Curtain Wall PartS 1 - 5
About The PROJECT:
The Curtain Wall series explores alternative kinds of performance, both live and mediated.
The term “curtain wall” refers to the nonstructural sheathing of glass and other materials, as on the building seen through the window here, typical of many International Style buildings in the Financial District and Midtown. The curtain also divides the theater space, separating the performer from the audience, as it marks the “fourth wall.” In this configuration, theater becomes a peephole spectacle, with the audience as voyeur.
These divisions between bodies in space define the relationship of audience to actor and create the conditions for the subjective self in opposition to a perceived “you” in the “I/you” duality. Martin Buber, the early twentieth-century Jewish philosopher and man of letters, based his theology on this elemental understanding of the world, which permits a glimpse of god in the quotidian encounter with the Other.
Curtain Wall Part 1
Curtain Wall Part 1 was an installation with recorded audio at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace, 120 Maiden Lane, New York, 12th Floor. The project was part of the residency program and was open to the public during open studios in 2011 and 2012. The residency was in unused, unrenovated office space in Lower Manhattan.
Curtain Wall Part 2
Dramatic love is instantaneous, like Romeo and Juliet. Or like an actor and his audience. Their anonymous encounter happens every night in theaters everywhere. In Curtain Wall 2, it goes live: a feedback loop of live video filmed during the performance by the actor puts the audience on stage and their relationship in the eye of the lens. Curtain Wall Part 2 was part of the Theater Unchained Festival in New York.
Curtain Wall Part 3: Hero and Leander
An Immersive Landscape Theater Performance of Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander, Paul David Young swam across New York Harbor to Governors Island on August 22, 2015, in completion of Christopher Marlowe's poem Hero and Leander, left unfinished at the time of his murder in 1593.
Curtain Wall Part 4: Hero's Watch
Hero's Watch turns to the letters between Hero and Leander that are attributed to Ovid (43 BCE to 17 CE) as part of his Double Heroides. As classicists have long questioned the authenticity of the Double Heroides, there was room to appropriate and adapt for this video.
CURTAIN WALL PART 5: DAD DIED/DEAD BIRD IN WINTER
Dad Died/Dead Bird in Winter is a silent video (3:27), combining text and video footage shot through an apartment window over the course of a snowy winter following the death of the father. It was exhibited at The Nature Lab: An Homage to the RISD Nature Lab and its Founder, Edna Lawrence, at LABspace gallery in Hillsdale, New York in February and March, 2018. The exhibition was curated by the artist Eric Wolf.