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The Man I Am Today
Duration 8 mins 56 secs.
My Methodology
I approached this project slightly differently to previous interview based work I have done; I found the first interviewee via a military re- enactment site of a group based in Surrey and emailed the 'Commanding Officer' with some detais of my research area and he agreed to be interviewed. Having met him at a public event at Clandon Park (also the home of the Surrey Infantry Museum) I later met the other men through a living history event the following week that he was attending at Shoreham Fort. I took cameras along and did some networking...
This was the first time I had untertaken a project using 5 voices, and so their were certain practical and logistical issues as outlined below.
I have focused on groups dealing with the Victorian period which aligns with my research into uniform history and the origins of masculine style in relation to uniforms and I found around eight men that said they would be interviewed.This included the proprietor of military costumiers in Sussex who is also a stunt coordinator.
Of this group I eventually was able to secure and interview five of them, one of whom Ihad not met before I interviewed him
I attended I visit per interviewee and as usual I went with prepared questions , the same questions for each one, see my concept/theme
The groups represented are:
The Queens Royal (West) Surrey Regiment (Guildford)
The Victorian Strollers (Littlehampton)
The Fort Cumberland Guard (Portsmouth)
The Royal Sussex Regiment (Shoreham)
Uncertainties that I had to deal with were:
Logistical -having to travel to Sussex and Hampshire and I requested a quiet location to record the interviews each time I did not know until I arrived what the circumstances would be.
The recording locations ranged from domestic environments to an underground office of a museum and a tea hut in the middle of the fort with a strong wind blowing outside. I was unsure as to what the equality of the footage would be although I did run some tests onsite thorugh my laptop
One person was a complete stranger to me until the interview.
An infantryman of The Queens Royal (West) Surrey Regiment at Clandon Park
My first interviewee (who also adopts an officer's role in
re-enactments)
The 'Austrian Knot' frogging on the othe ranks uniform of the Queens Royal (West) Surrey Regiment
My Concept/theme
The constructed nature of gender, how gender is repeatedly 'performed'
and established culturally though clothing, behaviour and voiceWhat is masculine/non? masculine?
The origins and manifestations of so called masculine behaviours
When repeated becomes part of the establishment and constructed meaning becomes 'normalised '
Iam looking specifically at the influence of military uniform in establishing a hegemonic masculine image
The implications when the normative is transgressed
Looking at the inter-relationship of military uniform, tailoring and masculine image
Loyalty to a group, signifiers of belonging - could be in a military or subcultural context
Some of the questions I asked included:
How the renactments groups started and their role in them
Their uniform, how they wear it, what do different badges and emblems mean?
How do they feel when they wear they wear it?
At what point to they get in role?
What does the drill involve?
What kind of voice do they use when in command?
What to they get from being in the group/dressing up?
What are other people reactions to them when they are dressed up
Which weapons do they carry?
Do they have any experience of the regular army ?
If so what was their role?did they carry/use a weapon?
Did they experience the death of comrades while serving?
Did they have any knowledge of their being gay men in the army or in their organisation ?
Have they ever experienced or witnessed bullying in the context of military or military re-enactment
The role of women in the re-enactment organisation
Whether the women's activities are choreographed for them or were they improvised on the day
Some of this research was 'extra' which I may use at a later date and my purpose to was to explore the origins of hegemonic masculinity and the influence that military uniform has had on establishing normative gender roles and how men mainifest this through their clothing, behaviour posture and vocal style. I am also trying to uncover the ways that these codes are broken in terms of a person's sexuality and how tis may or may not be mainfested in their outward appearance and behaviour.
Evaluation
This work can be seen as a development and continuation of my specific and exisiting interest in military groupings and an earlier work (Regiment (2012) and also from The Outsider (2012) which was also based on a recorded interview with a man with miltary connections.These were both unresolved at the time. The Man I Am Today also continues with the theme of gender and sexuality present in the Vyne piece, and there are similar themes of role play and re-enactment in both works, although the context my approach to the work and the form of the work are quite different. My intention was to produce a constructed conversation beween 5 men which simulated a discussion between them about their re-enactment activities, their views on masculinity, how they see themselves and their attitudes to gender and sexuality. This would be the vehicle for what I hoped would be a thought provoking film that would be both moving and accessible to the viewer. I hoped that it would resonate with an audience and provoke each member of the audience to have their own internal debate concerning the nature of masculinity and the role that the miltary and military clothing have had in establishing their ideas. Ideally I wanted to involve men from a range of age groups and backgrounds which fortunately I was able to achieve, and I interviewed men in the 17 to 60 ish age range. I felt that my approach would help to place my work within a more contemporary context and to situate me among other artists for whom the recorded interview is a basis for instigating sociological anthropological enquiry through contemporary portraiture as well as placing myself amongst those who create 'relational ' work that involves collaborating with the wider community.
However there was continuing friction in my mind regarding how to represent visually what was being spoken about and I considered several options:
Using a projection of the fort video footage alone, placing stills of the uniforms between video clips, projecting in black and white, doing a separate side projection of uniform stills to run simultaneously but not synched with the video, using archive footage (from the 1950's ) of the Surrey and Sussex Regiments. After discussions, suggestions and much thought, I made the decision to use the fort footage and to shoot more footage to give myself more flexibility in the edit . Earlier edits containing sound effects and music were abandoned for a more focused experience which enables the viewer to concentrate on what is beibg said without any distractions of other sounds.
The decision was made to project large scale , I wanted to create an immersive experience for the viewer as this reflects the intensity and detail of the discussion on the audio recording. Uniform details are represented by details revealed in the architecture,which through its own history and time of building itself becomes a metaphor for the constructedness and enduring nature of these gender constructs . Repetition in terms of the performance of gender as well as military rhythm and order are evident in the edit.Whilst I recognise that one can not work in isolation and I have received tutorial and technical support with this project, I have huge satisfaction in seeing it realised as a large scale HD projection, having been responsible for all aspects of the video and audio production this time.Technical issues always arise along the way but I have been attentive and persistant in eradicating/reducing these at all stages fo production to enable me to realise realisation a technically superior work to any I have produced before .
Sharon McElroy