I'll be Gone Again: Documenting the Virtual Body

Ruth Benschop

I’ll be gone was a project in which two groups of students from different backgrounds and theatre traditions worked together with artist Peter Missotten to create a performance at the Maastricht Theatre School. In the project they explored virtual technologies as part of a larger project called The Virtual Body. In order to research the way in which virtuality was at stake in the project, a documentation of the working process was made. The documentation aims to discuss as well as embody issues that are also at stake in performance and virtuality – such as the relationship between real/non-real and live/non-live. Moreover, the documentation tries to take seriously questions about why, how and for whom one would want to maintain what to all intents and purposes has gone: I’ll be gone.

ILLBEGONE is part of the SIA RAAK research project THEVIRTUALBODY.ORG by The Maastricht Theatre Academy

Contact information for the Theatre school in Maastricht:

Toneelacademie Maastricht

Lenculenstraat 31-33
6211 KP Maastricht (The Netherlands)
tel +43 346 66 90
fax +43 346 66 99
toneelacademie@zuyd.nl

‘Let’s save the DVD and send it to as many festivals as possible. Even though it doesn’t work as DVD, you have to see it live. It isn’t a good substitute, it’s a teaser.’

* excerpts from written texts spoken in the performance:

1648. He is not what he used to be. His face is not his own. The skin he touches is rough. Arms are heavy. Legs drag. There is no time to heal the wounds. He remembers a time when he could control of his muscles. 1836. He wonders what this feels like. The stillness is oppressive. All he can hear is blood coursing through veins. Thudding in his ears. The light flickers. His eyes ache. 1284. He believes his hair may be graying, but is uncertain of this. The landscape is grey now. A recollection of brown. Brown hair. March 1982. Thoughts are few and far between. He worries that he may be shutting down. He worries himself thin. He worries. December 1919. Once he was a hopeless romantic. He used to be right-handed. Back then he believed in angels. 25th December, 1814. Judgment day has come upon him. His face is not his own. 7th August, 1847. The stillness is oppressive. (text: Florence Wheeler)

I can see you looking.

Blink.

It would probably be better if we all just stopped.

That scratch is new. It wasn't always here.

I've lost it, I don't know how.

That scratch is new. I'm sure it wasn't always there.

What are you trying to find? Why are you still looking? Aren't your eyes tired of all the same things?

That scratch is new.

(text: Lisa Williams)

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* The ITs Jury report:

ITs Guest Award 2010

Over the last 8 days, we have had the privilege of seeing 15 different performances presented for the ITs Guest Award of 2010; represented among these performances has been the work of students from 11 different countries. The range of work that we have seen has been wonderfully diverse, drawing on a wide variety of performance disciplines and styles. Our experience of this work has ranged from classical and contemporary dance to the performance dramatic texts drawn from the established repertoire, to devised work and post-dramatic theatre.

On the one hand, seeing this variety of work has made our task as judges a rich and stimulating experience – on the other hand, it has made our job of selecting a winning production that much more difficult! In light of this formidable challenge we agreed to look for some particular qualities within the work that we were seeing. We looked for work that expressed itself through an authentic student ‘voice’, that was innovative in approach, that displayed high levels of quality – both in the standard of performance and production – we also looked for performance skills that were applied with energy and maturity and productions that made effective and imaginative use of theatre space, scenography and mise-en-scène. So – we weren’t asking for much!

All our shortlisted productions showed us many of the qualities that we were looking for. However, we felt that one particular production possessed all of these qualities:

We found this highly contemporary production to be mesmerizing from the first to the last moment, creating a special quality of atmosphere that drew equally from the world of dreams and of nightmares and where form and content worked together to create images that were both striking and rich in poetic resonance. We admired the way in which text was used to support the creation of an intense and claustrophobic dramaturgy that explored theatrical illusion and played with our senses – sometimes almost overwhelming them. We too admired the elegance and intensity of the performances, the excellent use of digital technology and the overall completeness of the production in achieving its vision.

It is for these reasons that the Jury has chosen to present the ITs Guest Award 2010 to ‘I’ll be Gone’.

Dear member of the audience (now and or/then),

I’ll be Gone is gone. At least in the views of many. Do not despair! We live in virtual times. Read on.

To see I’ll be Gone, please contact the Maastricht Theatre School and ask them to program it again.

For what participants find to be a meager substitute of the performance, yet necessary, important, and useful registration of the performancesee the dvd of the performance. To receive this dvd, go to The Virtual Body

Besides this now quite common manner of documentation by video, other modes of registration have been used to register I’ll be Gone. For these modes, you may find it less easy to pretend that you are actually there, in the theatre, watching the performance, as you may be able to do while watching the video. Nowadays we are accustomed to taking video/film/virtual images as non-intrusive gateways to the real thing itself. We can quite easily “forget” that we are being provided with access through a quite specific medium, different from that of the stage. This was not always the case.

Remember that all of the modes of registration listed below attempt through the peculiarities of their own medium to capture, to represent I’ll be Gone.

Think about how much they make you feel that you are there, at the performance itself. Ask yourself how much of your attention is taken up by the medium and how well you find it to allow you entrance. Mark how close by or far away the medium makes you feel from the “actual” performance.

- excerpts from written texts spoken in the performance*

- still photography of the performance (photo’s taken by Peter Missotten)

- audio recordings and written reports of participants’ experiences of and views on the project and the performance

Do you want to hear what participants said about I’ll be Gone? They talked to me in confidence. If you are curious, send me an email ruth.benschop@zuyd.nl formulating your interest and we will see.

To give an idea, here are a couple of the things participants said particularly about the performance:

‘It is about nonexistent time. Things that never have been and never will be.’

‘It is about the inevitability of explosion and calm, about that it is always only a matter of time until things explode or become calm.’

‘I absolutely hated the end project.’

‘It’s not about anything univocally. But you are your own first audience. The angels, the mysticism. It is an extremely religious and therefore fascist performance. The angels on the scene are standing there in great merci.’

- The ITs festival jury report on the performance*

Dear member of the audience, have you drifted away from the performance to representations of the performance, and thus a little from experiencing to reflecting? Then maybe it is time to go.

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