The Changing Room

Motion Graphics sequences and digital Scenography for The Changing Room an inter-disciplinary multi-screen and mixed media live work.

"Performance and live action have been pivotal to Bruce McLean's art from the 1970s onwards. To accompany McLean's exhibition 'Another condition of sculpture' the artist presents a new live work, a chamber opera, realised in collaboration with Sam Belinfante and Lawrence Preece, in the dramatic setting of the Tiled Hall, once the Gallery's sculpture court."

Based on Courbet’s painting 'The Painters Studio', conflated with Breughel’s 'The Blind Leading the Blind', The Changing Room is a true Gesamtkunstwerk where musical improvisation is combined with a choreography of objects, video and movement.
Through the deconstruction and collision of these historical works the artists have developed a series of drawings that address the perennial artistic dilemma; how to recognise and represent what is heard and not heard and what is seen, as well as, significantly, what is invisible. The libretto is derived from Jacques Derrida’s ‘Memoirs of the Blind’ where the philosopher similarly explores issues of vision, blindness and self-representation, particularly in relationship to drawing.

'These amassing drawings function as graphic scores that will be interpreted by performers in a series of guided improvisations. The acclaimed mezzo-soprano Lore Lixenberg will be joined by performers from ‘squib-box’ a collective of leading performers dedicated to the production of radical music of all genres'

^{Special thanks to Marta Carmona (Life Model)}
^{Leeds Art Gallery, May 2014}
^{Merevale Hall, November 2013}

_{Image: Bruce McLean, Photo copyright Bruce McLean}

^{Left: Life class model changing area

Right: Bruce Mclean's drawings from the changing area, where the digital shapes were derived}

^{Photos courtesy Sam Belinfante}

^{Below:

live camera on model boxes manipulated live and reprojected onto the main stage.

These were used by Bruce and Lawrence to draw on rocks, open boxes, play with printed text, manipulate live sculpture, draw and use as a mini set for photographs and objects..}

^{The sequences below are just part of the moving image graphics package - a kit of parts that could be shown on screens 1,2,3 or all at once over all the screens. These combined with live camera of the model box, short films and drawings by the collaborators and live performance and live sculpture comprise the visual approach.}

^{Sequence C, 2 No Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}

^{Sequence C, 1 No Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}

^{Sequence B, 1 No Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}

^{Sequence A, 1 NO Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}

^{Weightlifter black mask, No Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}

^{Weightlifter black mask inverted, No Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}

^{Sequence A, 3 No Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}

^{crop screen 2 No Audio from David Barnett on Vimeo.}