In Terrorem - Lear Rex

In Terrorem is latin for "in order to frighten." It is the title of both halves of our new show, the installation and the performance itself. Prospective audience can expect to see many an item of interest including a model town, a fiendishly edited and homemade simulator and a rather acerbic history of CCTV. Amongst many other things. Everything we do in this show is related to the contemporary practice of instilling fear of the shadows in the populace, for actions at home and abroad. It's all guided by the structure of King Lear and the aesthetic of the 1950s horror B-movie. So there's a lot going on. If you're Eastleigh-based look out for some guerilla mischief from us sharpish. Otherwise, we look forward to giving the Solent folk, just Itchen for some stimulation (a local pun - mwahaha!) a chunk of our inimitable propaganda. Vive La Gras Chat! Long live the Fat Cat!

We've also got plans in the works for our next show, currently titled Animal Schmarm, to get around those fiddly Orwell estate lawyers! Haha, I jest, but it's going to be us tackling the corporation-cum-state phenomenon of this decade. Shell, Nestle, McDonalds and Google - watch out! Our battle is looming!

David

Hush! There's goes a whizzbang!

And so we enter a new conflict. The new century is looking as turbulent as they come as the bombs fall on Gaddafi. The Colonel, or as The Sun calls him, Mad-Dog has been crushing rebellion in his country for well over a month now and finally a UN resolution passed two days ago to deal with the tyrant. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and Muammar Gaddafi is discovering how painful it is being left out in the cold in our global society...but so are his people. I really fear he will place civilians in harm's way during the coalition bombing raids. This proponent of state-sponsored terrorism is more than capable of such an evil act, and given his borderline insane state, we have to be really clear about our endgame, if it can be sol callously called.

So, we bomb again. We know only destruction as a remedy for destruction - it is sad that this is the only way, and I wonder how effective the blue helmets would have been in Libya rather than the stealth bombers. I don't believe this conflict has suspicious ambitions but I pray the outcome is clear and decisive. Gaddafi has to survive though, as martyrdom would ensue...ack, so many things to get lost in. I can only pray for the dust to settle here, even if as I think will happen, the country will divide into pro- and anti-Gaddafi. Either way, callous again as it is, our next production has some meat to devour - let's hope it gets you talking about things again.

David

Terror at 0 feet!!!!

Yes troops, that's right! Our terror knows no bounds. Our lives are dominated by this ominous threat of doom, always right around the corner. I was on a train to Penzance not 24 hours ago and decided to read some H.G.Wells on the advice of the delightful Matt Beames at The Point. What a fantastic read, I couldn't put it down! But the short of it is thus, a lovely apt quote for our next project, currently titled Helmand (B-Movie):

"Every shadow became something more than a shadow, became an ambush, every rustle became a threat. Invisible things seemed watching me."
(Wells, H.G; 1896; p41)

And I think if we take The Island of Dr Moreau as a good sample text, it seems that Terror, the theme that ties both exhibition and stage show together, along with mad science creates a nice relationship, a trackable narrative; without needing to distort the commentary to fit. In short, we're going down the mad scientist creates monster that turns on him tale. A classic tale that everyone knows, thanks in part to Mary Shelley. This means we'll be commenting way more about the western creation of the Taleban and Al Q'aeda as opposed to merely reflecting on events in Afghanistan there now. We reckon this resolves many concerns raised by our technically impressive but somewhat unreadable showing at The Point this past Wednesday. Thanks again to all who came and please submit feedback forms to us - otherwise we'll never be able to finish our rosetta stone! But progress is pleasing us. Gotta submit the Arts Council funding app now. Hearty times...moneymoneymoney!

David

Swap 'til you drop!

'Allo folks. It's been too long. Dead sorry, but here's an update for you all. Basically Dave and I have been slaving over a hot theatre-pot to cook up something that speaks important truths and is somewhat edible. So Lidocaine/Helmand B is developing nicely as installation and stage show. The latter piece is what we're showing at the swapshop at The Point on Wednesday the 9th of March...so in 5 days time! We did our stage design yesterday and it's looking like an old fashioned camera, a picture box. With a mix of shadow play, projection, subtitling, dubbing and techno-interaction with our audience, this is starting to look like the B-movie/Afghan abstraction we were always looking for, justifying our creative choices. In short, it's coming together. We still have a long way to go but the Swapshop is going to aid us in this.

So not really much creative progress, more just polishing what we already have. Our next step after the swapshop is to explore the war itself as this only really goes up to death number 1 in the War on Terror. There are many more deaths, sufficed to say. But we definately want to include more live audio mixing and music so this may well be our next port of call. Milk Presents and Commotion will also be showing their work and we are really excited about it!

David