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What We Will Have of Something Past (from: Thought City) Giles Perring, Douglas Cape, James Waite, John Cayley (DAC presenter)
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| 'What we will have of
something past' is a both a self-contained work-in-progress and one part
of a larger, open-ended project with the provisional title 'Thought City'.
The piece that will be presented at DAC may be briefly characterized as
a navigable and interactive dramatic 'circumstance'.
'What we will have S' utilises the potential of QuickTime interactive movie formats, particularly its photographic panoramas. This is combined with live-recorded and composed soundscapes which are embedded in the navigable movies. Structuring the piece, there are further layers of dramatic, textual and literal art elements. These are all, to an extent, formal and poetic engagements with emergent media, but there is also a more familiar exploration of dramatic potential through human characters, fragmentary personal histories, memories and secrets, all helping to construct a non-linear narrative and emotional structure. In the context of this conference, this work addresses issues concerning (i) significant and affective navigation within appropriately structured cultural objects, (ii) non-linearity in media which are inherently time-based (composed from music, aural experience, moving images, transition effects, etc.), (iii) the role of text- or literal art in multimedia, (iv) dramatic rhetoric in non-linear contexts, and (v) appropriate modes of presentation and (audience) reception for work which is at once navigable and performance-generated. 'What we are S' is a topography of linked dramatic scenes constellated around a whispered or sung secret, sometimes heard in a panorama composed at a famous London location. Once heard, the secret recasts and colours the circumstance in which three characters find themselves during the 24-hour cycle of their day in the city. But as we experience this day with them, we are always uncertain as to whether any particular moment follows or, rather, proceeds what we, as we watch and read, have seen before. Designed (ultimately) for presentation using standard browser technologies over the Web on a broadband link, 'What we are S' provides the navigating subject with a configuration of interactive photographic panoramas and topographically associated aural and musical soundscapes in binaural stereo. Apart from navigation around the panoramas - around locations of the city associated with the characters - linked hotspots and 'vertical' movements give access to other related panoramas, including textual tableau and text-generated morphs based on the dialogues and secret 'whispers' which, in turn, feedback into and change the mode of the circumstance. The literal and synaesthetic 'whispering' graffiti of the locations and their panoramic surrounds generate a rich affective structure of image, music and text. Credits Actors / Singers: Additional assistance: Alexie Sommer, Radha Case, Caroline Bergvall Thanks to: Rosalie for Richard's Flat; the staff of the Dome Café, 4 St Paul's Churchyard, London; the Tate Modern, London. Special thanks to Z360 for production assistance and general sponsorship. |
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