set and film design

Camera Oscura
by Mauricio Kagel, 1965
Garage Theatre, London
10 September 1995

description

The score is divided into four different elements each comprising three parts: sound, light and performers. The score contains a part for each element, which is made up of symbols placed against a time grid. These symbols divide into a plan of the stage and the movements across or within it. This movement is given precise time in terms of the entry and exit given by the numbers of seconds from the beginning of the piece. To some extent the movement has to be an interpretation by each element.

Within the theatre three platforms within the audience each holding a speaker, projector and light. As a consequence the sound and movement of the technical apparatus became a part of the performance. The set consists of white boards and objects that are hung and fixed around the wall: including steps, a hanging table and chair (which are taken down during the performance), large translucent cloths, and painted imaginary instructions on the wall.
There are three super-eight films, running on a loop of approximately twenty seconds: two of them are of people from above, and the other is of moving water. For the sound parts there are recordings from around the city; people shouting, animal noises, a station, running water, a busker, audience applauding, traffic, trains and so on.

The effect is a bit like sitting in a street, a café or a city square, and noises and encounters drift in and out of vision. It is as if fragments of images and sounds became small moments of narratives, but also components of and an expression of a whole.