"it has the freshness of a question mark so fitting to the subject and of its treatment by this innovative multi media company."
Simon Persighetti, tEXt Festivals

An ongoing investigation into the defining moments that make us long to be more.

This work has so far been manifested in two parts. The initial performance of this work in studio theatre environment presented the audience with a kind of engine room of ideas as if the material of the performance was being excavated from an archive of ephemera. The performance space: part reference library, part kinetic sculpture, part techno science lab, became an ever-changing arena for an exposition on Heroism.

The theme was pursued from mythological to the tabloid versions of bravery in the face of wars, mayhem or disaster.  Definitions and images of what might constitute heroism and the impact of ideas around heroism were explored in a deadly serious as well as humorous manner.

Through interactive camera work, projections, performance lectures, readings and choreographies the company presented a kind of animated scrapbook of cut-up images. This was a carnival of footballers, politicians, explorers, space dogs and unwitting people in the wrong place at the right time or the wrong time in the right place.

The varying perspectives of the work introduced us to ideas about private and public versions of ourselves and how fragile notions of stability can be. In 'Who Wants to be a Hero Now?'  we are confronted with the ever present threat of a  car crash that lurks at the edges of our thoughts.

The themes were then developed into an installation, a working performance space manipulated daily by the visitor and a number of changing performers. During the lifespan of this work the materials inside the room shifted and multiplied depending on the decisions that were made there. Each decision to interact creates a trace of what has happened - the changing space reveals the distance traveled since the day before.

The webcam in the gallery takes stills every 10 minutes uploaded onto the Blind Ditch site as they are printed in the space. Public video submissions on the subject of call to action were available for viewing the gallery environment and online.

Collaborators:

Paula Crutchlow, John Drever, Daniel Harris, Henning Hegland, Volkhardt Müller and Cat Radford. With contributions from Natalie McGrath and David Williams.