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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 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 retold, 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.
SCRIPT l Watch Embedded on GLIMZ
BACKGROUND
As part of the Centre For Art Tapes Computer Scholarship Program,
I produced EMBEDDED in 1997. It was
reedited, with an entirely new soundtrack and an animated segment,
in 1999. While working on the video, where animation was a main
component, I found the ability to merge story telling with the
computer particularly exciting as using digital technology to
layer visual and oral information had 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 dreamlike landscape with its miniaturized architecture and
layered navigation.
I remember vividly the landscapes in the animations that I watched
on television as a child. These landscapes were very dreamlike
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 e-mail
by an Italian Art Critic, posted on the Guerrilla Girls ‘Hate
Mail’ link on their Web Site. It was a vicious attack on
the GG 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 procreating
and that the only female genius is the Virgin Mary. I was shocked
and angered by this statement and saddened that there is still
such anger towards women active in the production of art and culture.
It was these intermixed emotions that 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. [Adoption Disclosure Registry]
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