It’s kind of funny when old ideas find a way to stick around.
We spent a lot of time looking at surveillance and some big overpowering being that watches everything a person does. Think George Orwell’s 1984 on stage and you pretty much have our original plans. But this new idea that I came up with, about looking at history in a new light… well it sort of harks back to that G.O.D idea. The idea the hidden moments of history plays heavily with the prospects of the “manipulative possibilities of the media.” (Freiburg, 2010, 77) Along with the ‘media’ meaning news channels and the ability for them to tell stories in specific ways, the ‘media’ can also mean how the camera is specific in what it views and how that can choose to see certain things. The whole point of technology and media is observation, may it be through a screen, a camera lens, or a phone – it sees things that happen in the world, but not necessarily the whole image.
This is what comes out in our performance looking at history. Everyone has seen sections of history through the eye of the lens but not necessarily the whole picture. When you combine theatre with the mediated image you have the chance to see more. The extra bits. ‘Reading between the lines’, or the pixels, as it were.
Works Cited.
Freiburg, J. (eds.) (2010) Gob Squad Reader. London: Gob Squad.