This exposition discloses how the research design of a site-oriented performance laboratory can be used to develop a screen work.
Collaborators: Charlotta Grimfjord Cederblad & Kristin Rode
Location: Götaplatsen, Gothenburg, Sweden
Timeframe: September 2022 - September 2023
Context: PhD project Situated Agencies: Mediating Places through the Body
The research design of this performance laboratory at Götaplatsen focussed on developing a site-specific screen work, especially by using a specific area within the public square as the main source: the Hasselblad Memorial. Designed by the Swedish artist Ulf Celén for the centenary of Hasselblad’s birth, this Memorial represents the achievements of a Swedish citizen who developed the cameras that were used by NASA in the Apollo programme in the 1960's and 1970's and in turn, contributed to document the first moon landing in 1969.
In this case, the Hasselblad Memorial served as a basis to engage critically with what it represents: On the one side, the technological progress of cameras and on the other, the humankind's fascination and relationship with the camera. In doing so, this performance laboratory engaged with the Hasselblad Memorial - its spatial, material, historical and sensory attributes - through exploring someting called as the narrative agency of a camera. By using approaches from performance documentation (e.g., the co-presence of a camera and the notion of liveness) and screen production research (e.g., cinematography as process), this type of agency aimed to expand the ways in which the audiovisual traces of such a site-specific engagement can be (re)framed and (re)performed within an editing and archival process.
