June 07, 2007
Charade
Distributed Performance & Live Event
Charade :: May-June 2007 :: ICA & Trafalgar Square, London, UK :: Television's over. Networks are down. The radio is silent. All files erased. Imagine every book, film, play or song is about to be destroyed. What would you save? Join a network attempting to commit our archived media to memory. Subscribe to the newsfeed and be first to hear about gatherings at locations in central London and our Live Event in Trafalgar Square.
Referencing the final scene of Francois Truffaut's film Fahrenheit 451, Charade imagines a future where our most treasured items from the media are under threat of destruction. When forced to rely on our own memories and bodies for storage and retrieval, how would our relationship to these artifacts change? What new forms of ownership and distribution might emerge?
Volunteers attempt to memorize a chosen piece of music, film, tv programme, play or book; through a process of walking, memorizing, remembering and reciting, they each attempt to 'become' their favourite media asset; over a period of one month they meet at ad hoc gatherings at locations in central London; at a large-scale public event in Trafalgar Square all volunteers congregate to recite their chosen piece while wandering together, en masse – a re-creation of the final scenes of Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451.
Originally commissioned as part of the BBC & Arts Council England's Private View in 2006, Charade is a supported in London by the ICA.
Charade is a new work by Simon Pope and is produced in partnership with Capital Art Projects. [Related]
Posted by jo at June 7, 2007 10:47 AM
