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South London Gallery
Teachers’ Pack
Steve McQueen - Once Upon a Time
South London Gallery
65 Peckham Road
London
SE5 8UH
0207 7036120
Email: [email protected]
Supported by
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Please contact the gallery for a large print version of
this teachers’ pack on 020 77036120
Welcome
The South London Gallery is committed to providing a resource for schools in
Southwark. We can provide specially tailored artist-led workshops for a limited
number of local schools and we welcome class visits on weekday mornings
(Tuesday to Friday 9.30am-11.30am), when the gallery is closed to the public.
Teachers’ packs like this one will be produced for each exhibition (6-7 per
year), to be used either as a guide to a visit or as a starting point for delivering
lessons in the class room. Teachers can also book the use of the new (interim)
education space at the gallery, which is equipped for practical workshops for
up to 20 pupils.
Exhibition/project
Date: September 17th-November 7th 2004
Artist: Steve McQueen
Type of work: Film, installation and audio.
Brief Description: This is a terrific exhibition with the potential to truly inspire
teachers and students across the curriculum. The work encourages us to
discuss ideas about communication with extra terrestrial life or on a more local
scale, with people from other cultures and countries, and who speak different
languages to us. It encourages us to think about how we could communicate
who we are and how we would choose to represent our own lives with images.
As the work is based on an actual NASA project it is a perfect lead-in to science
lessons based on our solar system.
Suitability: We would recommend that teachers working with younger children
(under the age of 10) visit the exhibition prior to deciding to bring your class as
some more sensitive and younger children may find the experience frightening.
Teachers’ Inset event: Monday 20th September - workshop for teachers 5.306.30pm, preview of exhibition 6.30-7.30pm at the South London Gallery.
How to use this pack:
This resource pack is intended to support the delivery of art lessons based on
the work Once Upon a Time by film maker, Steve McQueen. It suggests lessons
that can be adapted to suit children’s age ranges and abilities and could be
used as a one off lesson or spread over a whole term.
Contents
This teaching pack contains the following sections:
1. Background information about the artist and work for teachers.
2. Before your visit – Discussion and Research
2a Discussion
2b Research
2c Research signposting
3. During your visit to see Once Upon a Time
4. Classroom Follow up
4a A closer look at some of the images
4b Activity
A selection of A4 Images
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Section 1
Background information about
Once Upon a Time Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen, is a leading international contemporary video and filmmaker,
born in London in 1969. He graduated from Goldsmiths College of Art in 1993
before studying at Tisch School of the Arts in New York University. He now lives
and works in Amsterdam.
He won the Turner Prize in 1999 and was awarded an OBE by the Queen in
2002.
He has had solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Musée
d’Art Moderne, Paris. Steve McQueen has been commissioned by the Imperial
War Museum to make work in response to the current conflict in Iraq.
Once Upon a Time
In the 1970s, NASA sent photographs selected with the intention to show
extraterrestrials what life on Earth is like, into space. McQueen’s installation at
the South London Gallery involves the projection of 116 images, replicating
those still travelling through space at a speed of 150 million kilometres per
year on the Voyager space probes that began their exploratory journey across
the universe in 1977.
In Once Upon a Time , McQueen explores the construction and representation of
knowledge. The images chosen by NASA, including a newborn baby, state of
the art skyscrapers and fresh supermarket produce, portray a rose-tinted
version of life on Earth where poverty, war, religious conflict and disease are
notable by their absence.
The images are accompanied by unintelligible voices ‘speaking in tongues’ – a
phenomenon known as glossolalia. This undecipherable language is mostly
associated with evangelist Christians but is in fact present in many cultures.
The images on which Once Upon a Time is based could potentially still be
picked up by extraterrestrial life forms. Voyager II is currently the furthest
manmade object from Earth, at around 22 times the distance between the
Earth and the Sun, and Voyager I is not far behind. If in the future life on Earth
ends, the photographic record on the Voyager probes will prove that mankind
existed but barely hint at the complexity and history of the human race.
McQueen worked closely with William J Clancey, NASA researcher and advisor
to SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) laboratory, and William J
Samarin, linguist and professor emeritus in the anthropology department at
the University of Toronto, to make Once Upon a Time (2003) which was
commissioned as a site-specific work by the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville
de Paris.
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Section 2
Before your visit –
Discussion and Research
2a Discussion
Information for Teachers
Discuss ion
Steve McQueen is a young British filmmaker
who was born in London in 1969. He won
the Turner prize in 1999.
·
Since the early 1990s Steve McQueen’s
approach has centred mainly on the making
of short films, drawing on a range of media
including Super 8, 16mm, 35mm film and
video.
·
·
His early work often took the form of black
and white silent films; their absence of
sound referenced early cinema.
Components which make up a film could
include; images, sound, story line,
music(soundtrack) composition, characters,
plot, colour (or b&w)
·
·
·
·
·
2b Research
Information for Teachers
Steve McQueen made Once Upon a Time in
response to the Voyager II NASA mission of 1977
Voyager I and Voyager II are shuttles which were
built to enable us to explore outer space in a way
never possible before.
NASA selected 116 images which they believed
represented life on earth (or how they wanted life
on earth to be represented)
The images were loaded aboard the Voyager II
shuttle and sent into space; they are still travelling
at 17 kilometres a second (50million miles per
year) and are the furthest manmade object from
earth.
The Voyager II carries a phonograph record (now
obsolete technology) bearing a rich collection of
information about us: our voices, our sounds, our
music, a library of images.
Has anyone heard of Steve
McQueen?
Has anyone heard of the
Turner Prize?
What is the Turner Prize?
Do we know any other
artists who have won the
Turner Prize?
What does a film maker do?
What components make up
a film?
The title of the film showing
at the South London Gallery
is Once Upon a Time what
clues could this title give us
about the work (as we know
it is a film)
What do we expect to see,
hear and experience?
Research activities
Divide the class into three
and assign each group a
research area
· Group 1 – Steve
McQueen the artist
· Group 2 – Voyager II
(NASA 1977)
· Group 3 – Glossolalia
(speaking in tongues)
(This could be a short
10 minute exercise or a
homework assignment)
·
Ask each group to
share their research
findings (limit it to 4
or 5 interesting facts)
with the rest of the
class
The phonograph record, engraved in copper, and
protected by a metal shield, will survive in space
for billions of years; it will last far longer than our
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Earth.
When our sun incinerates the earth in about five
billion years and all human existence and records
of human existence are wiped out, the records on
the Voyager II will reveal that once upon a time
there was a planet Earth.
If another life form discovers the Voyager II the
images are intended to communicate human
existence to them as well as Earth’s location.
The images on board the Voyager II are intended
to show human ‘knowledge’ but are very much
biased towards western knowledge.
In Once Upon a Time Steve McQueen projects exact
copies of the original 116 images onto a large
screen; the projection is accompanied by a
soundtrack of Glossolalia commonly known as
‘speaking in tongues’.
Glossolalia means you speak a language that did not
exist before, or no one has ever heard before. The
phenomenon is not strictly Christian. It exists in a lot
of cultures.
2c Research- signposting The following web addresses will give further
information about the subjects. Your class might be able to research on the
internet themselves, if not, you could print some web pages off and give them
to the groups to read and summarise.
Subject
Where to find a dditional research resources
Steve
www.southlondongallery.org
McQuee http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/544210.stm
n
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3659680.stm
Once
http://www.osbaldestinx.com/mcqueen_view.html
Upon a
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/20years/mcqueen.htm
Time
http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2004/03/19/31893.html
Glossola
lia
Voyager
II NASA
(1977)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/545627.stm
http://skepdic.com/glossol.html
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/g/glossolalia.html
http://www.metareligion.com/Linguistics/Glossolalia/glossolalia_today.htm
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&f
ile=article&sid=255
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/welcome/voyager.htm
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1977-076A
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Section 3
During your visit to see Once Upon a Time
Thinking and talking about the work
Steve McQueen’s installation at the South London Gallery will be in a darkened
room and it may be hard to hold a discussion in the space, before the visit ask
the students to consider the following points as they watch the film, if they
have sketch books it would be a good idea for them to make notes. If not, the
questions could be made into a worksheet, these questions could be simplified
or cut down to focus on one aspect of the work. (If your visit is before midday
the gallery will be closed to the public and we will be happy to stop the film for
you to hold a discussion in the space)
Points to make notes about or discuss as a group;
· Ask them to write down the first word that they think of as they walk into
the space
· Ask them to write down words that they think of whilst they look at the
images on screen
· Ask them to write down words to describe the sound which accompanies
the film
· Do they think the images are an accurate representation of human life?
Why?
· Do they think the images are a fair representation of their own life? Why?
· Do they think there are any images missing? What would they add?
· How does the work make them feel?
· Is the work what they expected it to be?
· What do they think aliens would make of humans from these images
and Why?
· Are the images positive or negative representations of life on earth?
Why?
· Why do they think it’s called Once Upon a Time ?
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Section 4
4a A closer look at some of the images
Discussion
These images were amongst some
which were selected to communicate
to aliens what humanity is and what
life on earth is.
Split the class into groups and give
each group an image to study. Ask
them to consider;
·
What is the image of?
·
Using the key words ask them
to describe the messages
behind the image
·
Can they provide some key
words themselves?
·
Do they think the image is an
accurate and fair one to
represent life on earth?
·
Is it a positive or negative
representation? Why?
·
What message does this
image offer for the aliens?
Classroom follow up
Image
Key words
Technology
Exploration
Advancement
Science
Intelligence
Birth
Reproduction
Lifecycle
Species
Miracle
Environment
Nature/ Natural
Habitation
Nourishment
Race
Gender
Difference
Unity
Care
Cityscape
Advancement
Industry
Technology
Energy
Control of
environment
Hunting
Superiority
4b Activity
· Choosing one of the key words ask the students to make a
representation of their life on earth to communicate with aliens, they
could use a variety of medium, photography, collage, drawing or
painting to create one single image. Collect the images the class has
made and compare the content to those which were sent into space.
What are the similarities and what are the differences?
· If you have the facilities this exercise could be done on the computer, or
the images scanned in and made into a slide show and projected for the
class to watch.
· Ask the class to consider what sounds they would record and compile to
communicate to the aliens, ask them to draw a sound story board to
accompany their image. What sounds convey the same meaning as the
images they have chosen to use?
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