Theatre Machines 2 Animation

ANIMATION

PART 2

PERFORMINGOBJECTS

A MANUAL OF

INOPERABLE PROCEDURES

HOW TO BUILD

A THEATRE MACHINE

PART 2

4. BREAKDOWN THE MACHINE

5.FOLLOW THE LIFE OF THE OBJECT

6. ESTABLISH A GLOSSARY OF APPLICATIONS

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PRACTICE MAP

This part of the manual moves from the wings to the stage: what happens when we test our

instincts and object choices and move towards composition and operation? It concentrates on

the processes of the five practical investigations undertaken between 2007 -2010, specifically

on methods of composition, assemblage and activation. These investigations lead to a glossary

of applications that are tested and then built upon through the summative performance of

Garage Band outlined in Chapter 5.

The investigations began loosely, working with instincts and hunches that quickly became more

defined. They began with what Richard Wentworth might call a ‘fumbling’ (in Warner, 1993, p.

13) around the studio, a method of trying things out and attuning the eye to recognise the

chance moments that reveal the ‘meaningful and the marvellous’ (p. 9). This technique evokes

Andre Breton’s ‘hasard objetif ’ (objective chance), a drifting between objects and contexts

from which ideas start to form (Nadja, 1923). It is hoped that this process has already started

to reveal itself in the opening part of the manual, letting the objects lead the work and set off

a series of choices that start to build a practice.

What can be observed in the account of the investigation is the movement from object actions

as events - happenings - to a more nuanced theatrical apparatus that, although maintaining

these gestures, introduces and plays against performers, narrative strands and music. The logics

of this process can be read through the following documentation, which is intended to rework

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LAMENT

OFTHE

NOISE MAKERS

VARIATION 1

LAMENT

OFTHE

NOISE MAKERS

VARIATION 2

STAGEFRIGHT

VARIATION 1

STAGEFRIGHT

VARIATION 2

HOUSE

INVESTIGATIONS

GLOSSARYOF

APPLICATIONSGarageBand

PERFORMING OBJECTS

the material in retrospect, a combination of a pragmatic ‘what I did’ with extended thoughts

and reflections whilst also adding to the set of instructions from Part 1.

‘Breakdown the Machine’ is a recomposition of the notes and structures of the investigations,

written as performance scores. These scores have been composed in the studio by starting

with a large group of objects and then worked through in relation to each other as forms

of performative lists. These lists are not only catalogues of the objects I used, stored in SS13,

but also lists of operations, direct actions that relate to placement, movement, switches or

mechanisms. The individual instances of practice have been devised as a vehicle for testing

relations of objects and performance. They have been documented in a way that demonstrates

their productivity for me as a maker, rather than offering them as pieces of complete practice.

This is reflected in the contexts in which they where shown particularly experimental festivals

and scratch commissions as well as closed workshop showings for colleagues and supervisors.

The investigations start by working on forms, moving increasingly towards how these forms

translate into, and illuminate, content.

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4

BREAKDOWN

THE

MACHINE

LAMENT

OFTHE

NOISE

MAKERS

Foundry Studio, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies Aberystwyth 25/07/08

Duration: 9 minutes 20 seconds

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff 15/10/08

Duration: 14 minutes 32 Seconds

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Amplifier

MicrophoneCupKnifeForkTable

Desk lampBird cage

Emergency light

THE SET UP

Place a wardrobe in the centre of a space.

Gradually introduce other objects

ShirtBowlClock

Tape playerTorch

Cymbal

A performance action made by placing objects in relation to each other.

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Test their relation.

weight - colour - texture

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Introduce wire and pulleys to test these relationships further.

counter weight - light - surface clash

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BootHair clippers

TriangleBeater

Another cymbalMetal tin

TableStanding lampMedical standLight bulbStrobe

LED lightsRemote control light switches

Bowling ballChair

Camp stoveCookie jarHand pumpPicture frame

Trousers

Introduce more objects and repeat

Table legCrutchDripTongsWheelsSpatulaWindow

Another bird cageRope

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LadderBrush

Plastic sheetWalking stickDrum stick

Coffee grinderFigurine

Plastic legsWooden crate

HammerCow bellRadio

Stuffed birdWhite sheet

Microphone stand6 blue 7-inch record boxes

SawMallet

Wooden fishHorn

Ironing board Bird cageWhite shoesRecord player

Sound effects recordsBottleTongs

Hedge clippersSnare drum

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Group objects and find short repeatable sequences of action in relation to the wardrobe. Incorporate any objects or structures in the space if necessary.

Use the wires and pulleys to repeat the actions if necessary. if the sequence ends in the destruction or breakdown of the object or mechanism then repeat to that point and wait for final activation.

Record the pair and group sequences and start to put them into relation with each other to build more complex sequences and relations. Build your own logic for the sequence:

Narrative Composition Physical Properties

Add further materials and objects if necessary to fill the gaps and consolidate logic.

Decide which way the installation faces and place audiences chairs to face it.

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Finalise your sequence and record it as a score.

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Variation 1

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Hedge clippers

Wooden crate

Radio

Wardrobe

Bowling ball

Camp stove

Plastic sheet

Walking stick

Dru

m stick

Plastic legs

Hammer

Cow bell

Stuffed bird

White sheet

Microphone

Stand

Bottle

Tongs

Snare

dru

m

Metal tin

Cymbal

Triangle

Beater

Fan

Window Spatula

Wheels

Drip

Table Leg

Bowl

Shirt

Clock

Tape playerCymbal

Torch

Table

Bird cage

Desk lamp

Amplifier

Stan

ding

lamp

Chair

Light bulb

Wooden frames

Audience

Hair clippers

Crutch

Strobe

Kettle

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Preset

Wardrobe torch onAudience light onCamp stove on

Brief strobeRoll bowling ball

Fan/light onFan/light off

Move to camp stove - turn off slowlyMove back to wardrobe

Strobe onShirt up

Legs forwardStrobe off

Cow bell and hammer - KONKTable light onTape player onRadio dropBottle drop

Bird cage drop - stop (grab it)Table Light off

Slowly drop plastic sheetDrop window Drop bird cage

Drop birdTable light onDrop windowDrop bowlDrop tongs

Drop knife and forkDrop crutch

Together

Together

Actions

Table Leg moveRasie drip

PauseTable light off

Crutch draw backStop

BANGBANGStop

Drip raiseDrip drip

Standing light onHair clippers on

Drum stick on snare drumBANG BANG

Boot kicks cymbalAll off

Standing light offHedge clipper frames

Fan onSwing

Standing light onHair clippers on

Drum stick on snare drumBANG BANG

Boot kicks cymbalALL RAISE

BANGBANGBANG

Until total breakdown

Together

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Variation 2

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Wardrobe

Light bulb

Standing

lightTop hat

Brown

bird cageSoda bottle Hand pump Reel to reelBlue box

Stuffed

bird

Music scoresGold

bird cageCookie jar

Coffee grind

er

Horn Bowling ball Blue Box

Mink fu

r

Bowl Chair Kettle Record player CymbalBlue

Bird cageDru

m stick

Picture frame Snare drum Ampilfier Mallet Iorning board ShoesRed

bird cage

Dru

m stick

Torch

Triangle

Beater

Desk lampDesk lamp

Microphone

standMetal tin Blue box

Wooden

fish

Hammer

Cow bellSuitcase Saw

Hair clip

pers

Light

Rope

Record player offTriangle

Balloon in suitcase onRiseFall

Wait for sound of balloon to deflateLight bulb onLight bulb off

Hair clippers onDesk lamps on

Appear from behind wardrobe - smilePlace microphone into metal tin with clippers

Pick up music scores and move to chairTake saw and attempt to cut music scores

Return to wardrobeDesk lamps offHair clippers offBack light onString pluck

Desk lights on

Preset

Wardrobe torch onLED lights in bird cages on

Record player with bird sound on

Actions

Fish emerge from boxFish dance left - right

Fish finishes lowMink fur emerge from box

Stuffed bird emerge from boxDesk lamps off

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Both fallHand pump raises

Pump handle falls naturallyCookie Jar lid ‘blown off’

SMASHDrum hair clippers on

Drum stick hits/misses snare drumTop hat rise to head heightDrum stick hits cymbal

Cow bell and hammer - KONKReel to reel on -white noise

Repeat to maniaRepeat slight mania - slow/stop

Mallet stands upSet up mallet attach to rope

SwingBANGSwingBANG

Bird cages drop

Repeat all actions to destruction until nothing functions

All lights off

Leave with music scores

Together

Bird cages in the darkLight bulb on

Standing light onPicture raise

Top hat raise to head height

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FOOTNOTES

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1.

…The appearance of the object, the appearance of the human – how do these converge?

2.

…How, when you add another object to the composition, the existing objects react in different ways (positions/colours/textures/utilitarian use). There is wider set of relational gestures that is emerging – example, the adding of the trousers to the back of the space…

3.

…amongst the range of objects that can be seen, my eye is drawn to those that are made for humans: handles, chairs, trousers, wardrobe, radio, kettle, clippers, microphone, domestic light sources..

4.

….I find myself spending time in front of the objects – waiting for something to suggest itself…

5.

…I have spent the whole day just playing with objects in relation to their weight – how they shift and move when connected with each other…

6.

Things to do:

- Plastic side sheets (framing)- Hang other objects from central bar- Rig counter weight wheels for objects in central bar- Drum machine + clippers + strobe

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7.

…I realise how important stillness is – without performers – to reproduce movements. With performers we have the impetus to constantly be in motion/action whereas with objects it is the opposite…

8.

…Once the machine is constructed (when it feels like there is ‘enough’ stuff) the sequencing begins (although decisions about what movements certain objects do are made throughout the process)…

9.

…It strikes me how crude some of the construction is; there is an evident haste. This seems appropriate for the figure of the creator, the human in the mechanism, as it is clearly him who has constructed the machine… It is HOMEMADE…

10.

…There is an interplay between precision and crude DIY – like a childish engineering experiment…

11

… I feel like I should document the banal details of making – the dust, sockets, marks, used wire etc… but I am not sure why…

12.

…There is a desire to produce a NARRATIVE! – to provide the audience with a way through. I must maintain a disconnection to allow the objects to form their own…

13.

…There is a resistance to ‘re-stage’ the object movements – rehearsal is not needed but constant listing and re-listing the sequence… The only time the sequence will be performed is in the showing itself…

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STAGEFRIGHT

Foundry Studio, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies Aberystwyth

10/06/09

Duration: 15 minutes

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff 11/11/09


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A performance machine built to repeat an action.

THE SET UP

Conceive of a marginal room space that is adjacent to a primary space like a corridor

or a dressing room.

Reduce this space down to a number of key aspects that might evoke the space.

A wardrobeA dressing table

A carpetA pictureA chair

An intercomA ceiling fan

Add details that suggest an action or event that has happened or is about to happen in

the room or the primary space.

A wigA hand mirror

A figurineA gun (prop)A knife (prop)An apple (prop)

A glass with false teethA mouseA balloon

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Work out a series of narratives between the objects of the room of what might happen between them when

they are not being watched.

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Narratives of the inanimate ‘coming alive’.

Narratives of materiality and representation.

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Use wires and pulleys to build a mechanism that can crudely play out these narratives repeatedly.

Build a substage that the room can be built upon and refine the mechanism. The substage should enhance and echo the primary space of which your marginal space is in relation to.

Build a space of concealment where the operator of the wire mechanisms can be placed and

revealed.

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Variation 1

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WardrobeMouse

Bulb

Apple

Knife

Gun

Wig

Broom handle

(End)

Stage fright monitor

Ballo

on

Bulb

Bulb

Bulb

Bulb

Figurine


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Preset

All light bulbs onTape player with cheering crowd sounds in wardrobe - low level

Mouse emerges from under wardrobe and crosses stage to cornerTopple

Lights off‘Stage Fright’ title monitor under substage on

Off(End) light onBalloon on

Figurine moves across the stage Figurine moves slightlyBalloon off

Figurine falls downBalloon on

Knife moves from on top of wardrobe and starts to attack balloonBalloon BANG (not from knife)

Knife flies over broom handle and falls to floorGun appears Operator appears and resets the scene

Wig is revealed in back of wardrobeFigurine back up

New balloon fixed to pumpMouse reset to under wardrobe

Operator acknowledges audience with a nodChecks hair in mirrorReturns to wardrobeAll light bulbs on



Actions

Together

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(End) light onBalloon on

Figurine move slightlyBalloon off


Gun moves from on top of wardrobe and starts to attack balloonBalloon BANG (not from gun)

Knife flies over broom handle and falls to floorOperator appears and resets the sceneWig is revealed in back of wardrobe

Figurine back upNew balloon fixed to pump

Mouse reset to under wardrobeOperator acknowledges audience with a nod

Checks hair in mirrorReturns to wardrobeAll light bulbs on



(End) Light onBalloon on

Figurine move slightlyBalloon off


Apple moves from on top of wardrobe and starts to attack balloonBalloon BANG (from apple)

Apple flies over broom handle and falls to floorAs it falls to the ground all lights off

‘Stage Fright’ title monitor under substage onOFF


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Variation 2

DressingTable

Mouse

Figurine

Bulb

Bulb

Bulb

Bulb

Bulb

Bulb

Apple

Knife

Gun

Wig

Broom handle

(End)

Stage fright monitor

Ballo

on

Chair False Te

eth

Glass

Speaker

Ballo

on

Ballo

on

Mirro

r

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Preset

All light bulbs onTape player with cheering crowd on suspedended speaker

low level

Mouse emerges from under dressing table and crosses stage to cornerTopple


Off(End) Light onBalloon on

False teeth bubble in glassBalloon offBubble stop

Back piece of chair falls outBubble

Balloon onKnife moves and starts to attack balloon

Balloon BANG (not from knife)Knife flies over broom handle and falls to floor

Operator appears and resets the sceneNew balloon fixed to pumpBack piece of chair reset

Mouse reset to under tableOperator acknowledges audience with a nod

Checks hair in mirrorReturns to tableAll light bulbs on

Mouse emerges from under table and crosses stage to cornerTopple


Actions

Together

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211



Balloon onGun moves and starts to attack balloon

Balloon BANG (not from gun)Gun flies over broom handle and falls to floor

Operator appears and resets the sceneNew balloon fixed to pumpBack piece of chair reset

Mouse reset to under tableOperator acknowledges audience with a nod

Checks hair in mirrorReturns to tableAll light bulbs on

Mouse emerges from under dressing table and crosses stage to cornerTopple


(End) light onBalloon on



Balloon onApple moves and starts to attack balloon

Balloon BANG (from apple)Apple flies over Broom handle and falls to floor

Balloon under chair onBalloon from side of dressing table on

BANG (or deflate)BANG (or deflate)

All Lights off


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ANIMATION

y

PART 2

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FOOTNOTES

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1.

…focusing on specific types or categories of objects – props for example… I will start to work in prop stores…

2.

…The purpose of the machine is to set up a mechanism through which specific prop objects can be tested…

3.

… The aids of the magician is a territory to explore here – the trick boxes and trap doors….

4.

…Starting to build a repertoire of object actions that can be drawn upon and fixed into sequences…

5.

…The machine tests the limitations of objects and in doing so allows them to appear to us…

6.

…thinking about the economy of making through the choice of objects…

7.

…What is the impact of breaking and repeating the sequences devised?...

8.

…The dramatic structure is still needed to frame the actions – and is appropriate for the category of objects that are being explored…In this case a moment of release is needed – that comes many times with the balloon pop which again plays with the textures and ideas of theatricality…

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9.

… Construction of dressing table:

- Remove drawers and lid- Dismantle drawers to make planks that will make the floor under the unit- Fix planks- Reattach draws to give a ‘fake front’- Attach hinges to the table to make a lid- Played with the ‘reveal moment’ which achieved a ‘peppers ghost effect’ with the mirror – a double

image of inside appearing at the top of the box- Talked about having an assistant inside the box but decided the awkwardness of my size and frame

would be better and produce a laugh

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HOUSE

Great Hall, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth

04/05/10


PERFORMING OBJECTS

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A set of performance actions between people and objects.

THE SET UP

Task

To build, inhabit and destroy a ‘house’ over various set durations.

What dialogues and narratives are suggested and offered between people and domestic things?

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weight - colour - texture

counter weight - light - surface clash

narratives of materiality and representation

narratives of the inanimate ‘coming alive’

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Action 1

Wall Panels

Build a set of plywood wall panels, some with window holes.

They should be standard room height and able to be carried by a single person.

Play with building walls and rooms by using compression clamps to fix the panels together.

Build a living room.

Build a dining room.

Build a kitchen.

Build a garage.

Find a way of building several rooms in a sequence.

From living room....

to dining room....

to kitchen....

to garage

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Action 2

Garage Band

Build a garage

Form a garage band by introducing instruments and learning cover songs.

Try the room sequence from section 1 starting by building a garage.

Use cover songs to score the building of the other rooms.

Action 3

Object Grid

Introduce as many domestic objects as you can find by lay them all out in a grid.

Notice relations

Play with various grid configurations

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Action 4

Object Pile

From out of the grid build a huge pile of objects at one end of the room.

Repeat actions 1, 2 and 3 using the furniture and objects.

Find relationships between the various elements.

Start to record sequences and compositions.

Action 5

Object Crossover

Divide into two teams.

One team has to get all the objects to one side of the space, the other team to the opposite side.

Start gradually - build excessively

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Action 6

Poltergeist Units

From actions 1, 2 and 3 identify possible mini narratives within the greater composition.

See STAGE FRIGHT for instruction on how to approach this.

incorporate these units into the overall composition.

Action 7

House

Incorporate all the actions into a sequence.


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Variation

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Object Pile

Mouse across stage

Figurine fall

Build a garage

Song - In the Garage

Object Pile

Song - Furniture

Object Grid

Object Crossover

Living Room

Figurine falls from fire place

Chair Balloon

Mouse Trap

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FOOTNOTES

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1.

…I have decided to move forward with the disaster room idea as it offers a tighter framing/dramaturgical structure that offers the possibility of duration as an organising idea…

2.

…We will be working in the Great Hall. The size and scale of the space allows for expansion and multiplying objects. The volume of the space becomes important.

3.

Searching for text – looking for scenes that take place in rooms and houses. I have been thinking about how proximity works in ‘The Evil Dead’ (1981). How the cabin seems to keep the occupants inside a small space, yet there is an expansive feel to it – a much larger landscape opens up…

4.

The language of objects is huge. Almost any domestic object can sit within the structure. The garage in particular is useful as we can have DIY and mechanical elements such as industrial work lights.

5.

Pets. There can be an animal presence. Look at using the mouse again? Scale can be important and used carefully with this…

6.

Spoken text is proving difficult. We need to establish a register for the performers. Singing offers a way through this, there is not that element of surprise when the performer sings, and it makes sense with the set-up – why?

7.

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We have started to work through zones – areas of the stage where specific objects and items will be. This helps structure the size of the space.

8.

Exercises and actions are key. They give us the work from which to recognise the relationships between objects and people. The difficulty comes, as ever, when this is repeated. It is difficult to resist narrative – but the objects are deactivated when we do…

9.

The performers take on the roles of archetypal figures. They move in and out of generic characters shown by the costumes. However, this is never fully settled and if we are to take it forward there needs to be a clearer distinction in the performance between them and the figures they temporarily inhabit.

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5

FOLLOW

THE LIFE OF THE

OBJECT

Follow the Life of the Object is an imperative adapted from Bruno Latour’s statment: ‘follow

objects in action and describe what we see’ (In Harman, 2010, p. 14).This technique is first

pragmatic - a description of the objects travelling through the processes of practice. Through

doing this exercise, we get to reveal actions and alliances of the individual object that are normally

invisible to us.This pragmatism offers certain poetic reflections for how the the object sits and

moves within the terrain of the wider work. It is a method of drawing out the singular stories

around certain objects that illuminates the activity of the wider practice.

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5

FOLLOW

THE LIFE OF THE

OBJECT

DRESSING TABLE

PERFORMING OBJECTS

In most junk shops, reclamation yards, second-hand furniture stores and recycling centres,

you will find a large amount of brown wood utilitarian furniture; stacked, pushed together in

groups of type, size and/or era depending of the discretion of the place. Wardrobes of all sizes

and descriptions; tables, chairs, chests, drawers, dressing tables and strange hybrid furniture

experiments from the 1970s that incorporate all or some of the above. These items are the

detritus of British domestic life over the last half of the twentieth century, discarded and thrown

out as fashions and materials have changed or removed en masse from a house shortly after

the owner has passed away. The furniture, now grouped together in the corners and corridors

of the second hand stores, awaits a new home and use, or the inevitable end as landfill

or firewood. Although not exclusively found in brown wood there is a startling consistency

between what seems to have survived. Ranging from items from the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s

and sometimes 80s and 90s (although the invention of MDF and flatpack has produced an

aesthetic rupture in the this second- hand lineage) we find many duplicates of items both in

material and form as we browse the only places they can now be found.

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Craft, a second hand recycling store in Aberystwyth, 2008. I wanted to test an idea I had been

developing that all objects, regardless of worth within the system of objects from which they

are part can be made to act differently through their material presence and framing within the

apparatus of theatrical presentation. I wanted to set myself a challenge of using objects of cliché

or utter banality, objects that are overused or rarely seen and have an inescapable dialogue

with the ‘readymade’ (the bicycle wheel) or the deliberate representational materiality of the

stage (the battered suitcase). How do these things function when you set up an apparatus that

might absorb and appropriate the loaded sets of assumptions, readings and relations it carries

with it and is it possible to transform them and our encounter with these everyday familiar

PERFORMING OBJECTS

things. I wanted to take on the brown wood furniture.The brown wood items were grouped

together with large red £1 price stickers on them. Nobody wants these things as they don’t fit

in the decorative scheme of their houses; but there is still a sense that someone might make use

of them. There is a peculiar invocation of violence contained within these objects in a group, as

we can see how they have lived through the marks of use on their veneers, the faded water rings

on their surfaces and the faded panels where they have been left to the exposure to the sun on

one side. Dressing tables were there in abundance. It seems that there is less need for a table to

dress at compared with the old wardrobes or chests that might be adapted or restored. One

with three drawers and a mirror costs just £1.

The table suggested a sequence, an instruction for dressing, of getting ready for an event. The

drawers are there to keep things hidden as well as for storage. They are perhaps, as Gaston

Bachelard suggests, part of an image of ‘intimacy that are at harmony ... with all the other hiding

places in which human beings, great dreamers of locks, keep or hide their secrets’ (1992, p. 74). In

The Poetics of Space (1958), Bachelard places great emphasis on the intimacy of drawers and the

psychological significance that they have not as metaphor but as a phenomenologically felt image

of secrecy and the disturbing or revelatory potential they hold should we dare to peek inside.

There is perhaps even greater significance to this potential should we think of the drawers that

live in the bedroom, the bedside cabinet or the dressing table, perhaps the most intimate and

private of spaces aside from those deliberately constructed for concealment. The top of the table

allows space for keeping makeup and lotions. It needs a chair to make it work, to make sense of

it as offering a sequence or action. I put one near it. It offers the look of a magician’s conjuring

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box - there is a desire to saw it in half and make it into a trick box. I wondered if I could fit inside.

If the drawers suggest an intimacy of space that might be subverted by rendering them fake. I

take out the drawers and fit the front panels back on as a fake front. I remove the top and put

it on hinges to make it into a chest. The piece becomes a hiding place and someone can just fit

inside. After adaptation the table offers a new sequence. When playing with the ‘reveal’ moment

of someone coming out of the chest the mirror becomes a crude form of ‘Peppers Ghost’ as the

table becomes a unit in which the control mechanisms for the string machine that exist outside

of the unit can operate. This new character as magician’s chest and control unit renders its initial

one obsolete. It can no longer operate as a table to keep things on. To rectify this, the other

objects in the work are glued down. The illusion of the double life of the object, as it now stands,

is maintained. For the show it remains static, perched at the back of a small substage. The lid lifts

up the objects remain in place, stuck to the top. This action is repeated.

For transportation the adapted dressing table became the trunk in which all the things are

carried. It was like a large props chest. It was loaded into the back of my car and returned to SS13.

When I required more space for other objects I called Craft to come and collect the things I no

longer needed. They looked at me puzzlement. They refused to take the dressing table. I loaded it

into the car and took it to the rubbish dump where it was made into wood chips.

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MOUSE

PERFORMING OBJECTS

The mouse originally comes from a joke shop in Colston Street, Bristol, bought on my brother’s

birthday. It came packaged in a familiar blister pack alongside the fake vomit, biscuits, and flies;

the itching powder, exhaust whistles, pepper sweets and exploding golf balls. The front of the

packet has the cartoon image of a maid perched on top of a chair in the kitchen - Tom and

Jerry style - screaming in horror.

The mouse itself is a crude wedge of rubber with a thin, extended tail. The back of the grey

body is dappled with hair texture, the eyes picked out with black dots of paint, probably by a

machine, as they don’t quite match the moulding. It sat for years in a shoe box of practical jokes

that I used to play on my unsuspecting family; the plastic bourbon that chipped a large part of

my Dad’s front tooth; the stink bombs I dropped outside the front door just before my parents

had visitors; the cap bomb I placed in the airing cupboard.

My stash of mice seemed to multiply over my childhood, I added white and black versions,

always in the same moulding, except the black ones had red eyes. I don’t know why. These mice

seemed to have followed me around throughout my life, always reappearing in junk boxes of

old stuff, amongst bank statements, postcards, marbles and paper clips. There always seems to

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one in the kitchen drawer reserved for the instruction manuals of electrical equipment, Ikea

tools and leftover mini dowels.

The rubber mouse must be one of the few mass-produced objects that have not needed to go

through any kind of redesign for at least the past thirty years, if not longer, because as an object

they are perfectly designed for the job they have to do. They satisfy their task. It is perhaps this

ubiquity that gives the rubber mouse a certain uncanny familiarity. It is strangely comforting to

find it at the back of a drawer or box because it never seems to feel old, it is not a nostalgic

object like old toys can be. It falls between the gaps.

It stands as a marker for the everyday joke or prop.

It does not belong to the world of the stage but it is theatrical.

It pretends.

It is a double.

It brings a smile - what more could you want from such a thing?

We know instantly what class of object it belongs to.

We don’t expect anything from it.

A small sub-stage sits in the middle of the main theatre at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. On the

stage is a dressing table with a number of small objects on top and a mirror. There is a small

off-cut of carpet and a chair in front of it. The stage is made of pale plywood and on the far side

there is a row of oversized light bulbs that illuminate the space. An audience assembles. The

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light bulbs are switched off apart from one at the far end. From underneath the dressing table

the mouse appears. It is attached to a wire that leads under the stage and back to the dressing

table. It crosses the carpet, shifting from side to side. Its journey continues across the ply. It moves

more smoothly until it reaches the edge of the stage. It waits until finally falling. The fall appears

to trigger the lights - off - then a small television is turned on under the substage revealing the

words ‘Stage Fright’.

The mouse at actual size relates to the scale of the spectator

It puts the size of the substage into perspective

Its theatricality suggests the absence of the human - when humans do not appear the mouse comes out to play.

It is a prologue

It is a framing

It makes the audience laugh.

The mouse hangs at the corner.

When the sequence is reset and the mouse is revealed to make his trip again, and again, and

again. The mouse is cut free and returns to sit on the desk.

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PERFORMING OBJECTS

The wire starts out in a fishing shop in Aberystwyth. I select three different strengths: 15 lb, 30

lb, and 40 lb. The numbers refer to the breaking strain of the wire when pulled. The thickness

of the wire is dependent on these strains. This wire is dark green, it makes it visible to the eye

when being strung up. It joins a large pair of scissors as the key elements in the string machine

kit, stored in a black hard case that I have assembled.

In the studio the wire moves around repeatedly. It balances on windowsills and other objects.

It gets lost frequently and then re-found. It falls from height and rolls across the floor. It gets

strung up and then taken down. It gets reused and reused. It is tied to all manner of objects.

Handles, corners, screwed in eyelets. There are off-cuts littering the floor. It is tested to its

limits. It breaks. It is tied in knots, around screws and nuts. It zigzags across the room, up high

and across the floor. It gets threaded through the front of a wardrobe. It holds things up and

lets them down. Take this away and the pieces would be mute – it makes action possible. At

the end it is cut down, ending in a pile on the floor and, streched and tangled, it is disposed of.

This seemingly simple ‘linking’ material, that joins the objects and the operator together has a

central role to play in the apparatus. It makes things work. It is the key protagonist of the action.

In many ways these early pieces are about the action and activity of wire and what it is capable

of. It will return in Garage Band to guide the flight of a dart and make a football levitate.

WIRE

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FIGURINE

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PERFORMING OBJECTS

The Figurine was found in a box of miscellaneous ornaments in my parent’s garage. I have never

seen if before and it must have been part of a larger group of things leftover from an auction

or car-boot sale. It is a curious object as it is clearly machine-made to be the approximation of

antique porcelain. The ceramic is cheap, light, and poorly molded. The painted glaze is imprecise,

trailing over the molded edges that hold it. There are half-finished transfers of more intricate

patterns on the knees and coat. It is, I think, supposed to be a Regency figure of a man, maybe

French. I don’t think that the original makers have made that decision.

It is difficult to understand what the function of this object is. It is an ornament, that is clear, but

it is only for set dressing of a living room, a decoration rather than an object that would take

on any sentimental value.

After this initial finding I kept the figurine on my desk. It seemed to hold within its materiality a

tension between presence and representation that could be found in prop objects. The object

is performing; it is mimetic in the aura of awkwardness that it holds - the blush of acting - of

being something that it is not. However, this particular figurine is expert at playing this role.

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PERFORMING OBJECTS

Instead of the persona of an actor sitting within its form, we might say that the ‘authentic’ object

lies within the idea of the figurine, held in the mind of the viewer.

After finding this first figurine, I began to notice them in other situations, in charity shops

and on the shelves at my grandparent’s house. I found a large number in the prop store

of Aberystwyth University’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television. There were group

scenes and individual figures, Regency ladies and men with lutes. Most bizarrely there was a

ceramic figurine mounted on a spinning music box. The sound had faded but the figure still

spun around.

My original figurine was first used on top of the dressing table in Stage Fright. Fixed on with

superglue, it provided a counterpoint to a Regency wig that sat on the back the chair in the

‘approximate’ dressing room. The idea for the partialness of the scene that came from the

materiality of the figurine, the awkward object that sits between states even outside of the

theatrical set-up in which it is implicated.

The next appearance of the figurine was as part of large numbers in House. I took all of the

ornaments from the prop store and supplemented them with a large number from Craft. The

figurines moved around the stage with the other objects, lost in the sheer volume of things

that populated the space. In the opening moments, one of the figurines fell from on top of a

mound of stuff, triggered by a small wire. The arm was smashed off. At the end of the show, I

returned a box of them to the prop store. I keep my original, returning it to sit on the desk.

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EYLET

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PERFORMING OBJECTS

A central component of my tool kit is the multiple number of screw-in eyelets. The size of

eyelet is selected depending on the weight of the object that will be placed at the end of the

that particular wire/operation. It is screwed into the wooden armature at the back of the

control boxes. They act as a crucial hinge as part of the crude prosthetic extension of my

reach into the space and how the objects move within it. They enabled wire to turn corners

and be treaded in complex ways. They enabled a wider range of placements and possiblities.

The eyelet reveals the role of the operator that, like it, is almost completely pragmatic. Inside

the converted dressing table, the actions of the operator are to activate the objects in order.

There is a list taped inside which contains the sequence and notes on rhythm, speed and

intensity. The experience is uncomfortable, with cut fingers and friction rubbing on the corner

of the hands, squeezing into tight spaces. The gratification of the audience is only felt through

hearing laughter or the hush of silences. There is a subtle interplay between the operation

and failure of success of the actions attempted. This is clear when a string snaps or a balloon

fails to burst. In these moments decisions are made about the change in a course of action.

The decisions are slight but important - when do you decide to turn off the pump when the

balloon hits a point of equilibrium? If a string on a central object breaks do you come out from

the box and fix it to repeat or decide to cut the object from future actions? These choices

reveal a reflexive relationship that starts to emerge between the operator and the set up. At

the end of the piece, the eyelets are removed and returned to the tool kit.

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6

ESTABLISH A

GLOSSARY OF

APPLICATIONS

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APPLICATIONS 1 - 11

Establish a Glossary of Applications is an exercise of assessing where I am at the end of the

investigation phase. Throughout the process, a regular undertaking of this exercise enables me to

move things forward. It is written as a manifestio of applications that can be applied in the studio

and at the point of finalising the instances of performance.

The first part of the glossary, Applications 1 - 11, is inculded in this Chapter and then built upon in

Chapter 5 with Applications 12 - 20. It is composed as a list that can be cut out and pinned to the

studio wall.

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6

ESTABLISH A

GLOSSARY OF

APPLICATIONS

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GLOSSARY OF APPLICATIONS

1 - 11

1. THINK THROUGH THINGS - NOT ABOUT THEM

This is ongoing.

Encounter not control.Reduce the gap between what you think an object is and what you want it do and actually what it might be and what it is doing.

2. CONSIDER AN OBJECT’S BIOGRAPHY: WHAT DOES IT TELL YOU?

This is a place to start.

Consider the singular stories of an object rather than grappling with it as a total assemblage of attachments

3. LISTEN TO THE ‘NOISE’ OF THE OBJECTS AROUND YOU

This is a place to start.

How are the objects framing your encounter? What do they expose about the social dynamics of a situation? When are they invisible?

4. ALL OBJECTS ARE EQUAL (BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS)

This is ongoing.

Remember the Democracy of Objects – a Flat OntologyIf it works – it works

9. FOLLOW THE LIFE OF THE OBJECT AND DESCRIBE WHAT YOU SEE

What gaps in the set-up does the object expose? How does it travel through?

10. LIST LIST LIST

Disentangle your objects from each other. What happens when you compose them as lists? How does the work look separated from contexts? Do the same for actions.

11. OBJECT – SITUATION – OBJECT

This will move things forward.

The object does not solve the problems in moments of making but takes part in it. The ‘situation’ is everything other than the object (action, gesture, voice, sound, space)The situation will push at the object and the object will push back.

QUESNE’SHUMILITYMACHINE

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QUESNE’S HUMILITY MACHINE

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OBJECTS AMONGST OBJECTS

The objects and scenographic set-ups of Philippe Quesne and Vivarium Studio have

reconfigured the possibilities of object-orientated theatre after Kantor. In Kantor’s theatre,

the apparatus constructed manifests the appearance of the inhuman through the relation

of human and object. In Quesne’s theatre, the particular mechanism of appearance is of the

human figure existing in a post-human and post-humanist age, one that does not separate the

human and the inhuman but is reconciled to a fate of being an object in a world of objects. Like

Bryant’s flat ontology, the objects in Quesne’s work operate as a democratizing component

in the dramaturgy of his theatre, making possible the appearance of the human (as object) as

much as the body and voice of the performer itself. Quesne’s theatre offers us a meditation

on the place of the living being (substance) in a world beset with nonhuman systems and

apparatuses, ecologies of matter that operate beyond conceivable control. Quesne’s theatre

machine could be considered as a humility machine in line with Read’s model of the theatre

as a venue of human refuge, where the appearance of the human - as a figure- is witnessed

as ‘not quite there’, a life that exists in joy and sadness in a world of systems and processess as

an object amongst other objects.

I will consider how Quesne’s figure of the human appears through the two operational

concepts of displacement and humility. Displacement is considered as a compositional strategy

in Big Bang (2010), which makes us aware of the volume of the stage space beyond the

proscenium frame as a plane of composition. The introduction of large inflatable objects, real

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cars or large sheets of plastic foreground the object’s material presence through the physical

measurement of the three dimensions of the space as well as how the appearance of different

sets of objects allow Quesne to combine moments of equilibrium, tipping, excess and absence.

This enables him to disrupt the machinery of the theatre by engineering it to break down and

expose its machination, whilst allowing us to think with the objects as they appear, building images

through their appearance. I will argue that this repeated strategy of exposure builds an apparatus

that animates the encounter between spectator and stage and produces theatrical pleasure: a

theatricality of the object.

This compositional process of displacement is combined with a more nuanced approach to

the selection and handling of objects, which I consider as the frame of humility. I will focus

on L’Effet de Serge (The Serge Effect, 2007), through a reading of objects from Daniel Miller’s

concept of the ‘humility of things’, which evokes Bruno Latour’s definition of anthropomorphism.

As previously stated, Latour claims ‘anthropos and morphos together mean either that, which has

human shape or that, which gives shape to humans’ (2010, p. 237). This anthropomorphic role is

considered as the simple, invisible activity of objects in the co-creation of self as well as framing

and maintaining the social appropriateness of situations. In L’Effet de Serge, the figure of Serge is

built and maintained through the increasing appearance and use of everyday things. These objects

are unpacked, adapted, eaten and played with as part of a detailed scenography of actions and

gestures that gradually construct an intimate portrait of Serge. Far from removing or obscuring

our recognition of the human, the material environment produces an series of entanglements

that becomes the very thing that make the recognition of Serge’s partial humanness visible, and

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that all things, bodies and objects, construct the appearance of it. To begin, I will introduce

Quesne’s theatre through his central framing device: the stage as vivarium, a microcosm of the

world in which the human may appear.

QUESNE’S THEATRICAL VIVARIUM

In the opening moments of La Mélancolie des Dragons (2008) the audience observe a rock

band sitting in a car, broken down, in a snowy patch of woodland. The woodland is dense,

surrounding the car, suggesting a depth and perspective that opens out onto a clearing. The

snow is compacted and appears to be spongy and substantial. The band are listening to the

car stereo: ‘Back in Black’ by AC/DC; they are drinking beer and sharing a large bag of potato

crisps; they are wearing denim and fake heavy metal wigs; they talk to each other but are barely

audible. The driver changes the dial; the music changes; we notice that they have a dog.

The scene is at once hyper-realistic and yet pleasingly contrived. It is a full-scale diorama;

a model box arranged with the precision of a hobbyist maker – no tree out of place –

everything arranged to be viewed from a particular perspective. This is Philippe Quesne’s

theatrical vivarium; a world within a world, nurtured and maintained by carefully controlled

environment and strategically placed objects. The inhabitants are fed by crisps and drinks and

kept active by the heat and intensity of artificial light. For Quesne, this framing device gives an

immediate material structure for the microscopic investigation of an examined life: ‘I assemble

scenographic devices which are both theatre sets, and workshops, “vivariums” for the study of

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human microcosms” (quoted from an interview by Déchery, 2011, p. 128). As Chloé Déchery

has outlined, the vivarium is Quesne’s model for the theatre as a place in which we might

scrutinise the ‘strangeness of everyday existence’ a place to focus on a facet of reality by pulling

it apart to then ‘reassemble poetically’ (p. 127). Quesne’s theatre is formed around the apparatus

of an intricate scenographic set-up that is the very thing that activates and maintains the life of

the inhabitants, or, as we might say in Quesne’s case, the theatrical, political, ethical, and poetic

appearances of the human – the affects of the machine – that happen there. An appearance of

the human figure existing in a world of objects and processes that support and problematize the

life that might be lived there.

Quesne established Vivarium Studio in Paris in 2003 as a laboratory for theatrical innovation,

drawing together painters, actors, dancers, musicians and animals, drawing from the conventions

of visual art, design and cinema as much as the theatre itself. The studio has created works across

a range of different contexts, from the art gallery, the forest, the wasteland and most recently

through the theatrical productions L’Effet de Serge (2007), La Mélancolie des Dragons (2008) and

Big Bang (2010). The Studio, as Déchery has set out, operates ‘on the margins of conventional

theatre in France’ akin to the work of Jérôme Bel, Xavier Le Roy and Grand Magasin (Déchery,

2011 p. 23). These are artists that have abandoned classical dance and text based work to

establish their own unique dramaturgies that utilise the ‘immediacy of performance to undertake

an acute observation of reality in all its heterogeneity and brute materiality’ (p. 22). They test

and defy theatrical convention through experimenting with so-called ‘post-dramatic’ forms and

approaches to making that are composed as theatres of events rather than dramatic sequence.

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Quesne’s approach is based on an object-led dramaturgy, in line with Kantor’s material apparatus

that sets up the possibility of animation. In Quesne’s vivarium, the apparatus, both materially

and conceptually enable the flow of animation to be interchangeable, affording an agency to

the objects being used as much as the performers using them. They are ‘playing with a lack of

control’ (Bell, 2008, p. 17), setting up situations in which the objects push back against the bodies

and spaces and actively animate them, as much as they are being animated themselves.

DISPLACEMENT

Like a vivarium, Quesne approaches the stage as a tank, a container that draws our attention

to volume as much as the vertical and horizontal planes of composition. Just like the water

in Archimedes’ bath, adding new mass to a space can displace another, not just physically but

through an aesthetic displacement that operates visually and viscerally as well.

In Big Bang (2010) the space is framed as that of the universe, an ever-expanding non-space

that life and matter materialises and departs, reforms and collapses. It starts with a vast white

space – a large covered object on one side of the space and a modest table and chairs on the

other. A mixer and some books are on the table including Black Hole by Charles Burns. Tiny

white letters that spell out BIG BANG are arranged on the table without fanfare. At times,

fizzing ‘space sounds’ are played, at others, a curious ‘intermission’ music is triggered. The sound

of an air pump from back stage and performers talking to each other is heard. It is waiting for

the start, the start of everything, the start of all matter and life to come into existence. Then

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darkness. What emerges from this darkness are masses of white shapes – blobs that traverse the

space with their feelers – evidently hands and feet but obscured by the material they are wearing.

Then brown shapes enter, searching the alien landscape until an understated human voice from

one of the shapes calls them all together. The blobs stand, the human emerges and quietly leaves

– walking this time – into the wings.

This opening sequence encapsulates the compositional structure of repeated displacement that

Quesne employs throughout his work. It always starts with a set-up that consists of the building

of an image, framed theatrically by the appearance of materials that gesture towards what that

image might be. Just at the point of resolution – when the image will finally be completed – it

collapses through the introduction of something else, another material or object, or, in the case

of this opening sequence, the voice of the performer who understatedly breaks the epic set up

by exposing the theatrical apparatus, by letting the build up theatrically fail. This dramaturgical

strategy of rupture at the point of resolution brings a pleasurable release. As Nicholas Ridout

states: ‘Theatre is a machine that sets out to undo itself. It conceives itself as an apparatus for

the production of affects by means of representation, in the expectation that the most powerful

affects will be obtained at precisely those moments when the machinery appears to break down’

(2006, p. 168). Quesne plays with our knowledge of the relational set-up of the theatre and its

conventions. He deliberately activates and shuts down its machinery as a compositional strategy

that constantly builds and stalls the apparatus in an attempt to create a new one. It is in this

repeated sequence of attempt, rupture and then re-composition where the theatrical enjoyment

sustains and the new apparatus is made. In this instance, our pleasure comes from ‘the operation

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of the machinery (effective or failing), rather than whatever it is that it is producing’ (Ridout,

2006, p. 168) the rebuilding of the apparatus allowing for an animation of the set-up to occur

moment by moment. It is a compositional strategy that allows Quesne to repeatedly play with

reconstituting his apparatus, interchanging moments of equilibrium, tipping, excess and absence.

In the corner of the stage there is a large object covered in a white sheet. It is revealed to be

a car on its roof and a new image starts to emerge. A group of archetypal cave men emerge

and they discover fire made from three sticks, a red floodlight and a smoke machine. The car

is like a rock or the entrance to a hidden cave. It is recognisable from the opening image of

the rock band in La Mélancolie des Dragons. The materials are being reused, the images tip

into each other. The cave men themselves are characterised by large hairy beards. Once the

original bearded men complete the fire, more of these oversized beards are brought on and

given to the other performers to wear. The image is reaching a point of resolution, a point of

equilibrium through the objects as the performers all wear beards and dance around the fire.

Then there is a moment of tipping with the sudden appearance of a large inflatable boat. Still

wearing the beards the performers arrange images with the boat as we watch the shifting of

one set of objects displacing another with the original being allowed to remain. This forms an

increasingly complicated and messy stage picture that invites the spectators to speculate and

construct their own images. A group of performers take a photograph, still bearded in front

of a large boat as if it is a prize catch. Tidying up is sometimes done to readdress a balance of

materials and placements that swings the image into a different direction. At times the scene

evokes the structure of a giant playroom where the remnants of games, dens, and dressing up

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all mix together and are discarded or dropped to the floor. The car is left to one side and even

more inflatable boats emerge. The appearance of more and more boats tips the image, lets it

over spill into another assemblage. There is a contract of patience observed by both performer

and audience in these moments, the resolution of the image that is being built is withheld and at

times never reached. The spaces between the images that are built, where there are a few boats

on stage but not many, when the smoke is creeping from right to left but has not filled the space

is precisely where the apparatus reveals itself through the promise of completion.

In the second phase of the show the back screen of white is dropped to reveal a large green-

screen box with a floor made of water ; topped up by a garden sprinkler. The space opens up

and the depth and height expands. Some beards remain and some of the initial brown blob

material is used to make islands with branches. Gradually spacemen enter and even more boats

emerge – a mountain of boats – and the composition shifts again. Some performers are dressed

in green screen technicians’ suits and a green screen blob appears to start feeling around the

space. This phase is perhaps the shift in human history where humans start to make apparatuses

of deception, to make machines of representation that set out to undo themselves, the figure of

the human emerging from such apparatuses, trapping and reconfiguring the appearances of bare

life that is witnessed. This sequence of images, fading in and out through the gradual appearance

and disappearance of these groups of objects starts to dictate a rhythm that invites the spectators

to further edit and frame the images themselves, to get lost in the muteness of matter forming

and reforming itself. The apparatus continues to be broken and reformed letting the temporality

of transition resonate rather than the resolution of it, until the image is in only the darkness of the

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auditorium, contemplating the becoming of the human from the object, becoming an object

amongst many.

HUMILITY

The opening of L’Effet de Serge (2007) introduces Serge as a spaceman and explorer who

is encountering the landscape of his modest apartment. Wearing a handmade helmet that is

lit from the inside, he surveys the apartment as if discovering an alien planet, the darkness

hiding the detail of the room. We initially experience it with him as an uncharted terrain with a

childlike sense of the epic. Serge stands in for Quesne’s figure of the artist ‘by turns, an inventor,

an astronaut’ (Déchery, 2011, p. 130) revealed to us as a sort of amateur special effect artist, a

modest magician who likes to devise mini-performances for his friends.

When the lights come up we see a large letterbox stage that depicts a long room with a set of

glass sliding doors. The floor is a thin carpet, the type you find in rented accommodation with

a tight weave: easily replaceable. The walls are made of raw plasterboard and you can see the

manufacturer’s watermark trailing the edges; it is as if Serge had built the apartment himself as

a traveling unit to stage his spectacles. At one end is a ping-pong table that has been taken over

as a temporary workbench. There is a small TV on the table and behind it are a large number

of carrier bags, small boxes and general clutter that has an immediate familiarity, a recognition

of the little bunches of stuff that we have around our own homes; the carrier bags in which

we temporarily store the miscellany of our lives; old bills, marbles and toy figures; unopened


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presents and postcards. Serge’s own muddle of stuff has been purchased for the performance of

mini-spectacles and over the course of the show he unpacks a remote control helicopter ; a pair

of glow stick glasses that he patiently constructs; he eats crisps and drinks; he plays ping-pong

alone; he watches the television.

These moments of unpacking, simple construction, play, idly watching the TV and snacking on

crisps take on a surprising intimacy; they are the moments the audience is allowed to linger over,

moments of silence – of thinking. This ethic of interaction replaces any dramatic imperative that

allows us, perhaps most significantly, to recognize them from our own experiences of inaction;

of waiting for friends to arrive; of planning a surprise; of unpacking our shopping; of simply sitting

down. This subtle interaction with objects enables Quesne to build the figure of Serge, established

not only by the persona of the performer but his selection of objects and the manner in which he

handles them. The action of objects in this composition is aligned to Miller’s idea of the ‘humility

of things’, as I have previously stated, Miller claims that this activity reaches beyond considering

objects simply as material artifacts that evidence the existence of particular affects, but how the

material presence of objects act as a frame or trigger that makes possible the immaterial existence

of thought and emotion, and ultimately contributes to the construction of self. Again, the audience

observe that the objects do not merely account for the fact that something has happened - the

empty boxes from past experiments scattered around Serge’s flat; or empirically evidence that

something is currently happening - the wine glasses or pizza boxes during Serge’s gathering -

but they work actively in creating and then transforming the activity of thought. The objects do

not work as symbols that signify dramatic meaning but operate as collective assemblages as mini

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affect-generating apparatuses. Miller ascribes a level of ‘humility’ on the part of the objects in

this process, as they appear to operate in this way beyond our conscious viewing of them as

inert material things, they ‘determine what takes place to the extent that we are unconscious

of their capacity to do so’ (2005, p. 5). Therefore, the most intimate level of encounter with

objects occurs most potently when we do not ‘see’ them. According to Miller, this works

because the objects create a setting making us ‘aware of what is appropriate and inappropriate’

(2010, p. 50) and thus constructs not only cultural norms but also social and moral relationships

that function within them. It is the capacity of things to function unchallenged that gives them

such potency in the construction and maintenance of individuals and broader cultural clusters.

In this respect, the objects in L’Effet de Serge do not direct our attention to hidden dramatic

significations but are compositional elements in the creation and maintenance of ‘Serge’ as a

figure, a context for our consideration.

This is a composition built through an established relationship with Gaëtan Vourc’h, the

performer who plays Serge and Quesne’s co-creator of the production. His unassuming

manner of consideration and handling is conveyed with such grace that the banal becomes

significant. There is something deeply personal about this process, perhaps to Quesne himself,

as the New York Times critic Jason Zinoman (2010) commented in his review, it appears to

be ‘a portrait of the artist at work […] he displays a dignity and seriousness of purpose that

make everything else seem beside the point’. Much like our own personal possessions, hobbies

and projects enable us to establish our own sense of self and communicate to others our

interests, ideas and even ethical and political beliefs. The interaction between Vourc’h and these

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simple, everyday objects constantly shifts to reveal subtle idiosyncrasies that guide the context

of interaction; the joys of making and showing; the embarrassment of social awkwardness and

the intimacy of our private lives. These subtle interactions set-up the partitioning of being that

is necessary for Agamben’s functioning of the apparatus, that produce and define the subject of

who we are seeing and what makes that person (figure) known to us. In this instance it is Serge,

who is produced as a theatrical figure of the human through these configured apparatuses of

interaction.

It could be said that the affect of this figure’s appearance is that of humility, established through

the recognition of dependence and dependency that Serge has of his objects. As Ian Hodder

has suggested, ‘the material objectness of things tends to trap humans into specific forms of co-

dependency. In the practices of everyday life things fall apart, decay, run out, go wrong, need each

other in sequence. Humans thus get entangled in this physicality – however much they do so

within social worlds’ (2012, p. 95). This reading of the trapping of everyday objectness could be

a description of Serge’s routines. The piles of carrier bags and the replenishment of crisps, tape

and glow sticks are the things that construct and maintain Serge’s social world; they bring his

friends to his apartment and allow him to exchange the performances of his mini-spectacles with

companionship. This physical entanglement that Serge displays with his objects is as much enabling,

as it is restricting for him. As Hodder continues, the human-thing and thing-human entanglement

produces ‘a dialectic relationship between dependence, often productive and enabling’ (p. 88)

as in the case of the social and relational world he is able to create through his mini-spectacles,

and ‘dependency, often constraining and limiting’ (ibid) in the idea that Serge’s ‘effects’ are never

entirely complete producing a melancholy to the isolated world that he has made himself.

This is played out most directly in ‘Firework Effect with music by Vic Chesnutt’, the mini-

performance, which forms the grand finale of Serge’s sequence of Sundays. Serge straps a

small pyrotechnic charge to each of his feet and starts the song ‘Warm’ by Vic Chesnutt on his

CD player. The performance consists of a slow movement by Serge to ignite the charges that

fizz unconvincingly. He cuts the song short. There is laugher, much like the laugher at all of the

preceding mini-performances, at the attempt, the breakdown of the object that exposes the

set-up, a precursor to the structuring principles of Big Bang. The audience see the embrace

given by Serge’s friends in response to the action and wish, prehaps, to join them all on stage

for a glass of wine and a slice of pizza.

THE HUMILITY MACHINE

Quesne articulates a relationship with objects that the audience undertake day to day without

intellectualising their encounters. They recognise the dependence and dependency there is

through entanglements with mundane items such as toothbrushes and napkins alongside the

things created and made for family and friends as an offer to them, to make social connections.

Quesne’s skill is in his ability to make this ethic of human-object/object-human relations the

central operation of his theatre, whilst appearing to replace dramatic structure altogether. It

generates a flicker of recognition that strikes us as being surprisingly moving, even if at the

time we are not sure why. In doing this his theatre machine, like Kantor’s, constructs a stage

reality that does not set out to represent its ideas but to make the event a material realisation


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of them. The material objects are used to expose the nature of the theatre as a machine

of representation, engineering moments of breakdown and rupture, such as the displacement

structure of Big Bang or the failure of the fizzing of fireworks in L’Effet de Serge. This is the

operation of Quesne’s Humility Machine, enabling objects to take on a vibrancy by giving shape

to the human participants in the event, animating the moments of recognition that allows the

human figure, its processes, interactions, ethics, and humour, to appear, however fleetingly to us.

The operations of Kantor’s and Quesne’s machines share the utilisation of the theatre, as an

apparatus, to make the appearance of the human possible and the staging of political ideas.

The appearances they draw, however, are markedly contrasting and the function of the objects

in this process, have significant differences. For Kantor the effect is a form of thinking history, a

means through which to call back the ghosts of memory and of the atrocities of World War Two.

The objects function to draw the creaturely to the surface through their material presence and

relation with actors and space. For Quesne, it is the human, or idea of the human as a participant,

or ‘actant’ within the mass systems of objects that we might consider as the universe and the

biosphere of the planet or the immediate relations of culture and society and the networks of

representation that define it. Quesne recognises the theatre as an apparatus with the possibility

of revealing the thinking of politics, history and culture by allowing the spectator to decide how

they want to engage or interpret the revealing of that thought. The human figure is not viewed in

purgatory within these systems of objects, but in dignified contentment of being together in the

space and time of the theatre event.

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Theatre Machines 2 Animation

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