minimalism « Light Cue 23

Posts Tagged ‘minimalism’

Abstract Realism

Friday, May 7th, 2010

There is an assumed dichotomy, when discussing works of art, between abstract pieces and realistic works. Realistic might be substituted for naturalistic, but the basic dichotomy reigns. I have discussed abstract minimalism quite a lot in this space. The counterpoint to abstract minimalism is not realism or naturalism but abstract realism.

Art, by it’s very nature, demands of the creator that choices be made. An object, event, idea, image, plot, and so forth are all framed. The frame might be literal in the sense of a classical painting, or it may be metaphoric through the use of language. In all cases a human experience is reified and placed within a frame. Art is the abstraction of reality.

To understand how fundamental abstraction is to art we should look, not to those considered abstract like Mondrian or Beckett, but to those considered realists like Ibsen or Caravaggio. In understanding the abstraction inherent in naturalistic works, this will lead us to a deeper understanding of and appreciation for those works more traditionally considered abstract. Even photography, by the nature of framing an image, abstracts our experience of reality before we even get to issues of color or focus. Walker Evans, about as naturalistic a photographer as has ever shot a roll of film, is highly abstract. Not so much in what he includes exactly, but with regards to what lies outside the frame. Through his images we have a limited understanding of a particular view of reality. A deep and rich understanding of that piece of the real, but a piece nonetheless.

Ibsen is a fantastic example of linguistic framing. He takes a story and distills it into the formalism of the three act play. Life is abstracted from the glorious non-linear mess that it is into a tight and controlled sequence of events. Act 1, Introduction. We, the audience, are shown the major players, ideas, and themes that will run their course throughout the play. Act 2, Conflict. We see the characters, ideas, and themes evolve and come into conflict. Act 3, Resolution. The conflict comes to an end perhaps through some transformation of the people, ideas, and themes. This may all sound familiar.

Should we choose to abstract this structure further we would do well to look back at Hegel and his dialectic. His thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis follows the same rhythmic pattern as the three act “well made” play. Once we understand that structure we can apply our understanding to any work and see that the distinction between realist and abstract work is a surface distinction at best. Good works that exist as temporal art (music, theater, opera, dance) all share this rhythmic structure. The form may be infinitely varied but the underlying structure is the same.

In the visual realm, rhythmic structure is replaced with proportion. When I looked at minimalism earlier I used Mondrian as an example. His work throughout his career was an exploration of proportion, though the form was multi-varied. Rothko is a painter whose work is focused on proportion almost to the exclusion of anything else.

The rigor needed for minimalism points to the necessary abstraction in any work of art. It is impossible to include everything in a work of art. Reality is the only experience that is not abstract.

Mondrian, or Rothko, are wonderful examples of the formalism of proportion exercises. We can look to Caravaggio, a so called realist, to better understand the formal structure of proportion. At the time he was active, his work was derided for the realistic style he employed, especially with regards to the painting of religious figures. While his realism is indeed impressive, and arguably unparalleled in the history of painting, it is at the more abstracted level that his works take on their true power. His sense of proportion, in terms of color, composition, and contrast, are impeccable.

As close to reality as some of Caravaggio’s works get, they are the product of clear and decisive choices at every level. From general composition, to the finer details of relative value between figures, to the color palette, we are looking at an abstracted space. Foreground and background, or depth of field to return to the world of photography, play a critical role in solidifying a well proportioned image.

Working as a lighting designer for live performance, I am concerned with both the rhythmic structure of the temporal work and issues of proportion. Foreground and background play a critical role, as do relative light and darkness, color, and other issues of contrast. At the same time, I must deal with these issues over time as the stage picture constantly changes. Temporal Rhythmic Proportion is a synthesis of the structures of temporal art and static art. It is the basis of what we do as visual artists for live performance. Navigating the ever shifting compositional needs through time is the primary concern of the lighting designer.

As naturalistic as a work might be, we are moving through an abstracted space bounded by abstracted time. From Beckett to Ibsen we navigate an abstraction of reality. Fundamentally understanding abstract space allows us to do so with full efficacy and powerful results.

All content Copyleft - LucasKrech.com, please Share:

Tags: abstraction, aesthetics, art, composition, minimalism, realism, theory
Posted in design, theory | No Comments »

From the Archives: The Freedom of Minimalism

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Note: This post originally appeared here in 2007.

The aesthetics of Minimalism are at once precise and freeing. Precise because as one removes extraneous elements from a work what remains takes on increasing significance. Freeing because the relationships are so clear that one can shift and recombine them in a multitude of ways allowing the multiplicity of experience to shine through.

So often the theatre is dominated by a kind of maximalism. A desire to put everything possible into a single work as if by desperation trying to contain all of experience in a few hours performance. The result is often the opposite of what is intended. Rather that giving the fullness of experience, each element is diminished as it all fades into a wash of gray, bland and undistinguished.

This is not to say that minimalism does not employ a rigid and tightly controlled grayscale, but it does so knowing that the fullness of each of those few grays will come across. The depth and subtlety of slight variation becomes a thing of power and strength rather than a faltering weakness.

To work from a minimalist aesthetic requires rigor and discipline. Because while there is a great deal of freedom, if any single element is out of place the work implodes under the weight of its own delicate structure.

Every move must be precise and calculated. At the same time one must allow for room to breathe. For play. Minimalism defines itself not in relation to itself but in relation to the varied multiplicity of the world around it. A blank page only appears blank when surrounded by the frantic modern world. Taken on its own the blank white page is a universe unto itself, filled with color and texture and infinite stories. The filled page is far more fixed and reduced in scale by comparison.

It is interesting to me how much the theatre of the Greeks lends itself to a minimalist aesthetic. When I worked on Medea we employed a very strict minimalism with incredibly slight changes in angle or color. With Antigone we opened up the palette more allowing for greater, yet still a very slight, range of color. This control of the color palette cause the shifts in angle and direction of the light to be quite significant.

In a minimalist aesthetic one often takes a single characteristic or element that remains static around which all other elements rotate. In painting perhaps one employs the use of strict linearity but then gives great variety and contrast to the colors, with vibrant and bold strokes.

In Antigone a tightly controlled color palette gave rise to a great variety in angle, direction and shadow. The simplicity of the setting allowed for a high contrast with the costume. Finding these points of control is what makes possible the freedom in a minimalist work. A clear centerpoint is the basis of minimalism.

All content Copyleft - LucasKrech.com, please Share:

Tags: antigone, design, lighting, medea, minimalism, shadow
Posted in design, theory | No Comments »

Inside the Design Idea – The Sisters Rosensweig

Friday, December 25th, 2009

I wrote last week about a few projects I am working on that have embraced an aesthetic of minimalism in their productions due to budgetary issues. But how do these ideas arise? More importantly how do they develop into a final product? I have written generically about my design process but I thought it might be fun to explore a single project more in depth to see how these ideas make it to the stage.

I was approached by Aaron Davidman, Artistic Director of The Jewish Theater – San Francisco, to light his production of Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig for their 2010 season. I had never read or seen the play so my first read for this production was my first time ever through the play. I had no preconceived notions of what it was about or how it “should” look. So I sat down with the text and began to read the play fresh.

Upon that first read I was struck with how important time is to the play. It takes place over a 36 hour period and all the action occurs in the same location. It is almost Greek in its unity of time, place, and action. As a lighting designer time of day is a central concern when working through the text. While location is important it is not central in the same way that time is. Even when the work is highly abstracted there needs to be some unity of expressing a changing time of day. Because time plays such a central role in the storytelling of Sisters Rosensweig I became instantly curious about how to provide that.

The script calls for a rather elaborate setting inside a well furnished apartment. While the action takes place in this well furnished apartment what is more central to the dramatic storytelling is that everything happens in the same room. I proposed to Aaron that we consider setting the play on a rather minimal set and utilize lighting conventions borrowed from the dance world to approach the piece. He readily welcomed the idea and we set out with our scenic designer to craft this world.

I find that audiences respond quite favorably to naturalistic plays happening on abstracted settings. When abstracted in the right way, such that the core storytelling elements are highlighted, the abstraction makes the reality of the characters resonate strongly. One trouble that can arise in naturalistic settings is that the characters get lost amidst the scenery. While it is a perfect approach for film, strict naturalism can impede an audience’s ability to process natural dialog. Abstract minimalism takes the benefits of abstraction even further and gives the audience a clear focus on the actors. After all the audience pays to see actors not well executed scenery, beautiful costumes, or fancy lighting.

As we developed our setting for Sisters Rosensweig we were very careful to create a space and develop ideas that will always keep our focus on the performer. A white rectangle set against a black floor to bound our room filled with a few simple furniture pieces, a staircase, and a chandelier all backed by a large and expansive sky. The sky, truly a white cyc, will be variously lit to show the passage of day into night and back into day. The performers will be clearly and cleanly lit and set against this shifting sky.

Through a clear focus on the performance we will create a visual space which can ebb and flow along with the emotional moment of the play. Each of the seven scenes take place at a slightly different time of day. In order to show these transformations the cyc will be lit variously from the top and bottom in a range of colors from morning pastels, to cool gray midday clouds, to nothing late at night. A shifting sun will illuminate the cyc variously from the sides as well as low and center on the horizon for an evening sunset.

While the sky will be changing behind us, the performers will be lit in cool shades of gray. Keeping the light on the actors in a tight color range of 3400° K – 5700° K will provide a clean and crisp look appropriate for both the sharp witted comedy as well as the darker moments of the piece. This color palette also evokes the cool light of London wherein the play is set.

Here is a breakdown of the lighting systems:

Two color Backlight in L201 (for daylight) and CLR (for the chandelier)
High Crosslight in L202
Head Hi Crosslight in CLR
Diagonal Frontlight in R3216
Scenery specials in L202
Cyc Top in L281, L161, and L119 as well as GAP508 templates in L201
Cyc Bottom in R53, L161, and R68
Cyc Sides in L025, R68, L201, and L193
The center sunset is a fresnel in L176 and the morning sunrise templates are GAP228 in color L101

All the actor lighting is done with frosted Source-4 Lekos. This will allow me to make shutter cuts to the white performance space and keep as clean a look as possible on the stage. The CYC is lit with various FarCycs, Mini-Strips, Fresnels, and PARs.

As of this writing the lighting paperwork is all finished and sent off to the master electrician and production manager. I have seen an early run through of the piece and have some basic cueing ideas although that will get fleshed out in later meetings with the director. We load in the lighting and scenery at the end of December, focus the lights, and then walk away for a few days over the New Year. When we come back in January we will begin lighting rehearsals.

Doing a post like this which goes into the specifics of a design for a show is new for me (I typically stick to theory). How was it for you as a reader? Would you like to see more of this?

Drop me a line in comments and let me know what you think.

All content Copyleft - LucasKrech.com, please Share:

Tags: angle, color, design, gray, idi, lighting, minimalism, theatre, tjt, wendy wasserstein
Posted in design, theatre | 5 Comments »

Recessionary Aesthetics; Money, Minimalism, and Art – Or, it’s the performer stupid

Monday, December 14th, 2009

I am currently working on two shows that, for budgetary reasons, have pulled back on the design elements and are working within a minimalist framework. It has long surprised me that smaller theater and opera companies will often spend a significant percentage of their budget on scenery (or costumes) and skimp on a lot of the other elements of the show. Dance learned years ago that when working with limited means the first thing to go should be the elaborate scenery, followed by fancy costumes. The whole purpose of live performance is to experience the performers.

Modern dance developed within a rather poor environment even for the arts. Scenery and, to a lesser extent, costumes were largely eliminated in favor of spending money on performers and, by extension, lighting. You can do any show without scenery and without costumes, but you can’t do it in the dark. As the saying goes, “If you can’t see them you can’t hear them.” One quickly begins questioning what exactly that means. Seeing the performer does not necessarily mean a spotlight on their face. If you are working on a noir piece revealing the actor in shadow and half light may be the most effective means of hearing what they are saying in a given moment. Yet the underlying logic is true. If the audience can not see the performance they will fast lose interest.

It is interesting that theater and opera companies will often sacrifice the actual performances in order to have scenery and costumes when, in the end, the audience comes for the performers. Both of the shows I am currently doing in a minimal style have made sacrifices in order to directly improve the performances and thus the audience’s experience of the piece. In one case a rather pricey scenic element was cut to hire a dialect coach. In the other case singers salaries were increased with, what would have been, the scenic budget. In both instances a choice was made in favor of the performance over the packaging. In both these cases the lighting budget is tiny (as it should be) but I will make it work overtime.

Don’t get me wrong. I am incredibly vocal about the utility of good design. I firmly believe in the value that visual storytelling brings to a work. I have seen shows whose success was largely through the design ideas alone. But no slick piece of stagecraft will make up for a poor performance. One of the great things about lighting is that it has the capacity to work scenically as well as a means of illumination. Through the use of standard American theatrical lighting instruments whole worlds can be created with variations of color, texture, shape, and angle. Interiors and exteriors can be created not to mention the more obvious qualities like time of day.

I see a lot of companies cutting back their programming or doing smaller shows in order to make up the funding gaps they are experiencing under the current economy. Sadly this is precisely the wrong direction to go. Audiences come to the theater to see shows. By reducing the programming you are reducing your audience base and risk pushing them away more permanently. Instead the most logical thing to do is revision the way in which performance is seen. Exploring minimalist approaches to design is certainly one way to do this. Cut the scenic, costume, and lighting budgets and do the five actor play you really want. Cut all the fancy drops and hire that amazing singer.

It is common in New York, and with many European companies, to forgo design altogether. No set, rehearsal clothes, and worklights. While this is often too bold a choice for most directors it is a way of producing work that focuses first on the performance.

Before these ideas get tossed to the side as the ravings of a post-modernist, keep in mind that Shakespeare operated in much the same fashion. The scenery for his plays was minimal to non-existent, the lighting was daylight (and perhaps a few effects), while the costumes were a hodge podge of items the company would carry around with it. Roman characters might be wearing Elizabethan clothes and brandishing Greek weaponry and all this in simple daylight on a more or less bare stage. The focus, once again, was on the performance.

Far from cutting back on performance, when times are tough, it is exactly the performance that needs to be focused on. Additional rehearsal times, dialect coaching, higher performer salaries (to both allow them to relax and focus on the work as well as garnering a higher quality performer) are what the money should be spent on. An audience should leave the theater thinking fondly on the performance. If they leave remembering the scenery or lighting, with no resonance to the story, we have done something wrong.

At the rate of economic “recovery” we are experiencing these are issues companies will be dealing with for the foreseeable future. If live performance is not to be totally overwhelmed by mass consumer culture something must be done to keep performance alive and growing.

How will you respond?

All content Copyleft - LucasKrech.com, please Share:

Tags: aesthetics, art, design, minimalism, opera, performance, recession, theater
Posted in dance, design, opera, theatre, theory | No Comments »

Simplicity, Complexity and Sophistication

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Sitting in an airplane I was just reminded of an interesting conversation I had last week about lighting and music. I was fortunate enough to not only see, but meet, Sonic Youth when they played the Fox Oakland last Sunday. It was a great show. The music was superb and the members of the band who I met, very pleasant to talk to.

The lighting for the show was quite beautiful. There were a few basic elements used and recombined in very interesting ways. First there were four semi-transparent light boxes lit from the front and within. Then eight boxes with incandescent PARs in a 5×5 grid arranged in a semi-circle pointed at the audience. Next up were a half-dozen color changing strobes arranged similarly to the incandescents. Lastly was what I presume to be the house plot, a few dozen moving lights of different varieties.

The evolution of the elements over the course of the show was stunning. The light boxes changed color lit from both directions, thus providing us with an ever shifting color field. The strobes, also color changing, really punched the post-punk deconstructed sound of the band. The overhead lights did what they do best, atmosphere, texture, movement and color.

The real surprise of the show, from a lighting perspective were the incandescents. Not only was the color, clear incandescent light, an almost shocking experience within a rock setting, a medium typified by heavy saturated color, but the sophistication with which they were used was delightful and surprising.

Starting out they did some basic strobing and chase effects blasting the audience the way any good bank of PARs should do. As the show went on, it was revealed that each lamp was individually controlled. These lights morphed from blunt banks of light to clever geometric patterns to words to the organic feel of flames and clouds.

The end result was a lighting scheme sophisticated like the music. While never letting up its grounding as a punk influenced rock show, it revealed an intellectual and aesthetic sophistication akin to the music itself.

Talking with Lee Ranaldo after the show the subject of lighting came up and we discussed what their lighting designer was doing for the tour. Lee mentioned that he liked how simple the design was. I replied that while it used a few simple elements the actual design was quite sophisticated. This led to a brief conversation about the distinction between simplicity and complexity.

The simplicity of the lighting was of a similar nature to that of the band: four guitars, vocals and drums. Lee explained that it was the simplicity of the elements that he was responding to. I found it amazing how the seemingly simple, once one scratches the surface, fast becomes quite complex. Musically this is what Sonic Youth has done for years, taken a rather simple conventional structure and turned it into something amazingly dynamic and sophisticated. Well beyond what is often found in guitar based music.

Sophistication it seems does not derive from complexity. In fact it often arises out of simplicity. This is the essence of minimalism. Minimalism is not about eschewing elements for the sake of fewer things alone. Rather it is a matter of clearing out the noise to provide a clearer and cleaner signal.

Utilizing a few simple elements in profound and complex ways often displays a deeper understanding of the material than a solution that constantly cries out for more. Being comfortable with the material and one’s tools to the point that you can step back and allow the performance to emerge on its own terms takes a great degree of skill.

I am writing this from a window seat on an airplane flying west. Below me are clouds bathed in the warm glow of the slow setting sun. Perhaps as far an image, some might say, from the aesthetics of a rock show. And yet, the visual sophistication created with a single lighting source mirrors in some way the minimalist roots of post-punk Rock and Roll.

Tags: aesthetics, minimalism, music, sonic youth
Posted in design | No Comments »

The Freedom of Minimalism

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

It is interesting to me how much the theatre of the Greeks lends itself to a minimalist aesthetic. When I worked on Medea we employed a very strict minimalism with incredibly slight changes in angle or color. With Antigone we opened up the palette more allowing for greater, yet still a very slight, range of color. This control of the color palette makes the shifts in angle and direction of the light became quite significant.

All content Copyleft - LucasKrech.com, please Share:

Tags: antigone, design, lighting, medea, minimalism, shadow
Posted in design, theory | No Comments »

Color Sense

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

I have been working on the lightplot for the revival of Cinderella with New York Theatre Ballet. Largely the plot is the same as last year. However there were some changes in the house plot at Florence Gould Hall and the repertory program that plays with Cinderella is different so the lightplot has changed some.

I think these are all very beneficial changes. Some things have been streamlined, some others expanded. For the most part it has been a matter of maximizing what is available in the palette. The company prefers a very colorful look. This is a fun aesthetic to work in, but the trick is to get the color sense without using so many colors that the light gets muddy. It is very easy with a lot of color to make costumes look old and dingy. The trick is to have a look that is clean and also shows off the dancers, costumes and scenery to the best advantage.

I love working in heavy color environments. Windows was quite the extreme as far as the use of color goes, but it helps make the point. Often, though, I find that direct saturated colors like that are not what is wanted in a colorful space. More the need of the piece is a sense of color. The feel of color is very different than the direct application of heavily saturated colors themselves.

The color sense of a piece is often a key factor in how a piece if perceived. Medea wanted a terse look. It needed a strong but minimal framework to place around the action of the play. The result was heavy use of shadow, black is a very important color in the lighting designers toolbox, and a very contained color palette. The Last Word . . . , a totally different kind of show, had en even tighter color palette. The color varied by less than 1000 degrees Kelvin, with no black.

New York Theatre Ballet can be a tricky aesthetic to nail down. My experience has been that it works best with a sense of color, but when saturated colors are used they are kept in the background. Saturated colors are very present, purples and blues and greens and reds, but the majority of the color work is “invisible.” That is, the colors are tints. A cool white or a warm white, slightly pink or a touch of amber or a pale blue, but no strong color.

It is the careful mixture of these tints, combined with the selective use of saturated colors, that gives the overall piece its color sense. Color can be a difficult thing to get a hold of. One of my reasons for going to NYU for graduate school is the legendary color lecture of John Gleason carried on by Curt Ostermann. And while this can provide all the rules, it then takes hundreds of experiments and breaking of the rules to really get a grasp on it.

Every play or dance or opera is a kind of experiment. Even revivals. They are never definitive, but always propositions. Will this piece resonate with an audience today? What must be done to make it speak in a language accessible today. In many ways dance is the strongest in this regard. There is an immediacy to dance that is a much less common thing in a play. In Opera it is the rare occurrence that it holds that fresh immediacy, but when it does, it is a sight to behold!

The color sense can be a powerful tool to help bring a piece into a framework accessible to the audience. It is a delicate balance to find what is both true to the work and at the same time pulls the audience into that work in a clear and direct manner. Lots of work, but a hell of a lot of fun too.

All content Copyleft - LucasKrech.com, please Share: