Adaption 2011
Adaption, 2011, video installation, dimensions variable
Video projection of a fast-flowing waterfall in chaotic movement within a theatre. This work puzzled me for some time. I have worked in theatre and performance many times, so incorporating video and theatre into a visual arts context interested me.
However, in hindsight, the work was more predestined than experimental. The moving water within the stillness of an empty theatre suggested something both known and unknown: opportunity, the unfamiliar, a sense of other.
Later I discovered Tyche. In ancient Greek religion, Tyche was the goddess of chance, later identified with the Roman Fortuna; a capricious dispenser of good and ill fortune.
A statue of Tyche, set amongst the audience in various ancient theatres, was meant to be seen during performances. In Greek drama—especially New Comedy by playwrights like Menander (342/341–c. 290 BCE), the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy —Tyche frequently appears, driving sudden twists of fate, unexpected luck, or sudden downfalls. Placing her statue to “view” plays served as a meta-theatrical nod to her capricious rule over human life.