Designing a mind

I was recently given the thought about the negative space and the outside space of our circles in which we move. The thoughts that no matter what we do it is already laid out for us, not by the gods but by the universe. This script comes at an appropriate time as I start exploring the theory’s of stoicism and how that can change your life without positive thinking.

The thought of what is it like to go through depression and it being like a cloud that hangs over you. What is like to put yourself inside the mind of an accidental physiatrist. Does everything really happen and is laid out for you if you like it or not. Did the holocaust have to happen to make the Jewish faith what it has become today? This is a lot of heavy thinking that I am yet to fully map out and understand in my head and probably take a while.

I have been bought in to lighting design a rehearsal and development piece for a new writing called Conundrum written by Paul Anthony Morris. I am spending the week in the bush theatre studio space to explore the writing more and what light can bring to this mindset. Looking at drawings the Paul had made about this inner circle and negative space I absorbed this and the script to produce a design that reflected this ideology.

The design I created starts with a slight gradient of light as its biases and with a bright white circle to resemble that inner mindset and world. With a in depth conversation I had with Paul we looked at setting scenes with abstract colors. There are a few scenes that are set in a park so for this we will use green and for a physiatrist office a white will be used to show the clean and bright environment that we associate with this. Its interesting to start thinking of how colors can be associated with areas and mindset. Looking at the mindset of voices talking to you I was looking at pastille colors and settled on a pastille purple as I felt this scene was quite calming but I used a pastille pallet as it makes the color look a bit more vague and cloudy to symbolize what it is like to be in that mindset. It is hard to you’re your mind to start focusing on the mind over location. You start to ask yourself questions like what color’s do you associate with a nightmare? What color do you associate with depression? Even to the extent of what color do associate with days of the week. I find myself even questioning the color’s associated with

It is always interesting to be in an environment with many people who are so creative and intelligent bringing there experiences and knowledge together to create this piece and develop it to the next level. It really opens your mind to a wider world. It becomes a pleasure, especially that you know that not many people have these opportunity’s to be payed to be in the presence of these kind of minds, to be in a room with someone who can make notes and map on the tone range of your voice is unbelievable. I feel honored to be part of work like I have been.