The open studios went really well! We got some thoughtful feedback about the piece including some kind words from someone in the film department at CSM. With regards to the set-up we went for editing the items which are necessities for the films to play, for example the TV needs to be plugged in and also needs to be on a wall. We stuck with the one cable being exposed whilst the other is hidden and then also got to researching films and ideas associated with wallpaper. Our initial thoughts went to the Coen brothers film Barton Fink where the main character has writers block and there are a bizarre series of events that continue to distract him. The link to the idea of wallpaper is the part in the film where he’s in his hotel room and the wallpaper starts to peel away, making the most incredible sound.
On rewatching the film, but being conscious of all the wallpaper, we realised most of Barton Fink can be explained by looking at the wallpaper. From the opening and closing credits, showing the wallpaper in its splendid beige beauty, it is one of the more important symbolic elements in the film. This then made us think about the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where the narrator becomes pre-occupied with stripping the wallpaper, thinking she sees somebody trapped behind it. While researching the book we discovered some references to it in pop-culture. A character called Aria from the TV show “Pretty Little Liars” has decorated her room with wallpaper that is the same design for the original front cover of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. We then set about trying to purchase the same wallpaper but had to settle for the most similar one we could find and the results proved pretty successful. It gave the work a very domestic feeling while also not taking the main focus away, contributing factors to an overall narrative.
We also re-edited the film and removed any naming of the films which actually served it much better - it was now less of a video essay and more of a story being punctuated with imagery that wasn’t necessarily related but because they were next to each other a connection was found. This is then similar to the words on the other screen; we tried a couple of different ideas out - slowing the words down to one a minute, instead of having random objects we would choose them based on the first thing that came into our head when watching the film, having the colour change with the words, asking someone to think of one word to describe it and then doing synonyms of that word similar to the synonym paintings by Mel Bochner.
However, we settled on having synonyms for the word prop. We felt this was the best method of getting across that props are sideline things - they’re a support structure around which the main event is built. This way, we’re truly foregrounding the things which are usually left in the background.
