Draft Model of the set

Script Draft

 

1.

Space semi-lit. Cold and isolated. The V.J. behind it’s desk. The sits are all lit by a small white light. Each sit is placed in a distance from the other, all over the space. Behind a mirror box on the mirror corridor there is IT, on the floor, crying. Opposite from the V.J. there is a projection: A tree and inside the hole of the tree a naked woman appears. Her skin looks shiny and covered with organic liquids. She rises and then she peals of her skin. IT observes and cries. This is something that IT can never have. IT is not natural. IT has it’s own intelligence but it is artificial. IT is lonely and needs to communicate.

 

 

2.

Sound changes.

Pre-recorded voice:

Fear not the waking world, my mortal

Fear not the flat synthetic blood,

Nor the hart in the ribbing metal.

Fear not the tread, the seeded milling,

The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade

Nor the flint in the lover’s mauling.

Man of my flesh, the jawbone riven,

Know the flesh’s lock and vice,

And the cage for the scythe-eyed raver.

Know, O my bone, the jointed lever,

Fear not the screws that turn the voice,

And the face to the driven lover.

 

These words cannot be heard clearly.

In the meantime the video changes. (Words/ numbers/codes the V.J’s and Aristeidis will find what the visuals will look like) Music starts to become more “alive”.

The V.J. is playing with words. IT wants to communicate. Looking at the video there is an effort to reproduce the signs on the ground next to it. After a bit it starts an effort to speak but it can’t. The V.J. is too fast and they pay’s no attention to IT. This makes IT nervous. Feels bad and hostile towards the human who controls the video but IT can do something.

 

 

3.

Looks at the V.J., words come out of its mouth. Irrelevant. Nothing makes sense and this is making IT mad and bad. It wants to control what rightfully belongs to IT. The sound is intense. Everything is intense. It starts controlling the video. (Letters and numbers and dimensions. Sometimes coming from it sometimes coming from the V.J. under construction still heheh)

THIS IS IT’S BATLLE.

Getting nowhere the V.J. shut’s IT down and IT  becomes furious. IT shuts the audience’s lights down (the lights can go on and off probably by using a remote control).  And there is only darkness in the room. It speaks:

All all and all

             the dry words couple,

 

Ghost with her ghost,

                         contagious man

With the womb of his shapeless people.

 

All that shapes… from the caul… and suckle,

 

 

Stroke of mechanical flesh of mine,

 

          Square in these words the mortal circle.

 

 

4.

Dark. Sound only (empty).

 

 

5.

Sound changes.

smell of fruit (or another organic smell that feels like “home”). A warm light comes up.

(IT  or pre-recorded) says:

Flower….

The people’s fusion

 

O light in zenith, the coupled bud.

 

And the flame in the fleshes’ vision.

 

Out of the sea, the drive of oil

Socket and grave, the brassy blood.

Flower

       Flower

              All all

                     And all.

Light’s up.

 

About Igitour

Igitur is the play I saw during my Easter vacation in Greece. It was presented by the company KNOT and as the title indicates it was based on the experimental theatrical text (not exactly a play) written by S. Mallarmé. As the company itself notes: "Igitur describes a young man's journey towards death and this is not the ultimate end for him but only a new beginning".

This performance which was created by a group of directors, actors, singers and musicians,was an extraordinary kind of performance that used theatre, music, sound design and installation in order to be realized, so only from this it becomes very clear why it can help my research at this point.

Always looking everything from the designer's point of view I have to admit that from the moment I walked into the "theatrical" space a mix of relaxation and tension took over my body. I was in a white space and the floor was soft and every sound from footsteps was dying as you entered. Sound-wise you did not exist for a few moments, up to the point you would sit on the (wooden?) benches and you would realize that you exist again because the people sitting opposite were intensely looking at you. And you could look in frond of you, the really simple set and the actor, and the people in frond of you. For long. And the the body/the actor/Igitur started moving, but you still felt like you had time to notice whatever you wanted in the space. As if you were in en exhibition, a gallery, you could observe taking your own time. The body/Igitur passed from different states and positions with an astonishing continuity of the movement even if the position were the most uncomfortable for the human body. My only observation about this part was that the actor's muscles were not very well trained and you could see sometimes that he was in great tension while he seemed to be "normal". But this was obvious only in few moments.

This sense of space and motion/not motion was accompanied by sounds created that very moment and by recordings probably with the text from Igitur but I paid no exact attention to it. It was flowing and I was only happy when at some points I would catch one word or phrase and realize that the speech, the movement, the sound and the space co-existed harmonically creating that feeling of rich emptiness, leaving the time and the space for the human brain to work on the sounds and the visuals.

After the performance ended I asked if it is going to be presented somewhere else. The company said they think about it. I will have to see and study this in another space. Site specificity can change it or not? In my opinion it will. Anyway, Igitur as a "performance" created "something to remember".