trusting my body, I have confidence that my work will lead me to who or what I need to know. I am careful about when I ingest new ideas or information because the mixing of work and pleasure can create blocks. I therefore attempt to be spontaneous in my writing (and even in my paintings), to not plan too much and to get out of the way of the work. At some point, whether I am making a performance or amassing stickers to create a piece–I am currently making a series of paintings or pieces composed entirely of found stickers–I cease to be in control of the work. Instead it begins to carry me along and I have to submit to it.

My performances originate out of a daily-practice of free writing wherein I compose stream of consciousness verse in non-sequential volumes. What this looks like is me sitting down at my desk and writing whatever comes to mind: lists, ideas, unfinished phrases, images. And not only am I trying to get out of the way, I am trying to reserve judgement. My aim is to see my thoughts, not as connected to a false identity (i.e. me) but as objects, as forms, as content, that the machine in my head generates 24/7/365. And I want to experience the felt sense that accompanies these thought forms. Their auras, as it were. I read a book called Mating in Captivity by the famed sex therapist Esther Perel, wherein she attempts to reconcile the domestic and the erotic (anybody in a relationship over a year surely has experienced that disconnect) and she laughs off the idea of sex being spontaneous, that couples who live together should just spontaneously fuck. She suggests that sex needs to be planned, needs to be on a calendar somewhere. In other words, we have to create the conditions for spontaneity, which I suppose devalues spontaneity as a valid concept. I attempt to do that in my work. I have built my life around achieving spontaneity in my work, creating the conditions for le petit mort or a loss of self. Perhaps there is some technique in that.

Interview Question #2: CASTING

SAMARA: 'Creating conditions for spontaneity'... certainly relates to your process with actors as well. You plan to collaborate with them in the studio and on site to flesh out the performance, but you even played with spontaneity or improvisation in your casting sessions by giving actors one read-through as they had rehearsed it themselves and an additional one with completely different directions, forcing them to take a leap and not knowing where they'd land.

In your casting call, you (wonderfully!) required that the actors be "weirdos." Of course, I can imagine this correlating to someone's exterior look - but can you elaborate further on what kind of personality/skillset is needed to participate in a performance like this? One that originates from your own stream of consciousness but also one that asks actors to contribute collaboratively? ... Basically, why did you choose the actors you chose?

BARNETT: Referring back to your question about technique, I was not interested in finding good actors with good technique who could execute an action on a particular line. I was looking for an open energy and a willingness to play. Auditions are the worst (I know because I worked as an actor for a number of years.) It's difficult to not be nervous and that nervous energy can misrepresent itself as the energy, what the actor brings to the script. That's why I gave everyone a second chance to play, the space to try something different, to venture a bit into the unknown. In congrats and condolences, there are no roles or characters. It's just people performing words. And whatever energy they have, you know, life energy, what life has given them is what they bring. And it's also what they ate the night before. So much of our world is contrived. Not in an adolescent moaning sort of way. Not like, "you guys, everything is literally contrived." But in every way...I spend most days performing for people, performing a role. And the only time I stop performing is when I am lying on the floor on my apartment every morning by myself. What I am trying to do with my performance work, or at least with this performance, is to remove hindrances to remove it all away away. So when the performance happens, it will not be narrative or other such contrivances. It will be real in the epic sense. In the way that Brecht saw theater. I know I am setting up a false dichotomy between narrative and non-narrative but narrative is a gigantic block to self-understanding and the more we do away with it, the better. Basically, I cast people who have the ability to be honest with themselves.

Once the actors are cast, Barnett refers back to his stream-of-consciousness texts to craft a script specifically with the actors and house in mind. For the first read-through, Barnett hands out a 35 page script complete with stage directions and assigned lines.

An excerpt from the original script by Barnett Cohen

When reciting their fragmented, non-linear lines, the actors seem to exist together but are not necessarily communicating with each other. Maybe they share the same space but not the same time, sometimes seeing each other and other times looking past. Like the imagined inhabitants of a domestic space over time, the actors portray fragmented realities converging, overlapping, and butting up against each other.

At our next rehearsal at the Neutra House I start to see how important it was that Barnett cast actors who would bring a certain “weirdness” to the table – abstract lines are given lightness, drama or humor based on the range of expressions the actors can draw from. When I sat in on the casting process, Barnett encouraged each performer to switch characters and accents wherever they saw fit and what resulted was so vulnerable and funny. Celina, one of the actors, told me how Barnett first and foremost wanted everyone to be human. No dead eyes staring blankly, no Postmodern robots.

Rehearsal at the Neutra VDL Studio and Residence, taken by Samara Kaplan

Interview Question #3: DESIGN

SAMARA: Do you have any thoughts on how the costumes play into the discussion about bringing honesty and personal life experience into the work?

In the initial fittings, I saw draped fabrics (somewhat gender neutral although leaning toward the feminine) and neutral tones. I saw a timeless and cultural-less human who could be from the 1600s or the 3000s. Does this neutral outfitting better allow for the actors to express personality without visual distraction?

BARNETT: When I approached Eric (House of 950), I told him he could do pretty much do whatever he wanted with moderate input from me about the particularities of each outfit. You know, if there was something I could not handle or an outfit that simply did not work. My thinking about the outfits for the performers is that I wanted to prevent from them being misread. I did not want the audience distracted by more symbols than necessary. And I am only slightly-interested in the theatrics of performance. The outfits achieve multiple aims simultaneously. Firstly, they ritualize the performance. They remind the audience that the performance is a performance. They enhance the aura of its originality or rather its temporal quality. The people in front of you have put on these outfits to remind you that this a performance. If the actors performed in their everyday wear, I think that would diminish the aura. Maybe not for every performance but for this one for sure. Secondly, by aiming for gender-neutral clothing, my hope is to circumvent a gendered reading of the work or the actors. I am not interested in the actors, who are already performing gender publicly in their own lives, having to double down and perform a gendered role in a performance and in clothing that is not their own. That seems particularly onerous.

Lea in a fitting with Eric, taken by Barnett Cohen

I have been writing/rewriting the script and I absolutely love writing after casting and after having a sense of the outfits and with the space in mind. In other words, I am creating a unique piece for the performers as people as individuals and not necessarily as actors. Maybe my process is backward, traditionally speaking, but my aim is to create this piece that is strange yet approachable while remaining slightly confrontational but fundamentally honest. Not a play. Not a piece of theater. Not a performance. But something between all those three concepts. I do not have a word for it but I know what it is. Eric and his designs, his sense of color and form, both enhance and cement what I am trying to do.

ERIC (HOUSE OF 950):

In making the clothing I was focusing on the two main ideas, the physical space, of the house: the look, the detailing, the architecture, and Neutra’s theory of therapeutic space. I felt there was a connection through time between my ethos as a designer. I focus largely on how clothing affects the wearer, and the reaction between the two. Clothing can make you feel comfortable, chic, doughty. Neutra’s exploration of therapeutic spaces resonated with me and it was a natural jumping off point. I created layers of transparency to speak to the endless glass, comforting details in unexpected places, and natural color detailing in small doses to create a natural movement of the eye. In collaboration with Barnett, we created the clothing to be unknowable, something that is not instantly understandable, almost to conceal the personality of the wearer to differentiate them from the familiar of the mind.

Andres in a fitting with Eric, taken by Barnett Cohen

Barnett, Eric and each of the performers work with a tension between the real and the heightened, the familiar and the unknown to accomplish that special aura of performance while pushing the audience into a state of awareness. We are guided through the home with an opportunity to discover the details of the setting and their subtle influence on the actors, designers, writer. Intermediated by the artists’ study of and absorption in the unique spaces, we ultimately have a deeper experience of Neutra’s architectural masterpiece.

Barnett enhances Neutra’s physiological sensitivity to design through his staging and consideration of the audience. The actors are placed in surprising areas of the home such that the audience is asked to search in odd directions and absorb strange sounds. Daphne gives a monologue on a balcony overhead, Nikki and Celina moan from an inaccessible room, everyone has mysterious entrances and exits obscured by curtains or trees or reflections on the glass. These constant directional and textual shifts encourage the audience to remain alert.

Andres and Lea in rehearsal, taken by Samara Kaplan

Celina and Daphne in rehearsal, taken by Samara Kaplan

Early on in the process, Barnett sent me an email with subject line “congrats and condolences.” I didn’t yet know this was the title of the piece so I had assumed he was directing the congrats and condolences at me. The opposition of feeling at once excited and worried made me question my own situation and I opened the email immediately. I laughed once I realized it wasn’t just about me, it applied to everyone.

When I asked Barnett about the title, he responded:

congrats and condolences stems from a Jungian understanding of wakefulness or consciousness. When a person begins to see, truly see, then the world appears at once awful (because it is) and amazing (because it is as well).

congrats and condolences is a new performance work by Barnett Cohen in collaboration with Celina Bernstein, Nikki Bohm, Dan Bruinooge, Daphne Gabriel, Lea Madda, Andres Paul Ramacho, and Cary Thompson. Looks by Eric Holbreich of House of 950. Program Design by Tanya Rubbak (Summer Office).

Samara Kaplan is an LA based performance curator with a PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism from UC San Diego. While pursuing her studies, she was Curatorial Assistant at LAXART (2010-11), Curatorial Fellow at The Kitchen (2013), NYU Tisch Research Fellow (2013) and Curator of Performance at The Mistake Room (2015-16). She currently works at Phillips in Los Angeles, where she is expanding her breadth in contemporary art. Most recently, Samara co-curated multiple site-specific performances for homeLA, include One House Twice at Neutra VDL, and completed her dissertation on the choreographer's embodied approach to spreading utopian ideals. Both her curatorial work and academic research focus in on artists who - through the intimacy of site-specific performance or the connectivity of ritual - attempt to make the world a better place.

Barnett Cohen originally received formal theatrical training, with an emphasis on breath and vocal work, at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He then embarked upon a career as a visual artist with an interest in multiple disciplines, employing a wide-range of media—sculpture, painting, video, installation, and performance–-that collectively serve as meditations on the space between thought and the self and between the self and the body. His work has been exhibited at such venues as Pieter (Los Angeles), House of the Book (Los Angeles), 356 Mission (Los Angeles), Human Resources (Los Angeles), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), City Limits (Oakland), The International Center for Photography (New York), and La Galerie SEE Studio (Paris.) In 2019, he will present new work at Mast on Fig in Los Ángeles and JDJ in Garrison, New York. He received a BA in English literature from Vassar College, an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and has been in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the MacDowell Colony.

#Neutra House #Long Riting

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