installation

announcement. Autel @ FOOT Sounding The Inner Ear of Performance, University of Toronto

I'm extremely excited to share that my audio installation Autel has been selected to be a part of the annual Festival of Original Theatre (FOOT) at the University of Toronto's Drama Centre which runs Feb 2-5. This is the 25th anniversary of the conference, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Drama Centre @ U of T.

This year's theme is "Sounding The Inner Ear of Performance" so my Autel piece, which I first showed at RADA in London, and subsequently at the Gas Station Arts Centre in Winnipeg is a great fit. 

So much of my own directing and creative work has focused on the power of sound as an active character in the theatrical experience, and I am honoured to have my work included among these amazing thinkers and creators. 

For more about the conference (you can still register) check out their website. 

More about Autel:
Autel is a performance installation piece first shown at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, March 2012, and subsequently shown at the Gas Station Arts Centre in Winnipeg from October to December 2012. It invites the viewer to experience their own ritual of identity, and examine this mask as they look at others, also performing a ritual of identity. The viewer should, after the experience, begin to question the authenticity of their own public identity, and those they encounter, along with the authenticity of the experiences they have for the remainder of the performances. What are they seeing? How are they responding? Are they responding in a specific way that they believe is correct, or that is for the benefit of others?

Inspired by the work of playwright Jean Genet and composed of a collage of his words and those of Antonin Artaud, Autel is an auditory experience which challenges social constructs of identity and the way we interact with art. 

review. Just A Sliver of the Room and Astronomical Landscapes @ Angell Gallery

I made the trek across Toronto this Saturday to take in the current exhibitions at the Angell Gallery, and could not be happier I did. Arriving at the gallery, it is definitely not a space you'd suspect; tucked in the back corner of a business mini-mall, the outside of the gallery is unassuming, which amplified the drama of the first set of pieces, Steve Driscoll's Just A Sliver of the Room even more. 

Taking a fairly large and open space, Driscoll's vibrant and reflective landscapes jump out against the white walls. Their positioning around the space however, is what is most dramatic. Not only are the paintings themselves steeped in an ecstatic energy, but they are presented in a space filled with black water, which the viewer crosses on a board walk constructed across the space. The resulting immersion in this space which is both bright and dark as well as endlessly reflective has a fantastic result. 

Steve DriscollFlashes of Silence, 2016Urethane on board

Steve Driscoll

Flashes of Silence, 2016

Urethane on board

 

You move through this space into the second gallery where Dan Hudson's Astronomical Landscapes take the focus. Each of these long and wide lenticular photographs have a magical quality to them. Every perspective in the room offers a new version of each image, so that the viewer is truly transfixed.  The changeable nature of the world around us is present and comforting in the photographs. 

Dan HudsonQueen Louise, 2015Lenticular photograph

Dan Hudson

Queen Louise, 2015

Lenticular photograph

Leaving this space and walking back across the board walk, one is struck by the new perspective offered, and the reflection of the bright colours in the black water gains new significance. 

Overall both collections are excellent, however it is in tandem that they have the most notable power over our recollection of space and time.