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| Multiple Screens used in my show Rat Rose Bird. Photo Credit: Briony Campbell |
A theatre student from Scarborough Campus Hull Uni asked me last week why I use screens in my work and I wrote a quick statement for her... It's rather dry, but thought I'd post it up here as may well be useful again sometime in the future. Who knows...Thanks Alice Wicker for asking me the question in the first place!
"I use screens in a variety of ways in my practice. Not
all of works feature them but a sufficient number do to warrant
identifying them as a medium that is an important part of my artistic palette.
I use them as they allow me to draw attention to details that the
audience might not otherwise look at, or be able to see, or otherwise have
access to.
For example in Grafting and Budding they allow the
audience another viewpoint of the live action (a different angle at a
different scale). In this work the screen elevates the live action making
it epic. The pictures I am making on the tabletop, with spices,
apples, materials, become more important than watching me the performer
'performing' (or at least AS important). The screen also reminds the audience
to look again. They are silmutaneously being shown alternative
viewpoints of the same event. This is particularly important in
Grafting and Budding as the work is all about what can be seen or read through
looking at the surface of 'things' or people. If the audience can so easily be
shown the same event from different angles what else could they be
'seeing'? Should they trust their eyes, or should they dig deeper?
Similarly in Give Me Land Lots of Land, the audience are
able to choose to either watch the on-screen glamorous version of me,
where I miraculously make objects appear from my mouth, or, the
'real' version lying on a dusty floor with the mechanics of the 'trick'
exposed.
In Rat Rose Bird I use both live feed and pre-recorded
footage. The live-feed is used to make a very small scene appear
normal scale and the pre-recorded footage gives audience access to diary like
clips that aren't made for the stage. These images are then relayed
across multiple screens at the same time in order to draw
attention to the movement of the clips. This again has the effect of
elevating them/makes them epic/makes them something 'other'. The onscreen
action almost becomes like choreographed dance scenes and the
televisions take on a sculptural quality when viewed as objects. The
pre-recorded clips hint at other histories and different narratives and remind
the audience to remember.
The type of screen I use is also not an arbitrary
decision - the television/the largescale cinema screen/the angle the
live-feed is shot at and how these are presented in relation to my live
body are always very carefully considered in relation to the idea I am
trying to convey."
Done!
