The Acting Project
Installation Image, The Acting Project at A Ship in the Woods, January 10, 2014
The Acting Project is a series of acting and directing experiments. The Project takes as its starting point an exploration of the parallels between acting out the role of a character and the acting out of one's daily persona. Viewed together, Sets, Audition, and The Moment of Engagement: Special Features from The Rehearsal reveal the situations around public performance - letting the viewer in on the processes of acting while confusing the line between documentary and fiction. The videos fuse scripted and unscripted dialogue, creating a dynamic between the theatrical and the real, alluding to both Reality TV and psychological experimentation.
Below are the videos of the experiments in chronological order.
What is Acting?
A series of interviews about acting in everyday life.
What is Acting: Susie Smallwood (Mom), 2012
What is Acting: Marilyn Volkman, 2013
WHAT IS ACTING: SCHURZ HIGH SCHOOL
Jason Pallas and the Museum of Contemporary Art - Chicago invited the Carl Schurz Art Department to become a partner in art education. Seven Chicago artists were invited by the MCA to present their work to the AP art class at Schurz High School and develop a plan to help the students create work in response to the presentations. The exhibition, The Making of Artists, took place in The President’s Gallery at Harold Washington College in 2014.
During the classroom visit, I presented What is Acting? a series of interviews asking specific participants (a visual artist, a runway model, and my mother) questions about acting in everyday life. After showing the work to the students, I asked them to generate their own questions regarding acting in everyday life, and sent them out to interview one another using their cellphones as a recording device. The piece is a depiction of a set of students at a time in their life when they are starting to look outside of themselves for acceptance, individualism, and appreciation.
What is Acting: Abbey Shaine Dubin, 2013
What is Acting: Schurz High School, 2015
What is Acting: Shaina, 2015
The Banff Experiments
2013 AT THE BANFF CENTRE
Audition was recorded at the Banff Centre during the thematic residency Our Literal Speed: Stuff That’s Near Art That’s Not Art, Which is Treated As if It Were Are, Is Now the Substance of Most Serious Art, including staff and select participants in the residency.
The residents were asked to audition to play the role of themselves, and were told that only one of them would get the role. The residency art star, a former runway model/residency leader, and the curator of the Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery played a team of directors defining the role for which each resident was auditioning.
In Casting Call: Marilyn Volkman, the director is behind the camera directing the performer to imagine playing the role of the director. The exchange plays with shifting power and humility.
The casting call was a precursor to the video Audition, so that Marilyn could play as me physically and verbally.
Installation View: The Banff Center, 2013
Casting Call: Marilyn Volkman
Audition (excerpt), 2013
The Moment of Engagement
Serving both as artist statement and additional exploration into the project, the video toggles between voice over perceived as answers to an interview, video and audio from a recorded rehearsal about the past, present, and future of an artist, and features the work of artist Marilyn Volkman’s NEOCraft, and performances by artists Dan Paz and Danny Volk.
Selecting a Cast
Selecting a Cast is a working artist statement for The Acting Project. The work was shown in a group show of participants and contributors for a seminar taught and curated by artist Marilyn Volkman. The show was at El Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, The Institute of Superior Arts (ISA) and The VI National Salon of Contemporary Cuban Art in Havana, Cuba.
Selecting a Cast, Installation View, Digital Video Projection of PDF, Dimensions vary, 2013
The Acting Project: Exhibition
A Ship in the Woods curated by Lara Bullock.
Through the physical installation of the work in this series, the viewer is also implicated as a participant, extending the project’s narrative into the real space of the exhibition and allowing unique experiences to unfold within each viewer.
Installation View, The Acting Project at A Ship in the Woods, January 10, 2014