A theatre to address

A project about the governing power of text to inform our experience...

A theatre to address is a programme of performances, readings, screenings and talks that explore the many forms of text from concrete poetry or sound sculpture to theatrical script, radio play, voice over or song. Text exists here on multiple levels as something to be investigated through reference to an historical document or event, and as a means of address. And in this way, A theatre to address is also about the governing power of language to direct or order our experience.

A theatre to address explores the work of artists who use text as something that might block, impose upon or break apart communication (or it might revel in rhythm and rhyming nonsense) producing a gap through which other systems and structures – both visual and sonic – might appear. And in this way, A theatre to address is also about the governing power of language to direct or order our experience, as the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice and Wonderland demands – so do we –

“the sentence first then the evidence…”

The two-day programme includes exciting new work by Clare Gasson, Maryam Jafri and a performance of Pil and Galia Kollectiv’s epic musical performance Critical Mass – a sermon for the Church of the Atom with live music by Gelbart. In addition, there is a programme of talks, readings and a screening of The Otolith Group’s film Otolith 3. The talks and readings provide both an opportunity to tease-out some of the ideas behind the programme as well as to see and hear text-based work by artists – Sovay Berriman, Phil Coy, Annabel Frearson, and Julika Gittner.

The Arnolfini Archive Project – a changing display in the Reading Room – will exhibit work that has a relationship to A theatre to address, and items from the Arnolfini archive.

Presented as part of Media Art Bath's Commissioning for a theatre – a programme of annual commissions that explores the differing forms and locations of the theatrical in visual culture.

For more information go to our website – www.mediaartbath.org.uk - where you can sign up for email updates, or find us on Facebook and Twitter.

EVENT DETAILS:

A theatre to addressA festival of textual form - concrete, material, scripted, performed

Friday 4 June, 20.00hrsA theatre to address: performancesClare Gasson, Maryam Jafri, Pil and Galia Kollectiv

Saturday 5 June, 18.30hrsA theatre to address: talks, readings and screeningsSovay Berriman, Phil Coy, Annabel Frearson, Beatrice Gibson, Julika Gittner, The Otolith Group

Tickets: £15 / £10 weekend pass or £8 / 6 per event(Book on 0117 917 2300)

A Media Art Bath project in collaboration with Arnolfini