The Performed Text
See also: [Performance Art] (art technique/thing) [Text as art material] [Coerced performance] -[post post-modernism]- [Performance Absurd] [Dada] [Dadaism] (an art "ism") [Performance: Frank] [ "PARTS ONE, TWO, THREE" ] [Performed Art] [The Performed Art Act] [Performed danse] [Performed Art: Filmed] [The Performed Score] [The Performed UFO's] (and esp, etc) [The Performed WEB (including programming)] [] [Interventionist Art] [(art) concepts] [Art MovementsStreet Art] [Fluxus] [Street Art]The Performed Text
On this page: {Intro} {The Text performed; an alternate thought track} {Entropy} (mis-translation, interpreted text, etc) -[Translation]- (art concept/technique) {Stuff} ** {X-product Generators} NOTE: I'm using "collage" as the means of "drawing" / "poeticating", etc {Notes on LINEAR-i-SATION} {Falacies that are introduced by the "need" for LINEAR-i-SATION} {PT as Social Criticism} {Artist's Statement(s)} {The Usual Suspects} {Techniques} {Meta Text Processing} {So, is the price of the thing its meta-value in the market place as OBJECT'd'DESIRE?} -^_6Intro
The Text performed; an alternate thought track
But, for a moment, let us turn this all around: Instead of the performed text (eg, a script, directions for mixing concrete, etc) consider the text as such performed. The performed text of an idea is the representation of that idea in concrete or expresible/realisable/perceivable form. For example, "still life with carp" a common theme among artists is (clearly i would say) a simple text but of course when actually performed (as with many of John Cage's minimalist scores for the performer which rather leave a large lee way of interpretation and hence performance) - lead a wide variety of ways that the text can be performed. The clearest and simplest example of this a simple sentence (eg, "He paid $12 for that.") where in turn, we emphasize different words in the sentence in different ways. We can also allow the sententce to be either a simple declatory sentence or a question, an exclamation, a plea for mercy, a cosmic question, etc. Thus, we (like Borge's infinitely expressed but finitely contained "Library of Babel") can take as read all *possible* readings of the sentence. In the limit of course we exhaust all of the possible ways that the given sentence can be expressed and then pick up the next sentence and proceed to exhaust all of those possibilities. And by analogy, we can "exhaust" all possible still lifes. We can as such form a sort of "Russsel's Complete Catalog of Still Lifes" (google: "Russell's Paradox"). But, we know that this to be a fiction as well. Just as every possible paintint is NOT every possible work of art on a subect (from 2d we jump to 3d, and then what of assemblage, or "dansing a picture", translation from visual to auditory art, etc?), we know that every supposed method for constructing all possible variations on *anything* is doomed when a new method or device is encountered. For example, it is all well and good that Bach's "Well tempered Clavier" explores all possible keys (here "tempered" is an archaic form of "tuned"), we know that these are *merely* tonic scales based on simple whole fractions and as such based (rather artitrarily) on "C" (something like 440 hz) and that too is based on a 70-30 mix of nitrogen / oxygen. Consider variations introduced: use the helium oxygen mixture which deep sea divers use atonal scales (western civilisation) alternate tonalities (eastern civ.) tibetian throat singing And these do not even take into things like, Stomp (eg, the "Blue Men" group), rap / slam and other modern poetry forms mixing music and or spoken rhthyms w/ and w/out rhyme (or going back to folk singing; eg, Jannis Joplin, Rick Springsteen, Shaker singing, Gregorian Chants, or esp Karl Orrf's re-rendering of "Carmina Burana" (songs of Burana), or even Raph Vaugh Williams "discovery" of simple folk tunes such as "Green Sleeves"). I take it as not being needed to be expanded further, that even simple concepts as "theme and variation" are indeed infinite and un-bounded; no matter how much the reactionary mind would like to dismiss so many things as 'well that's not really music, anyway". The same applies to art; and hence the present work. -- Share and enjoy, Frank.Perf Text: Entropy
(mis-translation, interpreted text, etc) See also: -[Translation]- (art concept/technique) -[SCI x ART]- -[ TRANSLATION - zix entry]- This section deals with what might be called "errors in translation" (or (tips towel) as Tim Robbins noted "Not lost in translation" - Jitterbug). In this section: {Text/Entropy: Intro} {Interpretation} {Re-translation} (cross translation w/errors) {} {} {}Interpretation
(ie, interpretive rendering) See also:Re-translation
(cross translation w/errors) An interesting "game" originaed when the first ideas of machine translation came into being. This "game" was (as far as i know; email: fleeding@hotmail.com) first mentioned in Philip K. Dick's "The Galactic Pot Healer". You take a text, translate it (via "babelfish" or other translation program) into another language, and then into a different language, and so forth, finally translating into the original language; and voila! The text has mutated. (This is similar to (again PK Dick) short story "The Preserving Machine" where texts (eg, musical scores) are translated into actual animals - so that music will survive; cf/qv with the film "National Treasure"). Below is a sample of this (i assume; else it;s a "work of genius").... Regardless, i came across this (and after a few minutes of confusion (an alternate name for entropy; n'est pas? ;) -[Would the world be better off with 90% of humans gone?]- For faculty affairs at st edwards university on their inclass evaluations celebrate his ideas but what awaits us all opinions and its an email saturday had microbes. For the hand of its decision to say is notion he contends ebola reston is encouraged to an endorsement by tas marsh to predict the likely at the risk of crashing point is this guy is of piankas predictions come out and miserable all but though mcconnell biology senior. The second to notice the biggest enemy we waited too early for resources but 10 people as its the funs going strong on daily basis he embraces indeed his rights as confident as candid of. The while leaving the professors not fall within the university of wide scale decimation humans themselves will we will we do that one course performed anonymously in population should an evolutionary step away from provocative food for any formal backing of widespread disease advocating human biomass he recommended airborne it is inconsistent with little to her online blog. The hand of sounding just as tenured educator maintains the hand of wide scale yet he embraces indeed it is not mandate the educators must make every one she returned to become new outlook an epidemic he declared death of humanity pianka the likely well within the distinguished texas professor says hes not without abundant advocates but despite the treatment of africa and disease advocating. Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content for WordPress -[Sol-3: kansieo.com]- Of course, this sort of automatic translation is in a way almost deterministic. Let's say that we take the classic story/narrative duality: The narrative is: The Queen died, and then the King died. And the story is: The Queen died, and then the King died of a broken heart. Using the AltaVista Babel fish, gave: [English to French] Le récit a lieu : La reine est morte, et alors le roi est mort. Et l'histoire est : La reine est morte, et alors le roi est mort d'un coeur cassé. [And directly reversed] The account takes place: The queen died, and then the king died. And the history is: The queen died, and then the king died of a broken heart. But, again this is *directed* (ie, intentional text). That is, while we might almost *any* conversation - which we would expect to get pretty mangled in translation since slang is almost never word-for-word. But, let's look at this sample (since it is often used for literary purposes to distinguish between the almost idential concepts of "narrative" and "story"; read this as "just the facts" and "the details". And of course with all fiction, it IS the details that make the story. A classic exploration of this occurs in Denis Diderot's "Jacques the slave and his master". Note that for the most part the CONTENT of the text (the narrative/story) survives nicely (see below for futher translations), but the actual NAME of the thing (ie, "story" vs "narrative") has trouble. This is rather odd, since in a way "narrative" vs "story" is JARGON. And the purpose of jargon is to AVOID confusion. For example, in chemistry we speak of an ACID and a BASE. In one definition, anything with a ph (hydrogen ion concentration) of less than 7 is an ACID, and greater than 7 is a base. For inorganic compounds (eg, for NOT things like methanol, ethanol, gasoline, fats, carbohydrates, etc) this ranges from 0 to 15. But for organic compounds (eg, "Acetic Acid" - which is a border-line in-organic / organic compound), Oxalic acid and such - in many case where they will NOT be disolved in water, the problem of ACID/BASE becomes confused. Thus an alternative *re-finement* of the definition comes from (as i recall) the so-called Lonstead-Browery definition: An acid is a proton donor A basi is a proton acceptor. Thus, even in a refined and restricted knowledge area, the jargon can become confused and need restricting/ re-defining. Of course it could be argued that such cases occur at the BOUNDARY areas of some under-laying parameter; here, ionic vs non-ionic solutions, as well as ionic (in-organic) vs covalent (organic) bonding properties of the compounds. Thus, we come to: Given A and NOT A (say B, rather than "merely" the negation of A) the distinguishing marks can easily be made the more different A and B A = a swallow (Hirundo rustica) - a Euorpean Swallow B = a hat (derby for ease of reference; but perhaps a fedora (hatus Sardouri; the joke is that for the most part the Roman's didn't wear hats; the closest would be a helmet) ref link: -[Latin-English dictionary]- alas, i digress. Both A and B fly (with the wind of course in the case of B) Colours? Textures? - appearance Thus, almost any number of distinguishing marks exist for these. But, the closer the two are (eg, two different species of Swallow) the fewer distinguishing marks there are. This is due to the fact that within each classifciation there is the possiblity of VARIATION without exclusion. Now, to return to translation. If we have something like English: The Black Cat French: Le Chat Noir (the familiar haunt of Toulouse Latrec, Eric Satie, etc) Now, we go to this: English: The only slightly black cat. French: Le seul chat légèrement noir Reversed: The only slightly black cat (100%) And then English: The only sightly black cat, supposedly grey. French: Le seul chat noir sightly, censément gris (btw, "grey" and "gray" give the same translation) Reversed: The only black cat sightly, supposedly gray Ah ha!!! So, what has happened??????Stuff
So, what are the aesthetics of peformance art as opposed to theatre? Do we need restrict our definition/usage of theatre to "traditional theatre" -- whatever that is; ie, elisabethian, classical greece, Mollier vs the 1800c ?? More directly: What are the particular aesthetics that select/differentiate between performed text and performance;per se ? (it is recommended to listen to the 1st movemetn of Prokofiev's Symp #2 (yes; number 2, and NOT the classical) (an old beige rain coat might help as well) We take as read text as text as text as text read as simple recitation and/or discussion, etc. Even if i speak as non chalantly as possible the words To be or not to be (or their equivalents in Klingon) there is almsot no way that i can do so without destroying context at that moment. Or, as certainly one of the most feared (or one assume so) poets of Plato, has sed: >>In ancient times, paintings we- re given their finishing touches in stages. Each day brought so- mething new. A painting used to be sume of actions. In my case, a painting is the sum of destructions. I paint a work, and then I destroy it.<< -- Pablo Ruiz Picasso Thus, in the case of Hamlet's words (arguably the most famous words in the Language English!), we can not escape their weight of destruction. Imagine a clown of most comic proportions, who suddenly "strikes a pose" and utters them, or a dictator (eg, Hitler, Nero, Cardinal Jimenez, etc) - that is, the two anti-podes of human existence (nilhilism vs obliteration). In either case, their preceding remarks/actions/etc are struck into another unvierse this sort of *ultimate* dividing mark: "To be or not to be". Of course, we cheat here, since the words would have little meaning prior to the widespread knowledge of Hamlet, it's performances, and the "soaking in" of the work as pure text. Note that only the the case of Hitler and his time (the 1900c), would his audience be aware of what the words meant - whether spoken in English or not. We might well ask if there have "always" been such words? Thus, we might have found some equivalent in the time of the the Roman or Catholic scourages of equal maginitude in the denigration and derrogation of the human spirit. But, we would find such words useful in any event. In the modern context, uttering "Fire" in a theatre, or the word "gun" in the presence of secret service agents protecting a president, king, or other official would be the only equivalent in destructive power. Here, quite literally so. And what of the words of a doctor concerning some critical results of a test? For example, an "HIV" test? In my own case, i had determined if indeed i was still "hiv free" i would say a certain thing from a certain play - sort of thanks to the mues for sparing my life (at least for a little while, and in this major way). The lab tech got my file, went back to the back of the office - through which i could see him looking at my file. The passage from the reception room, led past the desk that served as the reception, down a darkish hall, and into THE ROOM (that is, the room where people were counciled when the news was not good). And the ages clicked by, the tech (way "back there") continued, looking at the sheets stapled to my file. An infinity of time passed as inifnity does (as it does at about 3 minutes into Satie's "Ballet Realiste"). Finally (as it turned out, i had had a liver cancer test done as well, and of course, that was a bit unusual).... oh, you're all right..... (sed he') so out sprang these works, Very well, then we shall have a new opera. And Herr Mozart shall write it. And it shall be in German; there 'tis, then. Odd, how performance just "happens". START AGAIN One of the major aspects of theatre is that it IS produced from written scripts -- there is of course a complete "agenda" or at the very least an "aesthetic" that this brings to the work (both the text and the performance)... In theatre, we have: If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. But, then we have improv (which from one person is essentially the same as host interviewing a person), in multiple person comedy sketches (eg, "Whose Line is it anyway?) the actors are inter-acting with each other. In the case of an acting class, even if the actors are inter-acting with the "audience", the actors in the room sort of "know" that it's an act - ie, part of a class assignment. But, then we go down to how well the audience knows the actor and of course how far the actor thinks that they can go with the audience at hand. Recall Naim Jun Paik's statement to Stockhausen: "But, none for you!" (shampoo incident). And of course this goes back to trust systems in theatre in general. The limit of which is STILL "Ubu Roi"'s first performance. So, for the theatre (circus? poetry reading? science lecture? sermon?) comes the MATCHING of speaker(s), content(s), audience(s), etc. We might imagine multiple audicences congregated into the same space, either seated separately (as in a quiz show: "The National IQ Test" -- great drama (yeah, right) - And of course if we allow or dis-allow (forbid) inter-action? And then if we go towards street art, interventionist, and then back again to Jim Dine's "Crash Dummy" or Paik's "Concert with Shampoo", we have the issues of: How much contol do we impose on the system/performance. Compare this with Australian Zeb's "Wrap the art books". In this case, he didn't want TEXT to be written on them - which he *controlled* by giving everyone ONLY the book, wrapping paper, cissors, and scott's tape. Enter the crazy artist - thus, creating the ONLY work which did have text written into the work. Imagine the infinite library and we tell each participant to choose an album or book or such to "present" or use as part of a group dynamic. Does each person do their own thing a their own pace, etc. Say we get a bunch of people to learn a song/pledge/text and then re-cite/re-play/re-tell it?What is the Format?
The Game Show
Here we have a host, and a set of expected behaviours (but compare this with National Lampoon's (??author??) game show "You Just Can't Win", or along the lines of Robert Crumb's "Dispair" comic book, etc. Or a quiz show? Everyone *still* responds with that QUESTION FORM - which was cute 40 years ago, but lacks any sort of charm now! Compare the stiffness of the rules with reality of the NOW. On "Lingo" they have the lovely Tanya ??name?? to tell the contestants when they've used a word that doesn't exist. This alleviates the idea of the FATHER FIGURE (host-man) from punishing the CHILDREN. Again, re-casting things into Freudian terms: The player as child being TESTED - school, yes; but, just look at all of the lovely prizes !!!! Dennis, there's some lovely filth over here - T. Jones (old woman) to "Dennis" (her husband?) in Python's "Quest for the Holy Grail".X-product Generators
NOTE: I'm using "collage" as the means of "drawing" / "poeticating", etc A dictiionary (while it may be read) will not noticbly change the LANGUAGE of the ideas since it is an expression OF the language in which it is written. A phrase book would be better but, agin this reads as THEMATIC; eg, "at the hotel", "asking directions", "getting laid", etc. Thus, there are two tracts: 1) Create spontaneiously (is there *really* such a thing unless we throw dice?) a collage; probably using music (jazz? ;) as a stimulator. 2) Create *thematic* collage; eg, "UP!", or "GO!", or "Feminists unite!", etc. We take this action to construct the TAPE (eg, as in the tape in a Turing Machine (qv (google) : Alan Turing; computability, Kraps Last tape) thus we have two tapes; call them : TAPE-1 (the spontaneous) and TAPE-2 (the thematic) other tapes are surely, Shirly possible??? We can take an INDEPENDENT cross product by taking TAPE-1 and then reading at the same time as filming [we take as "read" that film is to make the presentation; telecast, podcast, naration of the work - eg, someone writes poetry that describes the visual) while the other elements (eg, danse, or a simple poetry reading). To un-twist this; eg: 1) The previously prepared collages are filmed 2) An artist reads (eg) Thomas Merton's "The Very Atomic Bomb" essay. The independent cross product of these will create a unique system of ideas that the OBSERVER (again depending upon the internal state variables (emotional state, nominal physiological state, abnominal and/or induced/etc metabolic/hydrodynamic state, external ENV, the company (or alone-ness, etc), etc, etc). Thus, as the TAPE-n is played and then cross-producted (we might say VECTORED; maths-speek) with the alternate track, the observer is thus affected and *should* (what-ever that means) thus effect something as well; ie, TAPE-n x Independent Text ----------------------------------> observer effects "vectored" onto an observer a change (the performed text affects the observor) internally, externally... We can now expand this in generalities and see that in the ZEROTH order cae, this is "nothing new"; eg, TAPE-n is a orchestral score The INDEP TEXT : the perfomer the observor listens and is altered (affected, creates new effect) (simplest would be a singer's sheet music; ie, one text of notes v. linear --and-- a singer can only sing one note at a time; but gliding, vibrato, sotto/forte, etc) Next of course we go along the line that leads to such zanies as Spike Jones, Victor Borge, PDQ Bach - the primary text is altered in a controlled way (or not so controlled) but basically remains "treu" to the original "intent". The INDEP TEXT, again the performer using their STYLE to accomplish varying degress of AFFECT on the observor. The style variant is simply a potentiometer that ranges from zero (as written; eg, "if it ain't on the page, it aint on the stage) to 100% total chaos; eg, the absurdist parade, much of the Python's work, and of course accidents in transmission. 100 would be (i think) considered completely random and would harken back to Hawking's observation that if the event horizion of a black hole DID ever evaporate, that the exposed singularity could emit ALL possible configurations; eg, dragons, unicorns, or even colours that are green, but only petunia-smeellingly so; refer to polyphasia in humans, etc. But, again if the observer isn't "tuned in", then no affect will be sensed and (most likely) no effect will be produced. We now assume a fairly good source of the two INPUT texts (the TAPE and the INDEPENDENT TEXT) as well as a fairly well working receiver (the OBSERVOR). We take it as read that whether or not there IS any effect from the observor to be irrelvant and only of interest to "ratings types". The hiden variables are that unless the various input texts are computer generated (and not necessarily random, but in according with at least *some-what* predictable means), then the texts are dependent on the state of the person producing the texts. Thus, of course in strict Hegelian fashion: Thesis --------------------> anti-thesis gives rise to Thesis x Anti-Thesis ---------------> syn-thesis gives rise to new thesis (we take as read that the initial anti-thesis generation is NOT spontaneouos but due to hidden variables in the ENVironment) But, then the new synthesis is itself a new thesis (and or a new anti-thesis that happens to correspond to an independently created other thesis), and hence the process of evolution (or at least reaction) occurs. Thus: Every tape produced is the product of the various ENV's, the people invovled, etc. which leads directly to the idea that since multiple readings of the texts can occur then multiple cross products can occur. This of course is nothing new since even Pavlov's dogs become *mentally* weary and don't respond in the same way after they've become conditioned in the long time after that MARK is made in their behaviour. And of course the same is with the repeated performance of ANY text (eg, a musical piece, a theatre performance, etc). This brings up the problem of: Knowing the text diminishes the possiblity of effect of occuring. We might think of shocking things like Linda Blair in "The Excorcist" if it was made into a *straight-laced* theatre work. And people were heard to say as they came out of the theatre, "Somehow her vomiting just didn't seem as convincing as last time we saw it". Thus, the problem in the PERFORMED TEXT is not so much as in its creation, but in its variations. This goes back to a fundamental difference between tradtional performance and PERFORMANCE ART - the key is not necessarily to change it slightly to "keep it fresh", but to keep the concept of altered change possible. Again, with the bored observor, they start noticing the zig-zag half-loop stiching in the costumes rather than being able to be affected and thus effect change in themselves. Which is all well and good if one is going to do surgery or check for flaws in a Space Ship, but as regards performance art is that we really don't know what's going to happen. The first few performances might go one way, but as with Nam June Paik's "shampoo" experiment with John Cage and Stockhausen - subsequent systems would be meaningless; or at worst repeetitive for the sake of documentation, second-takes, etc. Thus, the PROBLEM with the various texts that we use for the performance texts (either the TAPE or the INDEP TEXT), is the stale-ness is not necessarily a good or a bad thing, but it should NOT affect the TAPE (which is of course only an INDEP TEXT that has been previously prepared and thus known as a TAPE since it is (supposedly) FROZEN. But, again this goes back to the INTENT of the performance as well: We (as artists NOT performers) don't know what to expect. At each moment we are creating the INDEP TEXT and of course not even really hoping for ANY real affect at all - ie, we trust that since we enter into the performance in "good faith" (as in Sartre's idea of existential honesty in acts in the public - or in Socrates' comment private - discourse), then we will have an affect; EVEN if that affect is the NIL event; ie, no affect at all. All of this certainty shouldn't worry us too much (btw, this portion of this paper was prepared by listening to a couple of sound tracks on infinite repeat - thus, trying to remove any *systmatic* inputs into the prodcution of this INDEP TEXT which since it is being saved on disk is thus to become a TAPE). Again, the lesson from both the fractal (and especially) the quantum is that things will happen. BUT. This is exactly the process that goes on with ALL artistic creation (whether it is in the working of a mathematical proof, the design of the streamlining of a DeLorian/Tucker/Wankle widget, or....)... Each stroke on the canvas talks to us in an un-known language and then we re-act aback in the only way that we can - to produce music; we scratch and etch (not to be confused with scratch-out or stretch ;) as we work thru each possible "where-next" that the canvas is screaming in a hundred million thousand dimensions beyond any time or ALL space (even if there IS a duck standing by!). We then take what elastic has been stretched out in the space-time continuum up to that poing. Pick out an especially sharp pair of Dedikind Cut scisors and then make a tiny little hole in the continuum (the hole punch had since turned into a very time-sensistive penguin and decided that h/sh/neth had had enough and turned into one of the three stoogies and done the curly shuffle (i think it was Larry or Shemp) when all of a sudden it was TUESDAE WELD all over again, and the press buried her up to her neck and then walked off to let the tides to its work (tips towel to MythBusters) in an especially berflermishly manner - not un-like so many tyrants that REALLY think that the truth will not out. But, when the elastic broke (after all it's ONLY composed of SPACE-TIME (or in the Einsteinian German original zeit rohm (althought it might have been Max Rholm or Herman Hesse) it turns out it was really Eva Hesse dying of appoxification from her radium the poly-cast plastics that turned her into Madam Curie and over to the side only Sylvia Plath cried silently while suddenly a Russian guard raced out of the prision shouting something in-decernable and was shot dead for though he was a good card-carrying memmber of the polit bureau he had been shouting in Finish (of all things) RAOUL WALLENBERRY IS ALIVE AND .... at this point the penguin finnished it's curly danse and went to a telephone and pressed K (for as in DIAL KRILL FOR MURDER) and then Bill Griffith realised what was wrong and sent a telepathic message to the ghost of Wilma Shakespear (still writing under the pen names of William Shakespear, Francis Bacon and Alberto Giocondii) which caused her to drop a second particple when the pen slipped slightly from her hand - frantically grasping at the air, the quill shot out of small crack in the wall and re-attached itself to a stange old woman's hat, where-upon causing her to trip and fall and consequently was NOT killed at the next intersection when a horse galloped awkwardly by not in time to the music of an eight hundred piece orchestra that simulataneouls plyaed both works (require-ing such) by Mahler and Berlioz - the work by SHUBERT (the symphony formerly known as NUMBER SEVEN) having not yet been finished when he completed his NINTH was in-advertanly re-named the un-fhinished. But, weeping quite openly Tuesdae Weld thought that maybe that was all that Franz had meant to write. Meanwhile as the tide came in, and night fell three mysterious people came to the edge and carefully dug her out. But then the lights came up, and once again Frankcense and Guildernstern were flippiing coins with no effect. But just then Stoppard realised that it has always having been not a dream, but just random words on a page. And yet.... ACT TWO Small persons (children and/or little people) should be carrying a large sign on which are written the following phrases - chosen as needs be of: O U T L I N E Y E S T E R D A Y H E L L O 2 0 0 1 1 9 9 9 I AM NOT YOUR EXPECTATION OF ME ANY NOUN CAN BE VERBED (more to follow) If possible the theatre should be set fire to and everyone in it should grab a scroll, painting, costume, etc and take what can be out so that *most* of the things might be saved. ACT THREE same as ACT TWO, except that Chaikovski's play is burned up but fortunately Glazinov and Borodin re-create it using only their memory of the one performance. Also, the "dream sequence" should be en-acted entirely using AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE - multiple actors behind a "punch and jedy" show. The interpretaions are given by a set of marrianets by puppeteers that do NOT understand ASL. Alternatively, the SHOW-ER's can use (eg, HEBREW, RUSSIAN, ARABIC, KOREAN, etc) SIGN LANGUAGE, as long as the puppeters don't read that particular lanauge. The EMOTIONS experessed by the person's fists (all that is showing is up to the shank of the arm just below the elbow - that is between the elbow and the wrists) should be accompanied by an orchestra AND a band (or any juxtaposed) groups - they should be able to SEE the conductor/band-leader and but they should NOT be able to hear what each other is playing. (semi synchronised) Occasionally, the conductor/leader will go around and insert MUSIC SCORES that seem appropriate to the story -- they are the ONLY musicians that can "see" what is being acted out. At the same time, the small sign carry'ers will at 10, 2 and 4 minute internals (followed by a 7 minute rest period) go around and change either 1, 5, 15, 35, 55, or 90% of the scores to a DIFFERENT - but the same score. When the small sign carriers are done **NOTE-BELOW ** the, the two conductor/leaders (three? four? I'm not sure that even Charles' Ives' dreams extended that far, but who am i to be nine with only five is six anyway?). The two (n) conductors bow to each other use a WIPE OUT sign and and then start their two groups in sync again. pls ignore the folloiwng line of TEXT 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 NOTE: As a "circus in miniateur" the small sign carry-ers should work on their phrases as well as the timing. At some times they come out with the signs, at others doing danses or such - but not too predicatble poss: even several of them "arguing" (using sign language and/or panto) as to what the ASL hands are saying. Although, i'm tempted to have "mock executions" - art re-enactments (eg, the 8th of May by Goya, Christ on the Cross, etc) this might be too camp - and thus predictable - and thus might make a good random elment. DAMN you Raol Dahl and your UMPALOOMPAS' -- if repetition is the death of art, then surely copying its its actuall assasination. Also, this was done in the PARADE OF ILL-LOGIC in the Star Trek (TOS) "I, Mudd", etc. Need something new here... drat. regardless how the cadre of little sign carriers come in and go and how they bow/curtsey (even having one mopping their brwo like a surgeon as they are changing out the musical scores). RESEARCH NOTE: Don't overly "test" what works and doesn't in terms of music, action, colour, light, etc as it over-laps, negates, re-enforces, etc. Keepy it green and leafy. BUT SUDDENLY the entire cast knew that this two was only an illusion caused by text on a screen and that an old poet's feet were hurting so badly that they must suddenly stop. Where upon a duck (or a moderatly well-behaved robot) came onto stage and read RAGE! and it was suddenly apparent that no one was convinced at all that it was Tusdae Weld - for one thing they kept mis-spelling her name. But, just then from the orchestra pit the chorus all rose and they were all dressed in rather nice gowns the only distraction being feather boa's. And at that point they all began to sing the chorale from Beethoven's Ode to Joy. And onto the stage came the conductor slumped over in a wheel chair and as they approached the podium she awoke, sat up in the wheelchair nicely and tapped three times on the podium and (despite the fact that NO one (well maybe one) could actually HEAR the tap-ing of the batton) they began to sing a highly stylised verion of tea for two that ends up being a rendering of the 30-minute version written by Shostakovich. As they end, they all begin high-stepping off their stage to the wings and a large scroll of Shostakovich rolls down at rear stage. But, just then the theatre caught fire and everyone had to try to rescue what they could. A large, portly man with a moustache in a wheelchair grabbed up the nearest big-busted babe that he could and headed (otstensibly) off stage (stage LEFT). But, just then his wife came in tossed the old man out of the chair and the two women wheelied off stage as the old man dragged himself into the orchestra pit. But, then that too turned out to be just an illusion because suddenly the scroll of Shostakovich turned into frollicking penguins on one side slideing down his nose and out-stretched hand (holding a baton), and on the other side (his back) a number of cute little monkeys started swinging down from his flocked hair, formal/long coat tails, and of course in the middle of it all Bill Griffith new that Zippy was indeed in trouble now and sent yet another telepathic message thru space and time. But this time, it reached only as far as the orchestra pit and the over-weight man with the moutstach snapped up and hands-to-side-of-his-head ran off screaming MICHAEL NESTHMITH'S MOTHER INVENTED WHITE OUT MICHAEL NESTHMITH'S MOTHER INVENERATATE OUT CASTING MICHELLE NORTHWORTH'S OTHER VERTIBRATE IS IN GRATING MINISCULE WORTH NERBLERS VERB ALL KNOWN NOUNS ONNNNNNN TUESDAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY At which poing, it was clear that the old man stumbling onto stage not only WAS Raoul Wallengerg but was holding an over-due library book of proto-modernist poetry - which (fortunately enough) had been carefully disguised as CERTAIN REALISTIC NUDE PAINTINGS in the IMPRESSIONISTIC/PROTO-NEO-REALISTIC style. But, then the old man looked up at the scroll which then rolled up to reveal a back-drop of a CATTLE SCULL in the desert. And suddenly an etnire troupe of sylph-like danseurs came on stage and the music was suddenly STRAVINSKI's RITE OF SPRING and as the danseurs reached the crescendo of their work, it was suddenly WEDNESDAY ALL OVER AGAIN and the theatre (once again, like the library of Alexandria, the Nasbedi Muslim Library of Turkey (destroyed by Christians), the Great Library of Persia (destroyed by muslims) -- BURNED TO THE GROUND. But, the way that i heard it was that it was all just a dream and they all lived happily ever after. AS THE AUDIENCE IS LEAVING (four people come on stage - Ostensibly one jew, one christian, one muslim, and one agnostic - all meet in the middle of the stage stare at each other then at the audience, shake their heads sadly, shake hands, and ALL depart the stage - stage front into the orchestra pit where they descend into the depths - from which can be heard fragments of Beethovan's "ode to joy". --30-- nite all. - frank. Solstice 2007/2008 about 7pm PCT. -^_6The Usual Suspects
Jacques DerridaNotes on LINEAR-i-SATION
(some obvious notes i might add) Some of the following things came up in a recent discussion and not being able to point to something on the subject (surely, Shirley, this *has* already been written?)... Let's consider two particular works of art that happen to be be sculptures:
"Vortex" (H x W, etc)
Falacies that are introduced by the "need" for LINEAR-i-SATION
One thing that continues to bother me (i think that most of our innovations do come from "problems" and "irritation ;).. Is the need for a "tidy ending", or "rationality". If i may again refer to the some of the early German expressionist theatre works (approx 1905 - 1916) where (clearly) they were alredy antiicpating if not a world war, at least some sort of confrontation between Germany and England - you can't build war boats in a vaccuuum, etc. But other than the Python (and v. rarely in TV literature; eg, SCTV, SNL (first 2 years), and of course occasionally the "mocks" that occur - eg, The Gary Chandling Show "Oh, wow! This is our amnesia episode", Seinfeld, Simpsons, and of course Futurama) are there attempts to proceed with the non-sequiturs of life at least some-what INTACT. I tried to point this out in one of my cartoons; reprodueced at great time and effort here ;)
"The Tuesdae when almost everything was left behind"
The hidden text here is that when things are found in an
archelogical "dig" they get taken out of place (how did
they get there? was there an earthquake? how were they
arranged?) and placed into a cabinet. As i have quoted
before:
As Cynthia Freeland puts it in "But is it art?"
For example, my direct experience of African
nkissi nkondi fetish statues from Loango,
[shaped like animals or a person, about 30”
max in any dimension] in the Kongo region,
which are bristling with nails, is that
they look quite fierce – like the
horror-movie Pinhead from the "Hellraiser"
series. The initial perception is modified when
I learn 'external facts' [ie, facts outside of
the art object itself - but, internal to the
culture within which the work was produced]:
That nails were driven in over time by people
to register agreements or seal dispute
resolutions. The participants were asking for
support for their agreement (with an expectation
of punishment if it is violated). Such fetish
objects were considered so powerful they were
sometimes kept outside of the village. ...
[The original] users would find it very odd
for a small group of them to be exhibited
together in the African Art section of a museum.
[Freeland, Pp. 64-66]
REF: Freeland, Cynthia. (2002). "But is it art?"
Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK.
That is in the cartoon these objects habe been placed side-by-side
as if they belong togther. But (like much of the episodic works of
cartoons from "SteamBoat Willie" to "The Simpsons") - it's just a
bunch of stuff that happened. There is NO RHYME or reason - like
much of life; the efforts of authors of guides to understanding
the un-understandable; eg, "Why bad things happen to good people".
So, where do we stand?
We as artists must deal with this everyday: That artist with clearly
less talent then brains but an "in" with the city coucil sells their
stuff by the cart load and at top $$'s (Altarian or even Afriganikien).
And other artists that we all know and admire (and dammit they're fine
folk and deserving as well) hae to eek out a living as a security guard,
etc.
So, the meaning-less-ness and the absurdity of the life, love, war, and
the universe in general (or mainly in-corporial ;) are all around us.
... hmmm gotta take me mum to dinner ....
PT as Social Criticism
We take it as read that *much* of traditional theatre IS for the purpose of social criticism; eg,Foundation vs Challenge
"The power of the elite rests on the complacency of the middle class" The status quo (however it came about) is the structure of the foundation of "society" (such as it is, such as we find it at *any* point in time). We may treat the structure of society as a closed, tightly-bound fractal system that models a basic Carnot Cycle engine. Thus, at any given point in time (and for non-trivial amounts OF time) the entropic tendency towards self destruction is a given positive value. As with all revolutions, this value stays rather high following any revolutionary and/or catastrophic jolt to the system. We take as read that such INPUTS are *not* within the normal operational parameters of the society. We can see that taking as our basic text the social/historical and intellectual state of German playwrights, philosophers, historians, and artists/poets/etc prior to the advent of the First World War provides us with with several advantages. It is well documented, and on either side of the triggering events (which of course are simply limit events that are per se not responsible for the major change of state) we have fairly inert and unbiased records - as well as of course complete sets of appologist, explanitory, and presented "histories" of the events. As such, this period of history presents probably the most completely "open" set of pscho-historic settings that we can hope for. Before proceeding further, it is well to remember how history is re-written not only by the winners, but the losers. Viz, the neo-nazi re-tellings of the life of Hitler, etc - as well, as the "memoirs" of various participants in the war that we are in-undated with on an un-ending series of "*World War II* "documentaries. Enough to gag one with a spoon. Thus, the rather naieve view of photographic documentation of the time provides us with an excellent *visual* text against which to base our various other texts (whether fictional, factual, or some mix of the two). The clearest example of this are photographs that have been altered (and the fact of such biased alternation clear to the modern day due to advances in technology that could not (or only vaguely) be imagined at the time. For example, in Stephen J. Gould's "The Mis-measure of Man" pictures of "retarded families" clearly have their eyes drawn in looking cross-eyes; did anyone *really* think that this would fool anyone? Obviously so - since the advent of time (as a process) is usually ignored by the reactionary mind and seen as something that can freely and completely be controlled. This of course ignores the non-linearity of time (if we can take as read "time as linear sequence of events as demonstrated by clocks, calendars, etc") even when the supposed flow of events is altered by "dis-informational" segments that are inserted into the "flow of historical documents". Thus, the one supposedly an accurate reflection/recording of the other. Naturally, in terms of modernist literature, the paranoic writings of various SF writers/film-makers bring this to the fore-front. Recommended readings are of course by Philip K. Dick in his "The Pen-ulitimate Truth" as well as the film "Memento" (written/dir by Christopher Nolan) - note the spelling; "Momento" is another excellent film but not the one i mean. In each case (though clearly at different ends of the spectrum), the constructed reality is what we take it to be. In the case of Dick's novel it is the "big lie" and of course with Phil's twisted sense of justice/irony that big lie is known to be such by one of the inhabitants of the "cloud world" of the surface - here refering to the "city in the clouds" motif that is so common in all literature but especially so in SF and Fantasy. In the case of Memmento only the protagonist (Guy Pearce playing "Lenny") doesn't know the truth of the matter and the "reality" is revealed in stages as he learns who he is and what *really* happened. Thus, in the case of the performed text in such cases (which are considering in the context of social criticsm) have the folloiwng "possible" tapes: 1. The War was inevitable given the numerous "treaties" - many of which were secret and often counter-acted by other treaties which were even *more* secret. 2. With the industrial revolution now under full swing, it would be inevitable that technology should be turned toward outfitting ships and men (and now air planes and balloons - soon to be dirgibles) to out-tech the other countries army/navy/air-force. 3. Nationalism being at an all time high - this brought on by the numerous international exhibitions and world fairs. This seeks to only inflame the competitive element of neo-colonialism. etc. These master tapes as the prinary canvas against which various stories can be told and of course against which the *actual* historical events, people, developments, etc are played out. But, of course the "exact truth" is a version of a given master tape, and onto it are played either selected events/truths or fabricated things. An excellent example is "Remember the Maine" which was used to fuel things along in the Spanish-American war which recent light seems to indicate was *never* a case of sabotage at all, but rather stupidity. Regardless, once and "event" is introduced into the world (or that small part of the universe of discourse called "Earth" - see map) it can then be "played" in various ways. Of course, such diagramatic use of events and "fitting it in" to the ultimate goal/plan/map of each faction/group is the norm in political dealings. We often (now in the newest "modern" era) hear the spin doctors (propagandists, various interest groups) talke about "how do we play this?". Of course such cases are readily exposed via the standard toolkit of absurdist theatre. A clever example is the "spoof" of the Jerry Lewis movies (Saturday Night Live - ??episode??) in which he plays a hapless air traffic controller who crashes two air planes into each other but in comes his prospective fiance's father (the director of the air port) and as it turns out this was a good thing since the air planes were filled with terrorists. Note that this was written in the 1970's. Thus, the good becomes the bad, and vice versa - standard of the idea of "reversal of fortune". Finally, i'd like to talk about the concept of de-emphasizing an event by the use of common mythology. In the film "National Treasure" the idea of a vast treasure room being built 300 years ago prompts one person to ask "How did they build all of this?" to which the *guide*'s answer is "The same way that they built the pyramids and the great wall of china". This prompts the *clown* to say, "The aliens helped them". Thus, we have the event (or even more basically the primary tape) and then questions and answers sought within its context. And of course it is the role of the *guide* in such narratives to provide the proper explanations. But, enter the *clown* and all bets are off. This entire premise forms the central structure of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". I leave it at that: That the text of *any* dogma or anti-social structure can be turned on its head by the use of not only irony but of course to be exposed in the light of absurdism. What still needs to be investigated are other possible ways of doing this. Clearly the process of *education* is so slow (and often eschewed or totally derrogated) that only "tid bits" of trivia are proffered to shed any light on the situation at all. But, for the most part since the status quo is the state that has been created, nurtured, and maintained by those (the elite at least, more likely the middle class) who benfit from it reamining the status quo - change is un-likely. But, of course come the catastrophic or external event - all bets are off.Links
(this section only) -[]- -[blog about philo movies]- -[Rotten Tomatoes review]- google "momento" "murder" "amnesia" -[blog: There will come soft rains - Anterograde Amnesia]- -[]- -[]- -[]- -[]- The sound-producing device} {What is presented} {Number of Voices/DevicesWhat is presented