MONOTONI 2020
'betwixed and between the familiar and the completely unknown'
Monotoni is the result of an intention: to create an immersive environment that explores the psychological impacts induced as a result of the restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The work incorporates video projection, performance and installation in a playful performative act.
Monotoni is a greek word, which, in English, translates to monotony. The word brings to mind a lack of variety, interruption, tediousness, repetition and routine – a resignation to the monotony of captivity. The work incorporates Pong, a table tennis themed arcade video game from 70s. The integration of the game Pong in a large scale video projection acts as a transportation device. The tennis ball bouncing back and forth evokes a psychological state of being caught in a never-ending monotonous cycle. The work breaks this cycle through the bending of light that is enacted through a performance comprised of controlled and fluid movements that reflects the light and distorts the moving image. The centre of the projected image is aligned to the inside corner of two walls to distort the perspective. This creates a three dimensional illusion rather than a two dimensional plane. The commissioned soundscape is overlaid to induce a state of anxiety in the viewer. These interventions push and bend the light beyond the game’s boundaries and into the world beyond.
In do so the performative body explores the liminal space which is where all transformation takes place. This space is described by author and theologian Richard Rohr as ‘where we are betwixed and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence’.
The work becomes a participatory experience, where the audience is asked to intervene by overlaying their movements and bending light in their own performative act. In doing so it simulates the creation of a new space, a new dimension.
MONOTONI 2021
Monotoni revisited
Monotoni was revisited as part of the projection festival at a pop up parklet in Via Eugenio Curiel13/d Bologna, Italy.
The extension of the project further explored the meaning of the word 'monotoni' and reflected how the psychological state induced through isolation as a result of the restrictions placed on freedom of movement and being within a confined space is universal.
The simple instruction through a repeated word elicits a sense of repetition and routine. This aims to stimulate audiences to question and reflect upon their own experience by inducing a similar state of being confined and its impact. It is not about only how to move through the space, but also how to break through the monotony and psychological boundaries that are represented by bending light and distorting the visual plane into something unrecognisable in a reactive and responsive site specific intervention.
By repeating the word in different languages and distorting the letters the image fragments. This enables the projection to work on a flat plane and still communicate the fragmented psychological state and the monotony – the endless cycle – experienced during lockdowns. This experimentation tested how the body and mind reacts/responds to participatory art experiences and the interplay between different art forms.
