Popova

This show culminates the InterArts class at the New England Conservatory.
It is an amalgam of different disciplines and art forms, whose boundaries
we have blurred and twisted into one experimental multimedia whole:
one Terabac, the incoherent twin of Cabaret. 

PROGRAM

I. Plastic 

II. Kinetic sculpture & 
"Moving on" by Victoria Pan 
"Mrs Duster" by Erin Branscome (Liana) 

III. Object Improv continues: 
" Shy Umbrella" by Kyumin Park Music by Leonard Fu 
"What Color is the Marmelade?" by Eli Cohen &
"My Yellow Octopus" by Chuze San 

"Pet-Rushka" by Shek Wan Li and Yen-Chun Wang & " Tap!"
by Jonathan Salman and Jiang Yiliang
Excerpt from "Swan Lake" performed by Victoria Pan 

IV. Petrushka 
Processed excerpt from Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” ballet 

III. Object Improv continues: 
"Teapot" by Sophia Szokolay 
"Jealous Scarf" by Leonard Fu Music by Kyumin Park 

V. Masks 

Drum section: ELi Cohen , Lautaro Mantilla 
Tapping, voicing by the class 
Movement, puppets and sound by the InterArts class 
Directed by Katya Popova 
Produced by Katya Popova and Lautaro Mantilla 
Light by Peter Lanza 

Exhibit Videos by Samantha Watts & Kimberly Anne Stattman. 
Documentation of the process: sketches, props made by the class
during the semester. 

Thank you Olivia Porada, Bob Winters, Lisa Nigris and Audio Visual Department for their help and support! 

InterArts 2018

BROWN HALL MECHANICS is a performance and installation, showcasing the work done by the students of New England Conservatory, as part of the Sculpture Studio class.

In the best traditions of 20th century sound art, it engages sound with space and space with sound, while celebrating both. 

PROGRAM: 

1. Falling Objects 

2. 4 Corner Group 

3. Chair-People 

4. Plastic 

5. Loving Couple 

6. Machine Chorus 

7. Noise Wall 

INSTALLATIONS: 

“Totem”, center insulation foam, acrylic 

“Metal Forest”, stage area sound samples, metal structures, video, fishing line, shadows

“Minimal Structures”,  cardboard, acrylic and fishing line

PERFORMANCE & INSTALLATIONS BY:

TAICHIRO EI 

LUCA FERRARA 

JINGZE GAO (SARAH) 

XU GUO 

RUBIN HOHLBEIN 

YISHAN HONG LIWEI HUANG 

YUTANG HUANG 

CAROLINE KUHN 

BAICHAO LAN 

JOSHUA MASTEL 

JING PENG LORENZO ROBB 

JOSHUA RYU 

MAGALI TOY 

OZNUR TULUOGLU 

WEILU ZHANG 

DANIEL BITRAN SONIA SZOKOLAY 

ELISE LEAVY 

ADAM TUCH
 

DIRECTED BY: Katya Popova

Special thanks to Lisa Nigris & Audio Visual, 
Bob Winters & the Stage Crew , John Mallia, 
Olivia Porada & Liberal Arts Department.

Video by Luca Ferrara All Max MSP programming and electronic sound by Taichiro Ei 

A class on "Gesture", combining movement and visual as part of "Let's Take Class Week" at the Studio 550, Cambridge, MA.

Description:

"Small gestures can have a big impact." - Julianna Margulies

This class fosters the dialogue between visual art and movement, taking “Gesture” as the most basic expressive and minimal element relevant to both mediums.

For dancers/movement artists this class is a way to get introduced to visual expression through movement. For visual artists this class would create an opportunity to learn about movement, and how it can affect the drawing practice.

The class explores the interaction of "visual" and "movement" concepts: the ideas of pure movement and its components (like space, time, body); LMA theme opposites: “function-expression” and “effort qualities”; visual techniques: speed gesture sketching, working from memory, movement analysis through drawing, blind drawing techniques.

In the Spring of 2015 I was offered to teach three Visual Arts courses at the New England Conservatory: Sculpture, InterArts and Visual Arts Studio. After a while, I reworked the curriculum to reflect my own understanding of the subjects.

These studios offer a good introduction to Visual Arts basics, combining theory and practice with experimental interdisciplinary approach.

See links to syllabuses below for more detailed information about the content of the course work as well as some assignment descriptions and images of classroom work.

STONES

Create an oversize sculpture of a stone. Use paint to create an illusion of its color and texture. Think how your sculpture would complement all the stones done in the class. Imagine the stone suspended in the air, as though it is weightless.

Materials: papier-mâché (newspaper; flour glue); Acrylic

DIORAMA

Interpretation of Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire”

Create a diorama based on Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire”.

Think of the diorama’s miniature space as a reflection on spacial qualities of the music. 

How does the space you are constructing make you feel? What do you want someone to experience while looking through it? What devices can you invent to suggest the scale? What would in your opinion make this space immersive? How the materials and forms you are creating relate to Scriabin’s piece?

Materials: card board box; mixed media; acrylic

FEEL FELT

Create a series of 2D compositions reflecting on the idea of “growth” and “spring”, using colored pieces of felt and the interior of Jordan hallway.

Think of growth as a process, which you can reflect upon. How to show the movement using different color interaction and rhythmical patterns? How the context: architecture of Jordan Hall can influence your design? 

Materials: felt, hallways of Jordan Hall

INTERIOR

This assignment is on spacial awareness, but also on reinterpreting familiar space with new meaning using your body as a visual element, which can change this meaning by attaching itself to the environment (in this case NEC hallway). See short video documentation.

INTERACTION of COLOR
After Josef Albers

This class is based on Josef Albers color theory class at the Bauhaus. Most of the exercises are derived from his famous book “Interaction of Color”. 

Please create a series of simple color exercises using Color aid palette, a special collection of 314 hues, based on Josef Albers teaching. 

For 1 color to appear as 2 (looking like the reversed grounds)

For 3 colors look like 4 (subtraction of color)

Color deception (after-image, simultaneous contrast)

Break in five groups, for each group to create one composition, using juxtaposing diagonal motions towards and from the center of the page. Think about color function, value gradation and simultaneous contrast as your tools.

Materials: grey paper, Color Aid chips, acrylic paint, brushes, paper.

LINOCUT
Inspired by the work of Katsushika Hokusai

Create an image using Linocut technique. Think of different themes, inspired by the exhibition at the MFA of Katsushika Hokusai work. 

Make a preliminary sketch/design in your small sketchbooks using only lines or textural planes to convey a sense of depth of the field (figurative or abstract!).

Reapply your drawing onto the Linoleum block. Explore different tools to experiment with marks and character of the line before cutting into the final design. 

How to juxtapose thick and thins of the line to express the illusion of 3D space and form? What are different effects you like, which you notice in the process of printing the image?

Materials: linoleum blocks, Stonehenge printmaking paper, water soluble printing ink.

MONOPRINT
Drawing on the glass

Create an image using Monoprint technique. 

Roll any color onto the surface of the glass, then scratch the drawing. Mix and experiment with three primary colors: blue, red and yellow. Invent new ways to make the marks. 

Once you made a few prints, limit your palette to just one color and a stencil. Create a sense of motion or static in your compositions.

What do you notice about the process? What feels unique to monoprint technique? How glass surface can engage the colors in a different way than just paper?

Materials: glass, Stonehenge printmaking paper, water soluble oil ink.

Syllabuses

Sculpture

InterArts 

Visual Arts Studio

Lectures

Feel Felt

On Collage

Description

Teaching fundamentals of two dimensional design to pre college students. See some example of student's projects, produced during the course.

See the syllabus

A series of workshops introducing children to shadow puppets.
Ages: 8 - 10. Spring 2014. Center Makor, Natick, MA

PaintSound

Painting Workshop in collaboration with guitar player Eric Hofbauer
Fall 2016, Industry Labs.

Drawing & Painting at the Arnold Arboretum.

Classes on drawing and painting "en plain air" at Arnold Arboretum. Summer 2015, Jamaica Plain, Boston.

Wake Up the Earth

"Labyrinth" — workshop / installation during the spring festival "Wake Up the Earth". In the course of the day, children painted labyrinth, which transformed from being white to multicolored surface, which symbolized the birth of the spring.

Jamaica Plain, Boston, Spring 2014

Materials: tyvek, trees, tempera.

Make an imprint in your City!

During one day workshop/installation at Maud Morgan Arts
visitors were encouraged to make an imprint using hand made stencils, their hands, or letter forms on the map of the city of Cambridge drawn by the artist.

Maud Morgan Arts, Cambridge, 2014

Materials: printmaking tools, water based printmaking inks, stencils on paper.

LECTURES

"On Nonlinear time"   Architectural School "March". Moscow. 2015

COMPETITIONS

Project "Tower": Monument design competition
for El Lessitzky in the city of Novosibirsk, USSR.

HourGlass: installation proposal for "Outside the Box" summer festival in Boston Common, Boston.