Von Brandenburg’s art challenges this understanding of “theatricality.” Her works relate to the law of three unities – the unity of time, space, and action – developed during the Renaissance – in order to endow the dramatic events unfolding onstage with a sense of credibility. At the same time, they borrow elements from the acting method developed by the playwright Bertolt Brecht, in which the actors remain estranged from the characters they play. Von Brandenburg’s works also include motifs from the world of Classical theater, which fosters a sense of identification with seemingly real characters and dramatic events, and motifs from the epic genre, which are designed to rupture the voyeuristic experience of the theater and to produce a sense of estrangement.
The artist simultaneously confronts the viewers with a number of contrasting elements. Yet in contrast to the conventions of epic theater, her work does not present a series of short scenes that each reveal a self-contained fragment of reality. Rather, it centers on a collection of gestures that all evolve at the same time and in the same place, and which appear to entertain a causal connection with one another, while in fact lacking any coherent internal connection. Von Brandenburg’s sets include symbolic elements, while the entire space is transformed into a symbolic arena. The actors in her works do not appear to identify with the characters they play in an “authentic” manner, while the viewers are required to physically proceed along a trajectory that echoes the one followed by the theatrical characters.
The artist’s frequent use of fabrics, for instance, is related to the concept of the “fourth wall” – a theatrical term pertaining to the imaginary wall separating the audience from the stage. Yet in contrast to the traditional use of the fourth wall, in which the viewers supposedly look through it, here the viewers find themselves on both sides of the wall – physically undermining the boundary between audience and stage, observer and participant.
Chorspiel, 2010, Instillation, Painted Cotton, Black-and-white video, 10:20 min
This work plunges the viewer into the space depicted on a gigantic stretch of cloth, which represents a black forest – an arena associated with Scandinavian and other North-European folktales. The viewers are led through this black forest, an extension of the forest inhabited by the characters in the video work Chorspiel, which is projected at the center of the spiral installation. The play staged in this video includes a family of three women and two men, and a chorus of singers reminiscent of the choir in Classical Greek theater. The family appears in an area of the forest that marks the space of an imaginary stage. This group of characters sleepily engages with a range of symbolic objects and actions, such as the attempt to unravel a knot of threads. This process is disturbed by the arrival of a young man, The Wonderer – an antagonistic character who brings about a certain turn of events. The text and music, which were both composed by the artist, explore the relations between truth and fiction, chance occurrences and determinism, while moving between different temporal tenses.
This short performance (10:20 min.) involves a conversation between the characters, who exchanges sentences that are only partially related to one another. The texts included in this work are all recited by the choir, even when they are spoken by one of the characters. In this way, Von Brandenburg unifies the voices of all the participants into a single voice that constitutes a multiplicity.
In Classical Greek theater, the choir represented both the narrator and the community of citizens, thus offering a reflection of a certain group. Yet despite its traditional pedagogical role as a voice delivering a moral message, it may also be seen as a means of producing a shared moment that gives rise to a new kind of social awareness. Von Brandenburg cancels out the individual voices of the actors to produce a single, collective voice. Just as Hannah Arendt suggests in her book The Human Condition, a political event may be examined as the site of a social gathering. This condition, she says, enables us to see the unity within diversity.
Courtesy of Art Concept, Paris
Mirrorsong 1+2, 2012, Two-channel synchronized black-and-white video, 7:00 min
Curtain Diamonds, 2011, two curtains made in patchwork, 2x350x500 cm
The installation Mirrorsong is composed of two works: stretches of fabrics adorned with diamond-shaped patches, and the video projection Mirrorsong (7:00 minutes), which is composed of a film sequence that was shot twice – the second time as a reflection in a mirror. The artist leads the viewer along a disorienting trajectory, in a direction that remains unclear. Although the two stretches of cloth and the two films appear at first to be identical, the viewer gradually discerns a difference between them, without being able to clearly articulate it. In this manner, the work produces an experience of déjà-vu – a sudden recognition of an event unfolding in the present without a clear memory from the past.
This work similarly involves symbolic objects and ludic situations, such as the cards held by the characters. These characters, who converse in song, speak lines from the artist’s own poetry, while their “voices” are all in fact the artist’s own voice. The texts they utter involve role playing, different perceptions of time, and spatial inversions, while bespeaking their awareness of their role as characters in a film. These enigmatic texts are open to various interpretations, and reflect upon questions concerning key roles in our lives, as well as the role of the viewers in this work.
The actors, moreover, do not appear to identify with the characters they play, and disrupt the viewers’ immersion in the experience of spectatorship by reminding them that they are actors in a black-and-white film, that everything is a façade, and that deception is a privileged concept.
Courtesy of the artist, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London, and B.P.S.22
Der Brief, 2004, Three-channel synchronized black-and-white video, 2.30 min
The installation Der Brief (The Letter), a collage of video projections (2:30 min.), is the earliest among the works included in the exhibition, and the one most identified with the theatrical arts. This work features a tableau vivant – a gathering of figures arrayed in various poses and united by a single element – the letter – which is responsible for the advancement of the plot. This work does not center on a single narrative, but is rather composed of a collection of movements and gestures that remain open to interpretation.
Traditional tableaux vivants may be described as a physical appropriation of images from the history of art. Yet although the tableaux in this work are concerned with the traditional, mimetic borrowing of well-known gestures, Von Brandenburg ruptures the aesthetic distance between the viewers and the work. The characters stand before us as we observe them in a theatrical, voyeuristic manner, while the letter functions as a symbolic object that produces tension and unclarity concerning the staged situation, and thus provokes the viewers’ involvement. The artist uses this letter as a “MacGuffin” – a term coined by Hitchcock to define the object around which the plot revolves. This cinematic element grabs the viewers’ attention, advances the plot, and may also allude to an impending danger or a source of tension that remains unknown to the audience. Like The Wonderer in the installation Chorspiel, whose presence similarly provokes a sense of tension or danger whose reason remains unknown to the audience, the letter in this work serves to advance the plot, while functioning as an unknown variable in the narrative equation.
Courtesy of Produzentengalerie, Hamburg
Less Reading...
