Wednesday 29 March 2017

More paintings you have never seen (4)

More paintings you have never seen (4)

"Is this a dagger which I see before me?" The Ghost of the murdered King of Denmark from Shakespeare's Hamlet fades in and fades out of my projected kinetic painting, while the very concerned eye watches throughout for further deceit, crime and tragedy. Whose eye is it? Well, it's complicated - everybody is watching everybody else. What else is new?

In 2009 I joined the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra with Shostakovich's Hamlet Suite as part of a music-theatre education programme in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. At one point the dagger plunged right off my 9 x 6 metre screen through the conductor's white jacket, blood splatters and all. I told him in advance: "this is not going to hurt, ha-ha". Then, when the music stopped, the Ghost and my painting disappeared for ever. The thing about my kinetic visuals is that you will never see them live again, except in your mind's eye. This art form only exists in real time.
But of course (sigh) 1200 kids got them on their iPhones. 



Is this not another way to fire up the imagination of young people and give them an insight into drama and music that they might otherwise experience as too obscure? 

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