If you are a Houstonian and have not visited Skydive Art Space this week, boy are you missing out! This week, from 12:00am Sunday, July 10th to 12:00am Saturday, July 16th, there was/is a constant cycle of artists, writers, musicians and creative enthusiasts in general working on mini residencies around the clock. This week-long event is hosted by an adventurous couple who kicked off the project in Berlin in 2008, with plans of hosting the next event in Copenhagen in 2012. To see some of the other residents’ projects, please visit their website: Many Mini Residency. Also check out the write-up they received on Culturemap: Condensed Creativity.
I was lucky enough to have a two-part residency (the proposed project only ended up using 1 of the 2 requested time slots). So instead of wasting that time, I used it to create a second project! The first day was used as a collaborative opportunity between me and a dance Group called Them. I used sheets left from Hypnopomp to cloak all the furniture in the room as well as the dancers. Given the empty space provided by Skydive and its old plank walls, I imagined it as a deserted home, full of stories. The dancers improvised movements using the sheets to see what movements best conveyed a sense of spookiness without screaming ghosts. I am very excited with the video footage and hope to work with the group again.
On the second day, I coaxed the public to participate in an audition-style video piece. Everyone who came by the art space for public hours had the opportunity to stand in front of the camera and then pretend to be shot by a gun. I gave them the options of a funny shooting or a serious shooting, lethal or not. I found it interesting how life-like some people were, or how common themes/patterns developed as more people were “shot”. I hope to continue this video project in the future so that I can collect a much larger group of shootings. However, I was very excited with the performances I received in this first round.