Darkness. Music: OMD, “Of All the Things We’ve Made.” Two piercing points of light (disembodied gaze) slowly search the void, find a form. No eyes, no body, pure linearity of the gaze, caresses the form, shapes a feminine body from the void. Gentle caress of the gaze grows violent, forces her body into its trap, finds other forms, shapes other bodies, implicates them. Mirrors. Feminine bodies set the trap, step in, all trapped together. Gaze reflected back unto its origin in the shape of a pubic delta, shapes his body in the relation. The delta expands, creates the space. The machine is set. It begins.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
"Winter Kills" Sketch: Bandage / Bondage Duet
Darkness. Silence. Breath. Lights. Two bodies in a crumpled heap. Rising slowly together, propping each other up. Movement in stillness like ice crystals crawl across panes of glass. Neither utters a sound. Music: Yaz, “Winter Kills.” He takes her hand, examines her wrist, kisses it tenderly, removes a roll of gauze from his pocket. He wraps her arm with the bandage as she struggles. He tenderly takes her other wrist and bandages her arms together. She can’t move, slumps. In silence, he moves to leave. She holds out her bandaged arms. He embraces her and they crumple once again. Breath. Silence. Darkness.
Monday, December 1, 2008
The Bachelor Machine is a Machine for Seeing
Many iterations of the bachelor machine concept privilege its relation to the function of vision, desire, and the voyeuristic gaze. This is particularly evident in the play with mirrors, glass, lenses, and peepholes in the Quay Brothers' short films mentioned in the previous blog, but it is also prevalent in Kafka's penal machine (in which a pane of glass enables large crowds of onlookers to watch the inscription as it takes place on the flesh of the condemned), Duchamp's "Large Glass" (which attempts to schematize the multi-dimensionality of desire on a two-dimensional surface pressed between two panes of glass), and Jarry's Supermale (where the entire orgy sequence takes place in a gallery filled with portraits and windows). It is thus crucial that this performance somehow address this connection. Consider the following etymology of the English word "theater" from the Oxford English dictionary:
"ad. (directly, or through OF.) L. theatrum
A theater is, first and foremost, a place for viewing. For the Romans, the coliseums and amphitheaters were places for members of the audience to be seen by others. The same is arguably true of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European theater as well. A large part of this performance will attempt to reconceive the space of the theater as a machine for viewing, a machine in which the audience's gaze is just as scrutinized as that of the actors. Here are a few possible ideas that in combination will activate this machine for seeing:
1) An obscuring panel and a revealing panel similar to those used in Diller and Scofidio's "Delay in Glass." This would highlight the importance of reflection and the indirect gaze.
2) Hand-held mirrors for the audience with some parts of the action staged behind them. This would individualize the obscuring/revealing panes mentioned above and situate the audience between them.
3) Alley seating, which would allow the audience to see other members of the audience seeing the action as it takes place between (and/or behind/before) them.
4) Use of sunglasses equipped with laser pointers or tiny flashlights by the actors. This simultaneously hides the source of the gaze (the eye) and reveals the object of the gaze.
5) Scrims could be dropped and lit to reveal and partially obscure events that take place behind them. With alley seating and a careful play of movement on both sides of the scrims, this could potentially highlight the differences in perspective embodied by position in the theatrical space.
6) Placeent of body length mirrors in the performance space and a play of reflected light between them.
I have to experiment with these options a bit to find the right combination for the space and for the piece, but this is a good starting point for reflecting, so to speak.
*[. . .] indicates Greek letters which would not translate to this text field. See OED for Greek spellings.
"ad. (directly, or through OF.) L. theatrum
A theater is, first and foremost, a place for viewing. For the Romans, the coliseums and amphitheaters were places for members of the audience to be seen by others. The same is arguably true of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European theater as well. A large part of this performance will attempt to reconceive the space of the theater as a machine for viewing, a machine in which the audience's gaze is just as scrutinized as that of the actors. Here are a few possible ideas that in combination will activate this machine for seeing:
1) An obscuring panel and a revealing panel similar to those used in Diller and Scofidio's "Delay in Glass." This would highlight the importance of reflection and the indirect gaze.
2) Hand-held mirrors for the audience with some parts of the action staged behind them. This would individualize the obscuring/revealing panes mentioned above and situate the audience between them.
3) Alley seating, which would allow the audience to see other members of the audience seeing the action as it takes place between (and/or behind/before) them.
4) Use of sunglasses equipped with laser pointers or tiny flashlights by the actors. This simultaneously hides the source of the gaze (the eye) and reveals the object of the gaze.
5) Scrims could be dropped and lit to reveal and partially obscure events that take place behind them. With alley seating and a careful play of movement on both sides of the scrims, this could potentially highlight the differences in perspective embodied by position in the theatrical space.
6) Placeent of body length mirrors in the performance space and a play of reflected light between them.
I have to experiment with these options a bit to find the right combination for the space and for the piece, but this is a good starting point for reflecting, so to speak.
*[. . .] indicates Greek letters which would not translate to this text field. See OED for Greek spellings.
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