Stimuli!

This is an image of a postcard which was used during WW1 to send to soldiers at the front. I found this image interesting because it shows intimacy at a time when that would have been highly looked down on in the post victorian era. Furthermore the holding of one another was very sweet and alothough this photograph would have been captured for comercial purposes, I like to think that its a gesture that meant a great deal to those who received it. The tender exchange offers many physical opportunities as its clear the feelings behind the position. My interpretation of this piece of stimuli is that of the longing for one another. The words 'Your face is ever with me in my dreams' carries the idea of the two people being constant in each others minds. 

This is a photo I took at the Imperial War Museum. There were hundreds of medals in a collection and each soldiers stories was next to them. the exploration of real soldiers has really interested me. Furthermore the description of this particular soldiers ordeal carries many physical opportunities.  

My darling and loving wife Emily

It is Valentines Day and my thoughts are with you as always, I wish that I could be with you on this special day of love instead of being here in this hell hole which Belgium has become.

I miss you little George and Harry so very much and I pray for the day that this war comes to an end, please pass my love on to the children and kiss them for me.

We arrived at the front line just over a week ago and the smell was so bad that many of the men were sick, to describe the smell would be an impossible task but some of the causes will give you an idea of just how bad it is.

Raw sewage from the open cess pit, body odour from men who haven’t had a decent wash for weeks, dead bodies rotting in shallow graves and laying out in the open in no man’s land, the smell of exploded bombs and the odour of Mustard gas which lingers for a few days after the attack, stagnant mud, cigarette smoke and cooking smells all add to the unpleasantness of the trenches.

They say that we will get used to the smell over time but it feels like it will never leave us at the moment.

The smell attracts rats they are everywhere you look and they seem to be unafraid to show themselves, there is so much waste here that the rats are thriving and some of them are as big as felix our cat.

I shaved my head yesterday because my hair was crawling with lice most of the men have been scratching and itching almost since the day we got here.

The rain is a constant companion flooding the trenches and turning the floor into mud it is so bad that some of the men are getting sores on their feet and can hardly walk with the pain.

Sleep is so hard to come by with the constant booming and banging of the shells from both sides, my bed is a bunk which has been placed in a dug out section of the trench, a mud roof a mud floor and the constant threat of a stray shell keep me awake at night.

I am scared my darling Emily, my life is under constant threat, bullets randomly fired at us, shells exploding every minute of the day, men are dying all around me if not from a stray bullet or shell they are falling with fever and disease.

Four of the boys in my squad have died already they went through basic training with me and i considered them good friends, my best friend John shot himself in the foot just to get out of here and away from the trenches, he will be treated in a field hospital and sent home.

We are going over the top tonight climbing out of the trench and attacking the enemy trenches

A and B squad went last night and most of them were killed or wounded before they even got 10 yards out of the trench, it is barbaric and a futile waste of human life but the powers that be seem to think that it is the way forward and keep sending those poor men and boys to their deaths.

I will close now and pray that this is not the last letter that I will ever send to you my darling, I long to be back at home with you and the children.

I love you with all of my heart

Happy Valentines Day my love

your ever loving Husband

George xxxxx

The letter was written on 14th February 1915

This is a letter I found when I decided to link the idea of letters to loved ones and the exploration of real life experiences. This letter is one of a few uncensored letters from the war and it reveals the horrific conditions and the writers fear is captured in his words. This is the piece of stimulus Jack and I have decided to work with. it may not offer any visual opportunities however it carries a relationship between two people, it has first hand descriptions of the events and conditions and movement can be developed from this. Furthermore the honesty in the writers words reveals a man petrified. This is something often discussed now days but was never acknowledge as being justified. 

War Records and the use of this stimuli?

We have been looking at ways in which we would like to explore this stimuli. Both Jack and I have com to the conclusion that we want to Identity George Roberts as a human and man That loved his wife Emily deeply, We don't want to have a narrative but we want to look the words and explore the thought changes within the letter, moving from one emotion to the other and exploring this physically through the use of Pace and Force. 

We also want to look at the military aspect in relation to the circumstances,  I researched G Roberts in the Common Wealth War Graves Commissions database and found a soldier who was killed in 1916. This isnt direct link to the letter but what interested me is the service number:

"19676"

I hope we incorporate this into our piece as it is representative of each mans worth to the government at that time. Simply a five digit number. 

Videos as Stimulus

Jack and I looked closely at many videos from WW1 and took elements of each of them. We weren't necessarily inspired by these but it offered us ideas for movement that we could apply the Stephen Burkoff technique to and explore the movement. 

This documentry was really helpful as it not only offered physical opportunities but also revelaed to context behind the moevement from first hand accounts and factual evidence.  The movement for the female led section will be taken from this. So far the movements have been take from the bomb factory as the conveyor belt movements can be used exploring many different dynamics. 

Jack and I used the struggling movement and the rolling of the cannon at gun fire as a section of movement, this was quite tricky at first as we wanted the movement to be representative of trench warfare but also we didn't want it to be literal.