A Place Less Imaginable

This is an extract from a site specific video installation, made in 2007. The sound and image appeared on a Toshiba, black and white television from 1973, which was installed in a cleaning cupboard amongst an arrangement of cleaning materials. The door to the cupboard was kept shut and a viewer could discover, on opening the cupboard door, that the movement of the door triggered the image / sound to appear on the TV set. Due to the age of the TV set, whilst the sound could be heard immediately, the image would slowly materialise on the screen. The text, spoken by actor, Gerard Bell, is an adaptation of a short story by Ursula Le Guin - 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas', (1973) The text explores the philosophy of The Scapegoat, or that idea that the happiness of a society could be contingent on the suffering of a single individual. If, as in the city of Omelas, there comes a time when each member of the society must face the fact of their happiness, how will they respond? Originally installed in 13, Gladstone Place, Brighton, APLI has been installed in cleaning cupboards at 22 Sandringham Road, London; Siobhan Davies Studios, London; Dance4, 3-9 Hockley, Nottingham and PS3 School of the Art Institute, Chicago.

Moving image installation / DV Video 2008 15 minutes / Contact for full video 
Supported by Artsadmin

Based on The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – a short story by Ursula Le Guin - A Place Less Imaginable is speculative fiction. Its narrative offers the listener a glimpse of a dystopian near future in which a solitary child lives as a scapegoat in wretched confinement allowing the rest of the community to enjoy their everyday happiness. Set in a familiar-seeming world the listener is immersed in the description of this all too imaginable community in which almost all of the privileged choose to ignore the sacrifice made by the one for the many.

The text is read by actor Gerard Bell and is accompanied by an image of leaf shadows on a garden wall. Obliquely supported by the imagery, the video's narrative is left to unfold in the mind of the viewer.

As an installation A Place Less Imaginable is sited in a cleaning cupboard and is viewed through a black and white, domestic TV - the kind that might be a left-over from a previous era and now relegated to storage. The video loop is triggered by the viewer opening the door to the cupboard and ends when the door is closed. The work has been installed in cleaning cupboards including 13 Gladstone Place as part of Brighton Open House, 2008; What Now Festival, Siobhan Davies Studios, London 2008 and Nottdance dialogues, Nottingham, 2008.

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Credits

Voice: Gerard Bell
Technical collaboration: Steve Wald