Plans

Creativity ARG Meeting Notes
19th May 09

We had a very productive and ambitious meeting to discuss how we advertise and recruit for the Tangled Feet residency. To start Amber and Tom showed us some of the work by Tangled Feet and we discussed how they worked. We liked the fact that the audience weren’t informed of what exactly was happening.

We decided we wanted to recruit around 15 people to help /take part with the Tangled Feet residency and we thought there should be a mix of all years across the school. To recruit these participants we decided we wanted them to have an experience similar to the experiences we want to create with Tangled Feet and to those we have encountered on our visits to places like Rivington Place and Tunnel 228.

We wanted to advertise for volunteers and discussed interesting ways to interview them. We decided we wanted recruits to experience a game/challenge to see how they worked together and explain the project.

We want to advertise an event but do not want to give away exact details (also we weren’t really sure what they might be asked to do). We decided on certain skills / qualities that our recruits needed. They should be confident, creative, outgoing, enthusiastic, be able to commit to the project and most importantly have the ability to keep a secret. We also thought we should mention that the project will be with a theatre company.

We decided that we would advertise for recruits through posters, pizza bags, assembly, website, TV in reception, and tannoy announcement. Matthew volunteered to interrupt lessons in the name of creative promotional advertising.

Interviews will take place after school and ideally the experience will last about 20 minutes with time afterwards for interviewees to make personal statements if they want to take part.
The interviews start off with a map challenge where recruits are given clues which eventually lead them to the drama studio. ARG members will be on hand to guide lost recruits.
A video will then be shown to recruits in the drama studio / Lots of little videos showing the type of experiences we want to create. Members of the ARG will then explain their roll, with a question and answer session. Recruits can then write a short/film a short statement about why they want to take part.

The group were a bit worried about the number of people who may apply. Some thought there would be too many to cope with and some thought there would be too few. We decided to limit the number of people that could be interviewed to 40 across the school and that this might make the chance to apply more desirable. The first 40 participants would have to pick up a clue from a designated person.

Action Plan

• Amber - to check out drama studio availability and start map with clues different routes. Could we contribute possible clues on blog?

• Raihan - to make promotional film for screen in reception which calls for recruits

• Tom and Billy - to make the film/s for the drama studio explaining what the project is about

• Seb and Matt and KH to work on posters in coordination with Raihan

• Shannon and DP are to think about the logistics of setting up drama studio, booking out equipment, getting filming ready. Could we have tents with laptops in to film why they want to take part?

Week commencing 1st June Posters to be out (1st week after half term)
Possible date for interviews 11th June (2nd week after half term)

Ms Hawkins

The Art of Listening

I met John Riches, our Creative Agent, very briefly this afternoon for a chat about our progress as a School of Creativity. We had a very productive talk, mostly about what we might hope to achieve by the end of this academic year and what our ambitions for next year might be. I think we are both now in agreement that the work this summer, that will contribute to you all hopefully achieving an Arts Mark Silver Award, might be better conceived as a series of smaller events/happenings/interventions rather than one huge one. Here are some ideas for you to mull over before next Tuesday's meeting:

• I am hoping to talk to an ex student who is now a playwright and theatre director about the possibility of Tallis hosting a performance of a new improvised piece called "Home" by the company Tangled Feet.
• We could commission a range of artists to respond to the school environment using a variety of strategies (sound, illustration, graffiti etc.) so that work is installed at the weekend and we return to unexplained and surprising spaces on Monday morning
• We could commission the Sixth Form Guerilla Art squad under the direction of our artist in residence Michael Shaw, to complete a series of interventions in the spaces of the current building. They have already developed some work along these lines and I can ask Mike (who is a very respected sound artist in his own right) to tell us more about what they've been doing at a future meeting.
• We could work with a photographer to create unusual photographic representations of the building
  
• We could present our manifesto for a Creative Tallis to parents at a special event and ask parents to volunteer their talents in future school projects
  
• We could attend a future Leadership Team meeting to present what we've been up to and make recommendations about the support we need from the school to move the creativity agenda forward

I realise that these ideas don't really fully capture the more ambitious ideas about transforming the school into a kind of game experience. I wonder if we might need a bit more time to make this work effectively? I would appreciate your thoughts about this. I suggested to John that we could use some time in the summer holidays to work more intensively with various practitioners to plan this project (a kind of creativity summer school). We could then hope to stage this event in the Autumn Term.

Finally, I would like to draw your intention to The Experiment. It is a podcast created by Kevin Quigley for The Institute of Contemporary Arts. It's a bit bonkers but, if you like strange music and abstract soundscapes, yu'll love this. I particularly like the episode entitled "The Art of Listening Part 1". Check it out!

Rivington Place

Thanks to everyone who visited Rivington Place today and contributed lots of valuable ideas. I thought the Liminal exhibition provoked plenty of fascinating debate and helped to fuel a brief but exciting brainstorming session. Don't forget that we have arranged to meet every Tuesday at 3:45pm in Room 80C (the sixth form computer room) so that we can continue planing our summer events and gain our Arts Award accreditations.

Here is a summary of what we discussed in the afternoon session:

Tom really liked the theme of change and the use of role play in a radical alteration of the physical space of the current school building. What might it be like to transform the school into a country ruled by a despotic leader? Could we change the function of internal spaces, create our own currency and economic conditions, form a government, arrange political protests etc.?

Amber and Matthew definitely wanted to change the building, especially the corridors and other in-between spaces using sound. How could we explore the idea of absence and leaving a building behind? What does the building sound like? The school appears very geometric, doesn’t look very engaging from the outside but is interesting inside. How important is sound in learning? Could we create a Maze/Labyrinth type game using the whole site? A promenade performance or quest? What for? Moving between locations where performances/activities take place. Changing perceptions of the school building and what happens in it. Demonstrating the importance of new media technologies in learning. The element of surprise; the unexpected. Part of a consultative process with parents that could become an annual event. Need a place to gather at the end of the event – a meal and conversation.

Billy and Tom wanted to create a massive game of Quasar Laser to engage parents and students in learning together. Young people become experts. Could use Twitter to keep a record of a conversation about learning. Guide visitors around the school. Turn the school into an alien landscape using special effects, a series of strange occurrences and making the school unrecognisable through strange lighting. Perhaps we could change the story about school; create a different narrative about learning by challenging conventions and expectations about how learning is structured.

I am really looking forward to reading your reviews of the exhibition. This is your first task for the Arts Award. Perhaps you could add your thoughts as (very long and detailed) comments to this post?