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in summary, I like that what I created, made the audience feel related to my pain, and empathise with me, one of the main goals in the creation process. I also believe that this process has helped with how I deal with my trauma, and allowed me an access point for my emotions.

I think when I continue this work into my ITP, I want to create more scenes, some that don't just focus in on the grief, to really show how I am growing and that puts me in a position to move forward with creating work, and upwards in my emotional development.

My therapist and I have discussed how to safeguard me, if I continue on this line of creation, which includes not sharing work even if it is finished so that I have time to process whether sharing the work is appropriate for me and won't let me be out of control of my trauma, as well as keeping me in a position where I can choose who sees the work, due to the nature of it being an ongoing process for me even after the camera turn off.

There is a part of me that wants to continue however; to find more autobiographical artists who are creating during COVID, and to see how they ensure safety in their work for themselves and others.

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if you fancy watching it

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Over My Dead Body was the work of Ali Wilson that struck my attention, the idea of having a candid discussion about death through my piece isn't something I implemented in this scratch, but something I would like to use as a section in my further developed work. It was inspiring to see death displayed in a way that wasn't focussed on the sad negative side, and I played with the idea that the physical sequence in my scratch would have been lighter and more comedic, but that wasn't working with how the work ended up developing so for now its set on the side momentarily until I have more time to develop it as a full scene.

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Creating work that is so personal, and that I'm still working through, makes me super anxious, I'm not always sure that I'm ready to share this much of myself.

During Demi's workshop she discussed how setting hard limits for autobiographical pieces is a way of safeguarding yourself, so that you can't put yourself in a dangerous position. I hoped that by not reading my own story aloud, as well as reaching towards the real, I would have a layer of protection from those words, and by staying one step removed I could keep myself safe.

Re-watching my work has made me come to realise some things that I unconsciously put into the work. I notice that the antithesis between young me and me now, not only shows that Dads death was when I was a child, bust also shows how much I have grown both physically, as is clear, but also emotionally, in how I am able to calmly process pain and sadness; something I don't think I could have done even a year ago. Also in the facial sequence, some of my actions to me felt like I was forcing myself to watch and listen to what happened to Dad again, which seems to exemplify the struggles that I have with processing this trauma.

I also noticed that in the movement sequence some of my laying down positions look less like a depressive episode and more like how Dad was lying when he died.

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For my feedback I asked the audience to make notes and to write any emotional responses they had during the performance.

My main question with this scratch was around wether story could be deduced from a non-verbal piece, and to ensure that the emotions I wanted portrayed weren't being misinterpreted due to the lack of conventional language used.

Most of my audience seemed to notice curiosity and confusion towards the beginning, and I think that's understandable as the context clues to what is happening is stripped back in my video. That worries me less seeing that the audiences emotive responses changed thought watching as most changed to a sense of intensity of sadness and overwhelming feeling, which is definitely what I wanted to portray. I can imagine that the development of emotions creates a sinking feeling with the audience as they come to realise what the piece is saying, and although not originally my intention, I think it allows the audience to share in my emotions of watching Dad stop breathing, and the overwhelming sense of dread that I associate with this event

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An artist who has several works on trauma, and who has now uploaded some of her work to her website (http://louiseorwin.com). Her work on trauma stems from a place of sexual assault and although not the same kind as my trauma, her visuals from these pieces use a mixture of clip projection and live performance, as well as a clash of comedy and sensitivity that I wish to convey through my work. the trailer for Pretty Ugly, that have close ups of the face that were really striking for me and inspired the facial scene in my work, as well as the use fo comedy at the end to change the tone of the work.

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After Demi's Workshop I realised that in the reasoning for creating this work, I thought that I most related to point three on her slide, that I was remembering a truth in an accessible way. I have never been good with words, i'm much more visual as I'm sure is clear by this Padlet, and just as Demi said in her workshop,'The personal experience is clearly seen to be part of the universal picture. We share her joy, her pain, her awareness of the extraordinariness

of ordinary everyday life and the “terrible mess” that is the world we all inhabit.' it allowed me to understand that my autobiographic work isn't selfish, it's about reflecting the experiences everyone has through my own eyes and my own past. My work was destined to be a reflection of grief and my personal trauma in a visual way that I can access better, that allows others to feel their grief and trauma through me. perhaps that's quite wordy to describe something that seems so simple, but like I said, I would have been more efficient presenting this as a watercolour than a paragraph.

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When looking for current performers there were a few elements that needed to fit, first I wanted the performers to be creating or showing work during the COVID era, and that looked into topics that suited me and my line of work, so most notably trauma and/or grief.

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So more than just ripping my soul out by looking at pictures of my Dad, the videos have proven really useful in the creating of the scratch, some for visual and some for audio.

For example SDV 0043, is a video that Includes my Dad, God father, and Grandad. unfortunately you don't get a clear image of any of them, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear both my Dad and Grandads voice and thus became the basis for the soundscape in the scratch.

The first two videos in this list you will also see in the scratch, one of younger me, used as a reflection of the growth that I have had since the death of my dad, as well as a reminder that this event didn't happen to me as an adult but as a child. it brings home some of the best memories I had with him, and those powerful memories allowed me to reach an emotional state in my recording.

The second video makes me laugh so much, both the terrible music and cheesy outfit Dad is wearing make me smile every time I watch it, in the scratch it allowed me to take away from the heaviness of the rest of the piece, a reminder to the audience and myself that death is incredibly sad and hard to deal with, but the memories I have of him don't have to be, they can still have the joy that was felt in these videos and memories.

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My Presentation on dog non-verbal communication 

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My Presentation on dog non-verbal communication 

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If it takes your fancy

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Sources I used during my project that might be useful for further understanding of the topic

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Sources I used during my project that might be useful for further understanding of the topic

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Bloom, Tina. Friedman, Harris “Classifying dogs’ (Canis familiaris) facial expressions from photographs” Elsevier Behavioural Processes vol.96 (2013) p.1-10

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Coppinger, Raymond, Lorna. Dogs. New York: Scribner, 2001: p.50-67.

Johnston, Adrian. "Jacques Lacan", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), accessed at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/lacan/.

Kaminski, Juliane, Waller, Bridget M, Diogo, Rui, Hartstone-Rose, Adam , Burrows, Anne M. Evolution of facial muscle anatomy in dogs PNAS (2019) accessed at:  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1820653116

Ridout, Nicholas. “Animal Labour in the Theatrical Economy.” theatre research international · vol. 29 (2004): p.57–65

Wlodarczyk, Justyna. Be More Dog, Performance Research (2017) p.40-47.

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This menagerie of photos, video clips, and audio are some of the last things I have of my Dad. I have spent a lot of time at home during the pandemic and that has allowed me to finally start working through both my mental and physical clutter; everything above was found on my dads old hard drives. my Dad although a very gadgety man seems to have avoided the camera for most of his 41 years, and that isn't because he didn't like the attention, that I'm sure of. he was always behind the camera trying to capture memories of me, his only child, and his amazing wife. The clips and pictures here really show Dad for what he was, a funny, dedicated and proud man. there has been a lot of crying throughout this process, even now as I write about him.

I just wanted to add a note to the reader, that this work has been hard for me, even in creating a small section of what I hope will become a much larger piece, I'm really enjoying seeing how far I have come, and I love being reminded of Dad all the time.

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Next in development came editing; speaking with my tutor on how I wanted the scratch to look, I know I wanted to have a feeling of looking between different exhibits in an art gallery, and that's why I started playing around with switching between my two scenes. Another working version of the scratch had the two scenes playing simultaneously but it felt too busy, and didn't allow me to focus enough on the story, as there will be no narration in the final video, I wanted the audience to have the best chance of understanding so I changed that idea.

After a few iterations of the two scenes being blended together began working on the soundscape, I created it in GarageBand. I already knew that I didn't want my letter to be used in the soundscape, so I started with an audio of a judo class; typically taught fully in Japanese I liked the idea of an audience not being able to fully understand what is happening, but still be able to hear the same things that I would have seen on that day. One of the videos I found on Dads hard drive was of him teaching some grips to send to our friend Bob in New Zealand, I blended the sound of the Judo class with that of his voice, so that his voice gets louder and more prominent towards the end, with a hope to slowly over the course of the scratch for it to become clearer about what I am seeing.

At this point the work felt powerful and emotional, but felt as if it was missing some lighter points. I knew that using heavy emotional moments in contrast with happier visuals or sound would allow the audience to feel exactly how low I felt in the scenes I had created. I watched Bo Burnhams What. tour on youtube(https://youtu.be/ejc5zic4q2A) he uses a small clip of himself as a child as an intro, and I thought I could use a similar idea of using myself as a child at the beginning of my film. I also wanted to end on a positive note so I added the home video of Dad on New Years because he's smiling and shouting and so happy.

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Again, I wanted to access real in this scene, so although I set out some movements that I wanted to include, I also gave myself space to move freely and improvise if my body lent itself to it.

the movements included holding myself in comfort and sitting in positions that relaxed my spine to show desperation and a sense of giving up, and lying down in a way that I did for several days after Dad died when I was still in shock.

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In the feedback session with my tutor, we discussed how I wanted to work to feel like looking through an art gallery where each piece in the gallery would represent me attempting to access the real in a different way.

I knew that the next section I would want to work on would be a physical expression to be an antithesis of the facial scene as well as to use my love of physical theatre to add another piece to my gallery.

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After waiting for my mind to stop processing the day Dad died, I sat down and listened to my recording and just recorded my face, I had set two facial expressions for each section, but the rest of the scene was simply me reacting to the letter, in hope to access the real, non verbally. I wasn't expecting to get as emotional as I did, but I think that lets me know that I was accessing something within myself. I know that I am prone to panic attacks when I am overwhelmed with emotion, and that didn't happen when filming this, I like to think that means that this process is also allowing me to process my trauma.

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The beginnings of creation of this piece started introspectively, after researching into dog non verbal communication, and finding a start point through therapy I kept being encouraged to write letters, of everything that I ever did with dad, the good, the bad, and the ugly... But as I know I have said previously, words aren't my forte, and dog non-verbal communication allowed me to create a score of dog emotions, I then used these reference images to set out a set of expressions to use at certain points of the letter.

I voice recorded the letter very soon after writing and then left the letter for a week to allow my unconscious to stop analysing the trauma, which can carry on for hours after analysing traumatic events.

This document below isn't the whole of my letter to Dad, its just about the events of the day of his death, and its what I listened to whilst recording the facial and physical sections of the piece.

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my initial inspiration for this piece from my practice as research essay

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my initial inspiration for this piece from my practice as research essay

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I would love to take this research further after this project finishes, and I have an idea to turn this work into my independent touring project next semester. Continuing with my study of my dogs at home I would like to create a reference guide of as many emotions and reactions my dogs have, and convert them into my own versions of the expressions to create motifs, that I could then use to discuss tragic events of personal life without having to put them into words or allow me to avoid parts of the story that would prove too difficult for me to put into words. I also believe that with more understanding of how animals access the ‘real’ with continued study of my own animals that I would be able to convey real emotions and pain in a non-typical animalistic way that allows me to have a greater access to my own ‘real’ and the feelings I have buried to come through in the work.

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Please enable JavaScript to experience Vimeo in all of its glory.

This is about having sexual fantasies that don't align with your politics. It's about understanding what you want, and wondering how the hell to ask for it.

Oh Yes Oh No
Summerhall, Edinburgh - 7.20pm, July 31st to Aug 25th (not Aug 1st, 12th, 19th)
louiseorwin.com/oh-yes-oh-no

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This is about having sexual fantasies that don't align with your politics. It's about understanding what you want, and wondering how the hell to ask for it. Oh Yes Oh No Summerhall, Edinburgh - 7.20pm, July 31st to Aug 25th (not Aug 1st, 12th, 19th) www.louiseorwin.com/oh-yes-oh-no

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Abstract of my Previous work in dog facial expressions

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Abstract of my Previous work in dog facial expressions

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A presentation on, accessing the real, and, animalistic properties and their uses, through imitation of dog nonverbal behaviour.  Covering theorists in performativity, speech act theory and the "real" to inform practice with dogs in a domestic setting to study their behaviours and imitate for the purpose of answering the question, can dog non-verbal communication inform human performance and access to the real.

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Lizzy notes: taken back, curious, intense, moving, personal, gentle, time defiant, I know the context so I think this is very brave of you. Sweet, memories, exploration of sound is smart, heartbreakingly violent, the face shots are hard to watch- just because of your reactions- they’re very real and in the moment. Love the ending.

curious, I want to help her, intense, Uncomfortable, heavy, helpless

Helpless, Protective, Worry, curious, xx

Definitely story, took time to work out what the sound was but that helped the piece develop. Emotions: Precious, curious, upset, intense, sweet, harrowing

Initial thoughts were that there were doors to opportunities being shut. I would never have guessed even by the end that it was to do with your dad unless mentioned beforehand. I felt emotional, sympathy, fear, confused and overwhelming sadness

Moving. Poignant. Intense. Curious. Protectiveness. Charged.

Lizzy notes: curious, confusion, needing to comfort, protective, deeply affected, realisation, overwhelming, pride

Lizzie - intrigued, I want to help you, realisation, empathetic, I want to comfort you, moving, intense

Lizzy - curiousity, confused, empathy, realising you're aching, want to help but nothing I can say can change anything.

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Part of our workshop with Demi Nandhra, whos workshop focused on autobiographical work, in finding reason for creating the work.