Last night I had an informal brainstorming session with the actors. In my estimation, it was quite a success. We viewed two short stop-motion puppet animation films by the Quay Brothers: "This Unnameable Little Broom (Epic of Gilgamesh)" and "Street of Crocodiles." Both films are deliberate and sustained representations of the bachelor machine concept. By far, the latter of these provoked the most discussion. I include a copy of this short film here--in two parts because presumably it is too large to post in its entirety on Youtube. The picture and sound quality are somewhat poor and the color in particular seems to have lost its richness in the transfer, but close enough:
Part 1:
Part 2:
I asked the actors to think about what common motifs they saw in both short films and how these related to the research I asked them to do. Though it necessarily does some violence to the rich discussion that ensued, for the sake of simplicity I think the conversation can be summarized in three main points: 1) the relation of desire as one of lure and limit, 2) problems of agency and control, and 3) voyeurism and the gaze. I will reserve a more sustained engagement with the third for a separate entry, since it elicits larger questions about set design and how I plan to cast the audience in the production, both of which should be examined in much more detail. For the others, however, I will offer my all-too-brief summations of the discussion.
1) Lures and Limits: the Relation of Desire
The bachelor machine functions as an amplification of desire that ultimately refuses satisfaction. Some very intense moments of personal sharing emerged more-or-less organically among the actors. I was encouraged to see that this concept has relevance to their own lives, as it does to mine. I will not enumerate their related personal experiences or my own here, but I will say that all of us shared a similar understanding of desire. Despite minor differences among us, we all seemed to agree that desire functions as a lure that ultimately brings the subject to the threshold of a certain limit and refutes attempts to trangress that limit. This has various manifestations: the etiquette of communication in the early stages of an amorous relationship, the place of morality, ethics, and love in relation to sexual drive, the contradictory forces at play in the performance and construction of gender, etc.
2) Agency and Control in the Bachelor Machine
There's a certain theological impulse in most of us to understand who is the primary causal agent of desire. Who built the bachelor machine? Do we build it and rebuild it constantly? Are we ourselves parts of it? Might one be a bachelor machine in oneself? Or does it take at least two to make a bachelor machine? To what extent do individual actions shape the processes of the bachelor machine? To what extent, conversely, does the bachelor machine structure human agency? Is the bachelor machine social or individual? All questions left more or less unanswered, most likely because they are unanswerable unless one has achieved that impossible Archimedian point outside the structure and function of desire.
Part 1:
Part 2:
I asked the actors to think about what common motifs they saw in both short films and how these related to the research I asked them to do. Though it necessarily does some violence to the rich discussion that ensued, for the sake of simplicity I think the conversation can be summarized in three main points: 1) the relation of desire as one of lure and limit, 2) problems of agency and control, and 3) voyeurism and the gaze. I will reserve a more sustained engagement with the third for a separate entry, since it elicits larger questions about set design and how I plan to cast the audience in the production, both of which should be examined in much more detail. For the others, however, I will offer my all-too-brief summations of the discussion.
1) Lures and Limits: the Relation of Desire
The bachelor machine functions as an amplification of desire that ultimately refuses satisfaction. Some very intense moments of personal sharing emerged more-or-less organically among the actors. I was encouraged to see that this concept has relevance to their own lives, as it does to mine. I will not enumerate their related personal experiences or my own here, but I will say that all of us shared a similar understanding of desire. Despite minor differences among us, we all seemed to agree that desire functions as a lure that ultimately brings the subject to the threshold of a certain limit and refutes attempts to trangress that limit. This has various manifestations: the etiquette of communication in the early stages of an amorous relationship, the place of morality, ethics, and love in relation to sexual drive, the contradictory forces at play in the performance and construction of gender, etc.
2) Agency and Control in the Bachelor Machine
There's a certain theological impulse in most of us to understand who is the primary causal agent of desire. Who built the bachelor machine? Do we build it and rebuild it constantly? Are we ourselves parts of it? Might one be a bachelor machine in oneself? Or does it take at least two to make a bachelor machine? To what extent do individual actions shape the processes of the bachelor machine? To what extent, conversely, does the bachelor machine structure human agency? Is the bachelor machine social or individual? All questions left more or less unanswered, most likely because they are unanswerable unless one has achieved that impossible Archimedian point outside the structure and function of desire.
No comments:
Post a Comment