Posts

Showing posts from 2017

Dries Verhoeven’s theatrical world: based on spectators’ experience

Image
https://www.unlimitedrag.com/art-unlimited   published on ART UNLIMITED 42 (September 2017) https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/9c95f9_3a8ff8983dc849d09eb1d6201e45eaf6.pdf   I was let into a room, all alone. One of the walls of the room, no larger than the living room of a house, was completely covered by an image. It was a scenery from Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti: taken from a hilly area, in the foreground a mud puddle with lots of garbage, just behind it a jerry-built house with other jerry-built houses in the background and behind them all low hills and the sky; a time of twilight. While I could not figure out if the image was moving or not, a shirtless black man sitting on the edge of the puddle stood up and approached me. First, he stared at me, then began to mirror my moves, my poses, my positions in the room. I was a little bit nervous as I wondered how the man in the picture could see me and imitate me. I was surprised to realize that the moving picture was not

tabula rasa for unlimited imagination: the great tamer by dimitris papaioannou

Image
photo: mehmet kerem özel  when we enter the auditorium, this scene welcomes us: a pitch-black landscape of low heights; in front, a man in a pitch-black suit but with bare feet is lying. there is a pair of pitch-black boots just in front of him. while we are taking our seats, he first opens his eyes and then puts his arms under his head as if gazing at the sky. while the lights of the auditorium are fading, he gets up and puts the boots on; he walks to upper stage right near a one-legged round stool. first he takes the boots off, then his clothes; he is left totally naked. while gazing at us, he walks to center stage, turns one of the black panels over and lies on the cream-colored side of it. a little while later, a man in a black suit approaches him from upper stage right with a white sheet in his hand. he covers him entirely with it with two sharp, decisive arm movements. a little while after he retreats, a second man in black suit enters lower stage right. he approaches t

Spectating the atmospheric in-betweenness: Peeping Tom

Image
published on ART UNLIMITED 38 (September 2016)  https://issuu.com/artunlimited_tr/docs/unlimited_eng_26082016_a4/60 Prolog A décor built in the emptiness of the stage space; a room defined by its floor and two perpendicular walls. There are numerous doors and a window on the walls. One or two people sitting on the chairs in the empty spaces left in two sides of the décor on the stage. Some of the spotlights are placed in these areas and made a part of the atmosphere that was created on the stage: the ones that watch ‘the scene on the stage’ and we, the audience, who watch both. When we first encounter this stage under a darkish light when the curtain is raised, a light coming on and off from the pee hole of the door facing us is visibly seen; as if there is someone behind the door and looking at us from the hole. As one moves, the light coming behind her/him goes off and reappears, just like when you look at the neighbor’s door when you are outside in the stair landing