Crossroads New Media. A special exhibition of work by Indiana new media artists Michael Lasater, Constance Edwards Scopelitis, and Jason Myers. Long-Sharp Gallery, Indianapolis, IN, April 15 – September 1, 2016.
Mise-en-scène (2015)
Three channel video triptych, stereo.
Digitized archive photos and film, freehand and tooled digital objects, text, animation, synthesized and sampled sound, animation.
Oracula (2014/15) Left Panel
Timeo Iocasta (2015) Center Panel
Ecce Rex Noster (2015) Right Panel
The genesis of Mise-en-scène is the Stravinsky/Cocteau treatment of Oedipus Rex, first performed in 1927. I have been familiar with this composition from many encounters, including performances as a member of the Aspen Festival Orchestra, and later studying it along with Stravinsky's Persephone in David Diamond’s class in twentieth-century music at Juilliard. I was struck by Stravinsky’s intended mise-en-scène in which each soloist stands immobile in a niched frieze, a two-dimensional proscenium. I also loved his choice of Latin as a means of arresting the Oedipus story in stone –– a text as much ritual and object as narrative –– and his intentional use of so many stylistic references –– a Dada collage.
In Mise-en-scène my personae ––Creon, Iocasta and Oedipus –– are set immobile in a triptych, a flat, painterly proscenium. I’ve written Latin texts as one might write lines for a libretto, but I do not intend that these texts be read as narrative. Instead, I’ve treated the texts as visual objects like the partial Latin inscriptions one sees on temple ruins. In Oracula, the text flows by so rapidly that it is all but unreadable. In Timeo and Ecce, the text is glimpsed in fragments –– one can discover shards of the Oedipus narrative, and if one knows the story, one can close the rest of the drama. The panels--three sketches--serve the same function. Mise-en-scène is a computer collage of preexisting and free-composed media –– digital archive film and photos, freehand and tooled objects, text, synthesized and sampled sound, animation. The three panels may be taken to be static compositions, but in fact they are in considerable motion. I take advantage of the space afforded by a gallery setting –– a significant part of any impact this piece may have on the viewer is the opportunity to physically move from one panel to another. The audio is composed in three broad segments, mirroring the visual composition.