I was invited to make Tagtool drawings by Margaret Unknown, one of the members of Egotrip 27, a Berlin-based ‘traveling group of improvising beings currently on tour’. This event consisted of six separate improvised performances featuring noise and electronic music – and my drawing had to be totally improvised too, which was quite a challenge! There was no raised stage at this venue. The wide angle lens in the Epson projector covered both the wall behind the musicians and the floor in front of them which created a lot of interesting possibilities for drawing .
Below are some photos from the first performance of the evening…
…where, because the projection area covered both wall and floor, I could ‘play’ with the illusion of some parts of the drawing being in front of the performer with the shadows in the background drawn on the wall.
Each performance was only about twenty minutes long so I had to react very quickly. As there wasn’t time to build up a lot of detailed imagery I chose to use a mix of abstract and figurative elements. I began with transparent layers of red and black for the second performance…
…from which I developed this landscape on the wall behind the musicians.
Below are photos of the performance by our friend Margaret Unknown.
A mirror was placed centre stage for this improvised theatre piece…
…and I ‘painted out’ the rest of the wall in order to focus on the performer.
Tagtool drawing provided the only light to the stage between performances. In the photo below, during one of the breaks between sets two musicians ‘tune up’ before I faded to black signaling that the next performance was about to begin.
Back to black, red and white for the next improvisation…
…incorporating both real and drawn silhouettes in the drawing on the wall and selectively illuminating and hiding the performer within the drawing.
Below are photos of the instrumental trio who gave the last performance of the evening. First I laid down a textured background on the wall…
… superimposed the two large figures…
…and ended by adding the small silhouettes in the background.
Egotrip 27 is a most interesting collective and I had a great night of drawing at this performance. They are currently on an eastern European tour and I really felt privileged to have this opportunity to provide the visuals for their performance in Prague.
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