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Script
l Video Excerpts: The
Story of the Bed Box Theatre l The
Cuckoo in the Staircase
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Embedded in the Bed Box Theatre are inter-linked stories. The
Story of the Bed Box Theatre tells of the emergence of a female
voice and active performance, as a girl finds a theatre nestled
in the spiral skeleton of her bed. The animation, The Cuckoo
in the Staircase: Gabriel Said, is a tale of Maria's creativity
when faced with a difficult choice, in a parallel scenario of
a saintly happening — with an alternate twist.
An excerpt from Virginia Woolf's essay, ”Professions for
Women” is re-told, as a Winding Staircase, Cuckoo Birds,
Books, Bingo, and Polka Shoes surface through the dreams in the
Bed Box Theatre. The computer becomes a tool for navigating through
a miniaturized architecture in a landscape of memory and the imaginary.
As part of the Centre For Art Tapes‘ Computer Scholarship
Program, I produced Embedded in 1997. It was re-edited, with an
entirely new soundtrack and an animated segment, in 1999.
Background
While working on a Computer Scholarship from the Centre For Art
Tapes in 1997, where animation was a main component, I found the
ability to merge story telling with the computer particularly
exciting. I think using digital technology to layer visual and
oral information has the potential to near the dream with its
fluid, all-over patterning. The ‘hot spots‘ on an image
map, taking you from one layer of information to another, sometimes
to a (seemingly) unrelated layer, is akin to the free displacement
of dream. Embedded approaches that dream-like landscape
with its miniaturized architecture and layered navigation.
I vividly remember the landscapes in the animations that I watched
on television as a child. These landscapes were very dream-like
and although I knew them to be artificial, I wanted to 'enter‘
them. Using the computer, I can create a virtual' world where
I am active in its making instead of just watching it unfold.
The computer enables me to direct on a miniaturized scale, merging
many of my interests; feminism, architecture, painting, sculpture,
animation and writing.
I had made the House of My Own assemblage previously; within
it is a window-box with a picture of ”The Annunciation”
by Gerard David collaged in it as well as an essay by Virginia
Woolf. Her writings were definitely an inspiration, especially
”Professions for Women” and ”A Room of One's Own”.
I wanted to animate this box, within a larger structure, to explore
these ideas even further.
I was also inspired to write The Cuckoo in the Staircase:
Gabriel Said after reading an email by an Italian Art Critic,
posted on the Guerrilla Girls ‘Hate Mail‘ link on their
Web Site. It was a vicious attack on the Guerrilla Girls and feminism
in general, addressing them as ”a bunch of communists, bitches
and hoars [sic]”... He went on to write that the best work
of art a woman can make is in bed pro-creating and that the only
female genius is the Virgin Mary. I was shocked that some people
still believe in this limiting essentialism and there is such
anger towards women active in the production of art and culture.
It saddened me but also made me angry and fueled the piece along.
The Cuckoo in the Staircase: Gabriel Said became an alternate
conception tale, tying into the mythology around the Cuckoo Bird
and views on Adoption. The Story of the Bed Box Theatre also dealt
with adoption as the theatre represented the unknown for me as
an adoptee. Having the character performing in it instead of waiting
for it to entertain her, was akin to searching actively for information
about genealogical heritage instead of passively waiting for answers
— listed on a government ‘Passive Registry‘.
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