It’s late now, and I’ve run out of jokes. Sorry. Or not. Depending on how much you like my jokes.
I didn’t even get a little bit rained on on this day. No even a little bit. I did, however, sit on a bench with the faint whiff of chlorine hanging in the air, wearing goggles and a water polo hat. Enter:
The Time Out – Non Zero One
Part of the Forest Fringe. A piece for 8-12 people (but it has to be an even number) who are informed by a shouty man with quite a magnificent moustache that they are 9 minutes away from a potential glorious victory. The water polo hats that you don at his instructions have discretely hidden headphones, and as the lights fade and the shouty-moustache man slows, a voice begins to speak in your ear. It begins to talk to you, about how strange a situation this is, but that the shouty-man seems so real, maybe we should just go along with it. As time passes this same voice asks you to do or say small things, make eye contact with others around you, reveal simple details about yourselves, shake hands, touch foreheads. To try and understand yourself as a group, as team mates.
The Time Out is a gentle, self-aware and intimate examination of what it takes to be more than the sum of your parts, that carefully weaves the responses of the participants back into the fabric of the work. This is the point where I normally end on a slightly unnecessary flourish, but you’re going to have to make do with: ‘I liked it.’
Alma Mater – Fish & Game
An iPad show. 20 minutes, and a kind of fairy tale for an empty room. You’re instructed to use the iPad ‘like a camera’ – so as the display moves its angle on the room, you move the screen so that it aligns, filling the room with characters, objects, a tale about a little girl, growing up. Another thing that I’d heard a lot of people respond quite favourably to, but that I found a tad underwhelming. An interesting story, but not really a visual language that worked for me. It felt like it should respond like a video game viewpoint – using the point of view of a player-character made me crave more responsivity; at least a navigational level of interaction. Continue reading Edinburgh: Day the third