rotating radar dish inspiration & education |
Laurie Anderson performing in Home of the Brave, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1986.
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Rotating Radar Dish Inspiration
I was first inspired to do performance art after watching a film clip of Laurie Anderson on MVT performing in Home of the Brave in 1986. The clip showed Anderson rotating on stage, arms extended like a radar dish, with the projection of a real radar dish rotating in the background. (Watch the video!) Although I was a little disappointed with the movie itself, this first impression of the original film clip blew me away, and that's all that mattered. |
Alfred Hitchcock Story-board Education Inspiration
Inspired by Laurie Anderson, and to improve my shaky performance skills, I registered at Brooklyn College in the Fall of 1988, taking acting, film, and music classes. (Coincidentally, Brooklyn College included the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) where Home of the Brave was shot.)
In my film class, I studied the story-boards of Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest. I was impressed with how much drama could be conveyed with just a few lines and some text. Seeing the page below in one of my text books was a pivotal moment, I became fascinated with the language of film, and started thinking about illustrating his own writings. |
Storyboards from Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest.
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Great Things Happen In Great Women's Kitchens
With sunlight streaming in through my girlfriend's Queens apartment kitchen window, I laid all my best writing out on the kitchen table, reflected on it for a moment, and then started to draw. In a moment of clarity I realized if I focused on writing alone, I would be like everyone else, struggling to re-invent an old wheel; and there were so many high-performance wheels and accomplished wheel-makers out there already.
I thought, Dude you're dyslexic, in school you were never recognized and viewed like you were mildly retarded, it's going to be even harder getting recognision doing writing alone. If you pursue this poetry/drawing thing, you will be unique, there will be little competition, this is the way to go. Immediately I started to map out in my mind the technology I would use to realize my multimedia dreams. |
My first multimedia drawing, the title frame to In the City, done in my Queens housing project kitchen.
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The best person in my life, Carol Lemay (on left), with sister Vikki. (Check out the early 80s Queens-neigborhood-style poofy hair, yea!) I had his pivitol multimedia moment in Carol's kitchen, which shows great things happen in great women's kitchens.
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Outline
Egyptian seduction story.
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