a work of art which, through one filter, could be seen as the marriage of free will and destiny...
20090415
time transfixed
theatre is a practice taking place in space and time. this is not an abstract notion to be taken lightly. spacetime is a recognizable part of the fabric of our experience. other artists explore the event of our consciousness moving through time in their media as well.
take for example, rene magritte. in his "man with a journal" he compresses our notion of time into a two-dimensional image which can be viewed as a whole in one moment. upon close inspection, we engage with the piece within a span of time (now i look at the man in panel one, now i compare the clouds between panels two and four, etc.). space time is the fundamental object of this piece. the man, transient, is an agent through which spacetime is explored. do we have any idea what the order of these panels are intended to be? my visual training leads me to believe that the upper right hand panel is the earliest point in time, but whose to say, really? first he's there, then he's not. or perhaps he wasn't there until he was there forever. i'm willing to wager that magritte would argue that he is not a man at all, merely an image of a man.
later, magritte takes this one step further with time transfixed. is it absurd to see a train coming through a fireplace? what if the fireplace is there in one moment of time and the train is based in another? when both occupy the same space at disparate times, perhaps this is the image one would encounter? magritte indeed compresses the subjects to give us a greater sense of what his image of is. he includes a clock on the mantle (as well as a candle stick that may or may not be disappearing in time) to point us in the direction of his title.
take a moment to notice time. notice right now.
time gives and takes just as any other part of the universe. often a perceiver of time is led to think of its passing, and thus, their own. thus, many many many creative works of the imagination have been dedicated to pushing forth our understanding of what it means to die when time itself is navigable.
one such compelling work is the subject of the first opera. the story of orpheus and euridice takes us through an explanation of death and time as factors which can be perceived but not manipulated. euridice is nearly returned to life, and orpheus' head sings for all eternity. what is essential to this lasting myth is that it allows the imagination to consider time's very substance by turning it into a narrative. the remove that storytelling places us from temporal experience allows the exploration of time (and thus, mortality) to become a subject in it of itself.
opera is a prime local for such exploration, because the audience partakes in a carefully orchestrated event, which occupies a place in space time. some would ask if each performance isn't a distinct composition in it of itself. your senses are immersed in a place for a duration. your consciousness takes note of the start and the end. from the beginning until the performance's demise you may laugh, cry, sleep, eat, drink. what's more, you share this experience with an enormous gallery of people. sounds like life to me.
theatre is wrapped in narrative these days. "naturalist" works, musicals, most plays manipulate time for the purpose of storytelling. the french renaissance playwrights (and the greeks for that matter) had to adhere to strict compressions of time, fitting their narrative in the span of one day. this was the so-called "unity of time".
here comes the point. it's going to happen right after this sentence.
what if time is the event itself? we keep exploring the experience of love and passion, jealousy and betrayal, the demand for satisfaction and suffering. why is it so simple for us to take for granted the experience of time? the abovementioned experiences, while all very real, warranting of discussion and worth staging in the seeing place, are all human experiences.
if theatre is an investigation of the human condition, should it not explore that which is universal and inherent among all peoples?
my god, if you have their attention in the room for 90+ minutes, why not ask them what the experience of 90+ minutes is?
l'homme au journal
time transfixed
long beach opera's orpheus and euridice
and finally, of course, the wooster group.
take for example, rene magritte. in his "man with a journal" he compresses our notion of time into a two-dimensional image which can be viewed as a whole in one moment. upon close inspection, we engage with the piece within a span of time (now i look at the man in panel one, now i compare the clouds between panels two and four, etc.). space time is the fundamental object of this piece. the man, transient, is an agent through which spacetime is explored. do we have any idea what the order of these panels are intended to be? my visual training leads me to believe that the upper right hand panel is the earliest point in time, but whose to say, really? first he's there, then he's not. or perhaps he wasn't there until he was there forever. i'm willing to wager that magritte would argue that he is not a man at all, merely an image of a man.
later, magritte takes this one step further with time transfixed. is it absurd to see a train coming through a fireplace? what if the fireplace is there in one moment of time and the train is based in another? when both occupy the same space at disparate times, perhaps this is the image one would encounter? magritte indeed compresses the subjects to give us a greater sense of what his image of is. he includes a clock on the mantle (as well as a candle stick that may or may not be disappearing in time) to point us in the direction of his title.
take a moment to notice time. notice right now.
time gives and takes just as any other part of the universe. often a perceiver of time is led to think of its passing, and thus, their own. thus, many many many creative works of the imagination have been dedicated to pushing forth our understanding of what it means to die when time itself is navigable.
one such compelling work is the subject of the first opera. the story of orpheus and euridice takes us through an explanation of death and time as factors which can be perceived but not manipulated. euridice is nearly returned to life, and orpheus' head sings for all eternity. what is essential to this lasting myth is that it allows the imagination to consider time's very substance by turning it into a narrative. the remove that storytelling places us from temporal experience allows the exploration of time (and thus, mortality) to become a subject in it of itself.
opera is a prime local for such exploration, because the audience partakes in a carefully orchestrated event, which occupies a place in space time. some would ask if each performance isn't a distinct composition in it of itself. your senses are immersed in a place for a duration. your consciousness takes note of the start and the end. from the beginning until the performance's demise you may laugh, cry, sleep, eat, drink. what's more, you share this experience with an enormous gallery of people. sounds like life to me.
theatre is wrapped in narrative these days. "naturalist" works, musicals, most plays manipulate time for the purpose of storytelling. the french renaissance playwrights (and the greeks for that matter) had to adhere to strict compressions of time, fitting their narrative in the span of one day. this was the so-called "unity of time".
here comes the point. it's going to happen right after this sentence.
what if time is the event itself? we keep exploring the experience of love and passion, jealousy and betrayal, the demand for satisfaction and suffering. why is it so simple for us to take for granted the experience of time? the abovementioned experiences, while all very real, warranting of discussion and worth staging in the seeing place, are all human experiences.
if theatre is an investigation of the human condition, should it not explore that which is universal and inherent among all peoples?
my god, if you have their attention in the room for 90+ minutes, why not ask them what the experience of 90+ minutes is?
l'homme au journal
time transfixed
long beach opera's orpheus and euridice
and finally, of course, the wooster group.
20090413
wooster on youtube
this:
reminds one of this:
which calls to mind this:
which is at the core of my argument. we are living in a dream.
reminds one of this:
which calls to mind this:
which is at the core of my argument. we are living in a dream.
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