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Les Brigittines » 18/06/2011

C.O. JOURNEY #2 » 22:00

co journey#2 by christoph ragg & joanna bailiechristoph ragg & joanna bailieco journey#2 by christoph ragg & joanna bailie

(c.o. = camera obscura)
a performance by Joanna Bailie & Christoph Ragg

C.O.Journey#2  invites you to take your seat in a cinema-sized camera obscura. A camera obscura is an optical device whose properties have been known for centuries: when a light source shines through a tiny hole into a dark interior, an inverted image of the outside world is projected onto the wall opposite the hole. According to art historian Jonathan Crary, however, the camera obscura is more than just an optical instrument; it is as it were “a philosophical metaphor” for the ambiguous relation between man as an observer and the world.

In C.O.Journey#2 the audience sits within the image, while at the same time having the strange realization that the performance is taking place outside the box, or more precisely that it is happening behind them. Taking this situation as a starting point, the artists develop a series of stories, the sources of which are hard to trace. Without hierarchy, the different elements are juxtaposed, cut up and restructured. In the darkened box this creates an ambiguous relationship with the images and information that we receive. Their origins are difficult to locate and so we are explicitly thrown back to our own bodies and subjective point of view.

The viewer in C.O.Journey#2, rather than a passive spectator, is somehow an accomplice in the complexity of an image. By simple means, Bailie & Ragg resist our daily superficial consumption of the image.
 

  • Concept & Realization: Joanna Bailie & Christoph Ragg
  • Dramaturg:Helga Baert
  • Movement coach: Mette Edvardsen
  • Technical assistant: Caroline Daish
  • Production: Mokum vzw
  • Co-production: Buda (Kortrijk), Vooruit (Gent), workspacebrussels (Brussels)
  • Realization camera obscura: Lucas Coeman & Jan Vandenbussche
  • Realization costumes: Gilberte Voorspoels

In collaboration with: Netwerk (Aalst); with the support of: De Pianofabriek Werkplaats (Brussels); thanks to Rosas, Bains::Connective and Nadine; supported by Ministry of the Flemish Community